Whenever fan fervor boils over to the point of a near online movement, it’s hard not to stand up and notice…and that’s what happened recently when Marvel announced that they were canceling Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee’s beloved (but short-lived) Thor: The Mighty Avenger. This book was a) all-ages friendly, b) critically lauded and c) beloved by fans, yet it only lasted eight issues before it met its demise.
Fans started to question whether or not Marvel (and the industry as a whole) was interested in pursuing new – and young – readers if they had no interest in keeping books like that going.
Then it came out that Brian Clevinger and Gurihuru’s upcoming ongoing series Captain America: The Fighting Avenger was being downgraded all the way down to one-shot, and then even Clevinger had to stand up and question what was going on.
“You may recall that this was intended to be an on-going series. It was downgraded to a four issue mini-series and then two issues – you get both of ’em in this one-shot. Captain America: The Fighting Avenger will be one of the last “all ages” issues of anything Marvel will produce for quite a while. Because they ‘aren’t profitable.’
What I mourn here is the largest comics publishers in America giving up on fun and accessible comics.”
But what’s the reality of the situation? Why are these books being canceled before they get the chance to shine (and in Clevinger’s case, before they get a chance to be released)? Are all-ages comics really failing, or is that just a myth?
Find out the myths and realities of this controversial subject after the jump.
Myth: Comic Publishers Don’t Give All-Ages Comics a Chance
Some look at recent all-ages friendly books being canceled as unfair or even unjustified, and to that, I have to say “not true.”
While many were quite passionate about Langridge and Samnee’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger (which was was rated A but is definitely all-ages friendly), the simple truth about the book is it wasn’t a big seller upon release (although moving 20,000 units for an all-ages book featuring two lesser known creators is very solid) and quickly fell off from there, dropping nearly half of its orders by the fourth issue. The death knell for the book came shortly after the release of the fifth issue, as its sales then dipped below the 10,000 mark.
One way or another, Marvel gave this book five issues to try and find a comfortable level for sales but instead it found its sales dropping at a rate that made it impossible to keep around. No matter how you look at this situation, you have to confront the fact that Marvel is a business, and if a book isn’t selling it’s their responsibility to put it out to pasture.
If Marvel is guilty of anything in this case, it’s of over-saturating the market with Thor books and effectively suffocating any chances Thor: The Mighty Avenger had in the process. With nine different Thor books being released in November, Marvel saw double digit percentage decreases in sales across the line except in the flagship Thor book (which decreased but to nowhere near the same extent).
Reality: Pre-Orders Can Sign the Death Warrant of a Comic Even Before Its Release
When Kieron Gillen and Steven Sanders’ beloved S.W.O.R.D. was cancelled, people were up-in-arms over the idea. How could this great comic be canceled? How can comic fans be stupid enough to not want good comics in their lives? Why would Marvel not want a comic that could attract new types of readers with its unique storytelling?
But, as Gillen pointed out, this was not something that fans could control and was really the sacrificial lamb of an imperfect system.
Continued below“Comics operate on a system of pre-ordering. As in, the first issue’s orders were in before anyone had even read a single page of the book. The numbers which people are reporting are low enough that the inevitable second issue dip – also ordered before anyone had read issue 1 – would move it into a clearly dangerously low sales for a book in the X-family.”
That is simply how the comic book retail paradigm works.
S.W.O.R.D. was not its first casualty, and it won’t be its last.
In fact, I’d wager that was what happened to Clevinger’s Cap book. Pre-orders started trickling in and Marvel found the pre-order numbers (in a Cap saturated market) to be deathly low, and this caused them to reevaluate the current status of the project. This series could have been the eventual winner of loads of Eisner Awards and sold tons of books, but the ultimate point is this: if it isn’t selling, comic publishers don’t have interest.
They are a business after all.
The problem with this method and the idea of all-ages books is that they don’t jive well. Younger readers aren’t the type who are going to be scouring the internet for the newest comic to pre-order, and they certainly won’t be reading Previews magazine. They’re going to be the type that falls into a book because of an impulse purchase or a recommendation from a friend, both of which are riskier propositions that tend to take more time, something that comics just don’t have these days.
A quick aside: many missed a good and positive point from Clevinger from his post about the changes to his Cap book.
“One way to prove them wrong, is to make it profitable. Order it! In droves!”
Do it people! Order Captain America: The Fighting Avenger from your store today!
Myth: All-Ages Comics Can Introduce Comics to a Whole New Audience
As a supplemental section to this piece (see the follow-up after this article posts), I spoke to a number of creators about this subject and what books they’d recommend to new readers. One of the creators I spoke to was Fred Van Lente, a writer who is no stranger to all-ages works in his own right. He said:
“All-ages comics are the kind of thing everyone who wishes the industry well says they want but when they’re published nobody actually buys them.”
Simply making comics that are aimed at younger readers does not guarantee their success. To truly make all-ages comics succeed, we need to first find a way to get them in younger readers’ hands. These days, you can’t get them in the same way that you used to.
