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Comic Book Publishers, Faced With Flagging Sales, Look To Streaming (nytimes.com)
Comic book publishers are facing a growing crisis: Flagging interest from readers and competition from digital entertainment are dragging down sales. Hoping to reverse the trend, publishers are creating their own digital platforms to directly connect with readers and encourage more engagement from fans. From a report: One of the biggest direct-to-consumer efforts is DC Universe, a platform from DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Digital Studios that will offer streaming content, including original and classic TV series. DC Universe is "a huge opportunity" that offers "ultimate creative control," said Jim Lee, a co-publisher of DC Entertainment. "It allows you to look at wider adaptations of the source material."
[...] The Walt Disney Company, which owns Marvel Entertainment, said last year that it would create a streaming platform that would include Marvel movies like "The Avengers" and "Guardians of the Galaxy." Smaller comic book publishers are testing their own direct-to-consumer platforms. Image Comics, the publisher of popular titles like The Walking Dead and Saga, started a direct-to-consumer platform in 2015 to sell comic book subscriptions and apparel.
[...] The Walt Disney Company, which owns Marvel Entertainment, said last year that it would create a streaming platform that would include Marvel movies like "The Avengers" and "Guardians of the Galaxy." Smaller comic book publishers are testing their own direct-to-consumer platforms. Image Comics, the publisher of popular titles like The Walking Dead and Saga, started a direct-to-consumer platform in 2015 to sell comic book subscriptions and apparel.
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Something that readers clearly want is being denied to them by the SJW cancer in the industry.
Comic book publishers are facing a growing crisis: Flagging interest from readers and competition from digital entertainment are dragging down sales.
What a surprise that you'd deliberately ignore the elephant in the room.
You sound entirely reasonable, but I disagree with your point on not reading. The fact of the matter is we've seen very self-righteous and pervasive commentaries claiming that not reading/watching IS a sign of bigotry. Remember all the stuff written about choosing to not go see Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Wrinkle in Time, and others.
Preceding that you may recall there was a huge mass of articles released in tandem claiming that it was time to do away with the identity of "gamer." I think there is at least some credence to the idea there is a systemic and concerted attack on a lot of geek culture. It might actually be an interesting thing to investigate. It'd take a strong constitution to deal with the filth that populates both extremes of the debate though.
1: They keep pissing off their established fan bases with needless changes, reboots, and retcons to appease the Butthurt Brigade.
Continuity is a mess at the best of times, crossovers universally suck, and having to understand a byzantine layer of backstory doesn't draw in new readers. Ignoring that constant growing readership (which is what the big two's shareholders are undoubtedly demanding) is a fool's game, established fanbases die. Either literally or they drift off. New readers are a necessity to keep comics alive, never mind thriving. The movies and TV shows are immensely popular, but not turning into monthly readers despite people loving the characters.
Endless crises on infinite earths are eyerolling and infuriating, I totally agree. Trying to manage literally decades of continuity is also untenable. Long-term serialization is both awesome and slowly rotting away comics' strongest characters. I doubt there's a good solution available at all.
2: Comics are just too freakin' expensive per issue for the amount and quality of content you get.
Agreed. Personally I think getting rid of Diamond would help. Not directly or immediately, but ditching that fucking cancerous system would help out retailers and make publishers more immediately responsible to their customers which in turn would, at least, bring back realistic capitalist supply-and-demand. That's just a pet wish of mine, though.
3: The barrier to entry is so low now that previously ignored but still decent talent can punch their own meal ticket. Unfortunately, that allows for a lot more total and utter shit to flood the pool. But that is less important than the ability to go it your own.
Is this a strike against it? You honestly seem to be arguing both ways here. Lower barrier to entry means more opportunities for new blood. Yeah, there'll be dreck, but let's not pretend that lots of established players aren't shit or that there's no absolutely exquisite new talent on the scene. New writers and artists mean new stories and new readers. All that matters then is getting the best stories into everybody's hands.
On the one hand, I can't think of anything wrong or stupid about a story involving a black female teenager in a mech suit. Mech suits are cool, no matter who is in them.
With good writers, one could spin compelling stories with any character, regardless of race, etc.
