For Comics to Survive, They Must Align with Movies & TV

[CBR News]

CBR examines where comic publishers need to adjust the kinds of stories being told -- and when -- to keep movie and TV fans from ignoring comics.


Full article here.

[Darth Phoenix]

crap like this is what got Rouge depowered and the Xmen in boring black costumes for awhile.

[GlennSimpson]

"and are ready to take it to the next level: you want to read the comics."

Less than 1% of the audience is ever going to "want to take it to that level".

Most TV viewers don't read for pleasure.

[MindofShadow]

This si going to be goooooooooooood

[prigmutton]

I kind of feel like I might be responding to click bait, but a couple of counterpoints

1. Wasn't this at least somewhat tried when the first X-Men movie came out, to not much effect?

2. I believe that it would become much harder to attract top talent if the big two restructure their output to what is essentially fanfic of TV shows

[Prisoner 6655321]

I'm for the third option. Comics should be the source, other mediums should draw from them and generally not the other way around. If you ask me, most of the "confusion" from comic book readers comes from other mediums pulling only the most "iconic elements" putting the universes (at least in the public view) in a sort of static prison.

[Stryfe8]

CBR examines where comic publishers need to adjust the kinds of stories being told -- and when -- to keep movie and TV fans from ignoring comics.


Full article here.

Fuck those die hards you say? Newsflash.. I was one of those die hards. I bought most marvel comics, and half of dc's output every month.

And here's what happened.. Marvel shat on their continuity, on their characters and started their retarded seasonal approach to comics.. And i stopped buying. I went from 20-40 marvel comics to one, and then go zero. Because they thought, fuck em, we need the new readers, the old ones will stick around anyway.

Dc put out the new 52,which i liked.. But since halve of the line consisted of series and characters i had no interest in, and the other halve had some hits and misses, i dropped them to.. Another 10-20 gone.

So yeah.. They can say fuck em, but when your audience is dwindling, and you aren't giving those new readers something to stick around for, you're better off keeping the readers you have.

Now, what they should do, is create an interlocking tv comic line.. Where people who want to read about the tv characters can, with the added bonus of getting to have any crossover you want

[Derek Metaltron]

Marvel and DC both have comics digitally set in the worlds of the films, games and tv shows, so they should just try and promote those more. Rebooting that extreme just to sate people who will wholly never read the comics no matter what you do is pointless. And Marvel and DC have both decided with Secret Wars and the upcoming Rebirth that they're not rebooting anything. Tweaking maybe, but never the full whack.

[Captain Nash]

Sure, I'll go pick up those Legion and Hellfire Club comics I just know that Marvel is going to produce to support Fox's X-Men movie line. Just like i know Marvel is going to give the X-Men a big push to advertise the non DisMarvel owned films. Or does that only work when the books and the movie companies are under the same umbrella? Honestly, this entire article, I really couldn't get out of my mind how badly this would screw the X-Men line over. That is likely just my own interpretation of it, but it definitely reads that way to me, that the writer is subliminally encouraging the X-Men titles to die off.

[Bri]

Marvel should have links on the NETFLIX website that would give away free first issues of related MARVEL titles. It could eventually lead to at least a small percentage of DAREDEVIL or ALIAS viewers becoming regular comic readers. Even a fraction of a percent would probably be huge numbers for comics publishers.

[MindofShadow]

Maybe bc I came in as a cartoon/movie fan who became a comic fan but.....


If Marvel truly put out good books about the MCU, consistently, like they do with Star Wars.... I would eat it up.

[lucius121]

Honestly, this is one sided and completely ignores the fact that TV show get cancelled all the time. What if DC decides to put out a Supergirl comic based purely on the TV show version and the show get's cancelled after one season. All they would achieve would be alienating there current customers for the sake of a correlation that doesn't exist, the mediums are totally different.

[Flash Gordon]

Ridiculous article. Comics are their own entity, I hate when "comics" is used as a term only for superhero stuff.

Article should say "For Marvel to Survive, They Must Align With Movies and TV".

[dan12456]

I'm gonna limit this to referencing two sections of the article:
1: "Could you imagine a world where Marvel publishes an ongoing "Captain America" comic book that takes place between the first and second movie; then adapts "Winter Soldier"; then continues from there? That would feel as essential, as vital to purchase for a movie fan and comic book fan as anything else on the stands today. Sure, Marvel creates miniseries that "fill in the gaps" between the movies, but I'm talking about something that any movie fan could pick up at any time.

Or how about if "The Flash," instead of "just" being a digital series, was the springboard for a line of comics? I'd love to read the continuing adventures of Earth-2 as seen through the lens of the TV series; or even a miniseries that shows what happened when Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell) and Martin Stein (Victor Garber) went off on their little Firestorm training session trip last season."

Pretty much what you are advocating for here is that comics just become about the "B" stories. The side stuff that isn't as important as the main plot. Cap couldn't have any major character development in between those movies because it will lose all the movie goers who don't read the story. People who only read comics now don't get large scale stories. Sure the Firestorm training session could be fun, but from watching the show I'm pretty sure nothing significant happened or it would've been referenced. Comics aren't an inferior medium and shouldn't be made to be one. I love Arrow a ton, but I don't read the season 2.5 stuff because I know nothing important happens in them. And heck the shows are even fine directly contradicting them as they did with King Shark, showing that they literally don't consider its stories important enough to respect their relevance in continuity.

2. "We're already seeing "Civil War," a story from about ten years ago, loosely adapted on screen. "Suicide Squad" takes more cues visually from the recent "Arkham Asylum" video games than the decades of continuity before it. "Jessica Jones" was based on a comic from 2001-2004. And "Deadpool" pulled from the character's entire history; but that history is only 25 years-old, a relative baby in comic book time.

We've seen the origin stories for the heroes, we've seen riffs on those origin stories, and now the studios are skipping ahead to pull all the other prize material. And we've seen this buying frenzy for ideas happen with Image Comics, BOOM!, IDW, Dark Horse and the rest; but somehow this urge to create new material has passed by "mainstream" superhero comics.

The studios need your material, but in order for them to use it, you have to create it.

So stop pouring resources into endless sequels and variations on movie and TV properties. That false bravado I mentioned above? Let it turn into a healthy swagger. Allow yourselves to experiment, to change, and grow. And not just with the creative, but with the publishing schedules, and how you engage fans and stores."

This directly contradicts the entire rest of the article obviously. Which makes me wonder why you made me read it if you were going to make such a strong case against your point.
And obviously this is preferable imo as one of those elusive readers who actually got into the industry due to the shows. Lemire's Green Arrow is the first comic series I ever read, and I chose it because I love the show. As a show fan first it had enough familiar characters (Shado, Diggle, Oliver and Count Vertigo) for me to feel right at home, but the story was just as epic and ambitious as the show is. It definitely interested me more than the pointless tie ins. And now people are always asking for the Outsiders War to be adapted. Arrow Season 2.5 and that weird Felicity arc, not so much.

[Superlol]

DC on TV sucks!!! I hope that the comics stay away from that as much as they can.
Yes, a lot of people like the shows...and yes, we got to see a lot of references and stuff from the comics...and yes, we got see some cool CGI once in a while...but the shows truly suck!!!
They are basically soap operas with a boring filler atmosphere...nothing looks like it matters and everything spins around romance, I've tried, and tried and tried to like those shows...but they so boring...and stupid...I'm almost sure that if the DC name wasn't involved maybe more people could see what these shows really are.