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“45:22– What really made All-New All-Different Marvel the success that it was?”

It seems like the jury’s still out on whether ANAD was a success or not. I’ve not actually seen anyone try and prove it mathematically one way or the other but it seems the general mood is that ANAD is arriving with a thud.

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“This is not the way readers consume content anymore….. comics do it for no other apparent reason besides inertia.”

Seriously? Are you nuts?

For stories and genres that are well suited for serialization, periodical releases will always always always always sell more copies than an OGN (or whatever). Just look at the sales charts. It’s *obvious*.

If it wasn’t true, then publishers would have switched away from serialization a long long time ago. Have Snyder and Capulo do a BATMAN OGN, and I *guarantee you* it will not sell 100k copies in month #1 — but as a serialization it absolutely will AND THEN ALSO SELL AGAIN in trade later.

I also wish you two would stop pretending that Digital is at all a thing for the *overwhelming* majority of comics.

-B

That was Alex. He says crazy things. There are two of us, you know. And we don’t always agree.

So I don’t want to speak for him: but part of his point is that even serialized storytelling is more and more being dropped in bulk for a binging audience.

And you’re totally missing my larger point. Of course periodical Batman outsells OGN Batman in the world DC has built! Publishing, editorial, creative, production, marketing, DM sales, 3rd-party distribution, 3rd-party retailers ARE ALL GEARED TOWARD the periodical. You don’t need to be a genius to clock periodical dominance.

If you think the traditional means of production and distribution are down to the READER and not, well, tradition, I think you’re crazy.

And I mean two kinds of readers:

1) any potenial customer in the whole world–but especially audience exposed to our characters and our kind of stories in other media.

2) the core audience. They are conditioned to buy periodicals every Wednesday. Publishers are so close to readers. Retailers are even CLOSER. Of course we influence their buying habits; moreover, our effective marketing can influence their hearts and minds.

And I think we see eye-to-eye on things like variant covers and relaunches… why doesn’t M/DC clock the longterm diminishing returns? Can it be anything other than a bad habit, and a gun-shyness regarding course changes?

And you’ll have to take my word: no one loves the DM more than me. But I think we’re too afraid to conclude periodical format SHOULDN’T work. Or at least shouldn’t be dominant. Yes, “SHOULDN’T” prompts questioning what changes could be made to make things better…

But it should also prompt questions as to why it works! There’s a lot we could mine from our own successes for a better understanding of our business. But if you want instead to shrug your shoulders and say ‘Whelp! It works because it works!’ then you are in plentiful company–but unfortunately your net result is ‘standard’ attrition.

Well, we’re more than halfway through an odd-numbered decade; if the twenty-year boom-bust cycle is going to hold it had better hurry up.

The publishers have made a LOT of decisions over the past few years that have led me to think “This is unsustainable; it’ll lead to short-term gains but then things are going to collapse, just like the 1990’s.” It could still happen, of course, but I’m a lot less sure that it will than I was when, say, the New 52 launched.

I definitely think the Big Two are being too conservative, still catering too much to a niche audience, still putting out books that are far too samey (and even the ones that are different still follow the six-issue-arc format and all the plot beats that entails), focusing too much on the *illusion* of change (new #1’s every six months!) and not enough on *actual* change. But, on the other hand, it seems to be working out for them.

Meanwhile, Image is putting out a wide variety of great books; I don’t know if any have been breakout hits beyond the Wednesday crowd (except for Walking Dead and Saga), but I like to think what they’re doing is good for the future of the industry.

Here’s the thing: media is currently changing in a huge way. You cannot deny this. I used to follow weekly television viewer data, and just eight years ago heavily serialized shows like LOST pulled an average of 18 million viewers a week. Nowadays, Supergirl pulls around 7.5 million or so per week and is heralded as a breakout hit. On the largest traditional TV broadcast station. Television executives no longer talk about how well the show holds its audience, but rather how likely it might develop one.

Digital comics have an audience, particularly if you’re Ms. Marvel. Why is that? Why do so many people read this one particular comic digitally, and how can we develop more comics that this new audience might be interested in? I agree, digital comics are not a thing for most DM books right now. Personally, even I don’t read anything digitally. However, clearly, somebody is! Those somebodies may not be your typical Wednesday Warrior, and that is who comics publishers NEED to appeal to to bolster sales.

