So if the industry crash, as predicted by the DChads at SDCC,

>>94206127
Maybe it's the fact you can generally only buy floppies by going into pokey comic stores frequented by nerds who are notably hostile about other demographics getting in on their hobby, thus making it a hostile place for most norms, and floppies are the only thing the industry seems to care about?

>>94206127
Overextension.

>>94206279
Digital exists and online ordering with free shipping from Amazon and other services makes this a moot point.

>>94206127
The actions of Marvel and DC are predominantly a reaction to general sales decline of the outdated medium and business model of floppy comics.

DC is attempting to keep comics alive by strengthening their ties to long time readers. Marvel instead is looking outside their previous user base

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>>94206127
Isnt gonna happen. Comics are the only print medium growing.

>>94206398
Digital single issues cost the same amount as physical copies. They should not, because there is no cost of printing or shipping for digital media. It's a fucking scam.

>>94206487
>Marvel instead is looking to shit on their fans as much as possible, and then blame them for getting shit on

Fixed that for ya famalam.

>>94206127
thats a lie
things are bad but no quite like that yet

>>94206127
Get the comics out of the Comic Stores, instead put them at places where casuals actually see them
Keep the shared universe but also keep the stories mostly self centered. Also, there is no need to have a 30 issues long plotline, keep that shit for graphic novels or pocket books
Use cheap paper and add more stories. The readers want to see a story not your glossy paper

>>94206503
>Comics are the only print medium growing.

Now adjust those values to inflation.

>>94206515
For that I completely agree.
It even more hilarious to see the physical copy cheaper than the digital

>>94206503
>dollar sales grew about 30% in the lat five years
>so did the average price
How curious.

>>94206547
We'll yeah if you want to get specific about it. The point though is that they don't want their old fans anymore, despite what they're claiming with this new Legacy line.

if they didn't have diamond choking distribution, they sold more collected trades, and sold them in convieniance/toy/target/general stroes etc. it'd be a lot more normalized and would grow better.

>>94206515
Wasn't it becaue of physical retailers REEEEEEEEEEing?

>>94206398
No one is going to order floppies to be shipped to them. No one wants to pay the same price for digital goods.

>>94206127
I'mma blame Bendis cuz he's a little bitch

>>94206127
https://twitter.com/JimLee/status/889612870786457600

>>94206687
That wasn't the point. The point was that there are ways for people to buy comics in physical form, without even going to the store.

>>94206127
Pandering to people who don't buy comics.
>Japan
>Pander to people who buy your shit
>See a steady increase in sales year-over-year
>Western shit
>Pander to people who don't buy your shit for diversity points
>Sales falling because you're not giving your actual audience what they want

>>94206702
Always a good way to go.

>>94206702
Bendis?

How are comic books going to survive 10 years from now when printed media basically goes extinct?

I blame collectors, poor stewardship, and an unwillingness to adapt in any meaningful way. It's easy to put the blame on the stuff you've listed, but Marvel and DC's biggest problems are decades in the making; not petty BS that's cropped up in the last few years.

>>94206127

All of that and >>94206279 to varying degrees. I will say this though. How Marvel has so utterly failed to capitalize on the MCU's success will always baffle me

>>94206978

>now when printed media basically goes extinct?

We've been saying this for a long time now. I the work place we were meant to have Paper less offices like 10 years ago

>>94206127
>>Marvel
>>SJW culture
>>Tumblr
>>Muh Diversity
>>Bendis
>Perlmutter
>Brevoort
>Loeb
>Quesada
>Digital comics still costing the same as a physical comic.

These.
A few years ago I'd have said DC too, but they've been much better lately and at least admit there's a problem and want to try and fix it.

>>94206515
Printing comics don't really make up the majority cost of the book itself. Also printing costs are somewhat fixed whereas the other categories are based on a percentage of the total sale price. That being said going digital eliminates almost 75-80% of the expenses. Fuck diamond and fuck retailers. Hopefully brick and mortar just collapses (of course then amazon would just take its place)

>>94206279
fpbp
I wish we could get books in newstands and grocery stores

>>94206618
>Get the comics out of the Comic Stores, instead put them at places where casuals actually see them

Have you never been to a Barnes and Noble? Every single one has at least one asile dedicated to Trades and Manag volumes. Some of the biggers ones seperate them into two seperate aisles.

And every single one I've ever been in has had an entire section of tables filled with geeky collectable shit. Half of it capeshit.

