The Comic Book Audience: Does anyone here side with or disagree with what this creator is saying?

[The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n]

Considering some of my most favorite comics have strong female leads, no I don't agree with Larime. Rat Queens represents the LGBT community well and has a very ethnic diverse cast. It's in my top 5 list for sure.

I think the bigger issue here is the price of comics. People have a limited budget so people are not picking up as many titles as they used to. I know this is the case for me. There's tons of comics that I would love to pick up but right now I feel my monthly pull list is already out of control. I now only pick up only my most favorite books monthly and trade wait for books that have gotten good reviews that I feel I would enjoy.

How well are those books selling?

[Groo Odyssey]

How well are those books selling?

Rat Queens is awesome and has a rabid fan base. It's not nearly selling as well as it should like most Image titles. However it's one of those titles that are growing in popularity and sales of each subsequent issue actually INCREASES unlike most Marvel/DC titles.

[Vibranium]

genuinely good stuff will get noticed and word of mouth will spread

ie Rat Queens and Saga

[Brandon Hanvey]

Taylor has gotten some decent sales and audience.

Taylor started out on Kickstarter with Dark Zoey which is basically A Voice In The Dark before it got picked up by Top Cow/Image. He got $9,404 (over his $1,500 goal) from 652 backers.

Issue #1 from Image was estimated to have sold around 10,230 and placed 189 on the top 300 chart. A pretty good start for a new creator Image book. For reference, Rat Queens #1 sold 21,745.

But issue #2 went down to 5,222 and placed 289. That's about a 50% drop in sales. After that, the issues don't chart which means he dropped below 5,000. Rat Queens #2 dropped to 12,335. Which is about 43% drop. The most recent charted Rat Queen, #7 in July, sold 12,903 so it has held steady for about 5 issues.

The first TPB of A Voice In The Dark sold 748 and charted at 189 in July.
For the second TPB, Taylor went to Kickstarter and got sightly over his $6,000 goal from about 250 backers.

Taylor basically faces a market (the direct market) which unless you are a break out hit, you'll probably not make a living off it. But he has a decent sized audience that supports his art. He could switch to the Kickstarter method and get some decent support. Or even the web model. Or a combination of the two where he post new comics on a ad-supported site and then collects them in a TPB and puts it up on Kickstarter.

[Carabas]

Haha...I laugh sadly. How I wish we could get another Bendis/Maleev Spider-Woman.

It's first story arc tied into two seperate bloody events. Good riddance.

[dupont2005]

It doesn't have much of anything to do with the gender or ethnicity of the lead character. Put that ethnic minority woman in spandex and have her dry humping a leather clad villain on a rooftop in Gotham, slap a Marvel or DC logo on the cover, and you're selling forty thousand copies a month.

[dupont2005]

genuinely good stuff will get noticed and word of mouth will spread

ie Rat Queens and Saga

Every Image launch title is a huge hit, and has been for several years.

Comics that aren't published by Image don't have the speculator money to count on.

[MykeHavoc]

I was breezing thru the thread and was about to reply without watching his trailer. I'm glad I decided to check it out tho, because that is f**king amazing. The guy draws with his face. I'm at a bit of a loss how this guy hasn't gotten a higher profile myself. Why wouldn't one of the bigger companies get this guy on their payroll? Assign him work. I'm not sure how quick his art is produced, but give him a mini with a high profile character to tell at his pace. I think if he could get some work for hire, he'd find more success. Its a matter of if he's interested in doing that kind of work. There are a number of LGBTQ characters and high profile minorities to work from. Hell, this guy would be the definite person to tell a story about the disabled. I doubt there's anyone in comics who would know better the difficulties and to tell an amazing tale of what he's able to accomplish.

[Marvel_Is]

There are two things that sell in today's comics industry: Superheroes and well-known talent. This book has neither.

[CSTowle]

I think the market is pretty tapped out for people buying superhero comics though. We've seen dozens of movies now (some massively successful financially) with all sorts of tie-ins and not seen any noticeable uptick in new readership. The Walking Dead and the occasional My Little Pony or Doctor Who have brought a few new people to my regular shop, but they mainly get what brought them there and tend not to venture into new things without being pushed.

And since most of them are adults (yes, even for My Little Pony which actually are kind of cute) it's really hard to get them to take drawn men and women in colorful costumes beating each other up seriously. It's sort of something you have to be on board for before you hit 14-15 (probably younger), and hard to convince people to try them after that. Something like Saga however, or Rat Queens, or even Hellboy (looks like a superhero book and functions like one sometimes but I wouldn't lump it in) is a much easier sell to a potential new adult reader. If we're going to grow the hobby it'll probably have to go that route. Maybe in 5-10 years when these kids growing up on Iron Man, Captain America, and the Guardians of the Galaxy movies/toys/cartoons/etc. are looking for new ways to enjoy their favorite characters it'll grow the superhero market (assuming they don't pump out too many bad sequels and end up killing the genre), but for now I'd like to see more of a focus on non-superhero fare (even from Marvel/DC).

[Vibranium]

and your opinion is a minority one at this time, obviously not enough to support the options out there now

I buy Rat Queens because of its fantastical structure, the title mentioned in the OP holds no interest to me and Im not going to support it just because it has a minority lead character

[Carabas]

It just seems to me that the guy is doing a terrible job of marketing his book
It seems to be sold on the basis of a) it having a female person of colour as the main character, and b) the guy draws it with his mouth. For most people, that's just not good enough. If I want to know more, like what the book is actually about, beyond a girl that wants to kill but doesn't, I need to start to do research.

[The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n]

How exactly should he market it? In what venues?

[Groo Odyssey]

How exactly should he market it? In what venues?

He's marketing it right now by going on a controversial rant and bringing attention to the title. I suspect most of the people in this thread has never heard of the title until now.

[The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n]

To be fair, even most minority, female and LGBT-focused titles struggle to sell, unless they're Golden Age characters or have strong ties to one.

I think people have brought up a pretty good point with the superhero thing, given that even non-superhero books from the Big 2 usually tank or don't manage to sell that well, no-matter how well-received they are.

He's marketing it right now by going on a controversial rant and bringing attention to the title. I suspect most of the people in this thread has never heard of the title until now.

How should he have marketed it before-hand? How should he have marketed it from the start?