Red Hood

I think one of the ways that the big two can bring new readers in is by actually having good toys at Target, Walmart and other retailers that are 1: affordable, 2: good looking, 3:includes digital codes to a comic book. What got me reading books was the Super Powers and Secret Wars action figures that came around 1984-85. Not only did many of these figures look amazing and exactly like their comic book counterpart, the Super Powers one included a mini-comic to read and they were affordable. Right now, the majority of the Marvel and DC figures on the shelf are either for collectors (Marvel Legends, DC Multiverse) or based on a movie (Shazam/Aquaman/Avengers Endgame). How did I learned about who the Martian Manhunter or Orion or Dr. Fate was? By getting the amazing looking Super Powers figure and then that lead me to comic books.

Marvel had a great line several years ago of 3.75" action figures with almost every character that you could imagine that looked exactly like their comic book counterparts. The title of the line changed throughout the years and last time they were released they were called Marvel Infinite. Some of the figures came in double packs with a comic book and some came in as a team concept with 4-8 figures each and they even had a Galactus with Silver Surfer set and a Sentinel with Wolverine. What was the problem with them? They were $12.99 at Target, $14.99 at Toys R Us and Amazon didn't carry them. Walmart carried the first couple of waves before they stop getting them. Why did they have to be ridiculously expensive. They should have been priced between $5.99 to at most $9.99. Also, boxes should have had more than 1 of each figure. What ended up happening with these line of figures? They ended up at discount retailers like Five Below, Ollies, Ross and TJ Maxx for less than $5 each. This was a missed opportunity by Marvel as they once again targeted the line for collectors instead of kids. That's why the industry doesn't get new readers. The thing is that everyone sees this except the bean counters at Disney and WB who only want to see profits and will kill any line or idea if it's not succesful immediately.

ddrknghtrtns

A Saturday morning super-friends/X-Men cartoon on network TV would also help build hype.

PhantomStranger

The comic book industry has to indoctrinate readers into the medium at a very early age - over the decades it has proven very difficult "converting" teens and adults into buyers. No one starts reading comic books at 30, or even 20.

You have to force comic books onto children under the age of ten. Wherever they are, you have to inundate them with comic books. Only Marvel and DC have the clout and exposure to get this done. They need to force superhero action figure manufacturers into including comics in the package. Period. You have to attractively package them with videogames. It's clear that videogames have become an overriding entertainment force for children. It's a crime DC hasn't spent a boatload of money making a AAA Superman game for all platforms. It's one reason why Batman is so much more popular with the teen demographic.

ddrknghtrtns

DC (AT&T/Warner) doesn't give a crap about Superman. In the comics the art work is ugly and lazy. The story uninspiring. In the movies, he is portrayed as a) idiot b) fascist government lapdog c) evil d)a combination of all of the above! When Hollywood looks at Superman, all they see is an outdated superhero whose popularity peaked in the 70's. Really sucks!

fujishig

This is like the most old school response I've seen. Like kids wake up early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons on network TV. I don't think network TV even has cartoons anymore.

Disney has like a few channels dedicated to cartoons/young adult stuff, and they play Spider-man and Avengers (and Guardians of the Galaxy) cartoons constantly. DC has to rely on Cartoon Network but they've had excellent cartoons as well, and if nothing else, Teen Titans Go is super popular and plays all the time (if only the same could be said for JLAction and the brand new Super Hero Girls).

Unfortunately, neither those nor the movies are going to make kids into comic book fans, at least not when they're young. It's impenetrable to a young reader. You have to go to a special store, you have to pick the right comic, know where to start, heck, know how to read panels... if you don't have a parent or relative who is willing to help you out, there's just no way.

I mean, here's my anecdotal evidence, which I've shared before. I love comics, I love superheroes. My kids love superheroes. When I was regularly ordering from DCBS I would buy up kids comics for them: Disney princess comics, super hero girls, Looney Toons, Disney comics, Teen Titans Go, basically anything I thought could help them get into comics. They didn't have to spend any of their money, it's basically free to them, and they still wouldn't read them unless I set up dedicated time. Like cost wasn't even a factor, availability wasn't a factor, interest wasn't a factor and TV/ipad/videogames easily won out. Now my eldest daughter has grown into an avid reader, but she won't touch monthly comic books. She devours any scholastic "comic" book or graphic novel I get her though.

To me, that's how you get kids. They're used to reading and enjoying Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Raina Telgemeier comics. I think the best selling comic of a few years ago was Champions number 1 because they had some deal with Scholastic. I'm pretty sure the DC Super Hero Girls graphic novels do well too. Get some cool creators to do age appropriate books and find a way to distribute them to kids. But it's gotta be, at least to start, either self contained stories or stuff that doesn't spin off into 20 different other series. As I said before, I think DC is going after this market, and I'll buy up whatever they experiment with.

Edited to add:
I found updated info about what DC is releasing

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2019/0...ting-fall-2019

Yeah, I'll buy up most if not all of that.

ddrknghtrtns

Believe it or not, the appeal of animation is probably how me , you, and many others became comic book fans. If you grew up in the 80's, you would watch the cartoons and afterwards beg your parents to buy toys, comics and cereal.
Anyway, I really would like having something to look forward to watching on Saturday mornings again.

fujishig

Oh, I completely agree about cartoons. I'm just saying there are cartoons, just not on Saturday morning.

I agree with the toys thing too. There are actually age appropriate, relatively cheap toys for smaller kids, just not for older kids, mainly because that market is mainly collectors and not kids. But I just went to Walmart just this morning and bought a blind-packed Imaginext Dr. Fate (the other characters you can get are the Wonder Twins, Lex in super armor, Catman, and Duke Thomas. I don't even know who Duke Thomas is). I have an Imaginext Super Friends Hall of Justice and Hall of Doom. I have a gigantic bat robot that's modeled after the Jim Gordon Bat suit. Right next to the Imaginext DC stuff was a five pack of Marvel Super Hero Adventures toys featuring Thanos with an Infinity Gauntlet. But like I said they're for little kids.

Mr. Flix

Besides price and availability, the thing that killed comics for me was the transition from writing episodic issues to writing for the eventual graphic novel. When I was a kid, I would gladly grab random issues if the cover looked cool and never had to worry that I would be dropped into the middle of a story that made no sense to me. You can't do that today at all. You're either all-in with whatever arc is being told (and therefore need to somehow be aware of which issue # the current arc started with), or you're holding out for the graphic novel, or you're out.

B5Erik

That's been brought up before, but it's a great point. Single issue stories need to be the norm and not the exception, at least for the line of comics that they'd hope to sell widely. Lower price, better distribution, and self contained stories in each issue (no more than 2 two parters each year).

The biggest challenge in all that is the distribution.

Josh-da-man

B5Erik

True, but it also sold mostly to existing comic buyers. It just sold to a lot of them. And the new buyers that it did attract stayed on board.

Right now the problem is attracting new buyers - in large numbers. Standalone stories work best for that (if a kid picks up a comic, and there's a bunch of stuff in the storyline that he or she missed out on they may not enjoy the story as much, and would be less likely to keep buying comics).

There needs to be a line of comics that is cheaper, better/more widely distributed, and has more single issue stories. And simpler stories - less millennial convoluted stuff.

fujishig

The other thing is that in Claremont's heyday, there was one X-men comic. Not that hard to go look back if you really needed to, and Claremont was wordy enough that he actually did full recaps almost every issue (as was the standard for the day, because as Shooter liked to say, every issue may be someone's first). That becomes super annoying when reading a collection, but that's just an aside. There are clearly rewards for longtime readers but nothing was inaccessible. Things that happened in other books were promoted with little blurbs that made you think "maybe I should check Uncanny X-bugs number 32 to see what happened." I'll have to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure you could pick up an issue of Claremont's X-men and get a full story and not part 1 of 10 where nothing happens. I think that's the complaint we see when we talk about writing for the trade.

Even when they added New Mutants as a spin off and did crossovers, it was relatively easy to follow. I don't see how a new reader comes aboard a comic line today.

brayzie

If you have to "force" a product like that, it's never going to work.

Yes. Superman is not cool. When I was 5 years old me and my friend thought he was a dork.
Today, I asked my nephews who watch all the Marvel movies, Teen TitansGO!, etc, and ask them about Superman and they don't like him at all. They say he's boring.

Yeah, Superman is damn near all-powerful, but that gives you a whole bunch of possibilities. The problem is that DC has been stuck to tradition for the longest time. One girlfriend for like 50 years, then married to that same girlfriend for like what, 20 years? Then they break it up just so he can tied down into another relationship with Wonder Woman.
He's very old school, and his secret identity disguise is completely stupid, but again, that just offers up more challenges for the writer and artist to get creative.

Well another thing to is that Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid are something new for them. Those stories were only available as a one series of books. So if they want their fix of continuing Wimpy Kid stories they have to get the latest book. There's nothing else. Until the movies came out, but even then, that was only a trilogy at the time.
For superhero comics, shit, there's too many interpretations of Spider-man.
On YouTube kids can search for "Spider-man cartoons" and all kinds of different series's will pop up where they can watch for free.
They can get the many video games available on different platforms, including their phone.
They can just google "Spider-man" and get panels, pages, and pictures of Spider-man.
They go to Target and there's always Spider-man toys there.

So the market is oversaturated with that stuff, to the point that it's too conventional. And movies, cartoons and video games are always going to win out over comics when it comes to kids.


