T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2021

[Ezyo1000]

When he was talking about Wakandan engineering, I assumed he was partially counting himself on that front. At least that was my take.

His book sells that much?

Was he? Because he kept mentioning Wakandan scientist multiple times throughout the interaction, if he was referring to himself he would of said as much, that HIS theory would bring the activation time to 4 , seconds

[charliehustle415]

Why does Spider-Man get a thrice monthly book anyway?

They push Spidey sooo hard, it's kinda ridiculous I mean we get it, but there is such a large swath of comic fans and Black Panther is part of it

I want an ongoing and a MK version for BP. That why Redjack gets his chance at writing the character instead of getting passed over by neophytes like Coates.

I'm surprised they didn't give the book to Lin-Manuel Miranda

Somebody on another forum warned me about the prejudice in this industry. But I like comics too much to really appreciate the warnings given. Not only the lack of endorsement for black characters, but also what to expect in terms of prejudice on forums, that may not have many black posters.

That's one of the consequences of Black Panther being racialized to such an extent that the character can only be written by black people. It places a permanent cap on the editorial influence of the writer that gets their hands on the solo. There are presently no A-list black writers who have a high level of support from suits akin to Aaron or Cates. To be entirely frank I'm not sure we'll ever get one.

That means we'll never get a writer who enjoys enough leeway to not get constantly blockaded by what are likely perfectly avoidable mistakes/quirks in the industry. You're damn right this wouldn't be happening if Cates was writing this book, but it's a shame that a writer with his connections and favor will never be allowed to handle the main BP title. Instead we're stuck with celebrity writers who won't ever get the same treatment.

All of the bolded parts kind of feed into one another, we can't get great comic writers because Black Panther has been so racialized they only take hedged bets so a splashy writer like a Coates or Ridley will get the book based simply on name recognition.

Why not elevate a POC comic writer instead a flash in the pan?

[Ezyo1000]

They push Spidey sooo hard, it's kinda ridiculous I mean we get it, but there is such a large swath of comic fans and Black Panther is part of it



I'm surprised they didn't give the book to Lin-Manuel Miranda





All of the bolded parts kind of feed into one another, we can't get great comic writers because Black Panther has been so racialized they only take hedged bets so a splashy writer like a Coates or Ridley will get the book based simply on name recognition.

Why not elevate a POC comic writer instead a flash in the pan?

They stupidly let Redjack go over to DC instead of locking him down. He has a ton of success with Panther quest, his KiB tie in was one of the best selling if not the best of all the tie ins, and he wants to write T'Challa, yet he got passed over

[skyvolt2000]

Why does Spider-Man get a thrice monthly book anyway?

PART and I do mean PART of it is due to Peter selling books.

The OTHER part-stores have ZERO issue over ordering his book and having excess copies.

Remember how the gators would scream about unsold copies of Ms Marvel and EVERY POC lead book being in stores to justify their attacks on people?
Well..... they forget stores have the CHOICE to order x number of copies of a book.

Redjack's Solo and Black Panther WOW got ax at issue 2 due to low orders.
Sam Alexander's Nova run never saw a store here.
The INKER for Starbrand & Nightmask said I was pretty much the only person who read the book-that is how bad orders were.

Now how many of us have gone to a comic book store and seen X-Men, Peter Parker and ESPECIALLY BatGOD with books all over the place? In grab bags? Bins? Clearance?
Midtown Comics-there is a REASON they keep having 99 cent sales with books that came out say last two months.

See NO ONE wants to complain about those unsold Peter Parker and X-Men books packing bins or being in sales.
THAT is what is killing your comic book stores.

Now Marvel does not care because once Diamond sells that book-they do not care how many bins it packs. They just know they can't do that with POC lead books.

No one will hate buy a Black Panther book like they do Spider-Man or X-Men.

Black Panther sells they know someone is reading that book.

Cates or Ewing or Hickman is not going to get you 200K a month on Black Panther. Steady numbers like Miles-YES but Peter number-NO. It not that they could not do it. Write Panther-it's why bother?

[MindofShadow]

Lets hope skyvolt is right

But i have little hope left

Need a ridley interview asap

[CosmiComic]

They push Spidey sooo hard, it's kinda ridiculous I mean we get it, but there is such a large swath of comic fans and Black Panther is part of it

Yeah, he's a good character but does he really deserve that much attention? As you said, other characters exist.

PART and I do mean PART of it is due to Peter selling books.

The OTHER part-stores have ZERO issue over ordering his book and having excess copies.

Remember how the gators would scream about unsold copies of Ms Marvel and EVERY POC lead book being in stores to justify their attacks on people?
Well..... they forget stores have the CHOICE to order x number of copies of a book.

Redjack's Solo and Black Panther WOW got ax at issue 2 due to low orders.
Sam Alexander's Nova run never saw a store here.
The INKER for Starbrand & Nightmask said I was pretty much the only person who read the book-that is how bad orders were.

