Could the Flashpoint reboot have been avoided?

[superduperman]

Many fans are obviously still unhappy with the New52 reboot and I understand why but from a financial standpoint, it was what DC thought was their best option at the time. That having been said, is there any way they could have avoided it? If so, what? What other options did DC have besides a hard reboot that could have boosted sales?

[colonyofcells]

Reboots are not avoidable. Dc could've done reboots title by title. Simultaneous reboots of multiple titles is great for marketing.

[Pharozonk]

ADVERTISING

The only positive I could give the Nu52 is that DC made a more active effort to market their comics beyond just ads in comics themselves. Using multimedia advertising is a great way to reach an audience that may never have looked at your product before. If DC had simply made a more conscious effort to advertise their product, they could have gotten new readers that way. Furthermore, by also expanding into digital comics, they could reach potential readers who didn't live close to comic shops and still wanted to read their books. Rebooting was never the answer; smarter advertising was.

[Darrin Kelley]

What they should have done was not the easy route. It would have taken abandoning the destructive business practices of the 90's and focused on quality stories as their main selling points. Instead of sales tricks like reboots, events, and mega-crossovers.

The comic book buying public wants simple honesty in what they intend to buy. And it's more than time that was catered to.

[Pharozonk]

What they should have done was not the easy route. It would have taken abandoning the destructive business practices of the 90's and focused on quality stories as their main selling points. Instead of sales tricks like reboots, events, and mega-crossovers.

The comic book buying public wants simple honesty in what they intend to buy. And it's more than time that was catered to.

Even though I agree with you, that would never work. Modern comics fans blindly buy all these event books, allowing companies to continue to churn out craptastic event after event.

[colonyofcells]

Reboots are needed to make it easier to tell good stories.

[Darrin Kelley]

Reboots are needed to make it easier to tell good stories.

No. Not at all.

Reboots allow people to recycle old stories that have already been told. Instead of coming up with new stories to engage the customers. Recycling stories is seen as easy money. Nothing more.

It is pandering to lazy writers who don't want to adhere at all to any form of internal consistancy in the material they produce. Writers who don't care to do the work to truly know or understand the material they are writing for. And that absolutely does show in what they produce.

[GlennSimpson]

No. Not at all.

Reboots allow people to recycle old stories that have already been told. Instead of coming up with new stories to engage the customers. Recycling stories is seen as easy money. Nothing more.

It is pandering to lazy writers who don't want to adhere at all to any form of internal consistancy in the material they produce. Writers who don't care to do the work to truly know or understand the material they are writing for. And that absolutely does show in what they produce.

...which are the only kind of writers, 99% of the time, who want to work on corporately-owned super-hero comics.

But when they aren't recycling old stories, they are sometimes telling good stories that wouldn't have fit in the previous continuity.

[Pharozonk]

No. Not at all.

Reboots allow people to recycle old stories that have already been told. Instead of coming up with new stories to engage the customers. Recycling stories is seen as easy money. Nothing more.

It is pandering to lazy writers who don't want to adhere at all to any form of internal consistancy in the material they produce. Writers who don't care to do the work to truly know or understand the material they are writing for. And that absolutely does show in what they produce.

There's no point in debating with him. His posts are all non sequiturs that don't make sense.

[Darrin Kelley]

Even though I agree with you, that would never work. Modern comics fans blindly buy all these event books, allowing companies to continue to churn out craptastic event after event.

I have put my money where my mouth is with my own publishing company. We are small. But we are operating exactly in the methods I have described. And the feedback we have gotten from our customers has been nothing but positive.

They like the fact that every book we put out is a single self-contained story with no sales tricks. They like the fact that we treat them completely honestly.

And while we are not on the same level of sales as the big publishers, we get a high percentage of straight up customer loyalty once people give our books a chance.

All of this has come from actually listening to what comic book consumers want in the products they buy.

[colonyofcells]

Reboots are a good way to make self contained stories easier to do. With the current secret wars, it looks like marvel is getting into the reboot business too. I am not really sure why it took so long for the geniuses at marvel to copy coie 1.

[GlennSimpson]

Yes, the people who were invested in that continuity should have bought more comics, and done more to bring in more readers through word of mouth.

[RobinFan4880]

What they should have done was not the easy route. It would have taken abandoning the destructive business practices of the 90's and focused on quality stories as their main selling points. Instead of sales tricks like reboots, events, and mega-crossovers.

The comic book buying public wants simple honesty in what they intend to buy. And it's more than time that was catered to.

Comics buyers do not reward that behavior. They reward mega events, reboots and cross-overs.

[GlennSimpson]

Comics buyers do not reward that behavior. They reward mega events, reboots and cross-overs.

Nor have they ever. Comics have always been about putting an exciting cover (often with a gorilla) to "trick" someone into buying a book.

Julius Schwartz used to make up ideas for crazy covers then have a writer create a story to match the cover. There has never been a time when comics did/could rely on pure quality of storytelling.

[RobinFan4880]

Nor have they ever. Comics have always been about putting an exciting cover (often with a gorilla) to "trick" someone into buying a book.

Julius Schwartz used to make up ideas for crazy covers then have a writer create a story to match the cover. There has never been a time when comics did/could rely on pure quality of storytelling.

I always love reading/hearing that story.