Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Scott Ruggels]

I’d have to agree. With the expected demise of the pamphlet floppy by June of 2021, the superhero genre  is breathing its last.

 

As for the crowd funded comics, I don’t disagree either. But U buy mostly for the art, and I like some grim dark, probably more than you, but other than certain artists, I don’t buy a lot. 

[Spence]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

 

But even that isn't available, unfortunately.

 

I'm on a couple of FB groups for certain authors;  who doesn't matter.  A VERY common refrain is "when can I get more of ... " when the storyline's totally played out, or it'd just be More Of The Same.  I know of at least one where...ok, maybe there's room for new stories here, but it's mostly same-old, same-old...and we know the ultimate outcome too, BTW.  Not only that, but there's quite a bit of momentum...read, sales...that continue long past the point where the story should have ended.

 

So, it's REALLY hard to completely retire a popular character.  

 

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I’d have to agree. With the expected demise of the pamphlet floppy by June of 2021, the superhero genre  is breathing its last.

 

As for the crowd funded comics, I don’t disagree either. But U buy mostly for the art, and I like some grim dark, probably more than you, but other than certain artists, I don’t buy a lot. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I do buy the occasional graphic novel because the art and story catch my eye.   But a graphic novel, a manga and a comic may share what appears to be the same media, but they are miles apart in content.  There are some great graphic novel that are set in the grim dark, and I have enjoyed them immensely.  But for me the comic was about superHEROES.  It's is easy in a story to be a scumbag when compared to being a hero.  Even easier to be a villain.  Personal risk?  Just walk away.

 

Every title in the Marvel or DC stable started somewhere and it is really sad to realize that the current crop of "writers" have thrown in the towel and admitted they don't have the skill or talent to compete with the writers from the 50/60/70's.  But I shouldn't be surprised considering the US film and TV industry has been mostly calling it in the last couple decades.  Really good shows are almost extinct.

 

At least graphic artists (the people that can actually create pictures) are still engaged and producing some cool stuff.  I can't draw myself out of a wet paper bag, but I can get lost on a site like Deviant Art or Pinterest.  Some great stuff there. 

 

I can only think that it is because so many people have no personal moral standing and have completely lost understanding of ethical behavior.  Everyday I see people doing things that are so fundamentally wrong and yet no one seems to care.  Stealing is apparently only wrong if you get caught.  But I'm rambling off topic. 

 

I just get bummed with the current state of comics, film and TV. 

[unclevlad]

There's a major vicious circle here...demand drops, so venues drop, so visibility drops, so demand drops.  I'm not gonna say FLCS and FLGS were common, but now?  They're almost non-existent.  

 

I'd make one point.  The writers and artists might still be out there...but are they getting paid enough to continue on, for the artists?  Are they given the freedom to create, or are their hands tied too much?  Marvel is now part of a multi, multi billion dollar Corporate Giant.  First service belongs to the Giant...not the fans.  And the Giant is notoriously risk-averse overall.  

 

 

 

 

[slikmar]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

But even that isn't available, unfortunately.

 

I'm on a couple of FB groups for certain authors;  who doesn't matter.  A VERY common refrain is "when can I get more of ... " when the storyline's totally played out, or it'd just be More Of The Same.  I know of at least one where...ok, maybe there's room for new stories here, but it's mostly same-old, same-old...and we know the ultimate outcome too, BTW.  Not only that, but there's quite a bit of momentum...read, sales...that continue long past the point where the story should have ended.

 

So, it's REALLY hard to completely retire a popular character.  

To me, a perfect example of the bringing someone back after story played out was Bane. The original story arc, beginning with him causing a mass breakout from Arkham, though originally driven because people wanted a Batman who was more lethal (sadly primarily due to the original Schumaker films and Dark Knight Returns), was amazing and set Bane up as a great villain, for that story arc, running through Knightfall, Knightsquest and Knightsend. Once done, was hard to make him credible again. It reminds me of wrestling, the person who is invulnerable to damage (think Undertaker, Goldberg, Yeager from AEW etc.) because once beaten, then no longer invincible. Or Mike Tyson, who was no longer Iron MIke after being knocked out by Douglas.

