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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35945
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 11:57am | IP Logged | 1
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For decades, I never had a problem with jumping on and off a title. I didn't need a "jumping on" point to start reading ASM. I didn't feel hesitant to start reading FF with an issue 'round about 150. I wasn't intimidated to pick up DD a couple issues in to Miller's run. I just did it and then tried to get the back issues where I could. Creators being more important than the character has definitely had a hand in this renumbering nonsense. The inability of some to write to a new audience also plays into it. Writing for the trade as well. It's all askew to me, but then again it has been for a very long time.
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Eric Jansen
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Posts: 2366
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | 2
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Re the Tom Brevoort article:
I think he's wrong and I think HE's living in the past. (Proved by his referring to CRISIS and HEROES REBORN as the guideline.)
I think in the future, trades will become more and more important and THEIR numbering helps sell the books.
Go into any bookstore and the Manga section is still bigger than the American comics section and they usually have complete runs of all the titles available. Now, I care nothing for Manga and know nothing about any individual Manga title, but, if I ever wanted to check out a series, it would be extremely easier to do so. It also makes it easier, I assume, for the store to know what to order. ("We're out of numbers 1-3 again!")
Try to read all the X-MEN trades in order. I've been reading comics for over three decades and I would have no clue. (At least about the last 20 years worth.)
I don't think Manga is better quality than American comics and I don't think their stories are any more accessible. But the PACKAGING is!
Confusion frustrates people. Frustration makes people give up. If American comics are confusing (even in their numbering), people will give up on them and switch to something less confusing--even if it's B&W and you have to read it from right to left!
Edited by Eric Jansen on 13 January 2014 at 12:51pm
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Andrew W. Farago
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Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | 3
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There's been a huge shift in how comics are bought, sold, and marketed since we were kids, and Marvel's renumbering reflects that. A kid can't go to 7-11 with a buck and come home with that month's Hulk comic or that week's Spider-Man comic. He can, however, go to the library and pick up a Hulk book off the shelf, and is more inclined to grab the book with a #1 on it, indicating that it's the start of some particular storyline.
I'm also betting that with digital sales being increasingly important, when confronted with a whole lot of different options for Hulk comics in a digital storefront, he'll go for the newest one with the fewest issues, since he can catch up on the whole thing and be confident he's got the whole story. It feels like a more concerted effort to get the elusive new/casual buyer to check something out, since they're more likely to sample a comic here and there if they know they're right at the starting point.
We've been seeing reboots, renumbering, and stunts since the 1980s, at least, it's just gotten a bit more aggressive recently (probably since the higher-ups at Warner Bros. and Disney want to see some return on their investments, and the people working on the monthly comics are hoping to catch the attention of the filmmaking departments). Not worth raising your blood pressure in the slightest.
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Joe Zhang
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Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | 4
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"I think he's wrong and I think HE's living in the past. (Proved by his referring to CRISIS and HEROES REBORN as the guideline.)"
It's interesting how creators and fans of the current comics, which are eternal tributes to the Watchmen and Dark Knight, accuse others of living the past.
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Dave Phelps
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | 5
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QUOTE:
| since he can catch up on the whole thing and be confident he's got the whole story |
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And then he discovers he's wrong because he got the first issue of a "just to get people's attention" reboot which is otherwise continuing threads left open from the prior run (see Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF reboot).
(Referring to the "mid-run" series reboots Tom Brevoort was defending in the link.)
I'm kind of with Eric (I disagree with him on importance of trades). Renumberings are showing diminishing returns more and more while at the same time you're practically training your audience to not even bother checking out a series unless they can get in with #1. Just seems foolish to me.
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Andrew W. Farago
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | 6
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And then he discovers he's wrong because he got the first issue of a "just to get people's attention" reboot which is otherwise continuing threads left open from the prior run (see Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF reboot).
Yeah, but how many Marvel Comics are really "the whole story" in that sense? If you buy April's Daredevil #1 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee, it will build upon the previous Daredevil series, sure, but everything you need to know will be there in issue #1. Waid's DD run built off of the setup he got from Andy Diggle, whose run built on Ed Brubaker's, whose built on Bendis's, whose built on Kevin Smith's, who relaunched DD to distance it from Joe Kelly's run, which...high issue number or not, there's always room for some archaeology.
When I bought Amazing Spider-Man #285 way back when, it was part two of a multi-part storyline, but I got up to speed really quickly and was intrigued enough to keep reading the series. If it had been Spider-Man: Gang War #2, I'd still have missed out on the very beginning, there would still be an additional 283 issues before all of that I could pick up if I wanted the entire story.
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Dave Phelps
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | 7
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QUOTE:
| there's always room for some archaeology. |
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Yeah, but there are "levels" to it. Picking up a character where he's left is part of the game but that's different than having active story threads.
To use your example, Gang War was the culmination of a couple years' worth of DeFalco plotlines. If you had started with Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 5) #2 (i.e., #285) and gone back and gotten #1, you'd be dealing with Flash Thompson on the run and accused of being the Hobgoblin, The Rose's schemes against the Kingpin, Ned Leeds acting weird, and all sorts of other stuff introduced in "v.4." (Not to mention that readers of the prior series would have had to deal with the annoyance of a "final issue" that didn't resolve squat. (Like the poor readers of Marvel Tales, which ended with a reprint of ASM #283. :-) )) On the other hand, had they opted to restart the book after #289, #290 was actually a fairly clean place to do it. No open threads (and it even set up a new direction to boot).
A lot of times when Marvel does a "getting your attention" reboot, they pick an arbitrary stopping point, have a "jump on issue" and then get back to whatever they were doing before so you're not really getting the start of a new story and I'd think people would be annoyed by that. And frankly, it never seems to work. Maybe people who have been lying in wait are prompted to try it, but then people who had been reading it and felt the bloom was off the rose used it as a jump off point and it's all a wash.
