Marvel Comics blabbery

Marvel kind of flirted with the idea with their “timely comics” revival but limited it to a specific collection idea

how are bi-weekly comics hurting the direct market? i've only seen 'em for very successful titles like Batman or Superman

Biweekly titles require Marvel's customers to spend double upfront every month on titles they "have" to stock, reducing the capital available to invest on material that grows their business with their customers

is there anything good for the direct market that doesn’t involve enforcing the weird direct market rules more stringently to make sure people only can buy comics according to existing rules?

I wonder if upturning the ideas of what’s bad and coming up with things that fit how people who want to casually buy comics instead of enforcing the rules would work better

Casual customers are not the ones who come in so frequently that biweekly titles suit them. If the shops have spent 79% of their budget on stuff of which they haven't been given time to assess the sales potential, likely with bullshit variant percentages leaving them choking on even more unsold stock, there is even less possibility for them to shelf-stock with material that appeals to the casual buyer.

Heroes World was TWENTY-THREE years ago. To imagine that Marvel will do something revolutionary to repair the damage of that one act, let alone what they have continued to do since then, is more creative than anything they've published in that time.

seems like the answer to most shops (as I've seen, anyway) is to diversify and get away from relying on floppies as main income. floppies are far less than half the product in most shops i've been in this past decade, filled with toys, collectibles, trades, etc

those rules for prebuys from Diamond are obviously awful ofc

Sadly they seem to diversify by having walls of fucking funko pops.

started to draft a post of my past comics buying habits but it's really tl;dr

I guess the bottom line is that Marvel and company need to make some significant change or single monthly issues are pretty much fucked, more so than they are now.

If they were a freestanding company and not owned by Disney I'd joke that they'd be merging with Funko

Are digital floppies from the Big Two still the same price as physical floppies? The physical floppies that often include a free digital download? Because if I were looking to make changes, that's a place I'd start.

Yes, although I believe they're discounting more rapidly. Digital pricing is a complete shitshow, though

marvel's (6 month late) subscription service Unlimited seems the right model but i have no idea how much money it's making.

unlimited is fantastic value, even if the app could use a good overhaul

It's really weird in that Marvel Unlimited still has some horrible app design decisions, freezes on start because it updates all the "new/featured issue" feeds before it lets you do anything, has weird metadata problems (clicking on a writer's name sometimes sends you to some series from 1995 instead of books by that writer), and their curation is iffy

Comixology Unlimited also has some Marvel stuff, although typically only to tease current series, and has none of the technical problems. The depressing thing to me is that each has an exclusive Black Panther series (read neither so far) in the run up to the movie. Comixology gets an original series that's free with Unlimited or purchasable per issue. Marvel Unlimited gets... "BLACK PANTHER: SOUL OF A MACHINE" which is a multi-issue Lexus advertisement

Somehow MU has the car advertisement in their "most read" section, over the Priest run they have highlighted in their featured content. o_O

Marvel had a job posting for someone to work on the app and I almost wanted to apply, not because I'd want the job, but because I'm embarrassed by how bad some of the issues with the app are

it's def better than it was a couple of years ago but they certainly don't seem to be in a hurry to fix any of the longstanding issues

Said this before, but there's gotta be a ton of nerds who would literally pay to work on cataloguing and fixing Unlimited. It's lame that that's still not fixed.

A small problem that's always bugged me with iPads and Comixology - why is the page always resized to fit screen? Seems much better to fix it to page width and scroll a little.

It is very very weird that a major event book is being written by an ex-ILXor and Mark Waid.

The book itself isn’t, sadly, very weird at all, just packing 3 or 4 dozen characters in and ending with another person who’s been injected into continuity as an Avengers founder.

What’s the deal with Ms. Sentry? And why should anyone care? So far this thing’s a steaming pile.

^ yr reading marvel comics tbh

sadly true

Kinda not the look I was expecting: https://pagesix.com/2018/01/25/first-look-at-brie-larson-as-captain-marvel/

She is too young. I assume the green is either to enable digital replacement because of because the costume is still Kree(ish)?

