They can make money if they actually took some initiative and made books people would want to see, and made them well. Making the same shit 50 times over may bring in a steady income, but a burst of creativity and uniqueness can take them an even longer way.
A well written Hyperion comic for example, certainly wouldn't kill them. In fact I can bet it would become a high seller.
Scarlet Spider had so-so sales and it still got 20-some issues and the writers were given room to wrap up.
Compare to DC where a lot of books get cancelled or complete creative team replacements after 6-8 issues. Even miniseries often aren't completed (which is just sad, and discourages people from trying future minis).
Yea, it'd be nice if they kept going on, but if you look at 'em money wise, they have to end sooner or later, and by doing it on planned terms they give them actual endings. This is a good way of doing it.
They do! Daredevil is awesome and selling great, and I think Hawkeye is doing well too. A fair number of X and Avengers books get good reviews.
And heck, to point out the ones you liked- They made 20+ issues of Scarlet Spider! Was that not a book done well that you wanted to see? They kept it around for 2 years. Don't curse 'em for it, thank 'em for giving that much.
Also, you are aware that Kaine is slated to show up in a team book soon, right? They aren't just tossing him out in the cold.
Well, there's always good and bad titles. It probably just happened that the books you liked got cancelled. Doesn't mean it's a rule.
Second, I'd somewhat disagree with your premise. Quality sells, yes, but so do many other factors. And getting fans to agree on what is quality is tricky. Is there anything stopping from yet another Wolverine book being as well-written as your hypothetical Hyperion book? No, there isn't. It might be brilliant in the right hands. And a Wolverine book carries with it considerably less risk than a Hyperion book. As do the umpteen Avengers titles you alluded to in the OP.
Were I an exec, I'd be doing much the same. Greenlighting a lot of safer titles, and cycling through a set number of other titles to see what sticks. I'd can the ones that don't sell, and keep the ones that do. In practice, this is mostly what we see from the flagship companies.
In closing, if you want high art consistently from Marvel/DC, look elsewhere. They're constantly trying to acquire new fans from the 15-21 demographic. Repetition, safety, movie tie-ins, bad guy beat-'em-up plots with little nuance, etc. are the name of the game. There are exceptions, but they're just that...exceptions. Find some good indie runs, or pick out an author you like and look up his history.
Yea. Even a good book might not find it's audience, might be a character that only draws some, too much competition from a similar book (at least, in the public's eye of a similar book based on quick impressions), or what have you.
Part of why I like writers who write stories good off the bat- that way even if they end for these reasons, you generally have a trade or two of good stuff.
KMC Community Forums
Nov 8th, 2013 04:23 PM
Bring back Immortal Iron Fist, damnit!
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