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Andrew W. Farago
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | 8
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Marvel's recent first issues have been pretty good about being fresh(ish) starts, haven't they?
Going back to Kevin Smith's Daredevil #1 in 1998, that was the start of the Marvel Knights imprint, debut of a high-profile creative team, and pretty much an eight-issue DD movie treatment by Smith, and it went in with the assumption that you hadn't read Daredevil at all, or that you'd bailed whenever your last really favorite creative team did.
Mark Waid's Daredevil #1 a few years ago came after two well-received long runs (Bendis/Maleev and Brubaker/Lark) followed by a run that didn't quite work, with DD basically turning into a villain by the end of the series. It was such a weird direction that a fresh start (especially with the return to lighter-hearted stories after a decade-plus of downers) made sense.
Forthcoming #1 is another new direction, with DD in a new city, new supporting cast, etc. No reason it has to be a new series, but it will get a sales boost and Waid will get to tell another few years' worth of Daredevil stories before Marvel decides sales warrant another #1 or a new creative team (or Waid and Chris Samnee leave of their own volition).
It's a creative team whose work I enjoy, so I'm in as long as they are, and will probably check out whatever follows them. And that's true whether I'm picking up Daredevil #600 a few years from now or if I'm picking up my ninth Daredevil #3.
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Eric Jansen
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| Posted: 14 January 2014 at 1:30am | IP Logged | 9
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It's funny that I find myself disagreeing so strongly with Tom Brevoort here since he's the one editor whose contribution I've really noticed and appreciated in recent years. He oversaw Ed Brubaker's incredible 8-year run on CAPTAIN AMERICA and managed to keep a stable of similar-style artists on the book, keeping a consistent look for the entire run (which I REALLY appreciated!).
He did do all the tricks he's promoting though. He started with a new number one when Brubaker and Steve Epting started the run, brought back Bucky, killed off the main character to make the news, had the sidekick take over, waited three years to bring Steve Rogers back (in a high-profile side mini-series), switched back to traditional numbering when it was time for #600, then started with a new #1 when Brubaker was joined by the more fine-lined action artist Steve McNiven (as opposed to the more muted and realistic art style of Epting and Butch Guice and the other artists during Cap's more espionage-oriented run), keeping the original numbering going as a separate Cap team-up book, and, now that Brubaker has finally gone, did a new number one as the new writer took Cap in more of a sci fi direction.
And I'm sure all these machinations did indeed raise sales quite a bit, and they also kept this long-time Cap fan's attention--and made me very happy for 8 years! (Less so now, as I don't really want a sci fi Cap and John Romita Jr.'s increasingly rough art style doesn't do much for me.)
Looking back though, it does seem somewhat manipulative. And while new number ones do increase sales, as he said, so does word of mouth on a well-done long-running title.
Edited by Eric Jansen on 14 January 2014 at 1:35am
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Andrew W. Farago
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| Posted: 14 January 2014 at 1:45am | IP Logged | 10
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Is word-of-mouth on a long-running, high-numbered title viable these days? I'm not sure what the highest-numbered Marvel book is right now, and DC doesn't have anything beyond 27 at the moment, so it's probably not a question that's even answerable on a Big Two title.
Image has multiple issues in the 100-plus range, Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo has more than 200 issues...maybe it's only creator-owned titles that are going to see high numbers and the ability to consistently gain readers without stunts and gimmicks.
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Marc M. Woolman
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| Posted: 14 January 2014 at 2:03am | IP Logged | 11
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I hate the renumbering scheme, but Brevoort's response echoes what even JB has stated about other topics, such as unfaithful comic book-to-film adaptations, the only vote that counts, the only opinion that matters is the one made with your wallet.
I'm in for one of these renumbering relaunches soon as the current Mark Waid written Hulk title relaunches with a new #1 and still Mark Waid as writer. (the title has not had one regular artist under Waid) Since I already collect the title, making it start over at #1 is useless/meaningless/annoying to me, but if it sells more than if it had been numbered issue 33, what else is Marvel/Disney supposed to do?
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Eric Jansen
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| Posted: 14 January 2014 at 5:27am | IP Logged | 12
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I have to go back a few years for a good example but when Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee took over BATMAN for a year, sales were blockbuster! They could have done a new number one with that, but I honestly don't think sales would have been bigger. Even before their first issue, word of mouth (based on ads and news items) got everybody really excited for that. Not everything that Jeph Loeb or even Jim Lee does is a blockbuster, but this was something that people really wanted to see. I suppose that's the point--if the Big Two were really doing stuff that people wanted and were excited to see, they wouldn't have to resort to doing a new number one every few months.
If SAVAGE DRAGON or SPAWN restarted every few months, I think readers would be more likely to jump off than jump on. I wish ASTRO CITY would keep their real numbering, but since they go away for a while in between arcs, I guess it makes some sort of sense for them to do new number ones.
I guess it's a sign of the present state of the industry. If there were just one AVENGERS title and I was made the new artist on it, I would definitely want it to keep its long-term numbering. But since there are about ten different AVENGERS titles going at any given time, not one of them is really that important, so, as the new artist, I probably would like being given a new number one to start off my run. Same thing with X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, BATMAN, SUPERMAN, or any other character or team with multiple series going.
It's sort of a Catch-22 for the big companies. If we really care about what they're doing, then we complain about things like renumbering; when we don't care that much, then we go along with whatever marketing trick they come up with.
Edited by Eric Jansen on 14 January 2014 at 5:31am
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Topic Closed)
