Good info. And to add to that, not only have sales been dropping, but everyone else- Marvel, Image, and the indie section in general- have been expanding.
So sales-wise, they're near pre reboot level, around when Brightest Day was their big thing, but proportionally, they're further behind than they were then.
And '06-07 were really good years, weren't they? Infinite Crisis, 52.... 52 alone has got to make up a big chunk of that. Then you get the huge falloff in '08 as Countdown, and similar take center stage and the decline that lead to the reboot.
I am pretty curious what changed at that point, it felt like two different creative directions.
Well, exactly. If you're doing a big relaunch where a limited amount of titles is a thing, any smaller character seems odd to me, unless they're grouped together or given some other hook to boost sales.
Yeah, thanks to constant relaunching and Star Wars, not to mention Secret Wars. Without that, Marvel is only doing slightly better. Sales has been dropping for Marvel titles, though as with the Bleedingcool article that was posted earlier this month.
But they do have that super-selling line, that high selling event, and they've shown the 'seasonal relaunch' method works pretty well long-term or at least medium term, I think it's been their model for something like 6 years now. So I think 'without that,' is being a bit ungenerous.
I mean, DC changed directions massively with a lot of their books mid-run when the creative team changed, doing re-launches then frankly would've made sense.
But their sales did dip in 2014, which is probably why they did the whole relaunching last year. Supposedly it pissed a bunch of people off and the reason why the sales go right back down to what they once were. The same thing will probably happen a few months after Rebirth.
Marvel's got a history of rolling status quo- and doing Secret Wars instead of another one of those was probably a bit of a mistake. Still, going back to where they were is not nearly as big a problem as DC going back to their lower sales.
I think that's why they lose readers. Most people that i speak with are tired of the constant events. And now it's going to be CW part 2. I'm glad I didn't read most of SW. It was, for the most part, garbage.
The thing is, while readers do suffer some event fatigue... the event era in general has been quite successful. I don't think so much for the events themselves, but the 'have a new status quo that lasts a year to two years, then change it,' is a good way to both retain continuity and keep things fresh.
And Marvel's usually pretty good at having some comics out of any particular event.
The writer kind of left it a little open ended according to his Twitter. But I haven't read the comic either. So it may not be entirely retconned, I guess.
But, just the idea of retconning a legendary comic like that just because SJWs don't like it is absolutely infuriating.
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Besieged by countless foes, his eyes they are aglow, longing for the fight. He stands upon a mound, doesn't aim the throw, just lets the hammer fly!
She has one of the best "overcoming adversity" arcs of any female character in comics. Not to mention how far DC pushed the envelope with the original story (which had stuff cut from it because the original intent was far more graphic).
It's a seminal book in both Batman and comics, and to have them remove it like this... FFS.
I at least hope this doesn't hurt the development of the movie.
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Feb 23rd, 2016 06:14 AM