[Spence]

28 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

There's a major vicious circle here...demand drops, so venues drop, so visibility drops, so demand drops.  I'm not gonna say FLCS and FLGS were common, but now?  They're almost non-existent.  

 

I'd make one point.  The writers and artists might still be out there...but are they getting paid enough to continue on, for the artists?  Are they given the freedom to create, or are their hands tied too much?  Marvel is now part of a multi, multi billion dollar Corporate Giant.  First service belongs to the Giant...not the fans.  And the Giant is notoriously risk-averse overall. 

 

You are not wrong. 

 

My area had several good FLGS's and and they have fallen like dominoes.  

 

As for the other part, I have backed several books through Kickstarter including some graphic novels.  I also pass thru a local comic store that carries a far greater range of products besides the standard Marvel/DC comic.  I know that my handful of purchases and KS's will not carry the industry, but I really have no incentive to buy more.   I really can't take yet another grim grim dark splatterfest. 

I am not saying that there can't be events and storylines that have dark and/or grim settings, but sheesh why are all the main characters some version of jack the ripper "done gone good" duh....

 

Does anyone even understand the definition of the word Hero?  If no one is buying the current comic lines, perhaps it is because people don't like the stories?  Grimm grimm dark dark stopped selling, try something not grimm grimm dark dark.

 

[Starlord]

Eh, there's only so many stories you can tell about the same character.

[Bazza]

4 hours ago, unclevlad said:

So, it's REALLY hard to completely retire a popular character.  

 

As Conan Arthur Doyle found out the hard way. The publisher basically threw as much money as needed (a LOT) for him to revive Holmes. 

[Scott Ruggels]

3 hours ago, Spence said:

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I do buy the occasional graphic novel because the art and story catch my eye.   But a graphic novel, a manga and a comic may share what appears to be the same media, but they are miles apart in content.  There are some great graphic novel that are set in the grim dark, and I have enjoyed them immensely.  But for me the comic was about superHEROES.  It's is easy in a story to be a scumbag when compared to being a hero.  Even easier to be a villain.  Personal risk?  Just walk away.

 

Every title in the Marvel or DC stable started somewhere and it is really sad to realize that the current crop of "writers" have thrown in the towel and admitted they don't have the skill or talent to compete with the writers from the 50/60/70's.  But I shouldn't be surprised considering the US film and TV industry has been mostly calling it in the last couple decades.  Really good shows are almost extinct.

 

At least graphic artists (the people that can actually create pictures) are still engaged and producing some cool stuff.  I can't draw myself out of a wet paper bag, but I can get lost on a site like Deviant Art or Pinterest.  Some great stuff there. 

 

I can only think that it is because so many people have no personal moral standing and have completely lost understanding of ethical behavior.  Everyday I see people doing things that are so fundamentally wrong and yet no one seems to care.  Stealing is apparently only wrong if you get caught.  But I'm rambling off topic. 

 

I just get bummed with the current state of comics, film and TV. 

Oh. Definitely. But I think part was intentional. A “deconstruction “ of heroes is trendy and the current management culture sees heroic ideals as corny, or worse, therefore they have to have major flaws, and expedient morals, because perfect ideals are “unrealistic “ or not relevant to today. IMO comic books imploded due to very poor business decisions, that lead to narrow margins and unattractive product. COVID just rapidly accelerated the process. Tent pole films may go the same way.   Heroic excellence now is seen as an unfair and exclusive standard.

[Bazza]

Heroic excellence is a virtue, and as such, is an ethical standard. The majority of today’s culture relates more to self-expression. The later thus introduces shades of grey, anti-heroes, etc (cf. Deadpool). 

[archer]

Comic books aren't going to survive as a printed medium unless they abandon the "comic book store only" model and again start selling comic books in convenience stores, grocery stores, Wal-Mart, and other places where people take their children on a regular basis.

 

It was a mistake when Marvel and DC first went to the comic book store model and it's still a mistake today.

 

I have absolutely nothing against comic book stores and have spent many happy hours inside them. 

 

But the only people who go inside comic book stores are people who are already fans of some sort (or a few people at the holidays who are desperate to find a kid-friendly gift and can't think of anything other than comic books).

 

Maybe a comic book store can afford to stay in business running on that basis. But major publishing companies can't run for countless decades on that basis.