But, on the other hand, the only reason that this specific combination was chosen was to contrast it against the white male original character. And this isn't the only story in which this has happened. There is, in fact, a huge push to replace all the classic characters with women and minorities, not because there is something compelling about this plotwise, but in order to push an obvious agenda of social engineering.
And hell, if the whole agenda is just one of encouraging acceptance and respect, I don't even have a problem with that. But it is being grossly overdone, in an in-your-face and kind of insulting way, and the plots being produced are not compelling. "Oh look at me, I am a woman in a man's role" is just not good enough.
Why is a female Thor better than, say, brand new IP about the goddess Athena? Athena was a strategic badass in greek mythology, no need at all to turn a man into a woman who is just-as-good-or-better.
The answer is obvious. The goal is transparent. The push is to replace characters we have loved with more politically correct equivalents.....not to write badass stories with compelling plots.
And that is precisely why their sales are dropping. But their idealism won't allow them to admit this, not even to themselves, so they put the blame on bullshit.
Some talented startup is going to write some good comics in the next few years, and eat their lunch.
Yeah, I quit collecting comics (mostly Marvel) around 1992. They were too expensive for the value you got, and there were too many forced, artificial ways of driving sales without adding value (crossover stories that went on for dozens of issues, but went nowhere). When you're selling a product designed for kiddies and a professional thinks they're too expensive, you're doing something wrong.
I miss comics, but everything I've seen and read about the industry since then makes me glad I quit.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I logged in to say just this. In 1961 in the middle of the golden age of comics, a comic cost 10 cents and federal minimum wage was $1.15. (11.5 comics per hour).
In 2018, the cover price of a DC comic (regular, plain old, non-special edition) is $3.99 and minimum wage is $7.25 per hour (less than 2 comics per hour). They are absurdly expensive today.
Not to mention that I can buy an AAA video game a couple of year old on steam for the price of a few comics and get a heck of a lot more entertainment value for it. Comics today are about the worst rip-off possible in the entertainment industry.
So I think it is fair to say you don't like Riri. I didn't read the series, so I can't say whether she was a good character or not.But I know there are a lot of diverse characters that are incredible that you are ignoring. The fact she was female and black is all you see (and may or may not be the reason she was as the replacement) but that in no way means she has to be a bad character because of that.
Can you point our exactly where she said she was a bad character because of her skin pigmentation or her sex?
There is racism here, there is sexism here - And it just so happens to be you.
There is no reason the replacement has to always be a white, straight male.
Ah, racism and sexism again. Here's the thing - many characters have been changed. Long before you decided that it was important to get rid of those straight white males you rail on about.
What happens when who the character wants to have sex with gets gratuitously thrown into the story, or 21st century American social politics gets thrown into a story about a faraway galaxy a long long time ago.
There can be tremendous movies about social politics. There can be tremendous television shows and movies where gender identity can be explored. Maybe even comic books. Thelma and Louise was a great movie. Steel Magnolias was decent. I don't want to see an all male cast of Thelma and Louise, Steel Magnolias - and I have no idea how to take a femal Frankenfurter in a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show! And not many of us want to see an all female Ghostbusters. The sex of the characters had zilch to do with the actual story.
But your argument rationalizes a male Wonder Woman and Cat Woman, and a Female Superman and Male Supergirl. And whatever the social outlook of the people that you are chasing away from comics and sci-fi, you need to be buying the new socially acceptable comic books, and going to the movies and buying all the toys, because if you don't, the next outfit might not be so inclined to bow to your wishes, after they see that your complaints and their response only put another outfit into bankruptcy court.
You've already caused the first Star Wars flop.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
But that was the one that was about a straight white male... Surely if diversity was the problem then the other three new-era films would have flopped and Solo would have been a huge success.
Maybe it's just not a very good film, or we have reached Star Wars saturation point.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
don't worry... the SJW thought police will come after Japanese and European comics soon.
No they won't. Because unlike marvel/DC pulp Eurocomics are so diverse it will make even the most progressive social issue proponents head spin. In fact, if there is any media genre that is proactively progressive it's Eurocomics and perhaps some modern high quality manga. Female heroes in abundance. And unlike prude USians teen sex, sex in general, naked people, handycapped heroes and other stuff too, without *anybody* doing wee-wee in their panties because of it. ... OMG you have so little of an idea it would blow your mind. Gung Ho has sexual and power abuse as a friggin sideplot!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca