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Comic Store in Your Future: More Blockbuster Movies, Fewer Comic Sales

Rod Lamberti of Rodman Comics writes weekly for Bleeding Cool. Find previous columns here.

It's business as usual. Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out and saw great numbers in the movie theaters.  And the comics that are based on Star Wars received the usual boost — hardly anything.

I have written before about how the fact that millions of people seeing a comic-based movie has such a painstakingly low effect on the comics they are based on. For Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, millions went and saw the movie — how many more read their comics? Or the comics based on the characters? Guardians was just announced as cancelled, and Star-Lord ended months ago along with Rocket, I Am Groot, and Gamora. 

Wonder Woman the movie did well. Millions saw it. Her own title did not get a boost in readership.

Marvel's next comic event is, of course, tied to the next big Marvel film, Infinity War. The level of excitement for Marvel's next comic event? None there. Civil War II didn't see a great boost thanks to the Captain America: Civil War. Yet, once again, Marvel publishing feels they have to be tied into the big movie event. The infinity gems are now infinity stones in order to more tie into the movie. That change does not help fans get excited for the comic event.

Marvel's Inhumans was cancelled. I am thankful for that, because hopefully that means, after years of non-stop Inhumans titles being launched and cancelled, maybe Marvel will wait 'til they have an Inhumans title that will actually sell.

What I don't understand is how the publishing companies don't try different ideas to actually get moviegoers to become new readers.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

In an earlier column, I wrote how a group of kids had no idea that the Guardians of the Galaxy were even based on comic characters. The secret shopper learned a lot by visiting this store — thought comics were almost "obsolete".  There are millions of people who think that comics are no longer made. Yet, there has been no real effort to make comics mainstream.

Millions have no idea comic books even exist. When comic-related movies come out, oftentimes the mainstream news outlets will simply state the movie is based on a Marvel or DC property. No real in-depth reporting about the comics they are based on. Years ago when the Batman movie starring Michael Keaton was released, news outlets really reported about the movie's comic book roots. An in-depth history of the Batman and Joker. Who created them. How the characters have changed throughout the years, and so on.

Disney had a great chance to boost their Star Wars comic sales and once again didn't. Star Wars-related comics sold better than when Marvel acquired the property. Why do I say that? The comic adaptions of the movies used to come out around the same time as the movies, which would help comic sales — not months after the movie had hit the theaters.

Want Doctor Aphra to become super popular? With a simple cameo of the character in Rogue One, the Star Wars fan base would have made Doctor Aphra a top seller.

Our local movie theater in the past was nice enough to let me put up a display case showing comics that some of these movies are based on. It felt like I was doing more to get new people into comics than the companies with millions of dollars have.

Comic Store in Your Future: More Blockbuster Movies, Fewer Comic Sales

It feels, at least to me, that publishers have blinders on when it comes to marketing their well-known properties.

Next week I write about what I thought of 2017. Stay tuned.


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Rod LambertiAbout Rod Lamberti

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