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Joe Quesada on Why Newsstand Business Was Dreadful, Catering to Hardcore Fans

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Marvel Comics Chief Creative Officer and former Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada must be having a particularly boring Sunday, because he's taken to Twitter to discuss the comics business with fans and fellow industry professionals. In one notable thread, Quesada reveals his philosophy on who Marvel should cater to (hardcore fans) and whether or not the fondly remembered days of the newsstands were as rosy as people remember (he says they were not).

It started with a question from Comic Book Addicts about the possibility of Marvel returning to the glory days of the 1990s speculators boom.

Of course, Marvel seems to have spent the past decade doing its best to copy the techniques used in the '90s, from #1 issue reboots to holographic variant covers to super-mega-crossover events, but according to Quesada, it's a pointless endeavor because those comics weren't selling to actual readers.

Though superstar 90s writer and Liefeld Lottery winner Fabian Nicieza chimed in with a bit of a correction for Quesada and comic creator Steve Horton:

Quesada explained further, revealing his belief that it's the "hardcore fans" who drive the comics business.

So there you have it.

Though, we are left with the question: if Joe Quesada doesn't think it's worthwhile to spike sales numbers if actual readers aren't buying the books, why does that seem, to us at least, to be the core of Marvel's business strategy, pressuring retailers into ordering more copies of books that they can't sell by using incentive variant covers, relaunches, and super-mega-crossover events?

Some questions, we may never know the answer to.

joe quesada

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Jude TerrorAbout Jude Terror

A prophecy once said that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero would come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events. Sadly, that prophecy was wrong. Oh, Jude Terror was right. For ten years. About everything. But nobody listened. And so, Jude Terror has moved on to a more important mission: turning Bleeding Cool into a pro wrestling dirt sheet!
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