>>94207077
>Paperless offices
Won't be a thing until e-ink takes off and becomes cheaper than paper. Even then unless things like receipts, invoices and bills of lading become standardized and fully admissible in courts we won't see offices going Paperless anytime soon.

>>94207162
When will this meme die? News stands don't exist and there are a ton of problems with selling in grocery stores

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>>94207142
Forgot pic

>>94207101
At least DC has some idea where it's going Marvel feels direction less. Plus Marvel is hurting because they killed off they're good characters.

>>94207179
>Have you never been to a Barnes and Noble?
All the ones around me closed up years ago, so no, not lately.
>>94207224
>there are a ton of problems with selling in grocery stores
Such as?

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>>94206127

>Bendis
>SJWs
>Diversity

That is all

>>94207142
Except they'd just keep the prices the same and you'd lose the community.

>>94206670
>Drawing the line at 2.99 was 2013
>DC has re-instituted it now

It would have to be Marvel, and the blame would be 100% founded.
>Shit practices of variants and renumberings
>Send out free copies and count them as sales to inflate their numbers while burdening shops
>Hiring horrible writers and artists then blaming fans for sales

>>94207142
>>94206515
Speaking as someone who used to run a top 30 comic pub a while back. In the early days, the problem with going digital is that if you try to sell a digital comic below the cost of the print edition, the brick and mortars will blacklist you. That made the transition difficult, because publishers still needed their business.

The other is the cost and expertise required to do digital sales. For smaller pubs, handling all the tech yourself meant hiring more people, and doing marketing, and getting credit card processing, all of which adds to the operating cost significantly, wiping out much of the cost advantages readers assume digital should have. It's also not the best way to go about it, because people aren't in the habit of buying from publishers. They go to big sellers like Amazon or iTunes. Guess what, those guys take as big a cut as retailers do.

If we want to be like the Japanese, we'd have to lower the cut for retailers/middlemen, digital or print, and move to a format with slightly higher profit margins. Comics seem to come only in cheap floppies or expensive collections, what we need is something in between.

>>94207698
>>Hiring horrible writers and artists then blaming fans for sales

This anon is right

>>94207736
Nigger if you think the first 2 are less of an issue than the third, you're retarded

>>94207720
>Diamond will blacklist you from the brick and mortars
FTFY

>>94207720
>what we need is something in between.

I don't get why DC or Marvel don't do their own 2000AD style weekly. Especially DC who saw nothing but success with the weekly books. Just make Batman their Dredd and thye would be set

>>94206127
Does anyone have a link to that thread? I can't find it in the archive.

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>yeah lets blame Marvel and SJWs even though they sell more units and are more profitable than DC
and before someone retarded goes "b-but they overship", they beat DC literally every month in dollar share

>>94206618
Agreed with you on everything except the shared universe.

For Comics to gain traction they need to kill the shared universe and start putting the caracthers in their own books without the baggage of 50 years of continuity and spread across 4 books with different writers with a diferrent take on the caracther.

Books with a beginning and a ending and no crossover or events.

>>94207926

Here comes the fucking intern cunt. You know what Marvel does to inflate these numbers. Go kill yourself

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So, how did all that "diversity" work out for ya, capefags? Increasing those sales yet?

>>94207926
and they always have except for the first few months of nu52 and briefly in the 90s

>>94208099
>you know what Marvel does to inflate those numbers
Yeah I do know what Marvel does to make more money, they sell more product

>>94207880

Alternatively, a monthly shonen jump style magazine printed on cheap non-glossy paper.

Fill half of it with popular titles and the other half with titles that are struggling. Rotate every 6 months or so, or at the end of an arc.

The collection of popular titles gurantees the books sell, and people are more likely to read and get interested in an unpopular book if they don't feel like they're paying for it and just get it for "Free".
The sheer number of pages also means you can put adverisements between stories instead of in the middle of one, so you can sell a lot more advert space while also making them feel less invasive to the reader.

The rotation method may hurt floppies at first, but TPB sales would start to skyrocket. Series like Dragon Ball and One Piece have been in Shonen Jump forever, and both of thise series sell leagues beyond what you average cape titles does.

>>94208099
Even assuming that Marvel is pulling out all the tricks in the book to maintain their share, it's not like there is a massive discrepancy between their unit share and dollar share. They aren't flooding the market with comics that sell below 1k and thus make the market look bad. They are literally right in the same position as DC.

