DC's and Marvel's problems

[Mister Mets]

Japanese manga and European comics (like Asterix) do much better in sales than DC and Marvel, and so any explanation for the Big 2's problems should take that into account.

For example, if I weren't aware that some foreign comics do much, much better in sales than American comics, I probably would've guessed that there is just too much entertainment competition these days for comics to thrive between video games, streaming TV shows and movies, and just various other entertainment you can use the internet for, which wasn't available to consumers prior to the late 90s / early 00s. However, that explanation becomes unsatisfactory since those entertainment options are available in other countries as well.

Personally, I think the current state of writing in American comics is awful (especially at the Big 2) and that plays a major role, and what others have said about the lack of an indirect market also plays a role, especially with regards to the inability to capitalize on superhero movies being so popular over the past decade. I don't know exactly what DC and Marvel should've done (maybe spinner racks in movie theaters complete with comics labeled "The Story Continues..." with stories spinning out of the movies) but it seems pretty likely an opportunity was missed.

Asterix is a monster hit, but what about the 15th biggest ongoing French comic book series?

Marvel and DC comics are sold through specialty stores that are often seedy on the outside, are dingy on the inside, are crowded with slovenly middle-aged men, and are not places that are kid-friendly. The only customers for that product are the same group of guys who have been patronizing those stores for decades and are now gradually aging out of the hobby. It has to be the same group of guys, because no one could possibly pick up most of the main titles and have a clue what's going on, unless they had already read years' worth of issues of those same titles and many others that form the background for the current stories. To keep this core audience coming back, DC and Marvel rely on a constant stream of super-mega-crossover "events" that disrupt all the continuing stories and that end up back where they started. This seems to be the only thing that the Big Two know how to do, since hype has long replaced creativity as the means for selling the books. The parent corporations regard the comics as simply intellectual properties for retail marketing and especially for movie and TV adaptations, since they apparently know of no way to make the comic books themselves be anything other than a mere footnote on the Disney and ATT balance sheets. Meanwhile, companies like Scholastic sell graphic novels to kids at book fairs, in "real" bookstores, and via Amazon, routinely racking up numbers beyond anything that DC or Marvel would even dare dream of.

An additional problem with the comic store market is that it's facing more changes and competition.

You could get major graphic novels cheaper online, so there's less reason to go there.

The back issue market has also changed, thanks to the internet and digital reprints.

It sounds to me that if real change doesnt happen both companies are going to die

That won't happen.

The properties are too valuable for Disney and Warner Brothers. Comics is essentially a R&D department that pays for itself.