[Bazza]

The comic book / (and game store) model, still could survive, as it is a matter of going where the customers are. It is about location. As most new comic fans are attracted by the movies, the comic book store needs to be close by as possible (within the same shipping centre / mall) as the cinema. 
 

The idea is that either before the film, or after, the family heads to the comic book store as a natural extension of the film experience. If this can be captured, then the medium has a good chance of surviving. 
 

in one shopping centre here has a games store (now as much pop culture, as game consoles) that is close by to the cinema. I usually head there after a film. Cater to families as well as geeks, and the shop has a good chance of survival. 

[BoloOfEarth]

8 hours ago, archer said:

But the only people who go inside comic book stores are people who are already fans of some sort (or a few people at the holidays who are desperate to find a kid-friendly gift and can't think of anything other than comic books).

 

Which, ultimately, might not be the greatest gift, given how comics are written nowadays.

 

I stopped collecting comics in the 1980s, a decade before my kids were born.  Sometime in the 2000s, my daughters (who knew I had collected comic books) decided to give me two comics for my birthday, and knowing my preference for Spider-Man, those were what they picked up from the local comic book store.  However, they were from different Spider-Man titles, each in the middle of a different story arc.  It was like watching 20 minutes of the middle of two different movies, without knowing what happened before (or after). 

[Hugh Neilson]

3 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Which, ultimately, might not be the greatest gift, given how comics are written nowadays.

 

However, they were from different Spider-Man titles, each in the middle of a different story arc.  It was like watching 20 minutes of the middle of two different movies, without knowing what happened before (or after). 

 

This.  Marvel used to have extended story arcs even back in the '70s, but they were shorter, there was generally some semblance of "story" within the issue and there were many "done in one" issues.

 

Now, the books are written with the Trade in mind.  The story only needs four issues?  Stretch it out so it will fit the Trade (couldn't we fill out the trade with a two-issue story, or two one-issue stories?  Apparently not!).   More and more, the monthly book is not written as its own product, but as a stepping stone to a collected package.  Maybe the books need to move to quarterly or semi-annual trades, instead of monthly issues, if that is the only storytelling model that works economically.

[zslane]

14 hours ago, Bazza said:

Heroic excellence is a virtue, and as such, is an ethical standard. The majority of today’s culture relates more to self-expression.

 

Well said.

 

Heroism stands upon a foundation of selfless action striving to help others, even at great personal cost. Such moral character has had difficulty finding traction in our society since the 1960s, and has become buried deeper beneath a growing narcissism that makes the ideals of a character like Captain America, or any of the classic Marvel characters for that matter, impossible to fathom, much less embrace. Why would someone who despises such role models--largely, I suspect because of how they hold up a gigantic mirror of shame--want to read about them?

[Greywind]

21 hours ago, Starlord said:

Eh, there's only so many stories you can tell about the same character.

 

Julius Schwartz felt that there should have been a hard reboot of all characters once every 10 years or so.

[Lord Liaden]

7 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Well said.

 

Heroism stands upon a foundation of selfless action striving to help others, even at great personal cost. Such moral character has had difficulty finding traction in our society since the 1960s, and has become buried deeper beneath a growing narcissism that makes the ideals of a character like Captain America, or any of the classic Marvel characters for that matter, impossible to fathom, much less embrace. Why would someone who despises such role models--largely, I suspect because of how they hold up a gigantic mirror of shame--want to read about them?

 

And yet the recent spate of extremely profitable superhero movies have been founded upon selfless action striving to help others, even at great personal cost. The biggest movie of last year, Avengers: Endgame, featured a whole cast of protagonists driven by responsibility, compassion, self-sacrifice, love. I believe the trend of narcissism, cynicism, nihilism in entertainment has worn down, and many people are hungry for stories of true heroism again. They just want those stories to be told well.

[zslane]

29 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

The biggest movie of last year

 

Oh, I thought we were talking about comics...?

[Lord Liaden]

16 minutes ago, zslane said:

 

Oh, I thought we were talking about comics...?

 

Your passage that I quoted appeared to state your assessment of the general nature of society since the 1960s, and didn't mention comics aside from the peripheral implication of the word "read" in the last sentence. I responded on that basis.