So for anyone to say it's Marvel's fault or Marvel will crash the industry is ridiculous.

>>94208180

They release more at a higher cost

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>>94208223
>dude Marvel is doing stuff, you know that
>like what
>uh they make more... and its more expensive

>>94208277
>green texting
Not an argument, intern.

Can anyone even define what "crashing the industry" even means? It's like people who are predicting another housing bubble yet don't even know how 2008 began. Marvel in the 90s were hit by a variant bubble popping. They had too much product out that wasn't making them any money. This is clearly not the case for literally any of the publishers in the market.

>>94208300
>not an argument
lmao you didn't even post an argument. That would be like saying it's crazy how much more profitable McDonalds is to Burger King and you saying "Well yeah but McDonalds has more locations" You are just describing basic fucking economics. It says nothing of the state of the industry.

>>94207142
>Fuck diamond and fuck retailers. Hopefully brick and mortar just collapses (of course then amazon would just take its place)

>I want the American comics industry to greatly decline like European comics have

>>94206279
How are people supposed to know what to have for the subject matter of long books of comics that take a long time to create if they don't have floppy sales to look at and see what is popular?

>>94206127
Can we do the usual routine and blame it all on the Jews?

>>94207720
>Comics seem to come only in cheap floppies or expensive collections
Floppies ain't cheap. Not compared to other mediums. 20 pages for 3-6 dollars? Hell, going Marvel there's very little price difference between buying a set of floppies and buying the TPB
You mention the Japanese - they have it cheap. They have full magazines, with multiple 16-20 page comics, for about $4. Then they got the more costly collections.

That's how they get it to work.
>Extremely cheap, making it an attractive option
>Exposure to comics you would not normally look for because they're in the same magazines as ones you do go for
>More expensive options for collecting or reading back

>>94208216

Wow, I actually found someone making a reasonable post in this thread. Normally it's just everyone getting into a big circle-jerk over their company of choice.

>>94206127
all of the above

>>94206127
>shitty writing + a massive amount of it

and that and there's your answer.

>>94206279
I shop exclusively Midtown Comics.
I'll never shop my LCS again. Get your comics in better shape and always get the covers you want. Fucks at my LCS for my pulls would have dinged corners or dents from time to time and stick me with whichever cover they felt like/randomly tossed in the boxes. When I called them on their bullshit they came back with "It's not going to be mint when your done reading it so it doesn't matter anyway" and that they can't be bothered to give everyone the covers they want even if they explicitly ask for A covers. So my LCS can get fucked. .30-.60 off an issue I'd be a damn fool to shop an LCS for new comics anyway.

>>94206127
Why would a single group or event be to blame here?

Look, the way the direct market works today hasn't changed from the height of the 90s bubble - it's just that instead of kids hoarding worthless comics in bedrooms, it's those same kids grown up, owning LCS, over-ordering titles to get rare variants that they can sell on at a premium, especially if they can get them signed at a con.

Who's to blame for that? Everybody, for not recognizing the obvious signs of an unsustainable bubble that has already swelled and burst once in their own lifetimes? The publishers, for offering variants knowing the LCS owners will over-order to get them to fuel a secondary market that the publishers have no financial stake in? The LCS owners, for over-ordering to get essentially worthless crap that has become a sort of fiat currency among their ever-shrinking group?

Maybe the publishers are to blame for going direct in the first place, but every time they've tried to get back into wider circulation they've failed. Even the internet - which allows literally anybody to order their comics at cover price as they come out of the movie theater which may well even be stocking those same titles these days - hasn't helped. Movies that sell tens of millions of tickets haven't helped - not one bit. Floppy sales haven't increased appreciably in any way that suggests growth from movie audiences, with the exception of The Walking Dead, whose overpriced hardback editions likely make up a large chunk of the non-direct market.

I mean fuck, OP, even Green Lantern sold like 14 million times in the US/Canada. If 1% of those people - even if that included existing buyers - were to go out and buy a single Green Lantern title it would have outsold Batman for the last six years.

So who's to blame? The publishers giving the insular comic book fans what they want? DC's doing that and their market share is shrinking away. Marvel isn't and gets vocal complaints atft. Is it the fault of the fans?

>>94207224
Maybe not news stands, but back in the day most every gas station and 7/11 type store had a comic book rack in it. Parents on a car trip with their kids would pick up some snacks and grab a couple of funny books to keep the the little tikes quiet.

