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  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Dying Detective View Post
    Well my mistake then still something did go very wrong in order for so many stores to close in one year alone. Either it was the store owner's fault or the people they are distributing products for.
    Please don't be like that certain group who will NOT be named that scream Moon Girl, Riri Williams, Kate Bishop, LGBT and so on are closing stores. They have NOTHING to do with it.

    Much like with Blockbuster, Toys R Us and others-MANY factors come into play.

    1. LOCATION-how many stores are in bad locations? Or have left "major" markets? One thing I noticed of the stores that closed-Circuit City, Borders, Tower Records and stores struggling-K-Mart around here in my city. They all left the black community. Year later they suddenly had to go out of business. Or in K-Mart's case-they left Dallas/Fort Worth and the nearest store is 3 hours away.

    2) MERCHANDISE-If all I buy is Marvel & DC-I don't have to enter a comic book store. Lets take Batman #50-today is Friday-if I went to all the used book stores that sell comics-HALF will have that issue at 50-90% off. This is something I have seen more with DC than Marvel. New Dc books come out Wednesday and they are at used stores by the weekend.

    Lets not forget about ONLINE-Midtown comics's flash sales, Amazon and EBAY.

    Lets look at what else is the comic book store-stuff I can get CHEAPER-I had planned on buying the Stranger Things Lucas figure from my store. Guess who had him at 30% off? TOY R US. All those toys and cards are cheaper elsewhere. Still talking about merchandise. What you stock. How is it good business to have BINS packed with unsold Batman books? At one store they have 15 bins for DC comics. Batman fills up 10 by himself. That's not counting his kids or Catwoman. Now some will say those back issue of Batman will sell unlike Moon Girl. Yes that is true but not at the price YOU want it. Why would I go to the comic book store for say Duke's first appearance in Batman and pay $50 when I can go to my used book store and get it for $2 and it's a variant. Or I can go to comic cons and get it in bins of 10 for $2. SOMEONE WILL ALWAYS HAVE IT CHEAPER.

    3) CUSTOMER SERVICE-I don't even have to say anything else. We have had stories of store owners being HOSTILE towards POC, women, LGBT, children & Inhuman fans or allowing customer to be hostile towards others.

    When you are no longer the ONLY source-SMART folks will find ways to get what they want at the PRICE that they WANT.

    Diamond nor Store Owners can't stop the free market.

  2. #62
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by skyvolt2000 View Post
    Please don't be like that certain group who will NOT be named that scream Moon Girl, Riri Williams, Kate Bishop, LGBT and so on are closing stores. They have NOTHING to do with it.

    Much like with Blockbuster, Toys R Us and others-MANY factors come into play.

    1. LOCATION-how many stores are in bad locations? Or have left "major" markets? One thing I noticed of the stores that closed-Circuit City, Borders, Tower Records and stores struggling-K-Mart around here in my city. They all left the black community. Year later they suddenly had to go out of business. Or in K-Mart's case-they left Dallas/Fort Worth and the nearest store is 3 hours away.

    2) MERCHANDISE-If all I buy is Marvel & DC-I don't have to enter a comic book store. Lets take Batman #50-today is Friday-if I went to all the used book stores that sell comics-HALF will have that issue at 50-90% off. This is something I have seen more with DC than Marvel. New Dc books come out Wednesday and they are at used stores by the weekend.

    Lets not forget about ONLINE-Midtown comics's flash sales, Amazon and EBAY.

    Lets look at what else is the comic book store-stuff I can get CHEAPER-I had planned on buying the Stranger Things Lucas figure from my store. Guess who had him at 30% off? TOY R US. All those toys and cards are cheaper elsewhere. Still talking about merchandise. What you stock. How is it good business to have BINS packed with unsold Batman books? At one store they have 15 bins for DC comics. Batman fills up 10 by himself. That's not counting his kids or Catwoman. Now some will say those back issue of Batman will sell unlike Moon Girl. Yes that is true but not at the price YOU want it. Why would I go to the comic book store for say Duke's first appearance in Batman and pay $50 when I can go to my used book store and get it for $2 and it's a variant. Or I can go to comic cons and get it in bins of 10 for $2. SOMEONE WILL ALWAYS HAVE IT CHEAPER.

    3) CUSTOMER SERVICE-I don't even have to say anything else. We have had stories of store owners being HOSTILE towards POC, women, LGBT, children & Inhuman fans or allowing customer to be hostile towards others.

    When you are no longer the ONLY source-SMART folks will find ways to get what they want at the PRICE that they WANT.

