X-Men Monday #204 – X Me Anything With Jordan D. White

[JB]

For me it doesn't make much difference to be honest. Knowing or not knowing about the amount of issues beforehand doesn't affect my buying behavior at all. I will buy what I like regardless. Who cares if a book gets 5, 20 or 100 issues? As long as the story delivers it's kinda meaningless. This romantic notion of infinite storytelling is impossible anyway. It's not happening and never did. Things are malleable to certain extent but there is still a certain status quo that needs to be adhered to.

Also I found this Q&A with Kelly Thompson where she says thing that are relevant to the topic at hand.
https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/commu...hread/16985723

Captain Marvel is ending after a huge and record-breaking 50 issues run, did you initially plan it as such? Was your original pitch shorter/longer? What is your favorite part or arc from the series? Are there any cut ideas that you can disclose that didn't make it to the final page ?


"My original pitch for Captain Marvel was just a five-issue arc. Though I pitched a few arcs that would have taken us through probably a first year. Famously, the Falling Star arc was supposed to come first, but Marvel got excited about the Nuclear Man stuff and all Carmen's "Mad Max-y" designs and decided to go with that arc first. Everything from then on was just planning arc to arc. I don't think any ideas got cut, it was more just that some things I would have liked to do didn't fit with other things going on in the Marvel U (i.e. I love Mystique and would have been interested in featuring her -- but for where Mystique is at right now it didn't make sense to use her -- and I'm sure I wouldn't have been allowed due to other things going on with her). I had also been wanting to use The Brood (and X-Men!) since day one, but fortunately that one panned out for our final arc -- issue #49 is out today! ;D"

I'm personally not a fan of the current 5-issue arc model as I feel it constrains writers. That's how books are approved now, in increments of 5 issues (sometimes 6). So a writer has to write an arc that either can serve as an ending to the book or can continue. It seems with the X-books it's not really working because we have several stops and relaunches, and now a movement into a majority of minis. Al Ewing mentioned that he ended Red #5 with Magneto keeping himself alive with his chest wide open as somewhat of an insurance policy to guarantee they got another 5 issues. It just seems to me that they're pivoting towards minis because the above model is struggling.

Thompson's run is legendary in this era of the industry. After the final issue is released, X-Force will then be the longest-running title at Marvel. (Outside of maybe Star Wars stuff as I'm not familiar with that world.)

[Uncanny X-Man]

As a European reader I grew up with comics being available in 72-page "anthologies". I'm putting it in inverted commas as they weren't quite real anthologies in the Shonen Jump sense: the Spider-Man monthly or bi-weekly book would collect all the various Amazing, Spectacular, etc., X-Men would be Uncanny, adjectiveless + another US mutant title, and only when a particular property only had a single monthly book in the US would it be paired up with a different property (e.g. Fantastic Four + Daredevil + Hulk would comprise the Fantastic Four 72-page monthly book)

Drastically lowering prices and collecting floppies in anthologies or mini-anthologies is the only way comics could be somewhat competitive with other forms of entertainment. The videogame comparison Galerion already made is quite striking... or think about the hours of entertainment even a single month of Netflix or Disney+ can give you compared to the same $ amount spent on floppies.

Another way could be to retire print for floppies, make monthly books available only digitally at a fraction of the cost, and then collect them into print TPB and hardcovers a couple of times a year. Marvel Unlimited could make everything available as soon as it comes out and book lovers would still get everything in print a few months later.

Either option would obviously be a huge shift from the collector's mentality Marvel itself has cultivated over the last couple of decades and I don't believe the industry will dramatically change course anytime soon unless/until it stops being profitable, at which point it will have no choice but to change or die.

[JB]

As a European reader I grew up with comics being available in 72-page "anthologies". I'm putting it in inverted commas as they weren't quite real anthologies in the Shonen Jump sense: the Spider-Man monthly or bi-weekly book would collect all the various Amazing, Spectacular, etc., X-Men would be Uncanny, adjectiveless + another US mutant title, and only when a particular property only had a single monthly book in the US would it be paired up with a different property (e.g. Fantastic Four + Daredevil + Hulk would comprise the Fantastic Four 72-page monthly book)

Drastically lowering prices and collecting floppies in anthologies or mini-anthologies is the only way comics could be somewhat competitive with other forms of entertainment. The videogame comparison Galerion already made is quite striking... or think about the hours of entertainment even a single month of Netflix or Disney+ can give you compared to the same $ amount spent on floppies.

Another way could be to retire print for floppies, make monthly books available only digitally at a fraction of the cost, and then collect them into print TPB and hardcovers a couple of times a year. Marvel Unlimited could make everything available as soon as it comes out and book lovers would still get everything in print a few months later.