Now how many of us have gone to a comic book store and seen X-Men, Peter Parker and ESPECIALLY BatGOD with books all over the place? In grab bags? Bins? Clearance?
Midtown Comics-there is a REASON they keep having 99 cent sales with books that came out say last two months.

See NO ONE wants to complain about those unsold Peter Parker and X-Men books packing bins or being in sales.
THAT is what is killing your comic book stores.

Now Marvel does not care because once Diamond sells that book-they do not care how many bins it packs. They just know they can't do that with POC lead books.

No one will hate buy a Black Panther book like they do Spider-Man or X-Men.

Black Panther sells they know someone is reading that book.

Cates or Ewing or Hickman is not going to get you 200K a month on Black Panther. Steady numbers like Miles-YES but Peter number-NO. It not that they could not do it. Write Panther-it's why bother?

If I'm following you correctly, guys like Spider-Man don't sell as much as people think, but PoC heroes don't get the same chances. Is that right?

[Frontier]

I guess so. But does he need that much from an artistic viewpoint?

Depends how you look at it.

[DigiCom]

I guess so. But does he need that much from an artistic viewpoint?

The Marvel suits don't give a flying fo'c'sle about "artistic viewpoints". All they care about is short term profits. $$$

When a character is hot (either due to a movie, a TV show, or sheer hype) they get spinoffs and minis and one-shots... milking the audience for all they can. And when the sales tank (as they almost always do, eventually), they slide right back into limbo, at least until the ™ needs refreshing. There are very few characters who have such a fanatical built-in audience that they can easily support multiple books. At Marvel that's currently Spidey... Wolverine & Deadpool used to be safe bets as well, but that hasn't been true for years.

Is it fair? Of course not. The way the industry is wired, it's almost impossible for a book to build an audience in the traditional Direct Market. That's why the relaunches, variant covers, and crossover... to make as much money those first few months as possible. Hell, issue #1 of the new Moon Knight book currently has 33 variant covers. That's almost twice as many covers as there are pages of story!

It wouldn't shock me if the eventual #1 of Black Panther has even more... because the "artistic viewpoint" between the covers is meaningless, if they can get someone to buy a high-ticket cover wrapped around it.

[Huntsman Spider]

PART and I do mean PART of it is due to Peter selling books.

The OTHER part-stores have ZERO issue over ordering his book and having excess copies.

Remember how the gators would scream about unsold copies of Ms Marvel and EVERY POC lead book being in stores to justify their attacks on people?
Well..... they forget stores have the CHOICE to order x number of copies of a book.

Redjack's Solo and Black Panther WOW got ax at issue 2 due to low orders.
Sam Alexander's Nova run never saw a store here.
The INKER for Starbrand & Nightmask said I was pretty much the only person who read the book-that is how bad orders were.

Now how many of us have gone to a comic book store and seen X-Men, Peter Parker and ESPECIALLY BatGOD with books all over the place? In grab bags? Bins? Clearance?
Midtown Comics-there is a REASON they keep having 99 cent sales with books that came out say last two months.

See NO ONE wants to complain about those unsold Peter Parker and X-Men books packing bins or being in sales.
THAT is what is killing your comic book stores.

Now Marvel does not care because once Diamond sells that book-they do not care how many bins it packs. They just know they can't do that with POC lead books.

No one will hate buy a Black Panther book like they do Spider-Man or X-Men.

Black Panther sells they know someone is reading that book.

Cates or Ewing or Hickman is not going to get you 200K a month on Black Panther. Steady numbers like Miles-YES but Peter number-NO. It not that they could not do it. Write Panther-it's why bother?

Hard, solid truth here, sadly.

Yeah, he's a good character but does he really deserve that much attention? As you said, other characters exist.



If I'm following you correctly, guys like Spider-Man don't sell as much as people think, but PoC heroes don't get the same chances. Is that right?

As much as I've loved Spider-Man in all his incarnations from my childhood in the 90s watching TAS to now, I can definitely agree with you on that much. And yeah, mainstream, "Big Two" superhero comics don't sell nearly as much as they used to, not because of increased diversity in the roster of characters pushed to the forefront, but due to seriously bad decisions made back in the 90s for short-term gain that led to long-term pain that the comics industry has still been struggling with to this day. People got burned pretty badly in that time, and that drove a lot of them off for a long time, if not for good.

Not helping matters, either, is that American comics aren't mass-marketed to a general audience outside relatively niche local comic shops in the same way manga --- particularly action (and fanservice)-heavy manga that tend to be popular --- is, so that's another blow to comics' selling ability via reaching a receptive audience. The Comicsgaters will try to say that's just because manga "gives the people what they want," which is to be mindlessly entertained with action and fanservice and not have to be bothered by real-world issues that they already try to shut down and shut out in said real world in the first place. Again, though, the real issue is mass marketing, as manga is available in a lot more mainstream outlets than comics tend to be, and therefore it is expectable that manga will sell more, because it's not being confined to local comic shops that are hard to access or even find for the average person, especially the average person who might not have that much disposable income in the first place.