>>94206127
Millennials. You always blame the millennials. Doesn't matter if they actually did it, just do it.

>>94206127
Blame Canada

>>94206127
Diamond

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>>94206503
>Comics are the only print medium growing.
>growing
You need to look a bit harder at your graphics, senpai.

Digital and Floppies sales are both flat; it's just the TPB's that are seeing growth and MOST of that growth is in bookstores and Amazon AND it's mostly Raina Telgemeier.

>>94207805
Nope, the opposition is completely from retailers. Diamond didn't have to oppose it outright, since they can keep raising order minimums. This is how they wiped out other distributors, too. The publishers near the cut-off can't risk cannibalizing sales by distributing with other companies.

>>94211294
>Floppies ain't cheap. Not compared to other mediums.
I'm not talking about the perception of value for the dollar. Floppies are cheap in the sense that they have low profit margins given the amount of work getting them to retail. That works for magazines that distribute hundreds of thousands of copies with the expectation of less than 40% sell through, but it's not all that great for small press comics that don't print more than 5000 copies total.

>>94206127
>So if the industry crash, as predicted by the DChads at SDCC, comes to pass, who should we blame?
Your mom for not staying on the pill.

>>94206913
Yes. Bendis. The comic book guy, Bendis.

>>94206127
Sony.

>>94211294
>Exposure to comics you would not normally look for because they're in the same magazines as ones you do go for

/co/ would complain about this if Marvel and DC were to do it just like people complain about cable and advocate cord cutting

>>94206127
you missed the most important one
>Diamond
Literally none of those do anything resembling that fucking monopoly of fuckwits.

>>94206127
Haven't comics(floppies/graphic novels/mags) been earning more dollar sales year-by-year?

>2013 $517 Million
>2014 $540 Million
>2015 $579 Million
>2016 $580 Million

This year is down a bit though, it's on pace for $522 million.

>>94206279
Freaking this.

>>94206774
Rebirth is a pandering to the whiney nostalgia post crisis fans and the sells are decreasing.

>>94206515
DC's once a monthlies don't. Physical Monthlies cost $4, Digital Monthlies cost $3. Granted Physical Monthlies has an additional digital code.

>>94206279
>>94207008
>>94207162
>>94217187
found the dumblrinas

>>94208367
but that's literally bad on the wrong run. Making variants and shit the main driving force for comic book orders along with an inflated sense of these shit being worthwhile is what killed the industry in the 90s. Marvel is literally doing the same thing it did back then. We got fucking holofoil covers up the ass that you can only get if you orders exceed normally what you'd order, we get Marvel Legacy which is confirmed to just be another fucking stopgap to another fucking relaunch apparently coming soon at 2018, and this totally up and coming new character who's 1st issue you should just get.

>>94212867
Smart Phones didn't exist then you dummy.

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>>94207224
>>94207162

they already do that

>https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/06/19/dc-comics-launches-showcase-anthology-magazine-stand-126-pages-comics-9-98/

Pic Related is from a Walmart

>>94212375
you do realize that's Diamond's fault right? Also
>Worrying about covers
Unless that's Rebirth shit you mean to tell me you actually are one of the cucks who pay extra for Marvel Books with a different themed cover?

>>94206398
>online ordering with free shipping from Amazon

Fake news. Amazon absolutely does not offer this, and Diamond would immediately rage if they did. Online ordering is only available for resellers and preorder-oriented sites (like DCBService).

>>94207465
>Such as?
Grocery stores use the same distributor as newsstands so stuff is returnable.

On top of that, it's the grocery store's decision to stock comics. If they stock it and it doesn't sell, they they stop carrying comics.

And if you want comics to be sold at a grocery store then you'll have to settle for paying $3.99+ because grocery stores, newsstands, etc don't want to stock magazines with really low price points.

>>94217483
Amazon offers free 2 day shipping on all items listed for Prime members.

>>94207926
>sell star wars comic beside marvel
>comics 30-100% more expensive
>only 5% ahead DC
Now imagine for a second if WB let DC make Harry Potter comics on top of Rebirth, they would just buy Marvel out

>>94208216
They are kind of ruining the industry though, the chart that shill loves to post is about the direct market which as we know, doesn't show how much the comics actually sell but how many comics the retailers order. Marvel plays with this shit to scam retailers and that's why they hate them so much. The incentive based variants is one of them, the stores need to order a bunch of comics they know they won't sell to the public in order to get a variant they can sell to collectors in hopes of making up the losses. If they don't, the store is fucked. As some other anon has pointed out, the comic market is actually growing but the LCS are closing up by the hundreds. It is because shit like this

And there is a discrepancy in that chart, Marvel comics are waaaaay more expensive than DC's. In order to make that many dollars, they should be selling less units than it shows in the unit chart because each unit makes more dollars. The fact that they are ahead in both chars but so close to DC means they are pulling industry crashing tricks

>>94217573
The "free" part wasn't what I was contending. Amazon does not ship floppies. Period.

