Multiversity’s history column returns with three new items from the annals of comic history, all themed around the month of November. Enjoy!
By 1967, it was clear that Marvel was gaining market share at the expense of long-dominant DC. That didn’t sit well with DC, prompting some heavy introspection. DC’s publisher, Irwin Donenfeld, compared sales numbers to cover artwork and discovered two of their bestsellers, “Detective Comics” and “Flash,” were illustrated by the same artist: Carmine Infantino. Inspired, Donenfeld had Infantino pulled off interiors after “Flash” #174 (cover dated November 1967) and assigned him all of DC’s covers.
Infantino’s natural sense for cover design was at the top of the field, and Marvel head Stan Lee took notice of the change. Perhaps fearing the move might prove successful, Lee tried to cut it off at the knees by offering Infantino a $3,000 raise to come to Marvel. Infantino was earning $19-20k at the time, so this was a very significant 15-20% raise. He discussed the offer with Donenfeld, who said DC couldn’t match it. Infantino gave notice to his DC editor, Julius Schwartz, and news of his defection made its way through DC’s offices. When DC head Jack Liebowitz learned about it, he asked Infantino to lunch. They made casual conversation while they ate, then Liebowitz suggested Infantino stay at DC as editorial and art director with a raise to $30k.
The early 1990s were a time of great angst and darkness in comics. Superman died. Batman got his back broke. The Punisher was popular enough for three monthly titles. In the midst of this deconstruction of the superhero archetype, “Marvels” shocked the world.
It should have been a dud. Kurt Busiek was a writer who had been picking up minor gigs in the industry for 10 years but had no major successes and was relatively unknown. Alex Ross was a newly minted comic artist, having done only one miniseries for NOW Comics and one cover for a Superman prose novel. The material was a tribute to the Silver Age with heroes being heroes. The lead was a new character, and just a plain photographer at that. To top it off, each issue of the miniseries was $5.95 per issue at a time when the average comic was $1.25 or so.
The cost was jacked to support the comic’s acetate covers. “Marvels” was the first comic to implement acetate technology, but wasn’t the first to attempt it. Marvel had previously promised it would be used in April 1992 on the first issue of “Cage,” but failed to deliver. Marvel’s terms of service meant the issue was returnable since it wasn’t as promised, but retailers who had bet heavy on it still found themselves with funds tied up in a product they struggled to sell since returns take weeks to process. Many of them were probably weary of getting burned twice.
“Marvels” was a breakout success that inspired a phase of backward-looking books focused on nostalgia, including DC’s “Kingdom Come” by Alex Ross and Mark Waid. Demand for it was strong enough for a trade paperback collection in 1995, which was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association in January 1996. That prompted second printings of the single issues in 1996 (@ $2.95 without acetate enhancements).
There were plans for a sequel that got delayed as Ross dropped out, then changed again when Busiek dropped out. The project eventually came out as “Code of Honor” by Chuck Dixon with painted covers and partial interiors by Brad Parker. Busiek modified his original plans for the sequel into a 2005 storyline for “Astro City” before returning to Marvel for the 2008 “Marvels: Eye of the Camera.” More recently, the concept has spawned several spinoffs.
Manga was a big deal in 2005, especially among teen girls. Buzz Dixon was a VP at Stan Lee Media at the time and wanted to go after the manga market, but he had to leave superhero-oriented SLM to do so. He partnered with Marlon Schulman to create Realbuzz Studios and worked with artist Min Kwon to create “Serenity.” The initial plan was to launch it as a magazine, but they worked out a deal to publish as a tankoban through Barbour Publishing.Continued below
The story is about Serenity Harper, a young girl who recently moved to a new town and is struggling to fit in because she has a penchant for causing trouble. A group of Christian students decide to befriend her and encourage her to change.
Their publisher targeted Christian bookstores, but met significant resistance because of the format. Too many buyers assumed it would be full of hentai, witchcraft, and/or murdering samurais. Barbour’s marketing effort overcame most of that, however, and “Serenity” made its way onto shelves… and then quickly off of them. Dixon had been correct about a niche for Christian manga, and the first volume quickly sold over 100,000 copies. When the Christian Bookseller’s Association put out its best seller list for November 2005, “Serenity” became the first manga to ever appear on it, and one of the few fiction titles to do so.
Additional volumes followed, along with other titles. Realbuzz Studios left Barbour amicably and moved its business to Thomas Nelson, a publisher who tried to push the material into mainstream bookstores too. Unfortunately things turned sour between Dixon and Shulman, culminating in a civil lawsuit in California in 2009.
I’m considering a format change for this column in 2023. If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered, please let me know by email. If you’re viewing this after 1/1/2023, I’ll still accept suggestions. Thanks for reading!