Either option would obviously be a huge shift from the collector's mentality Marvel itself has cultivated over the last couple of decades and I don't believe the industry will dramatically change course anytime soon unless/until it stops being profitable, at which point it will have no choice but to change or die.

Very well said. I noticed that Marvel Unlimited has started releasing some books on the app earlier than usual and even some on the same day as the floppy release (Storm #1). If they continue to move into a mini era then they could easily collect them at once in print like you said and just release the single issues digitally. But that would indeed require a big shift because at the moment the shops are their main priority and what the shops order make or break titles.

[Galerion]

I'm personally not a fan of the current 5-issue arc model as I feel it constrains writers. That's how books are approved now, in increments of 5 issues (sometimes 6). So a writer has to write an arc that either can serve as an ending to the book or can continue. It seems with the X-books it's not really working because we have several stops and relaunches, and now a movement into a majority of minis. Al Ewing mentioned that he ended Red #5 with Magneto keeping himself alive with his chest wide open as somewhat of an insurance policy to guarantee they got another 5 issues. It just seems to me that they're pivoting towards minis because the above model is struggling.

Thompson's run is legendary in this era of the industry. After the final issue is released, X-Force will then be the longest-running title at Marvel. (Outside of maybe Star Wars stuff as I'm not familiar with that world.)

I brought up Thompson specifically because she said her initial pitch was 5 issues and she then worked from arc to arc. This was in 2019 so this all is not even a recent development. That being said it's also clear that certain writers/titles get a pass to do whatever they want.

[RAWRlrus]

As a European reader I grew up with comics being available in 72-page "anthologies". I'm putting it in inverted commas as they weren't quite real anthologies in the Shonen Jump sense: the Spider-Man monthly or bi-weekly book would collect all the various Amazing, Spectacular, etc., X-Men would be Uncanny, adjectiveless + another US mutant title, and only when a particular property only had a single monthly book in the US would it be paired up with a different property (e.g. Fantastic Four + Daredevil + Hulk would comprise the Fantastic Four 72-page monthly book)

Drastically lowering prices and collecting floppies in anthologies or mini-anthologies is the only way comics could be somewhat competitive with other forms of entertainment. The videogame comparison Galerion already made is quite striking... or think about the hours of entertainment even a single month of Netflix or Disney+ can give you compared to the same $ amount spent on floppies.

Another way could be to retire print for floppies, make monthly books available only digitally at a fraction of the cost, and then collect them into print TPB and hardcovers a couple of times a year. Marvel Unlimited could make everything available as soon as it comes out and book lovers would still get everything in print a few months later.

Either option would obviously be a huge shift from the collector's mentality Marvel itself has cultivated over the last couple of decades and I don't believe the industry will dramatically change course anytime soon unless/until it stops being profitable, at which point it will have no choice but to change or die.

Is the European market doing better than the American one? While I like the idea of the anthologies I'd miss the variants. Some are really nice and I don't know if they would include them in the anthologies. The way variants are handled is absolutely a problem with determining how well a book is doing and just feels super complicated and unnecessarily so.

I know people like using Marvel Unlimited (I haven't used it) but I would not want to switch over to something purely digital. If there was a guarantee of getting a physical copy with the digital it would be one thing, but I'm always concerned that the digital will just go away and then I've spend money on nothing.

I brought up Thompson specifically because she said her initial pitch was 5 issues and she then worked from arc to arc. This was in 2019 so this all is not even a recent development. That being said it's also clear that certain writers/titles get a pass to do whatever they want.

I feel like the big books (Immortal, X-Men, an Avengers Books, Amazing Spider-Man) are probably ones that get the passes because they're essentially the flagship titles for those groups/characters. I also wonder if writers prefer doing it arc to arc like Thompson mentioned out of concern that books might get cancelled. They can't write the longer stories but increases the chances that their stories will be completed.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Is the European market doing better than the American one?

Different markets are faring differently but countries like France, Spain, Belgium and Italy are huge for comics of many shapes, forms and origins.

American comics are quite big, and so are country-specific BD or fumetti productions, and manga is huge. Comparatively, they're doing immensely better than the US.

[Rift]

And how do Europeans feel about Hellion? Maybe his overseas popularity can transfer into sales over here.

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Edit: nevermind, people are reading manga

[Daedra]

And how do Europeans feel about Hellion? Maybe his overseas popularity can transfer into sales over here.

We literally designed hellion-free dedicated zones… make of it what you will!

[Rift]

We literally designed hellion-free dedicated zones… make of it what you will!

Hell yeah, zones where Hellion can be free