I actually like back-ups if it is a different character or if it gives a minor character a story of their own.
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Yeah there is nothing wrong with manga, but it seems to have unfair favor.
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I think back-ups should be handled as more set up for future arcs like how Mark Gruenwald did it with his Captain America run.
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That brings up something else that I wish would change. Everything is either an event or build up, tie in, or aftermath to an event. Speaking of tie ins, I wish they would stop making you spend 3.99 to figure out something you’ll find out later in the actual event. Take Aquamen 6 for example I bought it because it was a dark crisis tie in, and all that happened was that that Aquaman died. I already knew that for JL 75.
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They make too much money, though.
THIS is the real problem. We need to add (not change or get rid of, but ADD) more channels of distribution!
This can happen if they sell more.
My understanding is that art and paper quality are already using extremely large discounts, so changing those will not likely actually reduce costs to produce or consume. The real problem, as many are saying, is getting them in front of more eyeballs.
Yes. But we actually do have a lot of those. They just aren’t coming from DC or Marvel. They’re coming from book publishers.
Awwww, backups are my favorite!
100% true. The trade dress, distribution, marketing - it’s deeply broken. I think DC needs to license their trades out yesterday.
Beat me to it!
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I understand how the industry has changed, but I miss having more runs that lasted 25-50 issues. Now pretty much every DC title is canceled before issue 25.
Also, wish a few other DC titles would go back to legacy numbering (Batman, Green Lantern, Superman).
One thing I do like is that creative teams seem more stable now than they did five years ago. I like having writers get to tell multiple arcs with a character. For a while it seemed that if your name wasn’t Johns, Snyder or Morrison you had a very small chance at getting more than 10 issues on a book.
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Very true. I’ve seen some limited series last longer than some ongoings.
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I miss that so much. But always remember: Hawkman got 29 issues! And that was just a few years ago!
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Comics just needs a new business model so that comics can be mainstream again like during the golden age.
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Or the 80’s
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Or sixies(my personal favorite)
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Stop doing the Anathology comics every month with throw away stories and stop doing Varient Covers
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Any…suggestions on how that could happen though?
Please to all the forces in DC Editorial, kill both of these things! If you need short stories, backups are fine. We don’t need all these anthologies that don’t connect to anything, and we really, really don’t need all these incentive variants. I like the A and B open to order covers, but the incentive variants are just toxic to true sales.
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A handful of variants for special issues is great but 10 per issue and 100 for landmarks makes it impossible to collect them all.
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Comics is about telling stories so can get out of the antique collection business.
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It seems like they try to make every issue a key now
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Digital has plenty of new opportunities like pages can now be any size and any shape.
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I definitely agree with most of the above. Especially the video I’m replying to. A few points. (Read first two sentences of each for brief).
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Comics aren’t accessable to new fans but are written for new fans. It’s why characters aren’t allowed to change. Take Tom King’s Batman run. It was leading up to the wedding of Batman and Catwoman, something old fans would mostly be happy with as a natural progression of both characters and the story. But then it gets called off, multiverse gets referenced and it ends with a more or less generic hero fights villain story. Cat and Bat are right where we left them. An old fan reads that and gets angry that there were no actual consequences. A new fan sits there confused because on the off chance they actually picked the book up somewhere, they have no idea who anyone is or what’s going on. (This isn’t about Alfred, we all know he’ll be back by the end of the year again showing there are no consequences). Comics are frozen halfway through a story. New readers have to go back to at least the 80s to understand and old readers are bored nothing is happening.
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The stories aren’t self contained or linear. You can’t pick up an issue and start reading or even start from the beginning on a single run. Last year, I began getting into an Anime/manga called One Piece. It’s over 1000 issues long. How did I jump on? I started at the beginning and worked to the present following a decades long story. You can’t do that easily with a DC character. You have to read Detective, Batman, Robin, JLA, whatever events happen and dozens of other stories just to pretend to understand current Batman. If you do try, he’ll just reboot at some point getting rid of most of those stories but still retaining most of the characters and confusion.
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It’s all in, movies only, or all out these days. I just want to read my street level masked heroes for the most part but can’t because to follow that story I have to know what happened in X Crisis and to follow that, I have to read some space character’s sidekick’s holiday special issue. You can’t be a fan of a character or genre, you have to be a fan of the whole company (one of the reasons I’m perpetually a year or two behind.)
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People complain about how big “families” are getting but that isn’t my problem with them. The problem is they want a big family and a solo character. Superman works alone because the story is about him but at the same time you better be keeping up with Superpets because Krypto is sometimes vital to the story. Other times he doesn’t exist. If the story was all about family, it would be great, if the other characters didn’t exist it would be great. You can’t have both. (Size aside, some “family” members are getting stupid with their relation. Why does Huntress (Bertinelli) have to be a Bat fam member?)
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Probably hottest topic in comics today is “wokeness” (someone please suggest a better term). People aren’t reading comics because they are or are not “woke” they are there for story and if the story casts minorities in a positive light, decries injustice, and raises awareness, that’s a great added bonus. I’m not going to read a story because the main character is ____. I’m going to read a story where the main character happens to be ____. I don’t think people are willing to look at this objectively for the most part as they immediately deem it good or bad based on whatever issue is raised. I don’t believe it’s the problem some people claim nor the universal success that others claim.
To fix all of this I suggest creating a linear timeline where characters progress naturally and then are replaced by newer characters. Put the stories out there so new people can jump on and follow a nice linear story or catch up with a quick binge. Don’t reboot or do an excessive amount of crossovers. When you introduce a character make them a part of the story and commit. Focus on story first, marketing second.
Sorry this is long but this has been bugging me recently (and quite a few others).
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“The Political Debate”. Fans are divided if they want comics to go into politics or not (specifically if them supporting their side is worth dealing with them potentially supporting the other side).
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Perfect and thank you.
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