>>94206127
I'd blame it on there being too many comics. Not any one publishers fault, they are all to blame. There are too many comics coming out every week.

>>94206127
>as predicted by the DChads at SDCC
But that not what they said at all. Try reading more than the headlines.

They said they DON'T want the industry to get to a point where it crashes.

>>94206127
The SJW taint at Marvel is so offputting that they belong in the onion as a parody. But the real reason is, nobody buys comics for the same reason nobody buys music any more: it's easier to steal them digitally.

>>94217480
I read DC exclusively so...

>>94218741
They said that they trying to stop the collapse which means that it already happened.

>>94207880
>don't get why DC or Marvel don't do their own 2000AD style weekly.
Diamond won't ship it. Just like they won't ship 2000ad weekly or Euro comics generally or anything that varies even slightly from what they have decided is "real" comics. As long as Diamond maintains its strangle hold the industry won't be allowed to evolve

>>94206127
SJW culture.

And Diamond Distributors. Surprised you left them out, OP.

>>94206127
The big two's inability to adapt to a changing market, unfriendliness to newcomers, and lack of genre variety.

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>>94222679
How did this "Diamond" even come to be anyway, is it a distribution company? How the fuck do you get control of the distribution of an entire industry, is it government mandated?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi8iuFXAKQM

>>94206730
>https://twitter.com/JimLee/status/889612870786457600
Funny how people are ignoring this

>>94222987
Nobody needed Jim Lee to "mispeak" to know the truth of things

>>94206127
Sales would go up if single comics were widely available - hell available at all, basically - and if there were definite 'main' titles that the masses could pick up knowing they were getting complete stories. And prices would HAVE to be lower. Unfortunately it seems none of the publishers have any interest in this at all.

>>94207179
But you have to be an idiot to buy from a book store when you can ALWAYS buy significantly cheaper online. Novels aren't marked up nearly as much.

>>94207265
Well this gives the impression that the retailers are insane for pricing out most of their customers. But for all I know that's a typical percentage for any product.

>>94223793
Comic book retailers gotta keep the lights on, pay their lease, and customers so it makes sense they have a decently large cut. This pie chart is for low run comics though so chances are they get a higher %of profits as a way to encourage them to stock floppies that won't move high volumes

>>94212697
>Even the internet - which allows literally anybody to order their comics at cover price

Cover price which is way too high for what you get.
2 hours worth of comics cost, what, 5 times the movie ticket price? Nobody would be seeing the movies if they were that poor value.

Adopt foreign distribution systems. When i used to buy Batman for €3,50 i'd get Batman, Detective Comics and Nightwing in one hit. It hurts to think in America i should pay three times to get the same

>>94222852
All of Diamond's competitors went bankrupt when Marvel bought out another company, which subsequently went bankrupt itself.

Or something like that.

>>94210219
The Jews are in the MCU, actually making money.

>>94222852
Comics distribution grew out of buyers clubs formed by retailers and collectors. Diamond is the one that got big. As magazine distribution waned, DC decided to distribute through Diamond exclusively, and everyone else followed suit.

Despite what you may glean from threads like this one, Diamond is more a symptom of the problem of the direct market, a problem that keeps reinforcing itself. Diamond is the one that is able to handle the logistics of distributing comics across the country on the same day. Diamond is the one that wants to be in this business. There are no other distributors in the game because distributing heavy palettes of paper that are delicate and have low cover prices to a group of risk-averse retailers whose entire business model is based on high sell-through is tedious.

>>94208341
I'd like to see what this means too. All I can think is that it means the big two will sell less? But doesn't everyone here hate the big two and Diamond model anyway? Seems like a bubble popping would be great in the long run.

>>94223727
The suggestion provided by >>94206618 is
>Get the comics out of the Comic Stores, instead put them at places where casuals actually see them

I think you only answered why that shouldn't be done, then.

>>94223623
>Monthly comics more widely available
>Monthly comics have lower prices

Pick one.

