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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Oct 31, 2015 14:06:46 GMT -5
I've been looking over some collections of books from the 70s and it struck me that the vast majority of books that started in the 70s were gone within 10 - 12 years.
Now I understand about the great DC Implosion, and the normal economic reality for marginal books that sold 2 copies(1 of which Dan Bailey probably bought), but even the successful books like Marvel Team Up, 2-In-1, DC Comics Presents, Defenders etc etc never lasted.
I bought 2-In-1 and the Defenders religiously back then, along with Dr Strange and MOKF(amongst a bazillion others) and yet none of these ever made the A grade. They had the sales, at least for a while, but why were they all dust by the mid-80s?
Was it something to do with creative teams ?
Had there been enough of a quantum shift in storylines that these old B leaguers were dinosaurs already?
I also never understood why the 70s explosion of magic/supernatural, team up, and cosmic books petered out. While there was obviously some rubbish, there were also many fine books, TOD, Dr Strange, and Swamp Thing spring to mind.
Did we suddenly not like horror ?
Is it just the reality of the business ? Unless its Superman/Batman/Spidey/X-Maniacal none of it will last.
What do you miss from the 70s ?
I miss the real Defenders, by the real Sal Buscema, with the real Gil Kane kicking ass and taking names on the cover.
I miss the Thing getting into mistaken fights with all of the Marvel U heroes.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 14:28:20 GMT -5
This is my pet theory as to what killed those B-list titles in the 80s-the direct market. Newsstands allowed for more variety as the risk was on the publishers and they were willing to take chances-put things out there, see what sold and get the returns. It allowed for a title to grow and copies to be out there to be seen and possibly bought. Once the direct market evolved, retailers took the risk and they put their money on the sure things-the big sellers who had a longer sales life as back issues as well-people collected Spider-Man and Avengers, FF and Hulk, not Defenders and Master of Kung Fu, so they didn't have a strong secondary life and retailers wouldn't order extras, wheras the collectible titles sold even better on the direct market as they were not only ordering for the current sales period, but the long term back issue market as well.
With retailers ordering to expected sales and there not being returnability for extra copies to be available, there was no room for titles' sales to grow, so B-list, C-list stuff never had a chance to build an audience in the direct market, or to catch on -the retailer became the gatekeeper not the fan (and once the direct market imploded into Diamond only, Diamond has become the gatekeeper not the retailers). Also with the advent of the direct market, you had more publishers entering the fray and they took a lot of the genres that had been serviced by b-list big 2 titles and did them better with stronger creators in a way that could survive with lower sales which not only filled the niche but ate up retailer and consumer dollars which had previously been spent on those types of books.
The direct market mostly catered to fans of the big super-heroes so when the newsstands became secondary and eventually atrophied, the viability of those b-lit types of titles went with it.
We have met the enemy and it is us!
As to what I miss from the 70s...Kirby creations, anthology titles, well done kung fu and sword and sorcery books (not just Conan), supernatural books like Phantom Stranger, the Madame Xanadu type strips from Doorway to Nightmare (and later Unexpected), DC war books, etc. but a big part of it I think is that the creators who were good at it and had an affinity for that type of stuff are either retired or gone, and the current crop of creators have grown up on and are more focused on big time super-hero stuff that is the big 2 standard fare. Those creators who are doing genre work now are doing it as creator-owned stuff not with the big 2 because (I think) there is neither an opportunity to do it at the big 2, and the market for that kind of stuff at the big 2 doesn't exist any longer.