[CosmiComic]

Depends how you look at it.

Ok

The Marvel suits don't give a flying fo'c'sle about "artistic viewpoints". All they care about is short term profits. $$$

When a character is hot (either due to a movie, a TV show, or sheer hype) they get spinoffs and minis and one-shots... milking the audience for all they can. And when the sales tank (as they almost always do, eventually), they slide right back into limbo, at least until the ™ needs refreshing. There are very few characters who have such a fanatical built-in audience that they can easily support multiple books. At Marvel that's currently Spidey... Wolverine & Deadpool used to be safe bets as well, but that hasn't been true for years.

Is it fair? Of course not. The way the industry is wired, it's almost impossible for a book to build an audience in the traditional Direct Market. That's why the relaunches, variant covers, and crossover... to make as much money those first few months as possible. Hell, issue #1 of the new Moon Knight book currently has 33 variant covers. That's almost twice as many covers as there are pages of story!

It wouldn't shock me if the eventual #1 of Black Panther has even more... because the "artistic viewpoint" between the covers is meaningless, if they can get someone to buy a high-ticket cover wrapped around it.

Scarlet Witch and Vision don't seem to be benefitting from being popular in the MCU though, which is odd because Hank & Jan aren't benefitting from not being popular there.

I see your point though. Frankly I think Spider-Man probably doesn't need more a month than any other hero. Because Marvel seems to act like things are zero sum so that effort could be given to less well known heroes, especially minority ones.

[CosmiComic]

Hard, solid truth here, sadly.



As much as I've loved Spider-Man in all his incarnations from my childhood in the 90s watching TAS to now, I can definitely agree with you on that much. And yeah, mainstream, "Big Two" superhero comics don't sell nearly as much as they used to, not because of increased diversity in the roster of characters pushed to the forefront, but due to seriously bad decisions made back in the 90s for short-term gain that led to long-term pain that the comics industry has still been struggling with to this day. People got burned pretty badly in that time, and that drove a lot of them off for a long time, if not for good.

Not helping matters, either, is that American comics aren't mass-marketed to a general audience outside relatively niche local comic shops in the same way manga --- particularly action (and fanservice)-heavy manga that tend to be popular --- is, so that's another blow to comics' selling ability via reaching a receptive audience. The Comicsgaters will try to say that's just because manga "gives the people what they want," which is to be mindlessly entertained with action and fanservice and not have to be bothered by real-world issues that they already try to shut down and shut out in said real world in the first place. Again, though, the real issue is mass marketing, as manga is available in a lot more mainstream outlets than comics tend to be, and therefore it is expectable that manga will sell more, because it's not being confined to local comic shops that are hard to access or even find for the average person, especially the average person who might not have that much disposable income in the first place.

So if marvel comics cares so much about money, why doesn't it market the comics better? I know the ga still has an attitude about comics but with the popularity of the MCU and Marvel in general there should be opportunities to market comics. They already market other people's products

[Ezyo1000]

Lets hope skyvolt is right

But i have little hope left

Need a ridley interview asap

All we can do is hope. I seriously hope that there's a good reason and not some stupidity that sabotages the book before Ridley cab hot the ground running

[MindofShadow]

Ok



Scarlet Witch and Vision don't seem to be benefitting from being popular in the MCU though, which is odd because Hank & Jan aren't benefitting from not being popular there.

I see your point though. Frankly I think Spider-Man probably doesn't need more a month than any other hero. Because Marvel seems to act like things are zero sum so that effort could be given to less well known heroes, especially minority ones.

There are levels to this.

SW and Vision have had solo books since they were in the MCU.

So they went from "never ever ever ever ever ever" to a small run solo book lol. Little different than say, BP, who had successful runs in the past andn then got relaunched with mcu news (plus hickman)

Plus, SW and Vision haven't had their own movie either.

[DigiCom]

Scarlet Witch and Vision don't seem to be benefitting from being popular in the MCU though, which is odd because Hank & Jan aren't benefitting from not being popular there

The pandemic screwed up schedules. I guarantee that if it hadn't been for the virus, the Darkhold event (starring Wanda) would have been on the shelves at the same time as the series, just like USAgent had his mini simultaneously with FATWS.

[CosmiComic]

There are levels to this.

SW and Vision have had solo books since they were in the MCU.

So they went from "never ever ever ever ever ever" to a small run solo book lol. Little different than say, BP, who had successful runs in the past andn then got relaunched with mcu news (plus hickman)

Plus, SW and Vision haven't had their own movie either.

True, although they did have a show. Honestly, this makes BP look like he's doing better than most.

The pandemic screwed up schedules. I guarantee that if it hadn't been for the virus, the Darkhold event (starring Wanda) would have been on the shelves at the same time as the series, just like USAgent had his mini simultaneously with FATWS.

Yeah, that's true. I heard Darkhold is set before the current X-Men storyline