In all media, you have your entrenched audience. In theory, you have to worry less about appealing to them than you do about pissing them off. As long as you produce the type of story that they like, they’ll keep buying. This is why many mainstream bands and singers will produce stylistically similar records five times and still break sales records. Just look at Adele’s 25. However, you can’t only appeal to those people, because then you end up with a closed ecosystem like the one comics has! You’re draining your limited sphere of influence dry of cash while ignoring the fact that there are billions of fish with currency just as valid as your current catches’.

I have nothing against the Direct Market, or comic book shops. I LOVE comic book shops because they provide a gathering place for a community that rarely has one. However, I also feel like many of these shops have rarely been curated for people like me. I was SHOCKED to read your article, Brian, and find that there are still shops that only sell DC and Marvel. That’s honestly absurd to me. I haven’t been reading comics seriously for that long, but I can safely say that if it weren’t for Image books, I would have never picked up the lifestyle.

The reason why I’m so critical of the way things are done, and so geared towards looking for alternatives, is because I AM a member of that alternative audience. I can count the number of floppies I am actively excited to read month to month on my hands. Yet, that doesn’t mean I don’t like the other dozens of titles I read each month. When I pick them up in trade, I love them. They’re fluid and contain interesting character arcs and stories. I feel like I got a full experience by reading one arc at a time rather than one chapter at a time. I’m not alone. On my Twitter feed, more people are touting the merits of trade waiting. Yes, industry patterns dictate that you /should/ be able to double dip on your single and trade sales, but that’s an inherently parasitic business practice and may well not continue to succeed in the long term.

Why do we think that comics can function differently than all other media forever? Why do we think the same-old, redone, will attract new audiences forever? I’m not saying that history will be on anyone’s side. I’m simply interested in looking for alternatives to what presently exists, because I don’t think comics’ current economic structure is capturing all the potential customers it could be.

Brandon:

” the core audience. They are conditioned to buy periodicals every Wednesday. ”

No. They are conditioned (sort of) to buy COMICS every Wednesday.

The REASON that FAR FAR more buy periodicals than OGNs is the cost factor — $2.99 is an easier bite than $24.99

OGNs are *inherently* more expensive than periodicals, because they have nothing to amortize their costs against.

Things that are more expensive has smaller audiences. It’s a rule, like gravity.

Alexander:

“You cannot deny this. I used to follow weekly television viewer data, and just eight years ago heavily serialized shows like LOST pulled an average of 18 million viewers a week. Nowadays, Supergirl pulls around 7.5 million or so per week and is heralded as a breakout hit. ”

When LOST was on the air, how many scripted television shows were broadcast? How many today? Because, as a viewer, it sure feels like it has trebled..

However, any comparison of a media that costs money for individual purchases vs a media that is either “free” (or is bundled in such a way that any individual component at least *feels* free) is going to be a skewed and flawed one, because getting people to reach into their pocket and take out hard earned cash in exchange for art is always an uphill struggle!

“Digital comics have an audience, particularly if you’re Ms. Marvel.”

I’d personally like something a little more significant than unsourced 2-year old anecdotes, and I’d very much want a relationship for that to *recent* issues of that book (as opposed to when it was a “hot” media story back in 2014) to actually base any analysis on digital velocity around that title, but even if that IS the case for that individual title, that still doesn’t mean that digital is particularly significant for the OVERWHELMING majority of titles. I keep hearing “8-15% of print on average” from source after source after source.

What I DO know is that a reasonably significant number of 20-something new readers have walked in to MY store in 2015 and said things like “Yeah, I was checking out digital, but I wanted to come and get the ‘real’ version” (like, without any prompting!) — given that print in comics is growing, in direct opposition to trends in other media (both of my stores are up double digits), I feel safe in positing that comics are different and that when something is working, changing it just to change it is probably not the wisest of course.

My suggestion is this: stop making the mistake that armchair pundits have been making literally as long as I’ve been in comics (just passed 30 years now), and stop being disdainful of the product (“floppies”) or the customers (“Wednesday Warriors”) and thinking that just because things aren’t CRAZY AMAZEBALLS PERFECT (as *you* specifically envision it) that there’s something fundamentally broken or screwed up about the market. The market has become what it is over time as and in a direct response to the inputs that are applied to it. I certainly think comics are a lot more smart, sane, and straight-forward than the bizarre and corrupt ways that television shows are made, for example; hell, or even prose which seems custom-designed to make sure that the overwhelming number of authors can’t possible make more than minimum wage writing….

I’d encourage you maybe to even have some actual working today store-owners on the show, maybe get a better idea of how things DO work, because, honest to god, if I went through your 1:15 picking out every “well that’s not actually true” statement from the Podcast, I’d probably have a 2000 word essay….

