Byrne Robotics: Marvel Comics #1000

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Topic: Marvel Comics #1000

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Steve De Young
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Joined: 01 April 2008
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Posted: 14 May 2019 at 8:31am \| IP Logged \| 1	post reply

What I would honestly do probably won't be popular here, but if we're talking about what I would do running Marvel in order to save print comics:

Comics are being read by thousands of people. Comic book based movies and TV shows are being watched by millions of people worldwide. I'd start everything over with new #1's, abandon all continuity, and conform all the characters to their film and other media versions. The best shot print comics have, at this point, to lure in new fans is to get some of the fans of these characters in other media to read comics. Even little kids now have already been introduced to all of these characters through other media. If they sample a comic and its nothing like the characters they've come to enjoy, they won't be back.

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Rick Whiting
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Joined: 22 April 2004
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Posted: 14 May 2019 at 7:43pm \| IP Logged \| 2	post reply

I would surgically retcon out of continuity (without any in story explanation) any past stories and changes made to the characters (regardless of how popular or unpopular those past stories maybe) that do not work or damages the core concept of the characters and never speak of them again. I would then move forward from there.

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Peter Martin
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Posted: 14 May 2019 at 9:29pm \| IP Logged \| 3	post reply

Put comic concession stands in cinemas; have it part of the deal for carrying Marvel movies that the cinema has a small, well positioned space for a couple of spinner racks. Have stories in the books that are 'continuing tales' of the latest Marvel movies. Make sure the little blighters have to walk past the spinners on their way out of the theatre.

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Joseph Greathouse
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Joined: 19 August 2015
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Posted: 15 May 2019 at 6:52am \| IP Logged \| 4	post reply

I don't believe that changing the business model of a movie theater to begin acting like a retailer is going to work. Theaters wouldn't want spinner racks for much the same reason that convenience stores don't want them anymore. Its a low-margin, high-maintenance item. Besides, I think the question is what can Marvel's comic division do? Not, what can Marvel comics division try to force someone else to do?

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Rick Whiting
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Posted: 15 May 2019 at 10:57am \| IP Logged \| 5	post reply

Since print is dying (if not already pretty much dead) maybe Marvel and other publishers should switch to a new form digital motion comics that combines motion comics technology with that of Comixology's Guided View tech, but without voice actors.

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 16 May 2019 at 10:49am \| IP Logged \| 6	post reply

Comic shops need to attract a non-fanatic/collector audience to survive. Stuff like the free comic day seemed like a great way to do that if it didn't turn into some kind of obsesses over rare/hot ones festival.Eyes reading and fingers turning pages is the only way to keep the medium, the encapsulating and examining specimens for flaws under special lights and magnification is the death of it, preserved in a museum and dead.

What you do is find out why people who don't read or like comic books don't read or like them. Being approachable should be the most obvious goal, friendly, not some clutch of hostile lifer obsessives ridiculing outsiders in dimly lit shops with massively muscled leering or insanely grinning characters on display. I think things have been getting better in a lot of ways, but still the variant covers scamming and the professional grading/encapsulating applied to most modern comics is massively backwards and will rot your foundations! If it's negative or exploitative get rid of it, if it's positive and respectful of readers of all ages that's the way forward.

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 16 May 2019 at 10:57am \| IP Logged \| 7	post reply

Print is dying/dead, everyone shops online, nobody is without a smart phone and multiple social media accounts = negative, ridiculing other views. Vinyl records are back and there are shops selling them to 3-D people who want to live in a real and functional city or town.I heard how vinyl and all formats for recorded music was dead over and over for a couple decades by those so sure of themselves.

To quote a Legion of Super-Heroes comic of only a dozen years ago "Eat it Gran'pa". Comic books are great things to hold, to read and to dream over; why are so many who obsess on preserving them also be so willing to throw them into the flames for nothingness that a North Korean or Russian hacker can erase in seconds? Get quality original inspired caring comics to the kids, to read, the trade, to pull them off the tiny screen for awhile... to cut up or do whatever they want with against the will of editors or a CGC or whatever authority has been created, and they will grow up with them and remember and cherish and pass them on through the generations as a living form and medium.

Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 16 May 2019 at 10:58am

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