Multiversity’s history column returns with a new installment of its year-by-year retelling of comic book history. Today we’ll be looking at 2002, building on the events of 2000 and 2001.
Comic books were being elevated in the public mind thanks to the success of the X-Men film, anticipation for the Spider-Man film, and other comic adaptations like Ghost World. Popular clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch ran an interview with Joe Quesada, Brian Azzarello, and Ghost World star Scarlett Johansson in the Sumer issue of their pop culture magazine “A&F Quarterly.” Over the summer, auction companies started submitting large batches of high-dollar comics to CGC for grading, creating a temporary backlog for the young company. In October, libraries across the United States participated in the “Teen Read Week” program “Let’s Get Graphic” that promoted comic books. In November, City University of New York announced a four-part class on comics.
Comic specialty shops remained the industry’s primary outlet, accounting for 85% of sales. Marvel’s effort to break into the book trade was paying dividends however, with their trade paperback revenue in first quarter 2002 up 240% over the previous year. The inaugural Free Comic Book Day was held on May 4 to coincide with the release of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. The event was smaller than it would later become, featuring material from only four sponsors: Dark Horse, DC, Image, and Marvel. It was a success, drawing large crowds across the nation. Many of those customers were lapsed readers, some of whom were still bitter about being tricked by Superman’s death ten years earlier. In June, Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith’s “30 Days of Night” through IDW was a surprise hit, reinvigorating the horror genre.
Manga was booming in the United States thanks to popular anime and related collectable card games. Marvel tried to capitalize on this in January with a fifth-week event that reimagined its characters in a manga light. In April, TokyoPop felt confident enough in its audience to present its material in the original right-to-left format, formally stopping its practice of reversing the artwork for Americans used to left-to-right narratives. VIZ brought the popular “Shonen Jump” to comic shops, book stores, and video chains for the first time. The 200+ page black-and-white anthology sold for $4.95 and was packaged with an exclusive Yu-Gi-Oh card. Sales for the first issue were estimated around 300,000 copies.
Not everything was rosy for comics in 2002. Chaos Comics, best known for Evil Ernie and Lady Death, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on August 2002. Publisher Brian Pulido sold the Lady Death IP to CrossGen Entertainment, where he was able to continue writing her stories in two miniseries before buying the rights back a few years later. Meanwhile, in Ontario, 40 year old Shawn Eric Bird was arrested in May for mailing insulting letters smeared with cat poop to medical and government offices in Belleville. While this is not strictly comic related, he signed them all as either “Norman Osborne” or “Green Goblin.” No doubt this reinforced negative opinions about comic book material in the many non-readers who heard about it.
CrossGen expanded its potential audience by offering its material in 12 languages across 34 countries. One of those countries was China, which was a big deal. Beyond the size of the potential audience, CrossGen was the first American comic publisher the Chinese government approved to operate in the country. The appetite for American material was high, and CrossGen had no legal competition.
On the internet side, CrossGen introduced “Comics on the Web” in March. Website visitors could purchase digital copies for $1 per issue. Initially the program was limited to issues more than 6 months old, but it was later changed to 3 months. Comic retailers expressed concerns about losing sales when the program was announced, but print sales spiked immediately after “Comics on the Web” launched. Digital readers could chose from multiple language options, but were limited to PC as the service was unavailable for Mac. Print readers were also enticed to buy a digital copy because issues came with the added value of bonus material like creator commentary or audio tracks.
Continued belowTo prevent high back issue prices from being a barrier to new reades, CrossGen started two reprint anthologies in April. “Forge” and “Edge” were 240+ pages each and contained titles with similar themes or genres. At $9.95, new readers could quickly and easily get caught up on the title they were most interested in while also being exposed to other CrossGen material.
Later in the year, DC began withdrawing from the Comics Code Authority, slowly increasing the number of issues published without the stamp. This was a safe move, as Marvel had proven a year earlier that the public didn’t care about it anymore, and probably hadn’t since 1955. DC risked controversy when writer Judd Winick had a supporting character in “Green Lantern” be the victim of anti-gay violence, but the world had changed a lot since Northstar outted himself a decade earlier. Instead of moral handwringing, Winick was invited to discuss the story on the MSNBC program Donahue.
Thanks to the explosion of comic websites, DC was able to share information with fans quicker than ever before. At the same time, there was a proliferation of fan message boards where comics could be dissected and discussed the day of release. This shift in communication meant fewer comment letters were sent to editors, and they were old news by the time they saw print. In late 2002, DC made the choice to eliminate letter pages from their comics. Ironically, the death of the decades-long feature was mourned online the day of its announcement.