-B

If you’re saying that dominance of the monthly format has more to do with someting discretely inherent in cover price than it has to do with 30+ years of publishers and distributors directing their business efforts in that specific direction, I can’t disagree more. I don’t even know what counter argument I can make… except that I’ve never met a professional in any aspect of the business that puts cover price–absenst buyer habits–in the ultimate position. To be fair: that’s monthly vs everything (OGN, TPB, Digital… library sales, whatever other little stuff).

And I hope I’m not reacting defensively to the “armchair pundit” comment, but rather you assertion that I disdain the DM. When I say “Wednesday Warriors” it’s with brotherly love as well as a bit of self-effacement. Same with Retailers. I’m a member of the tribe. Related: I don’t favor the term floppies… I usually default to calling them “monthlies”–but the context of this episode might have sometimes blocked my brain to that term. And in general: for any time I’m critical of this business, there’s at least five where I publicly cheerlead for it; moreover, I don’t think I’ve ever critiqued retailers or fans without explaining how publishers and creators are also a part of any given problem or lost opportunity.

As for the armchair stuff–we’ll, aren’t we all when it comes to systemic discussions? By your metrics, you’re not qualified to talk about publisher motivations for relaunches or incentive covers or anything else. In case some of the audience doesn’t know, I was a full-time retailer for 10 years. Granted, that ended 10 years ago. But as a 19-year-old I bought a dying store where the only alternative was Chapter 7. The store became one of Diamond’s top 100 accounts, and I left it in great condition. FWIW: from 1995-2005 Alternate Realities in Scarsdale NY sold a lot more comics than Comix Experience in San Francisco (having always read and noted your sales numbers posts).

You’ve got an open invitation to come on Podcorn. And to be more forward, I’ll suggest Alex reach out with an official invite. FWIW: Podcorn’s about discussion; it doesn’t attempt to tell people what to do.

Brandon should love TDK2, it’s great. That’s the kind of idiosyncratic comic I’d like to see more of from the Big Two.

They already said Hulk was going to be in Thor Ragnarok.

The podcast appears to be an hour and a half long. Any chance we could read the highlights somewhere?

That is what treadmills are for. Get fit with podcasts!

If you’re going to talk about the current comics market, I think you might want to actually talk to someone who currently sells comics in some capacity instead of making wild speculative guesses about what the individual businesses’ model and reasoning and viability might possibly be?

You guys got it maybe 25% right, but the other three quarters was really kind of massively misinformed in so so so many ways about how the math works for who and how and when :(

From the little I know, you have it entirely wrong about Bergen St.’s profitability and motivation, in an entirely insulting way.

-B

“how do you get people to buy #4?”

Have #1-3 be transcendent wonderful of-the-moment comics.

But, really, for non-name non-exciting product the game is actually to get to the third TP collection (5-800 pages of material) — once you hit 6 inches of spine-out rack space then, maybe, you get enough shelf presence to move work to the next level.

-B

It’s rare to have a transcendent #1-3… but it happens more often than a #4 increase in sales, I’m sure you’ll agree. Which is why the question needs asking, I think.

As for the other stuff… yeah, you’re probably right. But it’s a casual conversation, not an essay. I thought we (or I) embraced it for the rant it was. I’m not looking to be dispositive. You should have stuck your fingers in your ears like I said! For what it’s worth: I owned a store for a long time–and throughtout and for almost 10 years after I left, it was very successful. One of Diamond’s Top 100 accounts by dollars. And that was all comics, as we were direct with most card, games, T-shirts, and statue companies. In the 10 years I’ve worked in publishing, I’m sure a lot has changed. But it doesn’t LOOK like a lot has changed. That being said: I know as much as anyone that you can’t get a real picture from the outside looking in. So YMMV.

There is always always always always always a drop in consumer sales in a series from #1 to #whatever — whether that is comical books or Netflix views — so for a comics series to GROW in sales with issue #4, the *only* way that can happen is that the first three issues were *under*-ordered. Which is exactly why it happens in the rare occasions that it does.

-B

We all know #1 will sell the most copies. But what about when a major publisher forwards a creator an chart that says a 69-74% drop by #4 is considered normal–the “standard” in standard attrition… with more drops each following number? I think there’s a whole lot of room to improve between the impossible 101% and the accepted-as-normal 26%.

You can blame the content–but I think that’s likely unfair in a world where comics content is ubiquitous and in-demand across all media.

