Why niche titles are a bad idea

[Trey Strain]

Name a successful "small" comic out there. Almost everything that DC and Marvel publishes is either a safe seller or it struggles to survive at all. Those are the two tiers, and there'e very little between them. You have to shoot for the rop tier every time you launch a comic. Nothing else makes sense. If you have any reason that a concept won't get there, then why do it?

[BatmanJones]

I love niche titles. Half the stuff I think are great are pretty nichey. Besides you never know what will blossom into something that does become a best seller. If no one ever bothered to publish "nichey" books I don't think any titles such as Sandman or Animal Man or Enigma would exist. Art, regardless the medium, needs to go places previously uncharted and take risks that are hopefully interesting mistakes regardless the monetary success.

I don't know Enigma but you're certainly right about Sandman and Animal Man, two of the most incredible runs ever. I'd add The Watchmen (the definition of niche), Swamp Thing, anything with Constantine/Hellblazer, JLI, Wolfman/Perez NTT, Dial H (incredible), Shade, the Changing Man by Milligan (incredible), Flex Mentallo (same), Doom Patrol (in so many iterations), Legion of Super-Heroes, Lobo, Omega Men, Grayson, Ambush Bug, Peyer/Rags' Hourman, Suicide Squad, Secret Six... I could go on and on and on and on and on. Just about every great idea DC has ever had was niche before it was popular.

[BatmanJones]

Name a successful "small" comic out there. Almost everything that DC and Marvel publishes is either a safe seller or it struggles to survive at all. Those are the two tiers, and there'e very little between them. You have to shoot for the rop tier every time you launch a comic. Nothing else makes sense. If you have any reason that a concept won't get there, then why do it?

Because it is NEVER about concepts and ALWAYS about creators. This is the central failing in every premise you pose here.

[GlennSimpson]

Because it is NEVER about concepts and ALWAYS about creators. This is the central failing in every premise you pose here.

So Batman has only EVER had great creators working on him, and that's why he's so popular?

[BatmanJones]

So Batman has only EVER had great creators working on him, and that's why he's so popular?

Batman too was a success because of great creators who invented everything about him. At this point he's popular enough to endure bad creators but it's not editors making him popular and that's really my point. Great Batman comics too come from great artists and writers, not from great editors or new concepts.

[BatmanJones]

Name a successful "small" comic out there. Almost everything that DC and Marvel publishes is either a safe seller or it struggles to survive at all. Those are the two tiers, and there'e very little between them. You have to shoot for the rop tier every time you launch a comic. Nothing else makes sense. If you have any reason that a concept won't get there, then why do it?

I'll play. The Watchmen.

[Pat Thomas]

Walking Dead started out as a little independent book. Hawkeye did pretty well for Marvel until the delays.
Harley Quinn was by no means a guaranteed success.

[Pat Thomas]

Name a successful "small" comic out there. Almost everything that DC and Marvel publishes is either a safe seller or it struggles to survive at all. Those are the two tiers, and there'e very little between them. You have to shoot for the rop tier every time you launch a comic. Nothing else makes sense. If you have any reason that a concept won't get there, then why do it?

You don't own a business, do you? Every idea isn't designed to set the world on fire, and some things require a deliberate pace with
failures along the way. A business can't stand still doing the same thing over and over without being left behind. Marvel and DC are
taking risks in the hope they'll get some new customers. Why is that alien to you?

[Doctor Bifrost]

The possible new comics that message board posters seem to feel the most passion about are niche titles.

But think about it. It's hard as hell to sell and keep in print a title that you've designed to sell big. How much harder is it to sell and keep in print a title that you've designed to sell small?

Don't even go there.

You're right, it should be all Bat-characters all the time.

Look:

(1) Nobody knows in advance when a book or character is going to be a "niche" project or turn into a big success. Editors, writers, and artists try things without knowing. You can do all the focus groups and trend analyses you want - history shows that you still won't know. So you try things out - especially if you have skilled creators who have expressed an interest in doing them - and you see what happens.

