Let's take a look into the past. …
Joe FanGuy rushed into the comic store, on October 21st, same as every Wednesday. The new releases were spread up and down the racks all along the wall. He always got $20 each week for his allowance, and the comic store was one of the first places he went to with his money ready in his hand. He snapped up X-Factor #210 and Deadpool #28, both things we was really waiting for. Those only cost about 8 bucks together, but it was just (ugh!) two thin comics! He browsed the shelves, considering. Should pick up another book? He settled on X-23 #2, which was new enough that he thought it could be a good idea to jump on board, but what he was really looking for was Uncanny X-Men #529. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be out for another week. Still, 3 books at 12 bucks total left him with 8 in his pocket. Not too bad, but not great. He might have to hit up his parents for a few more bucks if anyone was doing stuff on the weekend.Let's now take a look at an alternate world…
Joe Alt-FanGuy walked into his comic store on alt-October 21st. The new releases for that week were in the same corner as always, the far corner just for weeklies, just past the trade paperback/assorted collections. He picked up the hefty X-Men weekly, knowing he'd get the third installment in the brand new Uncanny X-Force serial that started two weeks back, and he was equally interested in the ongoing X-Factor, Deadpool, and Uncanny X-Men chapters inside, too. The whole 64-page thing was going to be 7.99, but those 8 serials inside should keep him pretty busy, and he'd still have 12 whole bucks for the weekend. This issues featured, after all, the penultimate installments to the X-Men vs. Vampire story threads of certain chapters, all setting up next week's finale. JoFan contemplated picking up the Hulk Weekly, too, since that had a Wolverine chapter among its contents, but he could purchase such serials separately online for only 99 cents for each installment.
I'm trying to visualize these worlds so that I can work through an idea that entertains a radically different vision of the way comic books are consumed nowadays. It started after reading an old article by Erik Larsen, himself both a prolific comic book creator and a vociferous comic book fan, who proposed something similar to "fix" the comic book industry. It's a big read, but you could go and read that first, or risk feeling like you've entered mid-way into a conversation. At least try this for a summary -- Larsen claimed the best way for comic companies to proceed is to fully scrap the entirety of its current publishing model and embrace a new one that can be described as a hybrid of European and Japanese models, which bottom line would be "everything's anthologies" supplemented by collected volumes. Hey, I know It's all pretty much an idealized world, but it's entertaining to entertain the idea. In other words, I'll offer my perspective on Marvel's publishing strategy right now, on something that could be different, and even on how it needs to factor in that whole (gasp!) digital thing that seems to be happening.
The standard disclaimers go here-- the fact that I am merely a consumer and not a publisher, etc. etc. But I have taken some time to really think about my ideas, and I want to talk about what I think FROM a consumer's perspective anyway. It's too presumptuous for me to consider that this could happen in reality, but it's always good fun to theorize! Just ask English majors and professional philosophers!
Here's my perspective on Marvel's current publishing schedule, using a randomly chosen recent month-- October 2010-- as a basis. At my count, there were 80 titles being offered as "Marvel Comics" single issues, aside from any trade paperback collections and licensed titles, etc. Although, how many of these could have been considered core to the publishing line? Not all of them are meant to be on-going series. You could take things out like one-shots centering around the "Shadowland" story and things deliberately meant to be limited series, such as "Amazing Spider-Man Presents Black Cat," there are 40 titles. Things do get muddled in hindsight, of course-- some things were meant to be on-going series, "Young Allies," and things that took the place of on-going series, like "Klaws of the Panther." And of course there are some titles meant to be on more than once a month, "Amazing Spider-Man," and some titles that should have been published last month but get published late, "Incredible Hulks" 614 and 615.
If you wanted to have bought all 80 titles, at an average price of $3.99, you would have paid $320 for the month. Even paying for just 40 "core" on-going titles you'd have needed $160. Obviously, either would have been out of the range of a typical consumer. Especially if your target consumer is youth, someone with around a modest $35 disposable income for a month to spend on comics. He could buy about 9 issues. That sounds about right. If you're an adult and have $60 a month or more to spend on comics, your monthly minimum would be about 15 issues. And yet, even THAT amount is only about a quarter of the full "experience" of the 40-title core Marvel Universe! Very conservative budgets might only allow for only $20, or 5 issues, or an 8th of the 40-title core.
