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Post by Duragizer on Nov 6, 2018 0:50:49 GMT -5
One could almost be led to believe the writer(s) have no more than a passing familiarity with the actual character. Which isn't a bad thing really. The actual character doesn't really matter here, this is another Gwen in Earth-65.
As the saying goes, "different strokes for different folks". Whomever likes the character is free to; I just won't be joining them. Ugh. This is why my love for superhero multiverses ain't what it used to be.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 6, 2018 2:46:15 GMT -5
One could almost be led to believe that the character wasn't aimed at jaded old nerds but toward a different audience. Except that jaded old nerds are pretty much the only people who still buy comics these days. From what I saw in my LCS before it closed down, Spider-Gwen comics were mostly read by 30 and 40-something males. Even among the tiny handful of women I know who read Spider-Gwen, they're all in their mid-30s. Which isn't a bad thing really. The actual character doesn't really matter here, this is another Gwen in Earth-65. But here's the thing: it actually is the same Gwen Stacy that we know and love. She's just from an alternate reality. But it is the exact same person. She's just had a totally different life, in which she and not Peter Parker got bitten by the radioactive spider.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 2:53:43 GMT -5
One could almost be led to believe that the character wasn't aimed at jaded old nerds but toward a different audience. Except that jaded old nerds are pretty much the only people who still buy comics these days. From what I saw in my LCS before it closed down, Spider-Gwen comics were mostly read by 30 and 40-something males. Even among the tiny handful of women I know who read Spider-Gwen, they're all in their mid-30s. If you are simply talking comics in periodical format, I would agree with you. However that doesn't account for all those Spider-Gwen trades selling to school age kids through Scholastic (along with Spider-Girl and most especially Ms. Marvel trades selling there), or those buying digital or reading through the Marvel Unlimited app. At our local library, Spider-Gwen out-circulates Spider-Man last tim eI taled to the guy in charge of the graphic novel section, and the wait list for Spider-Gwen trades is several months long (with 3 week borrowing periods) while you can pretty much get any Spider-Man trade as it is released without waiting more than 1 borrowing period if that. Younger reader are not only interested in different characters, but different formats and reading experiences than the jaded old comic nerds, so measuring the success of new stuff in formats geared towards the old guard is not an accurate measure of how well the concept is doing overall. There are plenty of people who like to buy music on vinyl, but you don't measure the success of a band or a new release only based on how well it sells on vinyl in record stores, which is essentially what you are doing these days if you are measuring the success of a comic only on sales as a print periodical sold through comic shops. -M
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 6, 2018 3:10:18 GMT -5
Except that jaded old nerds are pretty much the only people who still buy comics these days. From what I saw in my LCS before it closed down, Spider-Gwen comics were mostly read by 30 and 40-something males. Even among the tiny handful of women I know who read Spider-Gwen, they're all in their mid-30s. If you are simply talking comics in periodical format, I would agree with you. However that doesn't account for all those Spider-Gwen trades selling to school age kids through Scholastic (along with Spider-Girl and most especially Ms. Marvel trades selling there), or those buying digital or reading through the Marvel Unlimited app. At our local library, Spider-Gwen out-circulates Spider-Man last tim eI taled to the guy in charge of the graphic novel section, and the wait list for Spider-Gwen trades is several months long (with 3 week borrowing periods) while you can pretty much get any Spider-Man trade as it is released without waiting more than 1 borrowing period if that. Younger reader are not only interested in different characters, but different formats and reading experiences than the jaded old comic nerds, so measuring the success of new stuff in formats geared towards the old guard is not an accurate measure of how well the concept is doing overall. There are plenty of people who like to buy music on vinyl, but you don't measure the success of a band or a new release only based on how well it sells on vinyl in record stores, which is essentially what you are doing these days if you are measuring the success of a comic only on sales as a print periodical sold through comic shops. -M Fair points, except that the sales at my LCS included graphic novel collections. But I'm not saying that Spider-Gwen isn't selling: quite the opposite, I'm saying that it clearly is and that's what I find surprising. To me it's such an unbelievably lame concept for a character. As I think Nowhere Man said earlier, it would've been better if this young, hip Spider-Woman had been a totally new character. But, as he also rightly said, who the hell would create a new character for Marvel these days? As for the demographics of who exactly is buying Spider-Gwen comics, I have to say that I'm dubious about it being bought by hordes of teenage girls. Maybe it is, and I'm wrong. I can only speak from my own personal experience, and the 14-20yo women that I regularly come into contact with, via running open mic nights, are not comic book fans. Still, my feeling is that the majority of sales of Spider-Gwen are coming from 30-something and 40-something men and, to a lesser extent, women. I'm prepared to be proven wrong about that though.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 3:27:31 GMT -5
