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Defiant1 Posts: 720
12/10/2020
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fdaz89 wrote:
Defiant1, I agree with you 100% (about your assessment of the comics industry, not about you being a negative person). Having corporations like Disney own so much of it doesn't help. One thing I noticed is that all the ads are missing in comics, reading the ads added to the appeal of comics for me in my youth. Ad revenue would (or should) lower the price of comics, but so would going back to newsprint. Making superstars out of people who couldn't tell a story (like Rob Liefeld), I think negatively affected the hobby. I think the speculation market doesn't help, either. All the things that provide a barrier to new people from picking up the collecting bug should be examined and eliminated where possible.
In the 90's a lot of the comics switched to higher quality paper because the advertisers wanted their ads to look good and the cheap paper wouldn't reproduce the colors and details they wanted to use.
Advertisers quit buying ads in comics. There wasn't enough bang for the buck. I agree they should at least try to sell ads. Speculation helps the publishers immensely because it allows them to print more. If they can print more, the cost to print each comic comes down. Most of what you are paying for when you buy a comic is the production costs and setup costs for printing.
If you print a million copies of something, the cost per unit is pocket change. If you print 100 of something, it costs paper money.
Think of it like this.
If I pay an artist $100 to produce one page of art and make 5 photocopies. I'd have to sell the 5 copies for about $20.02 each to break even on production costs. I haven't even paid myself a dime. That's just to break even on what i paid the artist and what I paid for the paper.
If I print 10,000 photocopies of that art I only need to sell them all for 3 cents each to break even. The catch is, i have to sell all 10,000.
As volume increases, the publisher makes more profit on each comic sold.
That's why they produce all the variant covers. If they can sell a significantly larger number of interior pages just by swapping out a cover, it helps them break even on production costs faster.
The problem is, it runs off "collectors" over time because they can't keep up. They don't get a sense of satisfaction by owning 5 versions of the same comic. It dissuades customer loyalty.
Defiant1
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StrafeFireRun Posts: 4
3/10/2021
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The problem with DC is how overpowered they represent their heroes. That is the reason that their villains are so great, they have to try and figure out how to beat impossible odds. This was bad enough with Superman being the answer to everything and it's getting worse as Flash is becoming more powerful with his Infinite Mass Punch. DCs villains have to be better to pose any kind of threat.
Another factor for Marvel superiority is in its Editing. Compare the number of necessary ret-cons that DC had to go through to correct continuity to Marvel. Most of Marvel's come from a desire to tell a different story. DC had to make corrections or discount history.
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rgtichy Posts: 124
3/10/2021
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StrafeFireRun wrote:
The problem with DC is how overpowered they represent their heroes. That is the reason that their villains are so great, they have to try and figure out how to beat impossible odds. This was bad enough with Superman being the answer to everything and it's getting worse as Flash is becoming more powerful with his Infinite Mass Punch. DCs villains have to be better to pose any kind of threat.
Another factor for Marvel superiority is in its Editing. Compare the number of necessary ret-cons that DC had to go through to correct continuity to Marvel. Most of Marvel's come from a desire to tell a different story. DC had to make corrections or discount history.
Yup. The flaws at DC were built in back in the very beginning, though. There was not a concept of all of them even existing together in the same "universe," originally. Like you say, having a Superman makes everyone else a waste of time. AND, they are unable to fix it. Even in the recent movie Justice League, my sons walked out of the theater with me (after hearing me talk of this problem with Superman for years) and my 18 year old kid says "So, they were getting their butts kicked until a Kryptonian showed up!"
But, guess who my favorite is.
Superman.
That said, the first Wonder Woman was a great superhero film.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
3/12/2021
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Defiant1 wrote:
fdaz89 wrote:
Defiant1, I agree with you 100% (about your assessment of the comics industry, not about you being a negative person). Having corporations like Disney own so much of it doesn't help. One thing I noticed is that all the ads are missing in comics, reading the ads added to the appeal of comics for me in my youth. Ad revenue would (or should) lower the price of comics, but so would going back to newsprint. Making superstars out of people who couldn't tell a story (like Rob Liefeld), I think negatively affected the hobby. I think the speculation market doesn't help, either. All the things that provide a barrier to new people from picking up the collecting bug should be examined and eliminated where possible.
