This week's (potential) cancellation of Thor: The Mighty Avenger has raised some eyebrows. Even in the jaded comics world of 2010, this title's demise seem to have struck a particular nerve. Just take a gander at the comments in the iFanboy article and you'll see that a lot of people REALLY loved this book. A lot of fans are left wondering why one of THEIR favorite books is getting the ax.
Being disappointed is perfectly understandable. I'm sure we've all been there. Whether you were lamenting the premature end of Exterminators or Young Liars, or cursing Marvel for an early demise of Atlas or Dr. Voodoo or S.W.O.R.D. or Captain Britain & MI-13, chances are you've had favorite series cancelled before their time. It's the nature of the beast.
There are plenty of reasons why Thor: The Mighty Avenger fell prey to cancellation:
*** Were the sales too low?
*** Were there too many Thor titles on the market at once?
*** Was the book's all-ages bent working against it in the direct market?
*** Was it poorly marketed to retailers and, therefore, potential end customers?
The truth it, it was probably a confluence of those factors. It's no coincidence that with a major motion picture looming, Marvel has deluged the market with Thor related comics. And yet, as a 30-year Marvel zombie, I can tell you that he's rarely been a character that sat atop the charts for long. It wasn't long ago that Marvel killed Thor off and went for a few years without a single title, much less a half dozen.
This news left me questioning the state of the direct market, but in a broader sense. If a book of this quality, with near universally well received writing and art, can fall short so quickly, is there something inherently wrong with the way the industry markets this kind of material? Is the fact it was an "All Ages" book really to blame more than the other factors? Because the other Thor related titles aren't cancelled, and while some of them are of equally high quality…I can emphatically say they all aren't as well done. So if it wasn't the quality hurting this book (and it wasn't), and other Thor titles are doing fine (and they are), doesn't that leave the fact it was "All Ages" as a red flag?
Take a look at the Diamond numbers. All ages material struggles. The Marvel Adventures line is always among the lowest selling in Marvel's vast catalog. DC's Johhny Bravo line suffered a similar fate. Even a title like Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's Oz adaptation doesn't blow the doors off in the direct market. Let's take a look at the sales of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the DM:
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12/08 Wizard of Oz #1 — 25,116
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01/09 Wizard of Oz #2 — 17,608
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02/09 Wizard of Oz #3 — 15,668
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03/09 Wizard of Oz #4 — 16,159
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04/09 Wizard of Oz #5 — 16,110
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05/09 Wizard of Oz #6 — 15,774
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06/09 Wizard of Oz #7 — 15,473
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07/09 Wizard of Oz #8 — 15,487
Solid sales for the issues, but it wasn't a Top 100 book. Yet, this book received droves of well-deserved critical acclaim, received two Eisner Awards, and has gone on to MASSIVE success in the bookstore market and abroad.
So what keeps all ages material from being a huge success in the direct market? Is is the buyers? Is it the retailers? Is it the publishers?
I asked my followers on Twitter their thoughts, and the majority of respondents were dubious of the direct market's ability to support all ages material. Here are a few of the responses:
ActionLab: @wood83 As currently constituted, no. Too many comic books stores are poorly run & don't know how to bring in all types to buy books.
Gobo: @wood83 all evidence points to no.
ScottCederlund: @wood83 From Marvel and DC? No.
pchan126: @wood83 Doubt it. Is your average DM retailer ages friendly? It hasn't felt that way in my experience
julianlytle: @wood83 no, it is not made for or marketed to all ages not since the bust.
But not everyone was as fatalistic, including DC artist extraordinaire Jamal Igle.
@wood83 absolutely.
@wood83 availability. The fact of the matter is that Archie outsells every other comic book company in North America . The make the books –
Accessible. They're in bookstores', comic shops and spinner racks. They're packaged in a pleasant, friendly manner and for the most –
@wood83 are not bogged down with years of continuity.
@wood83 Retailers willing to put in the effort to make them available and inviting to the casual shopper. Point of purchase displays go (a long way)
@TreyKrimsin @wood83 My LCS keeps all of the all ages books in the front of the store across from the register on it's on bookcase
@julianlytle @wood83 however we are in an industry that has adult readers who want adult heroes. There should be room for both.
Not content to limit my responses to the 140 character kind, I reached out for comment from some of the best retailers I know. I was fortunate enough to get back very detailed and thoughtful responses from two of the best in the business.
Patrick Brower (Co-Owner, Challengers Comics + Conversation):
My answer is an overwhelming “yes” that the direct market can support all ages material but the tougher question is “in what format?”