In terms of DC’s notable comics from 2002, it was all about Batman. The year kicked off with “Batman: The Ten-Cent Adventure,” which sold for exactly what you would expect. The issue was by series regulars Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett and served as the first chapter in the ‘Bruce Wayne: Murderer?’ story that evolved into ‘Bruce Wayne: Fugitive.’ DC sold it at a loss, but the low price was a big deal. Comic retailers ordered 670,000 copies, and DC offered custom covers to any store buying more than 10,000. In some areas, newspapers ordered copies as a bonus insert for subscribers. In the long term, new readers bought into the story and sales of “Batman” rose enough to cover the initial loss/investment and turn a profit.
That arc ran for most of the year, and “Batman” got another big sales bump when Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee started their ‘Hush’ story with “Batman” #608. The creators’ name recognition brought more sales than expected, and it needed to go back to press. DC made the then-unusual choice of putting different artwork on the second printing, and were pleasantly surprised when readers who already had the first print bought a second copy. At their annual RRP meeting with retailers, DC gave out a limited number of RRP variants of issue 608, and they quickly sold for big bucks. This proved to DC that there was demand for variant covers and the company began offering them regularly.
DC’s other big Batman story was Frank Miller’s long awaited “Batman: Dark Knight Strikes Again.” The first two issues of this three-part mini had huge orders – they were the third and fifth bestselling issues of 2002. The third issue, however, shipped late. Extremely late. So late, readers had time to tell their retailers how bad the comic was. Retailers had time to gauge the real interest in the title. When the final issue was resolicited and orders could be adjusted, the numbers came back so dismal that DC couldn’t pretend otherwise. The company took the embarrassing but classy move of making all three issues returnable for credit.
First came the announcement of a price increase on some titles. That’s nothing unusual – people grumble, sales dip a bit, the world moves on. This time, however, one of the affected comics was “Captain Marvel,” written by Peter David. David was also a popular opinion writer for Comic Buyer’s Guide, and in the March March 12 edition, he publicly offered to have is salary for “Captain Marvel” reduced to $20.99 to avoid the change. Marvel didn’t take him up on that offer, but did delay the increase by six months. Jemas didn’t like this ruckus, however, and he didn’t really care for David’s writing style, either. Jemas decided to write a comic himself, sure the amazing sales on it would embarrass David. Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada tempered the mean spirit behind this idea by turning it into a real contest and joining in. Quesada didn’t work on a comic himself, but he hitched his wagon to a comic he liked a lot: “Ultimate Adventures” by Ron Zimmerman.
Continued belowDubbed “U-Decide,” the stakes were laid out for comic fans. The top selling comic in the competition after six months would continue. The other two would end and the writer with the lowest stales would take a pie to the face. “Captain Marvel” relaunched with a new #1 to level the playing field somewhat. Jemas’ “Marville” was filled with inside jokes that parodied Superman and bashed DC. By September, it was clear David’s book was the top seller, but he humbly suggested that it was less because fans like him and more that they were actively voting against Jemas. No one ever got the pie in the face, though, as Jemas and Quesada also declared victory by other measures.
When Marvel was making headlines in early May with the release of Spider-Man, vocal and polarizing comic retailer Brian Hibbs filed a class action lawsuit against the company for breach of contract. According to their terms of sale, unsold copies of Marvel comics could be returned for credit if they shipped late or if the contents varied significantly from the original description. Hibbs alleged that Marvel had failed to honor this promise since 1998. Hibbs and others in the class went on to win an initial settlement of $1.5 million in 2004.
That lawsuit looked bad, but it was also a procedural one that was not readily understood by the average person. The suit filed by Stan Lee in November, on the other hand, was worse because a casual observer could grasp it easily. Lee’s 1998 contract with Marvel guaranteed him an annual salary plus 10% of revenue generated by the exploitation of his co-creations in other media. That should have included Spider-Man, but he never received the money. He was seeking $10 million over the incident.
In August, Marvel tried to one-up DC by offering “Fantastic Four” #60 for nine cents. They succeeded in the sense that it moved 752,000 copies and was the highest selling comic the industry had seen in a decade. Like before, newspapers ordered copies to include for free to subscribers. The Baltimore Sun alone accounted for 200,00 copies. Unlike the ten cent Batman, “FF” #60 wasn’t the first part of a 25-part story, nor was it by the series’ regular team. The issue was special priced to introduce the new creative team of Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, and Waid purposely crafted it to be complete in itself because he felt the chapter-one status of “Batman” had been a cheat. Artistically he may have had a point, but practically it meant retailers had no baseline for the team’s sales and no guarantee readers would want to see what happened next. The result was for sales of #61 to match #59.
Around mid-year, Marvel renamed and relaunched three X-Men titles: “X-Force” became “X-Statix,” “Cable” became “Soldier X,” and “Deadpool” became “Agent X.” Each one was accompanied by a change in the story’s direction, and each one was a title originally created by Rob Liefeld. According to “Wizard,” the new names were intended to be permanent and a way to avoid paying Liefeld for the continued use of the former titles. If that was the true motive, it either wasn’t worth it or didn’t work as intended because the old names were back on cover pages within 18 months. If anyone has more inside information on this, hit me up.
