Are Marvel and DC necessary for the future of comic?

[The Dying Detective]

No. Super-hero comics are not the entirety of the comics industry. Marvel and DC make up part of the industry, the part that focuses on super-hero content sold in monthly installments. This is the focus on the direct market (Phil Seuling set up the direct market with others in the early 70s to make it easier to sell Marvel and DC comics to fans outside of newsstand distribution, it has always been Marvel and DC focused). In the 80s other publishers began using the direct market to bring books to the market outside of newsstands and sell to the hardcore comic audience. Later int he 80s the economics of the newsstand collapsed on itself and by the 90s it was gone leaving the direct market the only place to buy comics in the American market until the explosion of the trade paperback format brought comics back to the mass market in bookstores, but Marvel and Dc still dominated the content of that).

However, the direct market was never designed as an outreach market meant to attract new customers to it, it was always about selling to customers who already knew what they wanted (hence the non-returnability model working which is wouldn't if you were trying to stock material for potential new customers which might not sell). However, the sale of comics in the book market has taken on a life of its own in America and book publishers have tapped into the market making the comics industry something bigger than super-hero comics (it always was, but the focus had been on the capes and tights crowd and their customer base). Marvel and Dc are not the comics industry. They are the biggest players in the direct market, but the direct market is not the industry. The industry would survive, but the model it operates under would have to evolve, especially compensation models for creators (they would likely have to move to advances and royalties to creators the way book publishers do rather than page rates the way the Marvel and DC do). But the industry needs to evolve anyways. In needs to create infrastructure to create new readers. It needs to evolve its business practices because as it is currently constituted it is a 20th century dinosaur trying to operate in a 21st century marketplace with business practices that are outmoded and impractical in that marketplace. The industry wouldn't collapse, it would need to evolve to adapt to the changes in the marketplace that have occurred. That's what all businesses have to do.

-M

Sounds like DC and Marvel aren't the great leaders everyone makes them out to be to be well if they do collapse and the harsh truth of direct marketing and the monopolies they created hit them I say great who needs them when they don't understand it's not about events, new number ones, social justice, and diversity replacements that sell comics it's about good stories.

[Buried Alien]

I'm a creature of habit. I would rather live in a world in which both are operating, whether or not either is doing anything for me *this* particular month (because next month might be a whole different story...quite literally).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[The Dying Detective]

I'm a creature of habit. I would rather live in a world in which both are operating, whether or not either is doing anything for me *this* particular month (because next month might be a whole different story...quite literally).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Are you sure you wouldn't want Marvel and DC to be colony dust?

[Buried Alien]

Are you sure you wouldn't want Marvel and DC to be colony dust?

Pretty sure. Sometimes, less is just...less. I could spend years compiling a list of all the times I've thrown away something I thought I didn't want or need anymore, only to soon regret doing so.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Trey Strain]

The DC TV shows in total make almost as much as the movies in total. Last year the TV shows made over $1 billion. The movies $1.48 billion. And as for toys the DC Super Hero Girls line alone
is an over $1 billion enterprise. DC Entertainment would still survive even if there were no movies. It would be idiotic to sell DC to Disney when TV and toys make so much money for Warner Bros
just because some movie flops at the box office.

Star Wars was making big money when Disney bought it. If it had been losing money, then Disney wouldn't have bothered with it.

Sales happen when a buyer thinks it can make more money from a property than the current owner does. When Disney looks at DC Entertainment, that's probably what it sees.

[The Dying Detective]

Pretty sure. Sometimes, less is just...less. I could spend years compiling a list of all the times I've thrown away something I thought I didn't want or need anymore, only to soon regret doing so.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Okay that's up to you but hey I have plans to do a story where DC and Marvel's superheroes and villains are not needed for the future of mankind and if I can have it published as a comic well it might make an interesting statement to the comic book industry.

[The Dying Detective]

As long as films from their IP can generate 9 figure revenues (before we even discuss merchandising sales), those imprints are not "going down" any time soon.

Right but the meat comes from comic book sales not adaptations.

[Starter Set]

Right but the meat comes from comic book sales not adaptations.

Now that's something i'm really, really not sure about.

[The Dying Detective]

Now that's something i'm really, really not sure about.

Hey when your core business suffers it means that everything else will eventually suffer.

[Carabas]

Star Wars was making big money when Disney bought it. If it had been losing money, then Disney wouldn't have bothered with it.

Sales happen when a buyer thinks it can make more money from a property than the current owner does. When Disney looks at DC Entertainment, that's probably what it sees.

Looking at Disney buying Fox and Lucasfilm, sales happen when the original owner no longer is interested in his property regardless of how much money it makes because he is retiring or completely refocusing what he is doing with his media company, and not because some megacorp wants to buy your stuff that isn't for sale.

[The Dying Detective]

Looking at Disney buying Fox and Lucasfilm, sales happen when the original owner no longer is interested in his property regardless of how much money it makes because he is retiring or completely refocusing what he is doing with his media company, and not because some megacorp wants to buy your stuff that isn't for sale.

Right because George Lucas is already filthy rich so what does he care he's pretty much lost his pride as an artist and craftsman.

[Trey Strain]

Right because George Lucas is already filthy rich so what does he care he's pretty much lost his pride as an artist and craftsman.

Lucas sold the company because Disney offered him more money than he thought he could make from it. Besides, he's getting old. Anyway, DC Entertainment is not privately held.

[The Dying Detective]

Lucas sold the company because Disney offered him more money than he thought he could make from it. Besides, he's getting old. Anyway, DC Entertainment is not privately held.

Well whether he actually won or loss only time will tell. But if DC continues to perform abysmally it might get sold or Warner Bros. might pull the plug on it the same with Marvel

[Carabas]

Lucas sold the company because Disney offered him more money than he thought he could make from it. Besides, he's getting old. Anyway, DC Entertainment is not privately held.

Lucas didn't want to do Star Wars anymore. He pretty much donated the money to charity.

[Billy Batson]

Down with system!