There is no doubt that comics should be for everyone. All ages. At least, the standard, across the board superhero fare from the mainstream publishers should be. But are they really? Um, kind of not. The subject matter has become too mature in an effort to match an aging audience. I know Peter Parker is a 20-something adult male and would have adult relationships, but as a kid reading Amazing Spider-Man, the consummation of those relationships was never brought up. Can an effective story still be told without those elements? Absolutely. Will the current readers fall off if that’s the case? Probably. But shouldn’t comics be written for the incoming younger fans as well as the adults? Here I would argue the existence of the Marvel Adventures books (now without the “Marvel Adventures” branding), but how well do those even sell?
Challengers can sell a ton of units of a single graphic novel series that is targeted to all-ages. All-ages meaning they can be enjoyed by anyone; not that they are written for kids. My examples are Marvel’s Power Pack minis, Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet series, Kean Soo’s Jellaby, Jill Thompson’s Magic Trixie, Jeff Smith’s Bone, and on. These are clever, wholesome series that tell great stories and keep kids entertained. But they’re graphic novels, not single issues. Even the youngest of comic book readers see the pamphlet format as disposable, but when it’s a graphic novel they want to read it (or have it read to them) again and again and again. I can’t explain why, but I can tell you from experience it works. By the accounts of our customers, Challengers seems to have a larger than average all-ages section. We don’t think it’s nearly enough, but it is 50% single comics and 50% graphic novels. The graphic novels sell rings around the single comics. Even books like (Marvel Adventures) Spider-Man sell way better in the digest format then do the singles.
So here’s my point… on December 8th when the Thor Mighty Avenger trade paperback comes out, we’ll rack it in our all-ages section and watch it sell 3 times what it would in the regular Marvel graphic novel section. All ages comics CAN exist and prosper in the direct market, but they have to be marketed to the customer as such. And by the retailer, NOT by the publisher. Saying something to the effect of ‘this is great for kids’ on the book itself is the fastest way to turn kids off. Giving kids a great story that can teach them without preaching, and can keep them entertained for 80+ pages is the best way to get them wanting to read more comics.
Zack Kruse (Marketing Director, DCB Service/InstockTrades):
I, perhaps naively, think that the direct market can sell any book that it wants to get behind. The problem is what direct market participants KNOW they can sell often leaves things that CAN/WILL sell left behind—particularly if the shelves are already saturated with a particular character, company, event, or it’s a heavy month of ordering, or whatever. The quality of the book, or even the perceived quality of the book, is, as you know, in no way an indicator of how it will perform in the direct market. I think this is more than amply evidenced by the sales figures that come in from even Eisner nominated titles, particularly if they are not produced by the Big 2.
The market at large, however, I think wants and will support all ages titles—enthusiastically in some cases. To support that I offer the success Jeff Smith’s Bone, Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Amelia Rules, Archie, a mountain of different manga titles, and on and on. If you look at the direct market sales for these titles they probably would not inspire one with hope. They may look okay, but probably not spectacular. However, none of these titles are married to or hindered by the direct market and do not rely on it for their success.
So, if the market at large seems to want these titles, why can’t the direct market support them on their own? Or use them to pull in new customers? I don’t know. There are a lot of variables involved but few that I think can’t be overcome. The direct market is small and the participants in it take a not insignificant risk with every single title that they order from Diamond. On top of that, in many cases, their personal biases, financial situation, customer base, and knowledge of the product are all additional factors.
Nearly every single day we have a number of customers that literally just stroll in off the street with their kids and they almost immediately ask where the all-ages comics are. The sheer number of new in-store customers that come in looking for all ages books is impressive to me; and is an indication to me that the market DOES want those comics. It also leads me to believe that cartoons, toys, and movies do encourage readership…just maybe not with the older, established, fanbase. The kids that come in are wearing their Spider-Man t-shirts, their parents make a point to say how much they like the Brave and The Bold cartoon or the Iron Man movie and now they want to buy their son or daughter the comic that goes with it.
So, in my opinion and experience, what it boils down to is that it’s not necessarily consumer demand that is hurting all ages titles. The demand APPEARS to be there. The issue appears to be that the target consumer is not able to find the product to begin with and/or they don’t know that it exists, much less where to buy it. Most comic fans don’t pre-order and I would guess that the majority never look at Previews, or check comic news sites. So if most regular fans aren’t pre-ordering, why would we assume that children and non-comic reading parents would be? They, completely understandably, expect to walk in to any store and just find the product there waiting for them.