Which leaves me to wonder how much of an impact this has on a consumer and the ability of a publisher to grow its brand. Chances are, comics fans have their few "must-buys" that they supplement with a sampling of other things here and there. Perhaps a selection of core titles and a sampling of mini-series. This is why Spider-Man and Wolverine will always be headliners, and why Hawkeye & Mockingbird can't sustain an audience. The dollars simply aren't there in the first place.
Also, if a consumer uses a limited budget and takes advantage of the current industry practice to order ahead of time (often it's the current industry *requirement* to order ahead of time,) there is no reason to drop by the comic book store on a regular basis, since everything is held for you and you buy what you always want to buy. Sure, there is the lure of the "here and now" if you make a weekly trip, but by and large consumers will make limited trips during the month-- they know when the things they want come out, or they simply pick things up according to their own preferences. This is also why there will be little room for mini-series to burst into full-blown titles, since there is no sense of impulse buy. These little titles "don't matter" which gives rise to Marvel's habit of making "big events," so the consumer feels driven to experience things that "matter" to the overall Marvel Universe by shifting budget dollars into areas they wouldn't normally be spent. Both this and the problem above is why comic book pundits claim the industry merely cannibalizes itself, looking for short term gains within an insulated audience and demographic.
Here is where the radical idea comes in--
Take the 80 titles you would publish, and break them into 8 to 10 page chunks. Publish these chunks in mega-anthologies that are 64 page weekly magazines for 7.99. You could fit 8 issues nicely into one weekly omnibus serial. For example, the Avengers Weekly for October 2010 could have had Avengers, Avengers Academy, Captain America, Hawkeye & Mockingbird, I Am an Avenger, Invincible Iron Man, Secret Avengers, and Young Allies all inside. It would take the 4 weeks of the month, but you could have read the equivalent of eight titles (costing 32 bucks) by buying only four weekly serials (by also spending 32 bucks)!
Here are the ten titles I propose Marvel publish-- no more thin single issue monthlies! Instead, every WEEK could have thick, jam packed serials! And under the title, again looking ONLY at October 2010, I divvied up to 8 monthlies to each:
AVENGERS: MARVEL'S MIGHTIEST HEROES
Avengers, Avengers Academy, Captain America, Hawkeye & Mockingbird, I Am an Avenger, Invincible Iron Man, Secret Avengers, Young Allies
X-MEN
Deadpool, New Mutants, Uncanny X-Force, Uncanny X-Men, X-23, X-Factor, X-Men: Curse of the Mutants, and X-Men Legacy
SPIDER-MAN
Amazing Spider-Man, ASM Presents Black Cat, Black Widow, Carnage, New Avengers, Spider-Man: Back in Quack, Spider-Man vs. Vampires, Taskmaster
MARVEL KNIGHTS
Daredevil, Deadpool Corps, Deadpool Team-Up, Shadowland, Shadowland: Blood on the Streets, Shadowland: Moon Knight, Shadowland: Power Man, Shadowland: Spider-Man
THOR: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY
Chaos War, Invaders Now, Loki, SHIELD, Thanose Imperative, Thor: For Asgard, Thor: First Thunder, Thor
ULTIMATE MARVEL
Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Thor, Ultimate Comics Mystery, New Ultimates, New Mutants Forever, X-Men Forever II
HULK
Incredible Hulks, Hulk, Incredible Hulks: Enigma Force, Iron Man: Titanium, Wolverine, Thunderbolts
MARVEL MAX
Deadpool Pulp, Deadpool MAX, Daken: Dark Wolverine, Strange Tales II, Punisher MAX, Kick-Ass II
FANTASTIC FOUR & TALES TO ASTONISH
Captain America: Patriot, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four in Ataque del Modok, Klaws of the Panther, Marvelman Familys Finest, Secret Warriors, Steve Rogers: Super Soldier, X-Men
MARVEL (ALL-AGES) ADVENTURES
Super Hero Squad, Avengers & the Infinity Gauntlet, Avengers vs Pet Avengers, Spider-Man/Fantastic Four, Thor: Mighty Avenger, Iron Man: Legacy
That was the fun part! (Yes, that was "fun" for me!) But also frustrating, as it leads to somewhat weird pairings-- Wolverine serials in HULK Weekly? X-Men serials in FF/TALES TO ASTONISH? Ooo-kay! You could spin the situation for both the positive and the negative-- after all, some overlap would be nice for a consumer to buy FF/TALES TO ASTONISH and still feel somewhat connected to the X-Men's corner of the universe. It could even serve to cross-market the properties and brands.) Also frustrating is that there isn't truly enough content for one area alone, such as a HULK weekly or even SPIDER-MAN (and MAX, but you could probably have guessed that.) But, hey, as long as we're wishing, we might as well truly experiment. Some issues could be smaller, or larger, or be embracing the overlap more obviously (one title for IRON MAN & THE AVENGERS and another THE AVENGERS & THE HULK, etc.) Maybe a bi-weekly format would be more appropriate and more consumer-friendly, with different titles alternating week to week.
