Last edited by ImperiusWrecked; 01-18-2019 at 01:52 PM.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
Awesome, thank you! I love it.
As for the events *shakes head*. I realize they make money and that's why Marvel does it, but good lord. I was just looking at both the December 2018 sales and the sales for the entire year of 2018 just this morning.
This is a problem...
(From comichron)
Here are the totals for the Top Thousand Comics from the past few years. Diamond did not release figures for 2016, but we calculated minimum values for the Top Thousand based on known orders and reorders from that year:
2010: 45.3 million copies
2011: 47 million copies
2012: 53.43 million copies
2013: 52.21 million copies
2014: 52.07 million copies
2015: 58.59 million copies
2016: 59.8 million (minimum, probably slightly higher)
2017: 49.68 million copies
2018: 50.43 million copies
...the drop-off between 2016 and 2017 was pretty huge. And yes, there were a number of factors. The events got out of hand. People are sick of heroes being pitted against each other (which therein would cause readers to lose interest in characters because they were portrayed so badly). They replaced too many OG characters with new ones at once. Secret Empire was so divisive. But still, the fact that 2018 only recovered a little bit when they tried to fix all of that shows that they still haven't regained their reader's trust quite yet, not entirely. Having another event right now might not be the best of ideas. Don't know what they're thinking.
*to be fair, those numbers represent all publishers, not just Marvel. But as Marvel is one of the Big Two, when Marvel's sales go down the entire industry suffers for it.
Last edited by capandkirby; 01-18-2019 at 02:11 PM.
For anyone, like me, who is interested in the business side of things.
Here are the top 100 comics that sold in December:
https://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1...ticleID=225295
And here are the top sales for 2018 as a whole:
https://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1...ticleID=224120
That Invaders went to reprint is promising.
So is this tweet:
Sales1.JPG
Capandkirby
I see those numbers and you say that Marvel tanked when the whole S.E. was going on? I do remember there being a lot of talk about how Disney pulled star wars comic from Marvel at one point. Honestly I am glad that S.E. was bad enough to scare marvel into never (i hope) doing that again. Having new heroes and legacy characters are a staple of comics, but Marvel tried to do too much, things like that when cap gives up his shield, etc. only work for the short term and eventually things go back into place, like how wolverine was taken over by laura. That doesn't mean the newer characters are bad but it does mean that Marvel refusing to make it a easy seamless transition hurt them. If things had been gradual and more in the story rather than: Everything is reset, or all new all different, or soft reboots etc. then it would have been better. Still I feel Marvel has a lot of things to make up for and a lot to do to regain reader trust.
Edit: I used to have this fandom friend who loved Steve and I followed along on tumblr of their talks about the comic sales so seeing this reminded me of that.
Last edited by ImperiusWrecked; 01-18-2019 at 07:47 PM.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
Yes. Secret Empire took place in 2017, the worst year in sales since 2011. And the truly alarming aspect of it was just how much they dropped. I mean, it was a pretty significant drop. It would have definitely been on Disney’s radar, since they own all of Marvel, including the comics, and not just the production and distribution rights for the films. I can see them intervening in that way.
As for legacy characters, I agree with you. Legacy characters are a great way to introduce new characters. The problem was doing too many at one time. The other problem was how the OG characters were treated in relation to the new. Steve was aged then an evil version created by the cosmic cube took over the world. Thor become unworthy. Tony was put in a coma. Bruce was killed in assisted suicide.
G. Willow Wilson (Ms. Marvel creator) once said this: “This is a personal opinion, but IMO launching a legacy character by killing off or humiliating the original character sets the legacy character up for failure. Who wants a legacy if the legacy is shitty?”