Given my in-store experience and our overall sales numbers for all ages titles, I think that all ages titles CAN work in the direct market, if direct market participants are willing to make the effort to market at least part of themselves in a new way—that is, one that is open and friendly to families and makes a concerted effort to get kids and families into the stores. This is in no way to say that direct market participants are responsible to publishers to make sure that certain titles do well, they're not. My point is that there is a potential customer base that is waiting for us to reach out to them; we need to make sure that we're extending our hands whenever possible.
There are A LOT of stores that do this already, and not every store has to do it in order to be successful. But the success that many titles receive outside of the direct market is hard to ignore, as is the potential for revenue. The market is there; if you’re able to take advantage of it, grow the community, and grow your customer base, why not try to take advantage of it?
It’s interesting that two retailers are both saying that 1) All ages comics CAN sell in the direct market and 2) the onus is on the RETAILERS to cultivate that market. Your mileage may vary, and I would invite the thoughts of other retailers who see things differently. That said, I’m not at all surprised to hear two very successful retailers take the position that ultimately the success or failure of any product in their hands comes down to what they do with it. Kudos for that attitude, now maybe if we could get more retailers to WORK at cultivating audiences beyond the traditional maturing superhero buyers, titles of a different sort would have a greater hit rate.
Jason is a mutant with the ability to squeeze 36 hours into every 24-hour day, which is why he was able to convince his wife he had time to join the iFanboy team on top of running his business, raising his three sons, and most importantly, co-hosting the 11 O'Clock Comics podcast with his buddies Vince B, Chris Neseman and David Price. If you are one of the twelve people on Earth who want to read about comics, the stock market and football in rapid fire succession, you can follow him on Twitter.
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Yes. Put me in charge of the marketing.
Amircat, you can’t market comics. You’re just a cat.
@KickAss – Opps, I forgot … 🙁
less all ages books means more good creators on books I’ll read. works for me.
i think that they can but the market is too saturated to let them. Maybe all ages should be sold at places BESIDES a comic shop. I bought all my comics at the drug store as a kid.
My LCS owner told me he can only afford to stock a third to maybe half of what is released in any given month. Its just too hard to give shelf space to new things that not enough people are asking for. Thor TMA for example was not very available at my shop and he didnt’ order most issues.
all ages books are being put in an unfair position, they aren’t going to save the industry, they aren’t the cool, hip, edgy thing that gets kids to read books into their 30s and beyond. I didn’t read archie or disney comics ever, but now I read comics. I think all ages comics can be great, deep, developed stories and have great art and can be attractive to well, all ages, but they aren’t a "gateway" into other comics, though I’ve heard Thor TMA is a great example of their potential. I’m not saying we don’t need all ages comics, but I don’t know if we need them or if they can succeed at $3.99 an issue
There is no reason why the artistic masterpiece that is Skottie’s Oz work should be sold in single issues. This is a complete travesty. Finish the thing in one shot and put it out there. I won’t even pick up an issue to look. I’ll wait for the hardcover. I don’t really care about LCS’s – give me more direct-to-TP.
Something like Oz looks great in the single issue format. The problem is pricing. Parents won’t buy their kids comics that are priced at $3 or higher. If these ar ebeing aimed at a younger audience then they should be priced as such. Youth titles should be $1.99 per issue or cheaper. Parents would be more willing to put that down for a comic their kid will read and probably destroy than $4 or even $3.
It’s difficult for LCS’s to push these when they are so expensive.
One thing you don 19t touch on here, Wood, is that the DM basically requires you to go to a specialty retailer. In our shrinking market capturing the attention of kids is hard. Unless the have a role model who ia encouraging them to read they probably aren’t very into it and, therefore, will not actively seek it out. One source of the problem is that kids just do not see the books. That is how I got started in reading; grocery store, cool picture, picked it up and read while mom shopped, hooked. No chance of that today since no store that I know of carries comics. Even were kids to stumble across them in a book store that would still require them to have been drawn to a specialty store. In a DM world I likely would never has picked up comics or, at least, would have done so much later in life.
This same "battle" has been going on for every genre in comics (outside of Superheroes). Problem isn’t the Direct Market’s selling of all ages… it’s the # of Direct Market stores that make it difficult to have everything for everyone. We need MORE LCSs to help ALL aspects of this hobby. The more street level awareness there is the more easily things will sell through. It’s overall business marketing, plain and simple.
the Tiki
Consider too that Thor TMA is neither in 616 or Ultimates continuity. As much as some hate this fact, if it “counted”, more traditional consumers would have bought it. Which makes me wonder, if Marvel had tried to start Ultimate Marvel or M2 now, would either last as long as they have (or did in M2’s case)?