For example, I’m a younger reader for the industry (I’m 27), and when I was a kid I didn’t have to go to a comic shop or to a bookstore to find comics – I could find them in a grocery store or at a newsstand or gas station or any number of other locations. These days though, that isn’t happening, and it’s limiting the access of younger readers to comics.
The best answer to this problem of course is digital comics, and its something that I think will eventually help develop a new generation of comic fans, but not something that is robust enough to do so right now. Especially considering the fact that most kids a) wouldn’t know where to start with comics and b) wouldn’t know what was going on once they got there.
Clevinger himself spoke of this subject when I polled him for the supplemental piece:
“Comics stories are borderline incomprehensible. The characters with the greatest recognition have the most convoluted histories. The average person doesn’t know where to start.”
It’s a harsh statement, but one that is true as well. Put yourself in the shoes of some 10 year old kid who thought “yay! Batman comics!” and then picked up Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin. Current fans love it because it is steeped in continuity and weaves a web of mystery, time travel and mad genius. A ten year old would find it completely incomprehensible.
Until comics are accessible both from a sales and a storytelling standpoint, younger readers will be on the outside looking in. All-ages comics do a solid job of getting us half way there, but publishers need to take us the rest of the way.
Reality: The Economy is Making it Hard on the Present and the Future
If a person is looking to cut corners on spending, are they going to cut the $3.99 collectible item that they get 15 to 20 minutes of enjoyment out of or are they going to see a movie for $10 that they get 2 hours of enjoyment out of?
Continued belowWhen money gets tight, people look very deeply at cost vs. value, and unless you are part of the more passionate set of fans out there (aka “fanboys”), you probably can’t make a very good argument that comics are a great value for the money you’re spending.
Now imagine you’re ten years old and you have a very finite allowance because times are a little tougher for your family. Does a $3.99 comic seem alluring when you have $10 for the week?
While its completely understandable that costs are high for publishers, it’s hard to ignore the idea that most children have been completely priced out of the hobby.
Another interesting point about this comes from all-ages creator and esteemed letterer Chris Eliopoulos. His idea stems from the fact that retailers and publishers themselves have painted themselves into this corner thanks to their exclusive and insular storytelling and marketing efforts, and now that the economy is in a tough spot, so is the industry.
“Retailers and publishers have dwindled their market by catering to a select demographic, they now MUST produce and sell only material for them in order to stay afloat.”
It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic, but Eliopoulous is right in this case.
What Does It Mean?!
Not to torture Thor: The Mighty Avenger fans even more with a double rainbow reference, but what do all of these ideas that I’ve just presented to you mean in concert?
First, let’s consult what we’ve learned.
1) Comic reader demographics are aging
2) New readers are harder to come by for print comics
3) Comics are no longer readily available for younger and casual fans
4) Comics are difficult for younger readers to jump in to
5) Comics have gotten to the point where cost is prohibitive
6) Comics have grown increasingly targeted to adults
So what do publishers do from here? Well, not to cut retailers out of the deal, but as I mentioned previously, digital comics could be a big solution for new and younger readers down the road. Digital comics these days are more readily available to these types of fans, they’re priced more reasonably, and you can get these more all-ages friendly comics into their hands more easily.
Quite often, that’s the only step that is missing from the equation.
If publishers can get their digital offerings to be as robust as their print ones and at a reasonable price, I think this could open up the floodgates to both the younger demographic and to readers from other countries (publishers have recently noted that much of their digital traffic has come from outside of America). With this becoming more and more evident to publishers as well, this could quickly become a viable solution for new reader acquisition for comics worldwide.
In terms of print comics that succeed with younger fans, you can see a commonality forming. Look at Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Bone…both of those books are youth oriented but have went on to be huge hits. They also happen to be collected editions or longer than average comics. Most books that are hits within that age group are trades and graphic novels, so maybe the best idea for all-ages print comics is a focus on collections?
Hell, maybe JMS was right after all.
I can tell you that I loaned collections Runaways and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane to my niece a few years back, and having never read any comics previously, she quickly went and got them herself (or at least McKeever’s SM <3’s MJ) but never delved into floppy issues.
Think about that – both a young reader AND a girl reader. That’s about as rare in the industry as a Rom: Space Knight appearance.
Marvel, and the industry as a whole, needs to get more creative and thoughtful in their delivery methods to these new audiences. They’re a whole new animal, and one that doesn’t have the same connection to the comic shop experience as previous generations have. If the industry wants to start developing this market, they need to start opening themselves up to them with quality material à la Thor: The Mighty Avenger in ways that are accessible to new readers, instead of just trying the same ol’, same ol’ methods that have made it impossible for countless quality books to survive. Until then, the same realities will continue to be painfully true and more books will suffer the ignoble fate of Captain America: The Fighting Avenger. To close, I have a line from Ethan Nicolle’s (of Axe Cop fame) response to my questions.
I guess I end with the question rather than a conclusion…do we want comics to be opened up to a wider audience, or do we want to keep it narrow and niche? I don’t know if those are the only two options, but it seems like to some degree that is the fork in the road.
