Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, marvel

What's The Frequency, Uncanny?

Published Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:00:17 -0600

Last updated Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:17:45 -0600

When I was a teenager reading American comics, and had finally discovered this thing called a comic shop in the nearby town of Leeds (it is now a hairdressing salon) I was delighted when certain Marvel titles went biweekly. More comics! Of course, I suddenly needed more money, which I didn't always have, and then the artists on the books I was reading suddenly dropped off for an issue or two. Around issue 250 on Uncanny X-Men, I remember the art suddenly took a nose dive as the likes of Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee couldn't double their schedules and suddenly Rick Leonardi was drawing the book. And on Excalibur, while Alan Davis was still writing (I think), some chancer called Joe Madueira filled in and I was not happy.

When Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada double-teamed at Marvel they instigated a policy of dropping the annuals, instead, encouraging creative teams to pump out more copies of their comic in a year. Ultimate Spider-Man was probably most successful at this, Bendis and Bagley pushing out around fifteen copies in one year.

That's where it began, I think.

After the events of One More Day, the Spider-Man titles relaunched with the three separate titles amalgamated into a thrice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man, from a rotating creative team. And while sales of the book were well above the lesser selling Spider-Man books, they were a lot lower than where Amazing Spider-Man sales had been. It seems for a number of people, happy just buying one Amazing Spider-Man a month, three was just too much. Maybe it was the cost, maybe it was the changing creative teams, it doesn't matter, they left the building. And soon the combined sales of Amazing Spider-Man were below what the combined Spider-Man sales were previously. When the book was relaunched again recently, it went fortnightly, with Dan Slott as the writer, and rotating art teams, with other Spider-Man series launched to accompany it. Despite having the best reviews Spider-Man comics have received in years, the readers haven't really returned.

Now Marvel, faced with mid-list sales plummeting have cancelled a slew of titles and, to make up for that, increased the issue count of a number of more popular titles. It makes sense, why publish six issues of Ghost Rider selling poorly, when you can increase the better selling Hulk and X-Men book by six issues or more a year? It's the same amount of work, you just make more sales.

Except, after a couple of years of this behaviour, it's starting to bite. Reports from retailers indicate that readers sold on an A-list creative teams are disapopointed when fill-in artists come on board to push the book to 18 issues a year. All that hype seems wasted and certain customers have to be sold and resold when the artist changes. What was an occasional problem, is now an issue for some every week. Ron Richards of iFanboy tallied a number for the month of May.

Secret Avengers #27 – you loved Gabe Hardman on this book that JUST relaunched with a new creative team, so HERE'S RENATO GUEDES!

Ultimate Spider-Man #10 – you loved Sara Pichelli and her new take on Ultimate Spider-Man, so HERE'S DAVID MARQUEZ!

Ultimate Comics The Ultimates #10 and #11 – Esad Ribic blew your minds with the opening chapters of Hickman's run, so HERE'S LUKE ROSS!

Scarlet Spider #5 – you loved Ryan Stegman after he launched this title, so HERE'S NEIL EDWARDS!

Fantastic Four #605.1 – you loved Steve Epting, so HERE'S MIKE CHOI (Speaks for itself after last week's Green Lantern #6 atrocity)!

Defenders #6 – you loved Terry Dodson, so HERE'S VICTOR IBANEZ!

Daredevil #12 – you loved Paolo Rivera SO HERE'S CHRIS SAMNEE – oh wait, this is a good one…

EXCEPT, next issue…

Daredevil #13 – you loved Paolo Rivera and Chris Samnee, so HERE'S KHOI PHAM!

Don't mind me, my head's too busy spinning.

David Brothers had a lot to say about this;

I buy cape comics because I like seeing what a small, dedicated team can do with these old characters I grew up on. Spider-Man has no value in and of himself. I might get curious about a series featuring Spider-Man and Hypno Hustler, but without a strong creative team, it's nothing. It's worse than nothing. Uncanny X-Force is a dumb idea on paper. It's the team of X-Men that go out and murder people at night. But it came roaring out of the gates with Rick Remender, Jerome Opeña, and Dean White firing on all cylinders, including cylinders I didn't even know Marvel had. That team made that series. By issue eight, Billy Tan was drawing the book, the quality took a nosedive, the magic was broken, and I bailed out. Why was Tan drawing it? Because Marvel shipped six issues of the series between the cover dates of May 2011 and July 2011, tossed out another two in October, and will consistently double-ship the book from February to April.

Uncanny X-Force 17-22 feature five different artists. That's seven issues, including 19.1. There's no in-story reason for the double-shipping. It just happens. That's not a problem? It's enough of a problem that I quit the series, and I'm absolutely positive that I'm not the only one. Maybe it's just us elitist hipster douchebags dropping books over changes, but I doubt it.

Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience in San Francisco wrote;

I can't say for certain about any other store, but at mine, while I sell the most DOLLARS to every-Wednesday readers (thems tending to be the most voracious of consumers to begin with), there are way way way more readers (at least 3:1, maybe as much as 5:1) who get to come in once-a-month maybe? If you're lucky 15-16 times a year, but many more can only can get in 4-5 times a year.

A corollary to this is that I rack the last 3 issues of any given series, and this is how I have operated for 23 years now. I'll break this pattern for things that are hot and are continuing to sell well (I'm still practically selling sets of BATMAN #1-6 almost every week, for example), but that does NOT describe most Marvel comics today. What THIS means is that if issues are put out every 2 weeks, instead of every month, then any given issue is only going to be able to be displayed for 6 weeks, rather than 12. This, too, lowers sales.

This may be a Red Queen's Race here, Marvel running faster and faster, producing more and more issues of each comic, but each one starting to sell less and less.

There's also the danger of increased attrition of sales. There's a common pattern on a comic book that each issue sheds a certain number of customers, until they are refocussed on the book for some reason. Publish two or three issues even of a book in a month only speeds that attrition, indeed, it may increase it exponentially.

And what happens when Venom ships five books in a month? (The UK has been spared some of that it seems, two issues being delayed, albeit to be available in the same week in mid-March)

Now, I feel like I'm a beneficiary. I am in a position where I can read Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine & The X-Men however often they come out, and I enjoy the increased regularity. I've yet to feel impacted upon by the changing art. Journey Into Mystery as well, it its alternating artists in the fashion that Sandman did. Daredevil, while it keeps its done-in-one issues also seems to fit. But Uncanny X-Force? No. Venom? Definitely not. And if I was in a different position, a number of multiple shipping $3.99 books would have been dropped a long time ago.

So why do I care? It's this. Over the last few decades, the comics industry has done very well at selling more and more comics to fewer and fewer people, with a general trend of comics selling less, mitigated by a number of bumps along the line. The current policy seems to be exacerbating that, and short term gains may lead to long term losses. And that won't be good for anyone.

Of course I'm still reading 2000AD and that's weekly. Can't see me stopping any time soon…

ALSO: Bryan Hitch and Jonathan Ross have announced that their comic, America's Got Powers from Image, which was to launch with two issues in one month, will now only have one issue in April, but it will be 38 pages long, for $2.99, with subsequently solicited issues slipping a month.

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