This is exactly the point I was trying to get at in the Thor "Eulogy" thread. 🙂 I agree with the conclusions. I think the publisher needs to try to get the books into markets and formats that appeal to all-ages demographics. That could include digital distribution. But — right now, it’s safe to say that books live or die on DM sales, right? So, in that case, the onus is on the retailers. Can you get kids into the shop? Or, rather: can you get parents and kids into the shop together? Can you properly shelve and promote a book, emphasizing that it’s for all-ages rather than "for kids" or lumped in with a bunch of other in-continuity Marvel comics aimed at 30-yr-old hobbyists? I’ve seen some GREAT stores that can do well with this material, but i’ve also seen plenty of stores that are simply not set-up to do this. And that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad stores — they’re just catering to their core clientele, and they do it well.
Can the Direct Market pull in younger/all-ages readers? As noted above, it sure can, if retailers want to make the effort not just to highlight these books, but to brand themselves as accessible to casual readers – and more importantly, parents who are looking for something for their kids to read.
That said, I don’t think Marvel should entirely get be let off the hook here. I only have anecdotal evidence to go on locally, but I still see a few books at non-DM retailers like Vons/Albertsons and such. Are series like The Mighty Avenger and Young Allies being considered for this kind of marketing outreach? If not, why not?
There are absolutely markets for all ages comics. Archie sells great, in grocery stores. Bone sells great, through Scholastic. I think Thor: The Mighty Avenger could have done similarly great outside of the direct market. Even the example of Wizard of Oz, one of the biggest recent All Ages successes is mostly doing well as a trade, not in issues.
Even the people in this article saying it can be done seem to mostly be talking about trades, not single issues through the direct market.
@gobo – the scholastic mention is a great point. I also remember that I used to get these little newsprint catalogs at school that would offer up books that you could order and have the books delivered to your school? Anyone else remember those? Seems to me like a Thor:TMA TPB right around the time the movie comes out would be a no-brainer.
I remember those vividly, got lots of great stuff from them. That was years ago though, do they still have those?
@daccampo @gobo I LOVED those!
The Troll book club, I think it was called.
Hmm… that sounds very familiar, maybe we got both that and Scholastic? Maybe Troll was a part of Scholastic?
Clintaa-the more all ages success the more chance comics will be around as we know it in 10 years, adults only format means less good writers staying in the field IMO
Grandturk-if the LCS dies so do comics so the single issue is here to stay
jonny: That’s definitely not true, if (when?) the LCS dies there will be digital comics for sale, free comics put online (like the awesome Apocalypse Meh) and printed collected/long form version in book stores.
Just because that’s not how it’s been done here doesn’t mean it’s impossible (look at Europe and Japan, they’re almost entirely longform)
@gobo @paul — http://teacher.scholastic.com/clubs/ — I think maybe Troll was bought by Scholastic? That was my impression based on 30 seconds of google searching. They’re still out there, at any rate, looks like it’s largely done online. I know my son was getting stuff like that, but i wasn’t sure if it was the same thing. Anyway, THIS is exactly where stuff like Thor: The Mighty Avenger should be, IMHO, in collected editions.
TAB! Arrow! I remember those 🙂
They used to come to the school for a book fair so you could buy them all in person (usually some time before Christmas)
Yep, Scholastic still has those newsletter catalogs. Every month I help my wife make up three class sets worth (they have different catalogs for different reader levels). They also have the travelling book fairs; I’ve seen some manga volumes, Ultimate Unuverse trades and “Death of Superman”. As much success as “Bone” has had, why more “all-ages” material isn’t offered this way is beyond me … unless there’s a disincentive (cost/benefit for distribution doesn’t balance, for example).
Goddamn I’m going to miss that Thor comic. But on the bright side, I got eight issues of a great series that I can share with my future children, while my trade sits lovingly on my shelves.
I think its interesting that Marvel has tried a lot of All Ages books and given many of them more time than other titles. Boom! is successfully going all ages with the Disney licenses. All Ages books need to be in Grocery Stores next to Archie Comics. The problem though is that Print Venders (I am a grocery store assistant manger) are going out of business or cutting titles of magazines also. Weekly titles are going the way of the Dodo, as monthly books mean less shipping and more time to sell. Only newspaper tabloids are still selling well weekly.
yes!!!!scholastic book catalogs!!!! man everyone in my classes including me ordered SOOOO many books from there. We had a quiet reading hour, and delivery day from scholastic was like once a month Christmas. That got so many kids including me excited about reading.
Grocery stores, Drug Stores places like that wont sell comics as long as they are non returnable. They need to be treated like magazines to get them sold outside of the LCS.