In the 90's a lot of the comics switched to higher quality paper because the advertisers wanted their ads to look good and the cheap paper wouldn't reproduce the colors and details they wanted to use.
Advertisers quit buying ads in comics. There wasn't enough bang for the buck. I agree they should at least try to sell ads. Speculation helps the publishers immensely because it allows them to print more. If they can print more, the cost to print each comic comes down. Most of what you are paying for when you buy a comic is the production costs and setup costs for printing.
If you print a million copies of something, the cost per unit is pocket change. If you print 100 of something, it costs paper money.
Think of it like this.
If I pay an artist $100 to produce one page of art and make 5 photocopies. I'd have to sell the 5 copies for about $20.02 each to break even on production costs. I haven't even paid myself a dime. That's just to break even on what i paid the artist and what I paid for the paper.
If I print 10,000 photocopies of that art I only need to sell them all for 3 cents each to break even. The catch is, i have to sell all 10,000.
As volume increases, the publisher makes more profit on each comic sold.
That's why they produce all the variant covers. If they can sell a significantly larger number of interior pages just by swapping out a cover, it helps them break even on production costs faster.
The problem is, it runs off "collectors" over time because they can't keep up. They don't get a sense of satisfaction by owning 5 versions of the same comic. It dissuades customer loyalty.
Defiant1
As someone who has been around the hobby for a while and having seen it from on both sides of the counter I would disagree with many of your points.
The switch from newsprint to glossy stock may have begun with some special issues and advertisers but the ultimate permanent switch came, without doubt, from the fact that glossy stock became far cheaper to use than newsprint. Advertising has been pretty much eliminated for the reasons you say, there isn't much bang for the buck.
Costs of printing are simply not the only reason modern book are $3.99 and more. You could have as cheap a stock as possible, which they do, and larger runs but that is no guarantee that costs will go down. In the late 80's and first 4 years of the 90's some print numbers were huge compared to now but that didn't stop the increases from coming. Why is that? Well, costs for printing, shipping, distributing, and most important the paying of the creative talent didn't and doesn't get any cheaper. How talent is paid now is completely different and is the single largest cost that companies pay and if you want to have the most regarded talent in your pool you have to have the big dollars to pay for it. So the model of printing more isn't going to mean falling prices.
Yes variants help the companies and they keep pushing them out because it works to their advantage and the market's advantage because everyone makes money off of them. But at this point I would say that there is going to have to a be a revolutionary change in the industry in order to get the print numbers up to a point where a price drop is not only possible but sustainable. Those numbers would have to be maintained for a long time and all of the costs that go into producing comics will have to not increase. Since that isn't going to happen, people have to be paid after all and they certainly won't be happy to see shareholders take all the profit.
Now with content of modern books. Personally, I like a lot of the offerings from many of the companies. I don't judge a book by how long it takes to get through it or the volume of the text. That was a change that many people of my age were not okay with. Couple that with price increases and it can be hard thing to take because we always want more and if buying new costs more then we can't buy more. That being said collectors have always complained about the most recent 20 years of books for a multitude of reasons that have not changed for decades. What it boils down to is that they simply grow out of things. It doesn't hold the same magic it once did and they get angry. They get angry about the changes because ultimately we don't like change. If it's isn't broke don't fix it right? Well the only thing you can do is make incremental changes or, as is the case with both DC and Marvel, try not to rock the boat and, instead bring back ideas that succeeded in the past or serve up "easy money" by catering to the current trends that are selling, like variants.
Now Marvel DC have the unenviable position of being the long time leaders in comics and their histories go back decades and their characters have become staples to many people who love them for a variety of reasons. When they screw with them they have come expect that it can blow back in their faces or spell the next chapter of success. More often than not thought you have people complain because they have this revisionist history that tells them that back when they were young those were the best comics. No crap came out. Well that simply isn't true. since I started collecting a large majority of collectors have always complained about new books. I started in the 1979 and most of the books from mid 60's to 1979 was fodder with the few excepts, the keys. Even a large bulk of the 30's, 40's, 50's books were cheap(er) because they were not in vogue, not key issues, or simply not worth spending a lot on because they were not super-hero books.