You know the $2.99 comics DC has? They're $3.99 on the newsstand. That's because the grocery stores and newsstands don't want lower-priced periodicals, they believe they'd lose money on it.

Marvel tried to do a 99 cent line back in the mid-90's but the newsstands refused to stock them at that price, so Marvel was forced to combine two 99 cent titles into a $1.99 title, which defeated the purpose.

Busiek talked about it here:

http://busiek.com/site/2009/06/21/comics-as-a-mass-medium/

>I recently had a direct encounter with this phenomenon, when I agreed to write Untold Tales of Spider-Man, one of Marvel’s 99-cent titles. “Lower the price,” had long been the cry of those who wanted to see comics appeal to a wider audience again, so we lowered the price, and what happened? The newsstand retailers refused to carry the book. They flat-out refused. The price was too low for them to waste a rack slot on something that’d bring in less profit than something else that could go in that rack. So for newsstand distribution, two 99-cent books were printed together, at a $1.95 (and later, $1.99) price, to get them on those racks, even at the cost of destroying the price-point advantage that was the reason to offer the books in the first place. The 99-cent books were offered, at that price, only in the direct market, where they were not, for the most part, being put in front of new readers.

>>94206279
>notably hostile
Why do casuals think going to a comics shop is like walking into a lions den covered in raw meat and steak sauce?

>>94206127
>So if the industry crash, as predicted by the DChads at SDCC, comes to pass, who should we blame?

/co/, who infamously never reads comic books

Swear to god, you can post a panel from ANY comic book in the last 20 years, even the most high profile shit, and some anon will inevitably post "WAIT when did this happen??"

You motherfuckers don't read comic books, you just complain about what Joss Whedon said on twitter and shit like that

And sadly it'll only cost you about the price of one of your goddamn bags of Doritos to get a comic book, but you're too lazy to get off your fat ass and go buy some

I don't even know why you're having a thread about it since it won't affect you guys at all

>>94225416
That's because those are crossposters from /tv/

>>94206618
>>94207179
It's not about getting comics out of comic stores. It's about moving on to a different format.

Bookstores *do not want comics.* They may stock a few token series, but that's a drop compared to what's published every month.

Only a quarter of everything in a magazine rack gets sold, the rest get destroyed after their month is up. The only way this works is because magazines are supported by advertising. Do you want your comics to have an ad-to-content ratio of a typical magazine?

>>94225392
Because they get their knowledge of comic book shops from 90's episodes of the Simpsons

>>94225416
I spend over £40 a week on comic books mush, you suck

>>94206127
Marvel
DC
SJW culture
Tumblr
Muh Diversity
Bendis

>>94225515
It was like that irl in the 90s. Even down to the fat comic book shop owners.

>>94225903
What's bendis?

>>94217307
>Want to buy comics from real stores
>LMAO TUMBLR
The state of /co/. How are those two things even related?

>>94217224
>and the sells are decreasing.
Excuse?

webcomics and continuity lockout

>>94210219
>Can we do the usual routine and blame it all on the Jews?

damn those Jews, ruining the creations of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Siegel, Shuster, etc.

>>94226066
The theme of this summer seems to be "anything I don't like is from tumblr/reddit/facebook"

>>94225989
Yeah, but it's an outdated take. If you're in an area with a lot of comic shops chance are there's gonna be at least one that looks vastly different from that.

>>94224175
No, but part of that cover price is a problem with underlying costs -things completely out of the control of publishers, like the costs of fuel (to transport item), the costs of paper and inks, and so on. You can cut corners, but only to a degree - and if you cut too far towards that bottom end, you'll lose the sense of "quality" and with it parts of your audience. It's a problem with print generally, not just comics; print is dead, and has been dead since the advent of radio.

The other problem with the analogy is that if movies were worth the money you pay, nobody would buy DVDs or BluRays or download/stream from legitimate platforms. Some of the problem there is that these other forms for movies to take have higher cost (like DVD/BluRay) so they attract fewer sales (but also provide the opportunity for multiple viewings) but a lot of it is to do with the social aspect of cinema - you may go and clap, you may go and sit in perfect silence with your asshole clenched tight because there's a black guy down front and he's going to clap, you just know it, but the experience of being there, in public even if not with your friends, watching on a bigger screen with better sound than your headphones and phone can provide is a big draw to audiences.