    Diamond nor Store Owners can't stop the free market.
    I do not really believe the rhetoric spouted by the people who will not be named though you could argue the characterisation at Marvel has been rather sloppy and half-hearted lately. ANd i was only wondering what was it that caused fifty comic book stores to close in the span of a year. Well how many of the comic book shops were in bad locations that led to their closure? Then i guess there are many factors involved with trying to stay alive in the cut throat world known as business especially when you do not know how to compete with other businesses that stock what you stock. And possibly being a person with a terrible attitude doesn't help either.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

  3. #63

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    I think its just people love these characters and learned how to deal with the negative aspects.

    They also might read other companies and remind themselves that Marvel/DC isnt the end all be all.

  4. #64
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by the illustrious mr. kenway View Post
    I think its just people love these characters and learned how to deal with the negative aspects.

    They also might read other companies and remind themselves that Marvel/DC isnt the end all be all.
    That might be one reason why peopel jump back at the first sign of things getting better or at least there hasn't been a ridiculous gimmick in a while.
    "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he

  5. #65
    Incredible Member cgh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Clark View Post
    But there is a sense of despair, or even just boredom, when you know the characters will never get ahead. Over at Marvel, I dropped Spider-man after One More Day not because I didn't want a single Peter parker but because the story effectively removed any drama from Spider-romance. If the goal was to avoid a married Spider-man then regardless of who Pete dated the end result would ALWAYS be a break-up. I didn't need to see peter date to enjoy a story, but since one of the stated goals was to open up his dating pool according to Quesada and Breevort it seemed that would be a focus. Having also seen Aunt May and Harry Osborn resurrected meant death wasn't going to stick for characters here either. So I stepped off the merry-go-round.

    I can easily see someone having come to the same conclusion about DC. Going from a young Superman who dated Diana to a return of the Pre-Flashpoint status quo could convince you Superman is just going to keep running in place and that anything interesting that occurs is just a blip that isn't worth getting attached to. Or maybe you finally realized that even 20 years in the role isn't enough to prevent having the status quo steal your hero's spot? Or having that dead character suddenly come back to life (Jason) or that living character suddenly revised to have been long dead (the Kents). I mean at some point it hits you that you've seen it all before and that the next big story twist for 2019 is exactly where you came in a few decades ago.
    Yes, it's true. And what you've hit upon is the essential nature (or possibly flaw) in sequential storytelling. We are always in Act Two. Probably the true crux of writing superhero comics is simply trying to come up with novel situations that the jaded readership haven't seen before, or at least haven't seen for a while.

    This is something I've thought about a lot. One of the reasons you notice this as a problem is simply because you aren't a kid anymore. You've been reading for a long time. The readership of superhero comics is generally old men like us. It's well-known that boys and young men do not read much fiction of any sort for fun anymore, and in fact reading rates for men in general are much lower. It's a lot easier to impress kids with superhero comics because they're seeing most of it for the first time. That's not the case with the current readership.

    Another issue is a pet peeve of mine: the readership is intensely conservative. More emphasis is placed upon "correctness" than story. This puts writers into a straitjacket, making originality even tougher. The merry-go-round is made ever smaller by fans who fly into HTML rages every time something new is tried.

    Probably the solution is to simply read other comics that follow a proper structure and actually conclude. This probably explains why many of my favourite Batman stories take place out of continuity, or why I'm reading more Image titles than anything else these days.

  6. #66
    Ultimate Member Sacred Knight's Avatar
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    Primarily I'm a Superman fan. And honestly, for all my retrospective complaining, its very rare that in any current period that I've been strongly against any sort of direction at the time. As a kid in the 90s, I loved everything, even though I have some issues with the post-Crisis set up now as an adult and knowing a lot more about Superman's total history including pre-Crisis. After my sabbatical in the early aughts, which had nothing to do with quality but just more to do with time/other interests/etc, I jump on again during Identity Crisis and again, admittedly at the time I enjoyed it. I was back to the fold after a long break, things felt fresh, the grimdark at the time wasn't an issue to me till I'd been back a while and I saw how permeating it was becoming to everything. To be honest, in a given time period, the only time I've staunchly hated an idea was, ironically enough, Rebirth. That took a long time to get used to, because I was enjoying what came before and didn't like the addition of the kid. Bendis is making me a believer in that status quo though after two years of being bored off my ass.

    So, long story short, only one time in my reading career, at least for Superman, have I been so against a direction that I even considered stopping because of content. Thus, with me its not so much why do I keep coming back, because its considerably rare that I have ever considered leaving, again except for one period in my young adult life where I just wasn't reading comics altogether, because, hey, post-high school is wild times.
    Last edited by Sacred Knight; 07-06-2018 at 11:46 AM.
    "They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El

  7. #67
    DC/Collected Editions Mod The Darknight Detective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Clark View Post
    But there is a sense of despair, or even just boredom, when you know the characters will never get ahead.
    When it comes to properties owned by corporations, I don't see that changing. DC tried to do it in the past, but they could only go so far before starting over again because of the Trinity. The latter will never be permanently sidelined or enter middle age*, so that affects the other characters in the process. Just the way it is and will continue to be.