Now I think it is always sad to see people get out of collecting but it happens. Sometime the things we use to like change so much that we lose interest. It's sad but it happens. I just wish that some of those people wouldn't condemn the whole industry (sometimes constantly) for that change. There are a wealth of book that they can go back to and revisit. Who knows, maybe one day a change will come that you do like and bring you back into the fold. I think a lot of damage comes when people who have stopped collecting or stopped with new books keep crapping on them. IMHO it just keeps retcons and rehashes and rebirths the order of the day. Nostalgia has been both the greatest driver and inhibitor to this hobby.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
3/12/2021
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fdaz89 wrote:
Defiant1, I agree with you 100% (about your assessment of the comics industry, not about you being a negative person). Having corporations like Disney own so much of it doesn't help. One thing I noticed is that all the ads are missing in comics, reading the ads added to the appeal of comics for me in my youth. Ad revenue would (or should) lower the price of comics, but so would going back to newsprint. Making superstars out of people who couldn't tell a story (like Rob Liefeld), I think negatively affected the hobby. I think the speculation market doesn't help, either. All the things that provide a barrier to new people from picking up the collecting bug should be examined and eliminated where possible.
Newsprint is more expensive. It would only make books lighter not cheaper.
Making super-stars out of talent isn't a problem BUT it did increase costs dramatically because now, instead of paying everyone a pittance out of a pool creators have contracts and are paid a hell of a lot more than they were back in the day. That model was never going to be sustainable and it has dramatically changed the industry. \
Now the other thing is that companies don't make someone popular. They publish their stories, sure, but readers/collectors decide who is and who isn't super-stars.
There are super-stars for writing there are super-stars for art but there are few that can do both. Very few. Jack Kirby great artist, not so good a writer. Stan Lee, good for ideas and writing but was always better when he had an equally good artist and idea man along side him. Stand alone Stan and and Jack stuff are lackluster team them up and you had something special. John Byrne a good artist from the 70's to the 90's but don't give him the writing duties because his writing sucks and now his art is nothing special. Rob Liefeld, the guy should never write or draw, however, some of his ideas and creations are not bad. Todd McFarlane, decent artist but his writing leaves a lot to be desired, he would be better to co-write than do it alone. So no super-stars don't hurt but it can hurt if we make them believe that they are so great that they can do no wrong. Always second doubt any star that say only he or she knows how to present a character. Chances are far better that they are going to bomb out than bring revolution.
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Konungrcomics Posts: 62
3/26/2021
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I miss news print paper, the smell when I open one of these books takes me back to my childhood. Oh and I'm more marvel then DC, I think what sold me growing up was the selection.
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Theoldcollector Posts: 213
3/26/2021
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Konungrcomics wrote:
I miss news print paper, the smell when I open one of these books takes me back to my childhood. Oh and I'm more marvel then DC, I think what sold me growing up was the selection.
I wish they would bring back news print. Today's comics always feel and look a bit awkward to me. I still read and collect them but I would much rather it go back to the ways of the old lol.
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Defiant1 Posts: 720
3/27/2021
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rgtichy wrote:
StrafeFireRun wrote:
The problem with DC is how overpowered they represent their heroes. That is the reason that their villains are so great, they have to try and figure out how to beat impossible odds. This was bad enough with Superman being the answer to everything and it's getting worse as Flash is becoming more powerful with his Infinite Mass Punch. DCs villains have to be better to pose any kind of threat.
Another factor for Marvel superiority is in its Editing. Compare the number of necessary ret-cons that DC had to go through to correct continuity to Marvel. Most of Marvel's come from a desire to tell a different story. DC had to make corrections or discount history.
Yup. The flaws at DC were built in back in the very beginning, though. There was not a concept of all of them even existing together in the same "universe," originally. Like you say, having a Superman makes everyone else a waste of time. AND, they are unable to fix it. Even in the recent movie Justice League, my sons walked out of the theater with me (after hearing me talk of this problem with Superman for years) and my 18 year old kid says "So, they were getting their butts kicked until a Kryptonian showed up!"
But, guess who my favorite is.
Superman.
That said, the first Wonder Woman was a great superhero film.
Hey Ox.I typically don't read your posts. I don't rate anything you write as being worth the effort.
I've dropped back to just spot-checking the posts here about every 2 or 3 months.
You are welcome to respond to this post, but most likely I won't even know you did.
df1
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