Sums it up. I’ve said again and again that the way to sell a character is by their relationships to other characters. Sam was easier to accept as a legacy to Steve when Remender wrote him because Steve, himself, loves Sam. He hand-picked Sam to be Cap. Same goes for Bucky, Steve loves Bucky and even when coming back from the not-dead, Steve let Bucky keep the mantle for awhile and became Commander Rogers instead. It’s easier to accept a change when the original character themselves are written as accepting of that change and everything is kept friendly and easy. Generates empathy and acceptance with the reader-base. But Marvel wasn’t happy with that, instead they either brutalized or tried to ruin the reputation of the originals and that’s where they misstepped.
I was on tumblr for a bit! Not long enough to familiarize myself with the Cap community, unfortunately. I would have liked to have known your friend. Would have been nice to find a kindred spirit. The problem with Tumblr was that... I’m in my forties and tumblr just seemed a little too young for me. I was there shortly after Civil War (the movie) came out and the vitriol being spewed between “Team Tony” and “Team Cap” made me not want to have anything to do with it. Maybe I should give it another go, though. Gosh, I don’t even remember my log-in.
Last edited by capandkirby; 01-18-2019 at 09:46 PM.
I agree with that so much! It's just like who wants to see their favorites being trashed and then have a new character who was supposed to replace them? It worked well with Cap the two times it happened because Sam and Bucky had those personal ties. But yes Marvel messed up BIG time.
If you do want to give Tumblr another go my username there is the same (imperiuswrecked) and the fan friend I spoke of her username was Jayleeg, she had a great blog with these I heart Steve posts that were cool but she stopped posting a long time ago. But yeah Tumblr can be hard to navigate and enjoy because of the antis there and the whole website is a mess. If I didn't have fandom friends there and used my block alot then I wouldn't be there, lol. I'm basically the only one there (along with Reviresco) who posts about Namor since I run the a fanblog there and on twitter.
As for the current Invaders it looks like Cap is up next with his issue, and the cover for 3 showed bucky, so I hope we get a good focus on each character and that Jim will be after bucky. I am really hoping this series sticks around for a while and not just for a mini or one year thing.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
Oh hey, I am on Twitter. Is your Twitter handle the same as here? Do you post Namor stuff there as well? I’ll follow you there. My Twitter is mostly Marvel comics reblogs with the occasional 80’s or 90’s pop culture nostalgia (child of the 80’s, can’t help it )..
Very much looking forward to the rest of this run. Give me all the Invaders, each getting their moment to shine. They truly are my favorite team.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
Aaaah. It's going to take me a while to catch up. O_O
Great avatars, ImperiusWrecked! But we need the one of Namor hugging Steve! I still think it could be someone else, but the more I think about it, the story leads to Cap. Guice is going to have to work out a way to differentiate between Cap and Hammond. Change up their hair styles, please!
I think Zdarsky will do a Cap and Bucky arc after this one -- sales willing. He did say Cap and Namor were his favorite characters.
CapandKirby there's a Invaders appreciation thread here, if you're into the other runs with the team. MajorHoy and end up talking about a lot of Golden Age stuff, so I'd love to have folks that have enjoyed other runs. And I've been thinking I need to read the original run as I'm very spotty on that run.
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2019
There's also a Cap Appreciation thread here:
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...n+america+2019
Here's the old one -- they closed all the appreciation threads and made folks start new ones in New Year.
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...a-Appreciation
Namor the Sub-Mariner, Marvel's oldest character, will have been published for 85 years in 2024. So where's my GOOD Namor anniversary ongoing, Marvel?
I did look at that part of the comic more closely and I really do think it is steve because as you can see, Steve's outfit is a different color than the other soldiers and when Namor walks up to them he is standing in front of the soldiers, then in the next frame after the hug, no one is in front and steve is off to the side next to namor, so it makes me think that when Namor walked up, Steve came halfway and hugged then they stood off to the side of the other men.
i6.jpg
i5.jpg
Also Butch's Jim and Steve almost look the same so if they are ever in civilian/normal clothes it would be hard to tell them apart. lol
i4.jpg
I do hope we get a good focus on all of the characters, but I know that steve and bucky get a lot of focus outside of invaders with their own comics, meanwhile others like jim dont, so i really really hope we get something good for jim.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis