Marvel Comics blabbery

I'm disinclined to believe that comics Marvel is less aware of how tone deaf a position that is than TV Marvel.

almost typed this exact thing yesterday, other than at this point I think the opposite is very much true re: HYDRA

Oh, I just remembered the scene: brainwashed Matrix schoolteacher Coulson smacking down a student's legit concerns about Hydra's alignment with the Nazis by explaining that the organization had been around for centuries. While the show has gone to great lengths in demonstrating that a Hyrdra-run US is basically the apotheosis of a Nazi state.

tbh the show is also doing a better job of keeping continuous numbering while having short, digestible plot arcs

I've been a lonely champion from day one but they're really hitting it out of the park lately, it's true.

Now I feel the need to jump ahead to see how they're mishandling this in the Captain Hyrdra book.

Re: Agents of SHIELD's digestible plot arcs, it was kind of genius for them to split this season up into three discrete mini-arcs. I don't recall a series that's done that before, but it's a very elegant way of handling the unwieldy 20+ episode order of a standard network TV series.

there's someone on twitter who's been tweeting a lot about Marvel's inability to figure out how their editorial actions actually affect comic sales (it's going to be an article, I'll link it when it comes around) but has also been delving into how ineffective the Captain America storyline has been by its "we'll not just have it both ways, we'll have it all ways" philosophy

I'm pretty sure this is Colin Spacetwinks (www.twitter.com/spacetwinks); their essay on Marvel is available here:

https://spacetwinks.itch.io/shut-the-fuck-up-marvel

Correction:
https://mobile.twitter.com/spacetwinks

yeah! I was about to drop that link in today but have forgotten so far. thanks!

started reading it, pretty decent so far.
some of the ground covered in Susanne Polo's article for Polygon about how insane the pre-order direct market is in there, which still seems insane to me that i didn't know this information until so recently

consumers should know how the messages they’re sending with their money are received

this has to be the most depressing phrase (from that Susana Polo clip) that indicts the whole comics sales/marketing system in a nutshell

Buying single issues of Marvel comics in a store serviced by the direct market: Good signal, series may be continued or collected

Buying digital comics: ??? no one knows, no sales numbers released, might do something?

Buying trades: You should start buying the single issues! Trades are for catching up! We only count single issues!

single issues are such a hassle, I'm strictly a trade guy at this point

Yeaaaaaah, it kinda feels like we're one Trumponomicspocalypse away from the complete collapse of the direct market (which, obviously, is my primary concern in the event of a Trumponomicspocalypse).

it's crazy that it hasn't collapsed by now, its soul has been dead since the big Distributorkreig of 94 (was it 94?)

it's another reason why the NYT killing the graphic novel bestseller list was a bummer

but yeah, i am not gonna start buying floppies again, let alone pre-ordering titles for books months in advance, which I never did even as a kid when I was at the comic shop every week. it's absurd

yeah, I feel guilt because the guy I'd chat with who worked at a local comics shop that moved started his own store and I've never even been in. as far as I can tell, he has comics and nothing else, which is awesome

a couple other local stores do the comics/gaming thing and the comics half of the store is half Funko Pop stuff. I have this theory that a significant portion of the entertainment economy is funko-based at this point, in that they occupy tons of space in comics stores, video game stores, hot topic, etc. and took over shelf space for things that people just don't buy in stores anymore

if anything happens to funko there will be a death spiral

Tsum Tsum will be there to save the day.

the stores in my area are the same, funko is insane. one store is exactly as you described, ~50% funko, but then the rest of it is like sadly 10% comics, 40% cards and figurines. it's also bad because funkos are sold everywhere, not just comic shops, it's just screaming for a market crash sooner than later
(also, the actual product is garbage, even compared to the rest of the minifig market. look how shit they are compared to Disney Infinity or Amiibos. it baffles me)

also am forcing myself to occasionally frequent a local store opened by a guy i went to high school with. i don't even really know the guy, but i appreciate the principle of him even opening a comic book store in town after there hasn't been one in about 15 years. small world lol/sigh

I mean, all of the signs are there that in a post-apocalyptic or hell-ravaged world the figurines will be one of the few things with high value -- from Fallout 3 onward, finding a Vault Boy bobblehead is a rarity but one of the most valuable things in the game world. Same for the new Doom game and finding Doomguy figures.