Beyond the costume — when I heard “set in the ’90s,” I guess I wasn’t expecting her to literally have the “Rachel” haircut.

it's the original Kree costume, makes sense

candid set photos always look like garbage tbf

word

If you are drawing women characters, you may not want to make their boobs sketchy, impressionistic blobs: http://media.comicbook.com/2018/02/x-men-red-1-1080574.jpeg

I for one am scandalized to see comics art that betrays a hazy understanding of human anatomy, particularly female human anatomy. An unprecedented affront imo.

decades of mainstream comics have warped my mind and my thought was "whatever, seems ok"

The new Jean Grey costume is a... weird bit of design. Cheek and forehead pads?

I think it's pretty much the classic headpiece from the 90s but most of it's covered up by her hair

not that it ever made a lot of sense as a practical piece of clothing

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/cmx-images-prod/Item/609190/609190._SX1280_QL80_TTD_.jpg

I for one am scandalized to see comics art that betrays a hazy understanding of human anatomy, particularly female human anatomy. An unprecedented affront imo.

― I Wanna Be A Door (Old Lunch), Thursday, February 15, 2018 9:44 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

decades of mainstream comics have warped my mind and my thought was "whatever, seems ok"

― mh, Thursday, February 15, 2018 10:09 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The bar has been raised, tho -- there's been some great art in recent years, and I'm looking for that trend to continue! (That said, I know I'm nitpicking here; and this artist doesn't seem bad overall, if maybe not my style.)

There is nothing classic about any 90s Marvel designs

I particularly liked the way David Lopez drew Laura (see below), because he gave her a somewhat unique anatomy (shorter/ more muscular) -- similar to Logan, which made sense. But subsequent artists have drawn her taller/leaner. (Not that I obsess over female anatomy in comics, but it was handled so poorly for so long...)

http://www.multiversitycomics.com/wp-content/themes/mvc/images/timthumb.php?src=https://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2015/12/All-New-Wolverine.jpg&q=95&w=488&zc=1&a=t

Well, David Lopez is a legitimately good artist. Granted, Marvel does employ an unusually high number of those at the moment. But there are also probably not enough good artists to cover all 453,921 titles they put out every month, so you're gonna get some weird boobs from time to time.

I had the same thought as EZ immediately after typing the word "classic" but.. I think that is really where they're at with their throwback strategy right now.

Marvel - you're gonna get some weird boobs from time to time

I hear you, Old Lunch... I guess my feeling is that I'm intrigued by a new X-title written by Tom Taylor and featuring the return of "OG" JG, a new mutant heroine, etc.; but I'm sadly reluctant to pay $4.99 if the art is dodgy. (I "want to" want to buy it, y'know?)

If I may: one other cool thing about that Lopez panel is that you can see she's wearing underclothes beneath her costume -- and I say that not in a pervy way, but because it shows an attn to detail and looks a bit more like how it would actually look if someone were wearing superhero tights, while still retaining that classic "superhero" look.

Lopez's faces can be a bit weird and same-y, but he's such a great artist when it comes to figures, posture, movement, etc.

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/c2/54/03/c25403f929025bcfbedae349d3cf07fc--all-new-wolverine-marvel-art.jpg

Trinary? Honey Badger? Gentle?

Namor?

Honey Badger seems to be the new code name (yeah, it's not a good one) for Gabby -- the youngest of the three Laura clones introduced in the "Three Sisters" story arc from All-New Wolverine: http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Gabrielle_(The_Sisters)_(Earth-616).

Trinary is a newly introduced character, and Gentle is apparently a mutant from Wakanda (I had to look him up when I came across this y'day).

kinda love and hate "Searebro"

that is a good look for Laura - though, tbf all her original incarnations do have her as a super skinny/tall/wiry teenager body. Daken also followed this to a lesser extent

I don’t mind Honey Badger because she’s a kid and it’s supposed to be a dumb name a kid would pick!

It's kind of cute -- tho apparently it was given to her by "Daken" (Logan's son? I've missed all that): https://www.cbr.com/wolverine-gabby-codename-honey-badger/

Oh okay. I just thought they were unusually awful names.

Can I get a Hulk update from someone who follows?

the real crime here is "searebro"