In a Declining Comics Market, DC Beats Marvel (hollywoodreporter.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Hollywood Reporter: Looking at the most-ordered comic books in the North American comic market, DC Entertainment had a particularly strong year, with seven of the top 10 issues of the year being published by the home of Superman, Batman and the Justice League... just three years ago, not one DC title made it to the list, with nine titles coming from Marvel alone. (By comparison, Marvel takes just three places this year, with one of those due to its inclusion in a subscription mystery box service)... Perhaps surprisingly, the big winner of 2017 looking at the top 10 list is DC's crossover between its DC Universe and Watchmen properties. The first issue of the Doomsday Clock series charted third â" and could end up higher on the final list for the year, depending on re-order numbers in December â" but all four issues of the prologue storyline "The Button," from summer issues of Batman and The Flash, also made it into the top 10.

it's worth noting that, across the board, order numbers for comics in the North American market fell 10 percent compared with last year. The market is shrinking, unless something turns it around soon... One last thing to note about the year's top 10, and also the comic market as it currently exists in general: It's probably time to stop pretending that mass media projects significantly impact comic book orders. In a year with Justice League, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Logan, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming in theaters, there isn't a Justice League, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Wolverine, Thor or Spider-Man title in the top 10. Indeed, Marvel has just canceled the Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series.
Mavel had the most-ordered comic book of the year -- Marvel Legacy No. 1 -- though the article notes that all of its numbers are inevitably skewed by "ordering incentives put in place by publishers that require that a certain number of copies are ordered by stores in order to achieve a specific discount."

Comments

Focus

[gurps_npc]

Marvel focuses on movies and does a good job there, leaving their second string people to work on the comics.

Marvel movies done well, screwed own comics

[JoshuaZ]

Marvel has done really well with their movies, but they've screwed themselves over in multiple ways with their comics. The biggest is that continuing their disagreement with Fox, where Fox still has the rights to X-Men movie franchises, and Marvel isn't happy about that, they kept Wolverine dead for 3 years, which in comic time is almost an eternity http://www.iswolverinestilldead.com/. This seems to have been essentially because he was one of the most popular of the X-Men characters. So they were willing to shoot themselves in the foot in order to be able to say "screw you" to Fox even as it only hurt Marvel's bottom line. The last few years, Marvel has had a lot of little petty things like this that haven't helped the brand.

Re:Marvel movies done well, screwed own comics

[steveha]

What you say could be true, but I think the SJW campaign is probably the biggest reason. It's not just Wolverine.

X-23 is wearing Wolverine's old costume and going by the name "Wolverine" now. Tony Stark is gone, and a teenaged black girl is Iron Man now. (Her name is "IronHeart" but the comic book is still named Iron Man.). Thor is gone and a woman picked up the hammer (she was worthy). Spider-Man isn't gone but there is a second, Hispanic Spider-Man, plus comics where Gen Stacy became Spider-Gwen. They killed Captain America and had Falcon (a black guy) become the new Captain America. There's even a new Hulk, an Asian guy.

In short, SJW Marvel seems to have had a policy of getting rid of the white male versions of their most popular characters, so they could swap in more diverse versions.

There are two huge problems. One is little kids seeing the movies and wanting to buy comics featuring the same characters; none are for sale. They have been walling off their own comics, preventing new customers from becoming fans! The other is that they forgot that their core mission is to tell good stories and entertain their customers... none of this diversity stuff was in service to the story, in fact the stories have been very poor.

There is a guy on YouTube whose channel name is "Diversity and Comics" and he has covered all this. He says that SJW Marvel has been hiring people based on who they are, not their experience making comics. The character of America Chavez is a lesbian female, and Marvel hired a lesbian female to write the comics. But she had no comics experience, and she has done a terrible job of writing comics that fans want to read.

It seems clear that the corporate overlords are out of patience with SJW Marvel. The editor-in-chief was recently replaced, and all signs are that the new guy is going to axe the SJW campaign and try to give the fans what they want. The SJW usual suspects are melting down over this. A half-dozen comics with extremely poor sales were cancelled and the blog coverage was all about the impact this will have on diversity.

If the new editor-in-chief can turn things around, 2018 could be a much better year for Marvel. Most of their problems were self-inflicted.

Thank god

[ArchieBunker]

So tired of a new comic book movie every fucking month.

No way

[Kohath]

-Who doesn't enjoy preachy fiction stories?
-Why wouldn't a story written to fill diversity quotas be as compelling as a story written to entertain?
-Don't comic book readers want to worship the latest designated victim class members?
-Why doesn't the regular comic book audience appreciate the new characters adaptations that are meant to appeal to a new, completely different audience who have never been much into comic books?

It sure is a mystery what's going on.

I get the value of diversity but...

[Maxo-Texas]

Young females don't apparently buy comic books in large numbers.

And apparently minorities don't buy comic books in large numbers.

It is reasonable to say, "Well all the stars are white male so why would women and minorities buy the comics?" but shifting the focus drove away existing customers and hasn't resulted in enough extra sales to women and minorities.

That being said- the reasons I stopped buying comic books had to do with price and dystopic topics. When I was a kid they were a cheap product that cost the same as a Hershey almond bar or a bottle of coke at the convenience store.

Today, they are double to triple the price. Really, two comic books which I could read in 20 minutes cost as much as a book which will take hours to read. Comic books production values are too high for the child audience so children never pick up the habit.

Second- I was an iron man fan-- until the 5th or 7th time he fell off the wagon. I don't read comic book stories to feel unending misery for literally *years*. I want to be happy, inspired, surprised for my money.

On a minor note, I do not like it when they rebrand an existing I.P. When they take Thor and make it someone else, I have no interest in the story. Make a new hero- don't step on my childhood I.P.

I have the same issue with The Last Jedi. Make a *new* movie with new characters if you want to make a dystopic piece of crap in a "no win" universe. Don't ruin my childhood I.P. or I will stop giving you my money.

(and on that note: TLJ box office is down by over 50% per day compared to TFA- no one wants to see it twice- and fewer want to see it even once because its such a nasty, toxic piece of work. For bonus points- merchansiding orders are down 47% too. That's going to get Disney's attention- I hope they fired Kennedy and put someone who l actually likes the films and characters like the executive producer over the MCU).

Because in 10-20 years white males

[rsilvergun]

will be a minority. If they haven't built up a fan base by then they're toast. These are large companies, they need to think long term.