    * In Diana's case, look middle aged.
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  8. #68
    Mighty Member Jody Garland's Avatar
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    I keep reading because I keep enjoying them. That's all there is to it. Sometimes if I'm not enjoying a direction, I'll just wait it out since I know it'll change eventually. In the meantime, there's eighty-three years of comics DC's published that i can enjoy.

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Dying Detective View Post
    In light of this unfortunate conclusion of the Wedding in Batman. I found myself asking a big question for all this is why is everyone complaining about Marvel and DC when there are people still buying their stuff? People went into a tirade over the Death in the Family where a hotline was set up to vote for a conclusion that was already decided and they still buy from them. And then came the Death of Superman and they still bought from DC even though complaints came about being cheated. Civil War happened and they still bought from them. One More Day happened and Spider-Man is still in print and selling. The New 52 happened and people still buy DC. Civil War II happened and Marvel still sells somewhat. The mass replacement and downgrade of all Marvel's flagship characters came and people still buy from them. Secret Empire happened and for all the anger regarding Captain America people still buy from Marvel. And now this. Let me ask for all the complaints and predictions that either company would die out one day from all this why is it aside from the odd person out there who has left them out of disappointment why does anyone from them after so many scandals and issues still even buy their stuff? And why should anyone believe that either company would die or a certain franchise would take a hit when the past thirty or so years have proven otherwise for some reason regardless of the bungling of the publishers, public relations guys, editors, and writers?
    "Why do fans keep buying books?" This is an easy one to answer - it's because, by and large, they enjoy them. Simple as that.

    Don't confuse internet outrage for actual reality.

    With Batman #50, most of the anger was directed towards the misleading marketing and the release of spoilers days prior to the book's release.

    Chances are most people who bought and read the issue enjoyed it on its own terms, even if they feel that DC made poor decisions in promoting it.

    And in the case of storylines like OMD or Secret Empire...some fans may not like those storylines but others either did enjoy them or they simply found it easy to sit them out.

    When a publisher puts out so many books a month, every month, not every book or storyline is going to be to everyone's taste. And there's no way to anticipate how a storyline is going to be received until it's out there and fans are reading it.

    Some end up being controversial but still popular, others may garner a largely negative reaction but they play out and it's on to the next story.

    The ongoing, serialized nature of comics means that every new storyline is another opportunity to lose or gain readers.

  10. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by cgh View Post
    Yes, it's true. And what you've hit upon is the essential nature (or possibly flaw) in sequential storytelling. We are always in Act Two.
    Exactly.

    Either you accept that as a reader and enjoy seeing the mythologies of these characters added to, or you eventually stop reading because you want a sense of real life "progress" that they're simply not built for and are not intended to have.

  11. #71
    The Detective Man The Dying Detective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prof. Warren View Post
    "Why do fans keep buying books?" This is an easy one to answer - it's because, by and large, they enjoy them. Simple as that.

    Don't confuse internet outrage for actual reality.

    With Batman #50, most of the anger was directed towards the misleading marketing and the release of spoilers days prior to the book's release.

    Chances are most people who bought and read the issue enjoyed it on its own terms, even if they feel that DC made poor decisions in promoting it.

    And in the case of storylines like OMD or Secret Empire...some fans may not like those storylines but others either did enjoy them or they simply found it easy to sit them out.

    When a publisher puts out so many books a month, every month, not every book or storyline is going to be to everyone's taste. And there's no way to anticipate how a storyline is going to be received until it's out there and fans are reading it.

    Some end up being controversial but still popular, others may garner a largely negative reaction but they play out and it's on to the next story.

    The ongoing, serialized nature of comics means that every new storyline is another opportunity to lose or gain readers.
    Before the internet was hot it was angry fan letters and articles that define the outrage back then and gave the sensation that they defined reality. And you do raise some interesting poitn that I have not considered though I sometimes question certain ideas fans have.
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  12. #72
    Savior of the Universe Flash Gordon's Avatar
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    Just read what you enjoy and don't read what you don't enjoy. There's really SO MUCH great stuff out there.

  13. #73
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    Love for the characters, you got people that buy books they don't even like just because they appear in them. People just have to realize these characters are gonna have periods where they're hot or cold. Unless we're talking about lesser known characters then you might just have to deal with them being in limbo.
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