[Spence]

Well the movies should have turbo-charged comic sales, but the comics on the rack are not the heroic stories they are seeing on the screen.  After seeing the Captain America movie I was pretty fired up and went to grab some comics again.  The contrast between the heroes in the movie and the grim dark grim dark comics was jarring.  I just never bothered to read more. 

 

People keep saying that the writers are simply writing what people want, or something similar, and no one can understand the decline and slow death of the comic industry.

 

I say, they have been beating the same dead horse for the last 20 years or so and can't seem to realize only a tiny minority of comic fans like what they are writing and the rest are moving on to other hobbies.  Maybe if they actually change back to heroes they may recover the audience.  They also need to remember that they have been telling comics fans F off since the late 90's and if they actually put out a real comic again they will need to actually spread the word.   People are not telepathic and if your targeted new audience has given up on comics and comic stores they will not hear about things only advertised in a comic store. 

 

 

 

[slikmar]

The hard reboot every 10 years would be good, problem is, they seem to want the cake and eat it too as it were. we are hard rebooting, BUT, stories like Killing Joke or Pym slapping Janet, or any other iconic stories to still be canon. You can't really have it both ways. One reason I liked Marvel's Millenium line was it theoretically wasn't bogged down by the regular universe history. How many Crisis have DC done to reboot, but then kept the storylines that new writers wanted to do a different take on. and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns has much to answer for, because, it seemed like most writers from that point were trying to write The Batman in a way to get him to that point.

[BoloOfEarth]

On 11/21/2020 at 7:46 PM, Spence said:

People keep saying that the writers are simply writing what people want, or something similar, and no one can understand the decline and slow death of the comic industry.

 

Hmm... if comic sales are declining to the point of killing the comic industry... maybe they aren't writing what people want.  Doesn't seem to me it's that hard a concept to grasp.  But apparently they're having trouble understanding.

[Greywind]

They are writing what they want. For some reason the editors agree with them.

[archer]

They're writing what sells to people who are walking into comic book shops and buying (or pre-ordering) their product.

 

Have they ever paid attention to how few people actually walk into the average or below average comic book shop?

 

Most people by the numbers aren't even going into the shop to buy the comic books anymore. The shops have diversified into games, particularly CCG's and CCG tournaments, in order to stay alive.

 

A lot of the customers which the shop does have walking in are eventually walk out of the shop without even glancing at the massive displays of comic books. I've spent dozens, maybe hundreds, of hours in a comic book shop sorting CCG collections they've purchased from collectors for resale and have watched the shopping patterns of their customers, a bad habit left over from my days as a business major. Nothing that I've seen in other comic book shops make me think that impression I've formed is atypical of the behavior of people who walk through the doors of those kinds of businesses.

 

When that's a whole industry's primary way of selling their product, and the only way of selling the product in-person, that's a problem. The problem.

 

You can have phenomenally large numbers of people coming through the doors of a Wal-Mart and have the vast majority of them completely ignore your product and you're still going to be okay...because a tiny fraction of a phenomenally large number of people is still a lot of people. And some customers would be motivated to actively seek out the comic books just to shut their kid up so they can do their shopping in peace.

 

But when you are selling through low-traffic stores which are dedicated to your product and maybe 80-90% of the walk-in traffic completely ignores the fact that the store is dedicating a lot of their floor space to selling your product...you have a HUGE marketing problem.

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Hmm... if comic sales are declining to the point of killing the comic industry... maybe they aren't writing what people want.  Doesn't seem to me it's that hard a concept to grasp.  But apparently they're having trouble understanding.

Twitter is the worst thing to happen to the comic book industry, ever.  Writers and editors are writing for their peers on Twitter, many of who are their editors, They are not writing for the customers, and do not waste an opportunity to denigrate them. They want the accolades of their peers, and to avoid "Cancellation" but the ever more powerful "whisper Network", that can end a persons career for saying the wrong thing, or remaining silent.  I used to work in the comics industry. Friends who are still peripherally involved are getting out, because it's become partican and political, and they jut wanted to draw funny books.

[Greywind]

Most comic books sales recently seem to be along the line of trade paperbacks of story arcs, rather than the individual issues. From B&N and the like.