And while a significant minority, it is not a rare thing that books–especially early numbers–are under ordered:

1) Anecdotally, I’ve seen many books where #2 and/or #3 are cut too much. Reorders go quick and then those numbers are gone. Not just from Diamond, but off the shelf. And I think a lot of retailers are hesitant to up #4’s significantly above their total sales on #3–that’s a tough mentality to crack because they don’t know if the customers who lost out on #3 will instead opt to wait-for-the-trade.

1a) If Saga-like comics get their numbers bumped at 6, 11, 16, 21 (ie: singles after a trade)–that’s evidence singles were under ordered.

2) With all due respect to all retailers, I think it’s safe to say that some retailers cut orders on #2-4 more based on habit that close scrutiney of actual sales.

3) I’ve done it. I’ve hand-fed multiple, major stores sold out issues from my personal stock. Telling them I’ll take them back if unsold. When I did that with 1s, 2s, & 3s, orders for 4s, 5s, 6s increased. And it’s continued growth as I restock #4s, 5s &c when Diamond is out of those. I see the inititial orders, I see FOC, and I get the calls for restock. It’s hundreds of copies per issue–a little more than 5% of total Rocket Girl sales are by me, after Diamond sells out.

4) #1’s sell the most… with 100% of the marketing budget. It makes sense, but maybe a small but significant part of that is self-fulfilling-prophecy. When did anyone ever push a #4? And you don’t even have to make #4 a discrete marketing project–how about pushing “the series” three months after a launch–never happens, not even if the book is “transcendent.”

Now, maybe paragraphs 1-4 above don’t add up to a revolution. But maybe they do make a favorable dent of a few points in that “standard attrition” (which a cynic would say is code for “not my fault”) of the 75% drop some say you shouldn’t try to stop by #5. I call bullshit and we can do better. And, again, those are just small ideas that came to my head in an unscripted, unplanned podcast chat. Where’s our #4 Manhattan Project (the thinktank, not the Image book)?

Check this article about Netflix: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/09/24/netflix_knows_what_episodes_of_our_favorite_tv_shows_got_us_hooked.html

“Netflix analyzed data for 25 shows, and found the episode within each series after which 70 percent of people continued watching for the rest of its first season.”

So a 1/3 *OR GREATER* drop is *absolutely normal* in serialized fiction in general

If you read that article, ARROW’s transitional episode came at #8, so, at best, .7 of .7 of .7 of .7 of .7 of .7 of .7, which, if I did the math right (I Might not have done so!!!) says that like only 6% of the audience for episode #1 made it to #8?

People like to sample a whole lot of stuff, but those who FOLLOW it, is a substantially lower number. Trying to deny that is, basically, nuts, and I suspect that, overall, comics keep a higher percentage, over all, at #4 of a serialization from another media because we have an actual culture around buying comics on a particular day!

[My personal rule of thumb in ordering is 80% of #1 for #2, and 80% of that for #3, for whatever that is worth — 10, 8, 6 — but here’s the FUNDAMENTAL place that your 10-years-out-of-date ordering experience lets you down — WE HAVE FOC TODAY, and we can make radical changes in orders 3 weeks out from publication]

Now, is it true that some retailers miss maximizing sales on some titles because of the non-returnable nature of comics, and the conserrvatism that engenders?? Oh yes, of course — but I firmly believe that the overwhelming majority of full-service retailers are looking to maximize the number of copies they sell of every comic that they carry. Why? Because if they don’t do so THEY GO OUT OF BUSINESS.

The actual math of the DM says that if you don’t order mostly right, most of the time, you go out of business.

The market isn’t supposed to look like you or I or a neutral third party might *want* it to be — it’s supposed to look like it *is*, and the cold fact is that the overwhelming majority of titles are bought at the “right” level, in that there are still plenty of copies on the market to purchase, and that demand for later issues isn’t scaling up for the market as a whole — for every anecdote you can show about providing 5% in restock, I suspect I can find you five stores that have 20% leftover in overstock.

But if you truly and sincerely believe that #2 and #3 are *Systematically* under-ordered, then the solution seems simple (short term) — double or triple ship those #2s and #3s, believing that the market will correct orders at #4 and #5.

In fact, maximizing early orders seems to be the trick to get the market to perform better than its native conservatism would seem to suggest, but when you see a recurring pattern over and over and over again, perhaps, just maybe, orders reflect a pattern that reflects our ordering experience? We DO lost half the audience between #1 and #2…. except when we don’t. But if I had to place a bet on any random title, I’d absolutely place it as a big loss between issues because that’s how most books are for most issues.