Do school libraries carry any comics? Not the public library, but in elementary and middle schools. I wouldn’t think single issues would be practicle due to their fragility, but trades of, say, Runaways and the like would do really well there, I think, and expose kids to the format.
I wonder if the lack of significant advertising is a problem? Aside from movies and cartoons, which only sell toys and clothes, there really isn’t any, but at any rate that’s only the publishers themselves. It’s not like your local LCS is likely to have any sort of advertising budget that can bring people in. I’d guess that most parents wouldn’t know off the top of their head where the closest shop is that they can swing by on their way home from work.
@flakbait I’d be surprised if they did. Most of school libraries are drastically underfunded and understaffed.
I’m doubtful the direct market can support anything. Just looking at those OZ numbers makes me sad.
There is also the prose vs comics thing in schools. When i was in grade school comics weren’t considered educational and we weren’t allowed to read them during reading times. They’d rather have a kid read a completely edited and condensed classic than a comic. Maybe things are changing.
Okay here is your problem:
Sonic the Hedgehog (published by Archie) had two issues out in the month of August. (#215-216….think about that!!) and respectively #215 had about 6,500 issues purchased and #216 had 7,976 copies purchased.
In the same month, Thor: The Mighty Avenger was on issue #3 and it had about 12,000 copies sold.
…..Yet somehow Sonic has now lasted longer then that book (and apparently A LOT of comics before TTMA)
Also, if you think about it…..even with two issues coming out in comparison to one; Sonic in it’s combined total outsold Thor: TMA by over 2,000 copies sold.
That’s really sad.
I think it interesting to note that Bendis’s pending all ages Icon book is being released as a ten dollar hardcove ala Amulet. The man is not even bothering to release it in idvivual issues, instead essentially esquing the direct market (not that it won’t get sales there) to instead seemingly focus on the bookstore audience. Note that I could be totally reading into this and the motivations for this format could be completely unrelated, but I doubt it. Also this is not a complaint, simply an observation.
RE: the Sonic comparison.
The HUGE difference is that Sonic is, like Archie comics, on shelves in retail outlets all over the world. Outside the direct market it sells TREMENDOUSLY and would be a Top 100 book every month if we got consolidated data.
@flakbait and gobo: at the high school where I used to work, there were trades and ogn’s in the collection. The first two Astonishing X-Men trades were there, in a hardcover format that I think might have been marketed toward schools (the back cover and the texture looked like a school library book) along with "Death of Superman" and "World Without Superman". We even had the Azzarello/Bermejo "Joker" OGN, though I wonder if the librarian would have bought it had she inspected the interior first. I checked out the Astonishing trades and loaned them to a teacher at one of our elementary schools; she and her husband loved them (they were X-Men fans from back in the day)! At another school I was at, I know they had either "Mouse Guard" or "Mice Templar" collected. So, good librarians are putting *some* in their school collections.
@tnc–its not really said if kids are enjoying the book. Sonic is a cool character..i loved him as a kid on my Sega Genesis! lol
I don’t think it can, but I don’t have the data to find out if the All Ages label is what’s driving the low sales.
Interesting article.
Thor wasn’t cancelled b/c it was all ages
TMT was cancelled b/c not enough people were into it period.
It’s hard to say that this little microcosm of the total comic book buying population is the litmus test but in this case I think it is a good one.
Even the people who are clearly so upset it was cancelled here- half of them admit to waiting for trade.
People read an issue of it and then decided they weren’t hooked on it enough to follow it right away.
How is that not Exactly what happened- In honesty.
It may have touched a lot of hearts and made some special connections and for those people I am truly sorry.
But come on- it’s not an evil plot by marvel it’s not a great mystery.
It was a very specifically emotional book that didn’t connect with everybody- no it didn’t connect with enough people.
The Thor image was all it needed for marketing- however Retailers and readers as well seemed to pick it up and say
Why is Thor talking about his feelings and gushing over double rainbows??
It was a lot of talent- but in the end.
It wasn’t the right fit.
all ages sells for crap at my lcs. lcs’s create low distribution. low distribution=low sales. yes, there are other factors, but THE major factor is low distribution. others have cited all-ages works like archie and sonic; they succeed, why? great distribution; everybody has to go the grocery store and what’s there? archie! you have to put product in front of people’s eyes.
All ages books in direct market are intersesting. I’ve seen shops that have entire kids sections and make a concerted effort to cater to kids that way. My old shop used to do pretty well by giving kids freebies and suggestions on books when they came in with their parents. I don’t know if it made them lots of money but it seemed like a great environment.
i’ve seen others (my current LCS) that does not sell one all ages book at all.