Post by tiamatty on Nov 22, 2014 0:33:18 GMT -5
There's a lot of problems, including many you touch on.
Readers tend to pick up the books that are "Important." Generally, that actually doesn't mean solos, since it's team books that tend to be the most important. Avengers, New Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, All-New X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man are probably the five most important titles at Marvel. And probably Guardians of the Galaxy, which was also helped a lot by having a movie that was highly anticipated before its release (and which everybody loved after it came out). So those are the books people are most likely to buy. Those are the books that "matter." Unfortunately, quality has nothing to do with that particular aspect. An "Important" book can be shit, and it'll still sell reasonably well, and if a book's not "Important," then high quality may not boost its sales much.
That's not to say quality doesn't play a role at all. Look at Mark Waid's Daredevil or Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. They're books that get huge amounts of acclaim, including award nominations, and they do have reasonably solid sales. Compare it to Matt Fraction's Fantastic Four, which got a mixed reception, and had underwhelming sales, despite being (arguably) more important than Hawkeye.
Solos do face a bit of a tougher challenge, I think, than team books. Especially for X-Men characters - most readers want to read about the X-Men as a team, not about individual characters going off and doing their own thing. X-Men Legacy wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as it did if it was titled Rogue, because people don't want to read a Rogue ongoing, they want to read an X-Men ongoing with Rogue as a major character.
Cost is also a major factor. Most comics are $4, with an ever-shrinking number at $3. For 20 pages of content, that's a lot of money. You're spending $4 for about 15 minutes of entertainment. Think about that. How many mediums of entertainment have such a poor return on investment? A movie is $10 for at least 90 minutes. Cable is $50 or $60 or whatever for virtually unlimited entertainment. A traditional novel is $20 for several hours of entertainment. Comics are ridiculously expensive. So if you're going to spend that much money on it, a lot of people feel they should get what they're "supposed" to get, which goes back to the "Importance" bit earlier.
And, of course, there's an assload of comics out there. Marvel puts out a good 75 comics a month, at least. That's for a market of maybe 200 000 people. Those people have a wide variety of tastes and preferences. So you get maybe 10% who are big She-Hulk fans. You get 10% who will buy anything with Elektra. You get 10% who are love X-Force. But 10% of 200 000 is still only 20 000, which isn't that many people. There's a lot of books, and each reader has to decide which books are worth their money, and every book is competing for the same book, so there's going to be a lost of books that lose that competition.
And then, of course, some books - to be perfectly honest - don't really do anything to earn the money. Storm falls into that group. I'm sorry, but Storm is not a great book. It's OK. But OK is not good enough when there are so many books that are outstanding. Pak hasn't really done anything to justify the existence of Storm's solo title yet. The book lacks a direction. It lacks a mission statement beyond "it's a Storm solo title." At this point,quite honestly, Storm deserves to be cancelled.
Elektra is a case where she obviously just doesn't have a large enough fanbase to support a solo. Her fanbase is vocal, but small. The failure can't be blamed on the book itself, because it was well-written and gorgeous to look at. The story was interesting, the characterization was solid, and the art was outstanding. The failure here really does belong to Elektra.
She-Hulk, apparently, was only planned as 12 issues. So it's ending because Soule chose to end it.
All-New X-Factor suffered, I think, from a lack of perceived "Importance," and an audience preference for superheroics over people sitting around talking. Because PAD really does love having character sitting around talking. Which isn't a criticism, because I love it, too. But it does result in a lot of middling reviews, and it doesn't really do much to attract new readers.
X-Force, if it's being cancelled, is the result of a lack of "Importance." The writing and art have been solid, the story's cool, the characters are entertainingly messed up, there's exciting action mixed with compelling character work. It's a good book. But clearly, people don't much care about X-Force.
Readers tend to pick up the books that are "Important." Generally, that actually doesn't mean solos, since it's team books that tend to be the most important. Avengers, New Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, All-New X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man are probably the five most important titles at Marvel. And probably Guardians of the Galaxy, which was also helped a lot by having a movie that was highly anticipated before its release (and which everybody loved after it came out). So those are the books people are most likely to buy. Those are the books that "matter." Unfortunately, quality has nothing to do with that particular aspect. An "Important" book can be shit, and it'll still sell reasonably well, and if a book's not "Important," then high quality may not boost its sales much.
That's not to say quality doesn't play a role at all. Look at Mark Waid's Daredevil or Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. They're books that get huge amounts of acclaim, including award nominations, and they do have reasonably solid sales. Compare it to Matt Fraction's Fantastic Four, which got a mixed reception, and had underwhelming sales, despite being (arguably) more important than Hawkeye.
Solos do face a bit of a tougher challenge, I think, than team books. Especially for X-Men characters - most readers want to read about the X-Men as a team, not about individual characters going off and doing their own thing. X-Men Legacy wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as it did if it was titled Rogue, because people don't want to read a Rogue ongoing, they want to read an X-Men ongoing with Rogue as a major character.
Cost is also a major factor. Most comics are $4, with an ever-shrinking number at $3. For 20 pages of content, that's a lot of money. You're spending $4 for about 15 minutes of entertainment. Think about that. How many mediums of entertainment have such a poor return on investment? A movie is $10 for at least 90 minutes. Cable is $50 or $60 or whatever for virtually unlimited entertainment. A traditional novel is $20 for several hours of entertainment. Comics are ridiculously expensive. So if you're going to spend that much money on it, a lot of people feel they should get what they're "supposed" to get, which goes back to the "Importance" bit earlier.
And, of course, there's an assload of comics out there. Marvel puts out a good 75 comics a month, at least. That's for a market of maybe 200 000 people. Those people have a wide variety of tastes and preferences. So you get maybe 10% who are big She-Hulk fans. You get 10% who will buy anything with Elektra. You get 10% who are love X-Force. But 10% of 200 000 is still only 20 000, which isn't that many people. There's a lot of books, and each reader has to decide which books are worth their money, and every book is competing for the same book, so there's going to be a lost of books that lose that competition.
And then, of course, some books - to be perfectly honest - don't really do anything to earn the money. Storm falls into that group. I'm sorry, but Storm is not a great book. It's OK. But OK is not good enough when there are so many books that are outstanding. Pak hasn't really done anything to justify the existence of Storm's solo title yet. The book lacks a direction. It lacks a mission statement beyond "it's a Storm solo title." At this point,quite honestly, Storm deserves to be cancelled.
Elektra is a case where she obviously just doesn't have a large enough fanbase to support a solo. Her fanbase is vocal, but small. The failure can't be blamed on the book itself, because it was well-written and gorgeous to look at. The story was interesting, the characterization was solid, and the art was outstanding. The failure here really does belong to Elektra.
She-Hulk, apparently, was only planned as 12 issues. So it's ending because Soule chose to end it.
All-New X-Factor suffered, I think, from a lack of perceived "Importance," and an audience preference for superheroics over people sitting around talking. Because PAD really does love having character sitting around talking. Which isn't a criticism, because I love it, too. But it does result in a lot of middling reviews, and it doesn't really do much to attract new readers.
X-Force, if it's being cancelled, is the result of a lack of "Importance." The writing and art have been solid, the story's cool, the characters are entertainingly messed up, there's exciting action mixed with compelling character work. It's a good book. But clearly, people don't much care about X-Force.
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