There are, OF COURSE, exceptions to that pattern, but they’re generally fairly rare because inefficient markets almost always collapse, and the DM is so very far from collapse at the moment…..

-B

I don’t want to take the bait about having not worked in retail for 10 years and turn this into a quarrel, but: I’ve scriutinized exact Initial vs FOC numbers for every store in the world on a significant number of books over the years from Image, DC, Vertigo; here and there with Marvel books; pay attention when these subjects come up with publishers; and have had scores of conversations with retailers on FOC day about FOC.

And we’re not even saying very different things. What I’m saying is that there is value in addressing your specific above concessions with publisher tools: publicity, information, returnability, other incentive/sales support, etc (and it doesn’t even have to be limited to publisher interaction). I think addressing ‘standard attrition’ post-#1 is something that makes a difference. I’ve still never said it’s going to raise number 4 above #1–but I think there is room for improvement.

And some specific responses: I think, unfortunately, the human component of 10-8-6 (I stress: only for some retailers) sometimes supersedes FOC analysis based actual sales. I think conservatism that hurts the busiess can be ameliorated by the tools in the previous paragraph. I recognize (and this was the point most discussed in the podcast) that OVERordering is probably a contributing factor for most stores that go out-of-business. But that doesn’t mean UNDERordering isn’t also an issue that effects the chain of creator-publisher-distributor-retailer-fan. And for the record: despite the podcast’s provocative title (which I didn’t choose!) the audio goes at great length to say the DM is not only viable, but recognized by publishers as the supreme channel.

The Netflix stuff is very interesting… but still very far from the DM. The huge difference being everything being on-demand at once. There are people today sampling the first episode of Walking Dead or Breaking Bad today because their friends have been talking about it for years. And it’s free (assuming you have the service anyway). So of course the drop off should be higher with free, home-delivered video-on-demand than you find in an informed hobby audience that is investing money-per-book.

In the DM, if you’ve heard good things about a book (and I’m again talking core customers–not civilians) and all there is is #4 on the shelf–there’s very rarely going to be a sampling. At that point, we’re in wait-for-the-trade mode–which does have con’s as well as the pro’s.

And regarding the common wisdom of maximizing a #1 launch, because the higher you start, the longer you can shed readers until you have to cancel (and relaunch)… I think it’s both very true and very dangerous. You can’t deny it, but to live by it without expanding your worldview… it’s the death of 1000 cuts. Forget #1s and #4s… when you have the .1 to 1 to 2 to 3% standard attrition on books that have been around for years, you have a fundemental business problem. That’s how you go from 108,000 copies of 2005 non-#1 Green Lantern to 42,000 copies of 2015 non-#1 Green Lantern. At the end of the day: I’m saying there’s an opportunity in those 64,000 lost copies–but some publishers and retailers instead throw their hands up and say “That’s Life!” I don’t know if I have any of the answers–but I’m not so cynical to believe it’s not worth talking about.

Regarding the Rocket Girl anecdote for #2 & #3. I can be conservative and say I put 500 copies of each into a handful stores (this is AFTER overprints sold out from Diamond). I don’t think the math of your counterargument holds up, because it’s +5% of the entire DM–not +5% of those individula stores. I’d have to dig up the numbers, but stores (and to be fair, it was only is stores were RG sales were already strong) where I supplied extras had increases of ~50-300% over orders shipped + reorders. The restocked copies were not dumped all at once, but over multiple shipments as needed.

And I don’t think you will find a lot of stores with extra copies because RG 2 & 3 were returnable–and returns were so close to zero I don’t even remember them. (And if any retailer has extra 2s & 3s–I need them!). But overships and returnability are only part of the equation–so much more could be done.

Now, does my biased POV on Rocket Girl dispositively evidence a systemic problem? Of course not. But, again, I do think we as a business are missing opportunities to better sustain ongoing series sales (while undervaluing the importance of sustaining ongoing series).

Nobody understands better than me that a market is what it is. But we’re all actors! It is what we’ve made it. The market doesn’t exist outside of us!? We don’t respond to a market… we create it. We’re the manufacturers and distributors and consumers. Our actions have consequences that define the market.

Podcorn is not the only podcast hosted by creators. Crankcast has been running longer, I believe, and features Crank and Mike Norton as hosts. There’s also TCJ Talkies, hosted by Mike Dawson. And of course Kevin Smith and Paul Dini also have their own podcasts.