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Marvel Comics, Squirrel Girl and Scholastic Book Fair Gossip

Published Mon, 11 Feb 2019 09:00:12 -0600

Last updated Tue, 12 Feb 2019 17:05:23 -0600

There's a story I've heard from a number of comic book industry folk – albeit one denied by some Marvel people. But hearing it again this weekend from people who should have been in a position to know, it goes like this.

And it concerns Marvel's publishing division and the Scholastic Book Fairs that are run across the country, and responsible for huge numbers of sales for prose books and graphic novels alike.

And that Marvel published the Squirrel Girl original graphic novel, Squirrel Girl Beats Up The Marvel Universe, by Ryan North and Erica Henderson explicitly to get into Scholastic's good graces, promising the moon to Scholastic in terms of promotion, support, etc.

Then, after the first wave of orders and sales were very strong indeed, Scholastic asked for more copies the next month to fulfil more orders, and Marvel had to admit that they hadn't overprinted and couldn't get a reprint for three more months. Which scuppered the Scholastic/Marvel relationship. DC Comics, in comparison, had a much larger print run for the DC Super-Hero Girls franchise – which led to the upcoming DC Zoom and Ink lines.

That's how the story goes, anyway. However, fiction or fact, and people seem to be very much in disagreement on this matter, I understand that if there were any issues, they have all been repaired, as that this year should see some prominent Scholastic/Marvel announcements and projects of note.

And I am sure they will have very generous print runs as well.