(2) Everyone will disagree on what constitutes a "niche" project and what doesn't. The fact that most of the people on this board think your idea of a Plastic Man/Elongated Man team-up book is a funny joke doesn't dissuade you from bringing it up. Nor should it, really, but try to understand how subjective this all is.

(3) "Don't even go there"? Who are you, exactly? The job of posters on boards like these is not to make DC comics a financial success - they may hope it's a financial success, or (like you) have ideas that they think will make it a financial success, but they understand that they have no direct influence and therefore no direct responsibility. What fans do here is talk about what they like or don't like, and why. They talk about what they would like to read.

And other people read those posts because they find those subjects, and the discussions they engender, interesting. Everyone should feel free to discuss these things without worrying "Oh, no, what if I make a suggestion that's not financially feasible, and DC reads it and picks it up, and the company is destroyed??!?!" Which is not a likely turn of events.

Also without worrying that other fans will come along and say "that wouldn't sell well, so don't even go there!" As if the other fan actually knows. Or as if that's the point of discussion.

[inisideguy]

Some of these threads. I am reading astro city city right now. The poster boy for a niche comic and it's been around 20 years.

[Trey Strain]

If you launch a Martian Manhunter ongoing, is it going to be a niche title or a mainstream comic? What do your experiences as a publisher tell you?

And The Watchman was a limited series. DC should have those going all the time. They will tend to sell, although probably not as well as The Watchmen. Almost any mini or limited series will make money. Ongoings are a different animal.

The Martian Manhunter should star in occasional minis or limited series, not in ongoings. He'd do fine there.

[Trey Strain]

Dr. Fate and Firestorm also belong in minis rather than ongoings. Probably Blue Beetle too, but let’s see how the current title performs before we make that call. I’m sure you can think of others.

Have I said anything controversial there? I don’t think so.

[codystarbuck]

"I think the problem that a lot of fans have is that they don't realize how hard it is to sell a comic."

Really? Jeff Smith's Bone, Raina Telgemeier's Smile, Drama and Sisters; Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Big Nate, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Maus, Persepolis, Alison Bechdel's Are You My mother? A whole bunch of manga. Why? Because their publisher's aren't locked into the direct market mentality. They went to the mass audience and brought their work to them and found people who appreciated them, without ever setting foot inside a comic shop. DC and Marvel have been stuck catering to a smaller and smaller audience because they focused solely on the direct market, because they could (mostly) predict how it would react. Publishers like Scholastic went to where everyone else was and said, "Take a look at this!" and people responded. DC was doing that in the late 80s, once they got some mainstream attention. They seemed to have forgot about all of that. Instead of wasting money on a new headquarters they didn't need and pushing the latest revamp of the last revamp, they should have spent more marketing dollars on a real audience. That's what happens in the rest of the world, where comics flourish, and in the rest of the publishing world, where there is a whole generation of comic lovers. they just get theirs in book form, instead of magazine.

[Crazy Diamond]

If you launch a Martian Manhunter ongoing, is it going to be a niche title or a mainstream comic? What do your experiences as a publisher tell you?

And The Watchman was a limited series. DC should have those going all the time. They will tend to sell, although probably not as well as The Watchmen. Almost any mini or limited series will make money. Ongoings are a different animal.

The Martian Manhunter should star in occasional minis or limited series, not in ongoings. He'd do fine there.

Watchmen sold better when it was put out repeatedly in softcover and hardcover than it did as single issues. Just because a book doesn't sell well to the direct market crowd doesn't mean that it will fail or be "niche"

Superhero comics are niche in general. Even in the US they don't sell that well due to several factors. Look at how well Superman has been doing over the past 10 or so years.

[BatmanJones]

If you launch a Martian Manhunter ongoing, is it going to be a niche title or a mainstream comic? What do your experiences as a publisher tell you?

And The Watchman was a limited series. DC should have those going all the time. They will tend to sell, although probably not as well as The Watchmen. Almost any mini or limited series will make money. Ongoings are a different animal.

The Martian Manhunter should star in occasional minis or limited series, not in ongoings. He'd do fine there.

Moving the goalposts are we? Okay. Fine. Squirrel Girl. Or any of the 10-15 other niche titles I already listed that turned into huge successes.