-M
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 31, 2015 14:37:22 GMT -5
Defenders was my favourite team book in the 70s and early 80s, particularly the Steve Gerber run and then that whole period from the beginning of the Six Fingered Hand story through to issue #125. It actually had a pretty respectable run, from mid 1972-early 1986; almost fourteen years (though the last two years were pretty terrible). I was also fond of Marvel Team-Up (another pretty good run, 1972-1985), Marvel Two-In-One (which at least made 100 issues), MOKF (125 issues), Power-Man & Iron Fist (125 issues), Star Wars (107 issues), Ghost Rider (81 issues), Rom (75 issues), Tomb of Dracula (70 issues), Micronauts (59 issues) and, of the shorter lived titles, Spider-Woman (50 issues), Captain Britain (39 issues), Howard The Duck (initially, 31 issues), Nova (25 issues), Ms Marvel (23 issues), Man-Thing (22 issues), Shogun Warriors (20 issues), Warlock (15 issues), Omega the Unknown (10 issues), Skull the Slayer (8 issues), the 11 issue run of Deathlok in Astonishing Tales and, from DC, Freedom Fighters (15 issues), Secret Society of Super-Villains (15 issues), Shade the Changing Man (8 issues), Star Hunters (7 issues), Steel (5 issues) and, most of all, the revival of All-Star Comics (17 issues). There are probably more, too, including Marvel UK's Mighty World of Marvel/Marvel Super-Heroes (397 issues). That really was my era.
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Post by Phil Maurice on Oct 31, 2015 15:00:02 GMT -5
Defenders was my favourite team book in the 70s and early 80s, particularly the Steve Gerber run and then that whole period from the beginning of the Six Fingered Hand story through to issue #125. It actually had a pretty respectable run, from mid 1972-early 1986; almost fourteen years (though the last two years were pretty terrible). I was also fond of Marvel Team-Up (another pretty good run, 1972-1985), Marvel Two-In-One (which at least made 100 issues), MOKF (125 issues), Power-Man & Iron Fist (125 issues), Star Wars (107 issues), Ghost Rider (81 issues), Rom (75 issues), Tomb of Dracula (70 issues), Micronauts (59 issues) and, of the shorter lived titles, Spider-Woman (50 issues), Captain Britain (39 issues), Howard The Duck (initially, 31 issues), Nova (25 issues), Ms Marvel (23 issues), Man-Thing (22 issues), Shogun Warriors (20 issues), Warlock (15 issues), Omega the Unknown (10 issues), Skull the Slayer (8 issues), the 11 issue run of Deathlok in Astonishing Tales and, from DC, Freedom Fighters (15 issues), Secret Society of Super-Villains (15 issues), Shade the Changing Man (8 issues), Star Hunters (7 issues), Steel (5 issues) and, most of all, the revival of All-Star Comics (17 issues). There are probably more, too, including Marvel UK's Mighty World of Marvel/Marvel Super-Heroes (397 issues). That really was my era. Gosh tingra, you could have just answered "All of them."  |
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Post by Warmonger on Oct 31, 2015 15:03:52 GMT -5
Master of Kung-Fu would be the big one for me
That's where I began to follow Moench religiously as a kid.
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Post by fanboystranger on Oct 31, 2015 15:43:02 GMT -5
Now I understand about the great DC Implosion, and the normal economic reality for marginal books that sold 2 copies(1 of which Dan Bailey probably bought), but even the successful books like Marvel Team Up, 2-In-1, DC Comics Presents, Defenders etc etc never lasted. I bought 2-In-1 and the Defenders religiously back then, along with Dr Strange and MOKF(amongst a bazillion others) and yet none of these ever made the A grade. They had the sales, at least for a while, but why were they all dust by the mid-80s? , I'd argue, didn't really go away until the mid-'90s. Yes, the book was cancelled and replaced with Strange Tales in 1987-88, but it was the same creative team following the same story. Then Doctor Strange: Sorceror Supreme would launch with the same creative team in 1988, and run for 80+ issues until 1996. It basically ran almost unbroken from the Marvel Premiere era in the early '70s for 25 years, although much of that run was bi-monthly. I view the "cancellations" as more of a rebranding/marketing move than an actual stoppage for the book. |
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Post by gothos on Oct 31, 2015 15:57:29 GMT -5
I think it's probably true that the "offbeat superheroes" probably became more and more marginalized in the 1980s and 1990s, unless they had the benefit of a Big Name Artist. Retailers, faced with a supernatural kung-fu book and another X-Men imitation from the Big Two, probably ordered more heavily on the latter.