So, obviously, October 2010 wouldn't *directly* translate into this new weekly system-- too many "temporary" events such as the MARVEL KNIGHTS weekly having too much Shadowland and Shadowland-related mini series and one-shots. How about that? The weekly anthologies of serials would require creators to re-invent the kinds of storytelling the current market has fostered! Again, maybe that's both the positive and the negative. It would still allow the MARVEL KNIGHTS weekly to distinguish itself with the "SHADOWLAND" event for that month or two, and it would pull in readers to see the Spider-Man Shadowland-flavored serial. But the biggest advantage would be to allow for some experimentation in expanding/exploring events with a variety of creators and characters. If anything, we could see *more* experimentation with mini-series and spotlighted characters. We might even be *more* likely to have Hawkeye stories or Taskmaster stories or whatever, as they don't have to automatically pull down 25,000 readers to prove "survivable" in the market.
Aside from the experimentation and re-invention of the kinds of storytelling, another natural outcome of this publishing model is to drive everything to collection. You could argue that the industry is kind of driven this way already… single issues are bound together for the eventual trade paperback collection. These weeklies are no exception, and in fact could drive any variety of new types of collections. Perhaps a 96-page weekly that has merely a chapter of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN at a time could turn into a 64-page AMAZING SPIDER-MAN-only bi-annual collection (in either magazine or comic-style) and/or a yearly trade paperback. Consumers could have a choice of how they want to follow their character-- in short bursts week-to-week, in semi-regular turns throughout the year, and/or in major but sparse events.
And here (FINALLY!) we get to the point that truly embraces this format as a modern alternative-- it's natural complement to a digital format. The weekly serials are large collections of mini-chapters, and various mini-chapters could also be available day-and-date at a reduced price. Right now, 3.99 for a digital comic will not solve the consumer's needs. But 99 cents for a small 8-page story feels just right, as would a larger amount for a subscription for viewing that week's serial chapter. But the advantages of having weeklies collecting a variety of stories might drive more "heavy users" to choose the physical copies primarily with digital as a supplement to their reading. Or perhaps the chapters aren't day-and-date until the last chapter is published. Or perhaps the weeklies are NOT collected at all, but consumers can wait for a digital quarterly version. Or, or, or… the advantage of this system would be to allow the market to be flexible enough to allow the consumer to have choice.
Imagine--
Wednesday, my iPad app tells me I have the latest HULK serial available. I buy it for 99 cents, and read it before I take my trip to the store. At the store, I pick up FF/TALES TO ASTONISH (7.99) and AVENGERS (7.99) weeklies. In the Avengers, there was a house ad for the last chapter of the BLACK WIDOW serial that just ended in SPIDER-MAN. I go again online and purchase the 4 chapters for 4.96. My total haul that day? I read 21 serialized chapters of comics containing over 35 characters and spent 20.93.
THAT would be some satisfied reading.
Now, I have no idea if my math is wrong. It's entirely possible that I'm selling the creators short, and my price points wouldn't be sustainable for the page rates that creators are entitled to. Also, I cannot imagine the logistical nightmare it might be to coordinate a weekly production across so many creators and titles. I imagine it's these two issues that are a one-two punch that knocks my idea into impossibility. As I mentioned before, this is probably because I'm taking something that was created by the demands of the current publishing model and forecasting them onto another, so of course it doesn't line up flawlessly. The way creators work, the way writers structure their stories, the amount of panels artists might use, the ad space required, the storage needed if you wanted to store such weekly collections, pretty much the entire spectrum of thought to tangible product would have to change. Yeah, I get that. That's why I said it was just a fun exercise to think about. I'm not sure my ideas are "ideal," but those two words are closely linked.
As I finish my thoughts, I see that there is another contemplation about the state of the industry over at iFanboy. Thomas Katers claims it's the business end of things that are holding onto traditional publishing models and hopes for change. I can't say this idea of mine here would satisfy him, but if you take anything away from my massive musing on the subject, it would be that I agree with his last line: "The business end (publishers, distributors) are the ones who want it one way (the old), while more and more of us are going the other way (the future). The sooner the business side figure that out, the better off everyone will be."
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