Some of the funko figures are pretty well made! Some batches have bad painting, but they're really pretty consistent. They have to be a significant force in the local economy where they're actually manufactured (the two I have sitting here leads me to believe it's Vietnam, but they might be sourced from several places)

I guess I'm blissfully oblivious cuz I've never noticed these funko things - my local shop is all comics + books + art, plus a kids section and a few standup vintage video games

Uhhh so just read SPIDER-WOMAN #17, and it turns out to be the final issue of the series! (...at least this time Jessica wasn't banished to the astral plane, and all memories of her erased). So now I gotta ask Marvel (Midtown) to replace it with another title for the rest of my subscription (or they start sending me SPIDER-GWEN or something)?

The series was going downhill, btw (as I mentioned somewhere above)... but this feels like another nail in the coffin, for the moment (as discussed more recently above).

Good "state of the publisher" piece by Brian Hibbs -- http://www.comicsbeat.com/titling-at-windmillls-259-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-marvel-comics-anyway/

Good piece, but it's interesting/irksome that he never mentions WRITERS (although some commenters do).

Weird take on Black Panther too - surely reader attrition has more to do with it completely sucking than with brand dilution?

Also not convinced by his faith that readers will return to Marvel if the product improves. I'm sure Vision would still be in print if it had been published at Image with a made-up-replacement hero.

this is the part where i remind everyone to read sheriff of babylon as proof that Tom King can do more than just play with other people's toys

Unrelatedly this is one of the most goddamn ugly covers I've seen in a long time

Not sure what look they're trying to cultivate here, it's sort of "early 90s RPG back cover art"

https://cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/STL043704.jpg

(x-post)

Re: a point made at the end of the article... Marvel has done "side" reboots / continuity resets (M2, Ultimate), and they've been pretty successful, yeah? I wonder about the "value" of the storied Marvel continuity at this point... a new reader of "Capt. Marvel" doesn't care about Carol Danvers' 40-year history; and for longtime readers, the continuity seems to be treated by Marvel as either often irrelevant, something to be glancingly referenced, or an in-joke (the idea that the characters never age, etc.).

But of course there's more immediate value in the backstory to the characters introduced more recently, like in the 2000s. And if Marvel really did do a "true" reboot, I'm sure they'd just end up going over familiar ground, and/or the old continuity would eventually be reintroduced (as in DC)... one more familiar "trick."

"continuity" is worthless imo. It really backs comics into a narrative corner. I was thinking about Dr C's defunct X-Men blog and how much Claremont's handling of the characters contributed to this by virtue of the series popularity and impact - centering your narrative around the emotional conflicts/growth of your characters requires some kind of continuity in order to be coherent or have any kind of impact. But that bucks up against the industry's other needs of having things continue in stasis, indefinitely (maintaining value of intellectual copyrights, characters that don't age, etc.) So you end up with this muddle, where things are continually being "reset" or retconned or hand-waved away in order to reconcile these different needs, but after decades of this shit the "continuity" is just a total incomprehensible mess.

idk what the solution is. Maybe just self-contained series that have their own internal consistency but that's it.

tbf Claremont also had so many captions and so much expository dialogue that after a couple issues you'd get the hang of what was going on

right, but I'm not talking about the reader having a hard time following it. What I'm getting at is that if you're writing a soap-opera style serial that's all about the characters relationships, past histories, internal struggles, etc., that *requires* that you have continuity. It's a totally different way of writing stories from, say, the early issues of the Justice League where no one has a discernible personality and the story is all centered around solving a specific, isolated problem. The latter can be easily self-contained, the former can't. That's why Claremont kinda *had* to have all those captions and expository dialogue, because those were the things that *mattered* to the story, all of that stuff is what made the narrative make sense and hooked the readers.

but unlike with televised soap operas (where they're unable to avoid characters/actors aging naturally) superhero comics got stuck with their characters torn between two mutually exclusive demands: 1) never change/maintain statis and 2) be part of a lengthy, sprawling, convoluted, internally-consistent narrative.

I mean, that's partially true, but Claremont also did the "this character is a hero, they have this superpower, they're normally the steadfast heart of the team, but today events have..."

so you have this character development and soap opera element, but it's balanced with the fact the reader is constantly being retold the origin and main attributes of a character

Tom King's doing this well on Batman - it's not a great comic, but individual issues make sense as discrete units, even when they're part 2 (of 6) or whatever.