OTOH, keep in mind that the DM did sometimes nurture specialty books that weren't necessarily aimed at the core readership. I still remember getting on the ground floor with 1993's STRANGERS IN PARADISE, and being astonished as to how the book caught on despite its lack of fantasy-elements. However, now I think that it actually had an advantage due to that lack, in contrast to many of the 90s titles that tried to cut into the markets of the Big Two (the Malibu-verse, the Dark Horse-verse).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 16:50:04 GMT -5
All the black and white mags
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Post by benday-dot on Oct 31, 2015 16:58:37 GMT -5
What do I miss? Well not really the books. They will always come and go like everything else under the sun, but the experience, the life and times of little 70's Benday and those books is the absence most poignant. It's the memories, the thrilling awareness, of myself and all those super cool monthly adventures, now truly gone forever (because there is no real going back to when you were a kid, nostalgia being a dubious substitute) that I genuinely miss.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 16:58:58 GMT -5
Defenders. Marvel Team-Up. Power-Man & Iron Fist. Warlord. DC Comics Presents. Brave & the Bold. Freedom Fighters. Secret Society of Super-Villains. All-Star Comics.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 18:16:26 GMT -5
Treasury Size editions.
Superman comics with Ross Andru covers.
Spider-Man comics with Romita covers.
X-Men comics with covers that....actually applied to the inner story. Now it's just Wolverine with his mouth open all the time.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 31, 2015 20:14:29 GMT -5
Kamandi!
There's a lot of comics I was fond of, but the number-one missing comic of the 1970s is Kamandi.
And The Secret Society of Super-Villains.
And, yes, Jez, Treasury Editions. That Spider-Man Treasury Edition with Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, #6 and #35 may be the greatest comic book of all time.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Oct 31, 2015 20:34:37 GMT -5
There's so many great books right now that very few of the few good books from the 70ies are sorely missed here. I mean, Eerie and Creepy are now again on the racks, the 70ies Swamp Thing was magnified in the 80ies, Corben still is publishing great work, probably better than back then, The Phantom has had much more interesting adventures since the mid 80ies... Basically, the level of sophistication of current good books easily makes me forget about the 70ies, the decade of the fanboy writers...
I guess the only book from the 70ies I currently miss would be Cerebus.
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 31, 2015 21:13:23 GMT -5
I'm thinking that the 70's was the Avengers golden age. I miss them.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 22:14:47 GMT -5
I think it's probably true that the "offbeat superheroes" probably became more and more marginalized in the 1980s and 1990s, unless they had the benefit of a Big Name Artist. Retailers, faced with a supernatural kung-fu book and another X-Men imitation from the Big Two, probably ordered more heavily on the latter. OTOH, keep in mind that the DM did sometimes nurture specialty books that weren't necessarily aimed at the core readership. I still remember getting on the ground floor with 1993's STRANGERS IN PARADISE, and being astonished as to how the book caught on despite its lack of fantasy-elements. However, now I think that it actually had an advantage due to that lack, in contrast to many of the 90s titles that tried to cut into the markets of the Big Two (the Malibu-verse, the Dark Horse-verse). The thing is, a book like Strangers in Paradise could survive and thrive on a much smaller economic scale and circulation number than anything form the big 2 could, and taking off and being successful meant that it was still likely selling below what a cancellation number would have been if it was a big 2 book. Small press and self-published books have an advantage in a market where the retailer not the publisher takes the risk and are sold on a non-returnable scale in that they are almost guaranteed sell through numbers on their print run and can do multiple printings if readership demand grows (and books like Love and Rockets, Strangers in Paradise, Elfquest etc. all had multiple printings of issues as their readership grew-but monthly grind big 2 comics usually only get 1 print run and its on the next issue-except for the Star Wars comics, additional printings for big 2 comics were unheard of until the 90s when the newsstand was dead and gone and then it was only big ticket books like Death of Superman tie-ins or Bane breaking the Bat type events), allowing for those small off beat titles to grow form small press publishers, but not form the big 2 with their established monthly production line schedule. So books like Strangers in Paradise are a different animal than off-beat B-list big 2 books like say Kamandi or House of Mystery or Micronauts where SiP can thrive in the direct market while others die on the vine and are crowded out of the market because retailers own't take the risk on them. SiP and books of that ilk can survive (and even thrive) selling 8K copies of an issue, even the lowest tier big 2 book can't break even with those kind of sales because of the scale of publishing operations behind them. -M |
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