I grew up in the era of Transformers and GI Joe and never saw any Marvel or DC cartoons. I wasn't even really aware of Secret Wars or Super Powers at the time. By the time I got into comics around 1988 there were no Marvel/DC cartoons on TV. I tried checking out Batman and Spider-man cartoons at the video rental store and they only had the really old 60s Spider-man with the bad animation, and some awful Batman cartoons that used the voices from the equally awful Batman 60s live-action show.
So the comic rack was the only fix for the further adventures of Spider-man and Batman. Buying comics back then was like entering a whole new world, especially the Marvel Universe.

It turned out that there WAS some Marvel and DC cartoons in the 80s. For some reason they never really took off like He-Man, Transformers or GI Joe.

People trying to get kids into superhero comics, is almost like trying to get kids into reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. They want the latest, newest thing. Which is probably why manga took off in the 2000s.

I don't know how true that is.
I mean, I felt the same way as you.
I tried getting into Morrison's Batman RIP, reading it off the rack, and feeling that way. I grabbed an issue that was like part 11 of 27. I didn't give it a chance, because hey, I can always find a better Batman comic, either in the back issue bin at my local comic shop, or one the many other Batman titles out there, All-Star Batman, Batman: Confidential, Batman: Samurai, Batman: Supernatural, etc.
Had there been no other competing Batman titles at the time, and no easily available back issues of 70s, 80s, and 90s Batman comics, I probably would have ended up buying more issues of Morrison's RIP story.

B5Erik

You know how I got into comic books?

The Electric Company - the TV show.

They had a cross promotional deal with Marvel, and Spider-Man (live action and still frame animation) appeared on the show. I learned how to read at 3 years old by watching that show, and started collecting Spidey Super Stories at 5. At 6 I graduated to The Amazing Spider-Man and the floodgates opened.

Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, the occasional Batman title (I got into Batman because of the Adam West show) - then X-Men, Iron Man, Avengers, etc.

But it was the live action Spider-Man stuff on The Electric Company that got me interested in the first place. And then John Romita's covers on Spidey Super Stories really caught my eye and confirmed in my head that I HAD TO HAVE those comics!

And comics were EASY to find. Every 7-11 had a ton of them. And newsstands. And bookstores that carried a lot of magazines. It was easy to become a comic book fan.

It hasn't been easy to become a comic book fan in over 30 years. That's a HUGE problem. You have to work to find them. In a world based on convenience that just kills your ability to sell your product.

fujishig

I mean, comic book CHARACTERS are more accessible than ever. Chances are, most kids know who the Avengers, the Justice League, heck, even the Guardians of the Galaxy are. My kids know like the most obscure DC characters because of shows like Brave and the Bold. They air all kinds of cartoons at all hours of the day. The issue is how do you translate that to collecting comics, and that's where I agree with the availability/price issue. I really wonder how well the Walmart deal did for DC if you subtract all the hardcore fans trying to buy up the issues. Like how many kids got their hands on them.

majorjoe23

Trevor

I’ll never give up my DC and Marvel, but am at the point where I acknowledge they pretty much suck compared to stuff from Image and Fantagraphics and Dark Horse. Maybe the industry will change and superhero books will fade away, replaced by the less disposable stories being done outside the big two.

PhantomStranger

In all my experiences picking up the Walmart line, I've never once come across kids looking at them or even looking near the area. To be fair, I've never come across any adults looking at them as well. One cashier did make a passing mention on them in the checkout line when she saw them.

Now I have seen tons of kids looking at the comic books/graphic novels when I visit Ollie's.

Red Hood

Another big place that recently stopped selling floppies, eliminated their variants and downsized their tpb section is Books-A-Million. This happened at the end of 2018, taking another big customer from Diamond and affecting the industry overall.

The Valeyard

The first few months, I saw kids crawling all over the books. It was great. Since the #5s tho, not so much.

I have noticed that the books are selling. The Flash usually goes fast. So does Superman and Batman. Re-visiting stores, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing and Titans are always the bulk left over.

PhantomStranger

Batman, Superman and Justice League seem to sell pretty well. I always see leftover Titans inventory wherever I go.

big e

The 90s Spider-Man cartoon is what did it for me. My uncle was a Marvel reader when I was little, so I already had exposure to whatever comics he had, but what really got me interested was that Spider-Man cartoon.

​​​
I think that’s the main problem with these multi-part stories, not that they exist but that they may crossover into six other books that might not be on your radar. I pay attention to this stuff and that even happened to me in the last couple years with a couple Spider-Man and X-Men stories. I’ve been reading some old Web of Spider-Man issues and when a multi-part story pops up, it’s usually contained to that book and doesn’t branch out into the other books. There is occasional branching, but it’s usually not too bad, no where near as bad as it gets in the mid 90s. The little recap blurbs were great, but the issues were also written in a way so that you weren’t left in the dark and knew what was going on, if you hadn’t read the prior 2 or 3 issues. Although, that may just mean we had better writers back then than we do now.

stingermck

And the floppies were always destroyed, bent up, hanging over the racks, and not appealing at all.

Red Hood

And they were pushing their Fried Pie variants for ridiculous prices.

stingermck

Right, and most of them were terrible covers