TBH I love comics but I find most Marvel/DC stuff unreadable at the moment - I literally don't have patience to read them without skimming.

oh yeah, Claremont def went overboard in that dept, not denying that

xp

It was a little grating but also adaptive -- for a while after a major change, like the X-Men being in Australia, you'd get more exposition about it but it'd taper off as it became the status quo. So if you were reading comics from the newsstand, you'd be able to miss an issue or two and still jump back in.

I hate to be cranky old man about this, but the few comics where you can miss a couple issues now are those where _nothing fucking happened_

Anytime people start suggesting that Marvel should just ditch continuity, my eyes start a-rollin'. Like, the fact that there's been an attempt by hundreds of creators, over basically the span of a human lifetime, at maintaining an ongoing narrative and shared universe (however shaky it is and however batshit and ultimately doomed to failure such a gargantuan effort may be) is a huge part of the appeal. There's plenty of other modes of serialized fiction out there if this one doesn't float your boat.

and hey that's why I don't read Marvel comics!

(well, one among many reasons)

And I'll acknowledge again: this attempt was never going to work as a fully-satisfying narrative. Part of its charm is its reflection of the ultimate futility of grand human endeavor. I find it humbling.

so you would prefer for it to continue indefinitely, no matter how awful or stupid it gets?

it doesn't matter if there's all this shit that happened as long as you're telling new stories without specifically requiring readers to know all that history in order to enjoy your new work

I mean, it's cool if something in your story is kind of a macguffin but there's a little footnote explaining it's a reference to, say, a prior story from years past that you could pick up in trade paperback. Or not read at all! Knowing backstory should be complementary, not mandatory

For instance, I've been reading Jason Aaron's stories in the new Thor comics and there are some callbacks to Thor history (and additions) but, secret shame time, I've never read the full Walt Simonson run or many other classic stories. All I know is that Thor is a norse god dude with a hammer and he (well, she in this case) is a good guy. And it's all perfectly enjoyable

having past continuity doesn't mean you have to write all your stories in service to it, or even acknowledge it in depth

I mean, most novels set in the real world assume you know a bunch of shit about class, social norms, cities, but are still comprehensible if you lack that grounding.

I very much agree with the above two comments -- and have read some recent titles that do clever things with old history (e.g., "Patsy Walker Aka Hellcat") -- but I also think the deep continuity can get in the way sometimes; like when you end up having to suspend disbelief and try to reconcile the idea that (to pick a random example) today's Hawkeye is "the same guy" as the '80s Hawkeye.

Also, the Thor titles are a good example of something -- for me, Marvel's gonzo continuity begins to feel more like a "mythology" (with bits and pieces that can be referenced or discarded/ignored at will), than it does any kind of "real" history that all these characters could possibly have shared... and that mythology approach seems like a more natural fit for something like Thor, than for human/earthbound characters whom we saw in 1960s NYC and somehow they're still only in their early '30s.

I'm new to Marvel (in the past two years). I read regularly USG, Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, Moon Girl, Mockingbird, Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Dr. Strange. I started/stopped three times as many series in the same period because of crossovers, new number ones, proliferation of new lines, and specialty events. Non-Marvel titles I read are: 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank (limited), Backstagers, Lumberjanes, Bitch Planet, Gotham Academy, Paper Girls, and a bunch of weird indie stuff. I'm deliberately trying to cultivate a feminist collection, and these are the only titles with which I've been able to continue due to frustration and/or fatigue. There've been lots of other attempts (Jane Foster Thor, Mockingbird, Vision, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel, Luke Cage, Nova, Silk) that've petered out due to the fact they were *planned* as a limited run or lost their initial talent. Nothing at all in DC is interesting to me, and I gave Wonder Woman a hell of a shot after reading the Jill LePore book on the title.

oh, i also like the slott/alread silver surfer but i can't afford to keep up

You might want to check out Mariko Tamaki's new (She-)Hulk series.

I started/stopped three times as many series in the same period because of crossovers, new number ones, proliferation of new lines, and specialty events.

Sounds like empirical (or a least anecdotal) evidence to support the thesis of the article linked above!

There've been lots of other attempts (Jane Foster Thor, Mockingbird, Vision, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel, Luke Cage, Nova, Silk) that've petered out due to the fact they were *planned* as a limited run or lost their initial talent.

I'd probably still be reading Silk today if it hadn't lost its original artist. Mighty Thor continues to be good (and AFAIK has retained its original talent), but I find the Jane/Thor character to be fairly ill-defined (almost a supporting player in her own book), so I can see how it wouldn't necessarily appeal from the feminist / "strong female character" perspective (also a focus for me).

Have you read "Patsy Walker"?