The upshot of this is that movies/tv are not directly comparable forms to print; people don't read books for the exact same reasons they watch tv, even if we're talking about a miniseries adapted from a book.

And again with print you have that re-reading ability that you don't have with a single-use movie ticket, so there's value added there if you're a re-reader. But, again, I think that's part of the problem - when it's about collecting runs rather than re-reading them, the sense of value for money drops. And of course trades help with that, but trades are only made cheaper because they're reprint, so the main page rate for the creative/editorial work has already been paid and it comes down to pennies for reprint.

>>94208341
>Marvel in the 90s were hit by a variant bubble popping.

Everybody was hit. The industry lost 15% of sales year on year for like eight years straight.

>They had too much product out that wasn't making them any money.

That would be a failure to react to the changing conditions, rather than product itself. Even then they already printed to order and shipped exclusively through Diamond (with the exception of Marvel, who tried switching to Heroes World, their in-house agency, but with the same consumer base) to stores or individuals. Having gone through Diamond would have lessened Marvel's exposure to cost overruns, because they wouldn't have had the stock liabilities, but not eliminated it, because even Diamond must have been taking losses. Who knows? If Marvel hadn't been absorbing their own section of losses, Diamond might have gone under. That would have ended the market - no distributor, no distributors willing to take on a failing sector.

But the underlying cause was that all publishers were overproducing stock and stores were buying it from them. Stock didn't start backing up until the stores started going bust - leaving unpaid bills with Diamond, at least a proportion of which would have been passed on to the publishers it serviced.

>>94209966
UK comics are doing OK despite the general decline of print, they just don't try to sell to adults. The Beano sells around 1.8 million copies annually, for example - excluding specials, hardback collecteds, and so on - more than half on direct-to-door postal subscription, the rest verified sales through high street retailers - as UK comics work on sale-or-return, like normal periodicals, and have done for so long that their wastage is pretty low.

Of course kids don't expect 22 full-color painted-art story pages, but that makes it cheaper to produce and easier to crap one out every week, 52 weeks of the year. There's not a US comic book publisher left making 1.8 million sales annually from a regular title.

>>94206127
DIAMOND
COMIC
DISTRIBUTORS

>>94226528
Do you have anything to contribute or are you just blindly repeating what everyone says like the people who want to get rid of the direct market in order to put comics on the newsstands?

Comics became collector items, which require tons of esoteric knowledge in order to be understood instead of being an easily-accessible, fun and ubiqutous mass medium.

>>94225335
I guess they could do something like combined issues of Batman and Detective, then? But the retailer's reasoning there just seems stupid. They sell chocolate and things for less.

>>94225392
>>94225989
As comic shops were fond of telling the indies that it's the publisher's job to get people to pre-order, I think it's the comic shop's responsibility to shake that image, which they haven't done partly because most still only stock the big 3 or 4.

In a way, appealing to casuals wasn't the comic shop's function. It's certainly more difficult than ever. Do you think someone with a passing interest in a couple of tv shows or movies would go out of his way to visit a tiny strip mall to spend 10 bucks on floppies?

The only real missed opportunity I see is at the movies. Marvel and DC should be convincing major theater chains to install semi-permanent retail spaces, and producing direct movie adaptations with children-friendly, more cartoonish art styles, along with a few select omnibuses and merchandise. Movie theaters need to diversify their income stream in the face of online streaming, and superhero movies have become a year-round thing.

>>94225392
when have you ever been grocery shopping and someone sidled up to you to obsessively tell you why what you're browsing is garbage and you should switch to brand x

when have you ever been grocery shopping and the clerk has gone out of their way to tell you that apples are shit-tier and they can't respect anybody who buys apples because oranges have been killing it for years now and oranges are what adults eat

>>94226244
>but trades are only made cheaper because they're reprint, so the main page rate for the creative/editorial work has already been paid and it comes down to pennies for reprint.

That's another issue with pricing. When a movie comes out, the publishers will put out relevant collections. No matter how old or previously reissued these collections are, they're put out at full (current) price. These ONLY have distribution costs. They should be cheaper. You're telling your 'new audience' straight away that this hobby is going to be pretty expensive.

>>94206503
Umm. I'm pretty sure comics were much cheaper back then

>>94217425
Neat

>>94226892
>But the retailer's reasoning there just seems stupid. They sell chocolate and things for less.

It's a different kind of product, though, and more guaranteed sell-through than a magazine.

>>94224601
Interesting stuff if true (and probably is).