If you are simply talking comics in periodical format, I would agree with you. However that doesn't account for all those Spider-Gwen trades selling to school age kids through Scholastic (along with Spider-Girl and most especially Ms. Marvel trades selling there), or those buying digital or reading through the Marvel Unlimited app. At our local library, Spider-Gwen out-circulates Spider-Man last time I talked to the guy in charge of the graphic novel section, and the wait list for Spider-Gwen trades is several months long (with 3 week borrowing periods) while you can pretty much get any Spider-Man trade as it is released without waiting more than 1 borrowing period if that. Younger reader are not only interested in different characters, but different formats and reading experiences than the jaded old comic nerds, so measuring the success of new stuff in formats geared towards the old guard is not an accurate measure of how well the concept is doing overall. There are plenty of people who like to buy music on vinyl, but you don't measure the success of a band or a new release only based on how well it sells on vinyl in record stores, which is essentially what you are doing these days if you are measuring the success of a comic only on sales as a print periodical sold through comic shops. -M Fair points, except that the sales at my LCS included graphic novel collections. But I'm not saying that Spider-Gwen isn't selling: quite the opposite, I'm saying that it clearly is and that's what I find surprising. To me it's such an unbelievably lame concept for a character. As I think Nowhere Man said earlier, it would've been better if this young, hip Spider-Woman had been a totally new character. But, as he also rightly said, who the hell would create a new character for Marvel these days? As for the demographics of who exactly is buying Spider-Gwen comics, I have to say that I'm dubious about it being bought by hordes of teenage girls. Maybe it is, and I'm wrong. I can only speak from my own personal experience, and the 14-20yo women that I regularly come into contact with, via running open mic nights, are not comic book fans. Still, my feeling is that the majority of sales of Spider-Gwen are coming from 30-something and 40-something men and, to a lesser extent, women. I'm prepared to be proven wrong about that though. I wonder how many fans of the Golden Age DC characters said the same thing about the Silver Age versions of characters they grew up with. I can only imagine the posts if the internet had existed then. And Scholastic does sell outside schools, but the bulk of their sales are to school age kids and Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur and Spider-Gwen are the top Marvel sellers through Scholastic. Trade sales through Diamond/comic shops are only a tiny fraction of total trade sales the bulk is sold through the book market (bookstores/Amazon/Scholastic, which typically have a longer sales window and wider reach than a comic shop. Typically comic shop sales of trades total less than a quarter of overall sales on trades, and even less for books that catch on with a wider audience outside the typical hardcore comic fans. Comic shops are not where new readers or demographics outside the typical comic fan are going to go to get their comic reading material anymore (if they ever were-the direct market was designed to sell to people who already were fans and knew what they wanted, not as an outreach to grow the audience to new readers or to sell to non-hardcore fans-the demise of other outlets for comics forced it to try to be that, but it was never very successful at it, hence the downward trend of periodical sales over the last few decades). Things may be different in the UK, but in the US sales of comic material* in the book market especially to younger readers (under 25) has been trending up over the last 5 years even while sales of comics in traditional direct market outlets has continued to decline in overall units. -M *not periodicals but comics in book form such as the Ms. Marvel trades, Dog Boy, the Raina Telgemeier books, etc. etc.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 6, 2018 3:27:55 GMT -5
Well, Ms. Marvel did alright. And all of the female children in my family between ages 8-13 own multiple Raina Telgemier comics. Talking completely out my ass here, but maybe G. B. never developed a decent size underground comic scene like the US did - possibly because British mainstream comics were more appealing to adults than American books - and that meant that the UK never built up the audience or the talent pool that led to Bone-style huge smash hits for the kiddy market.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 6, 2018 4:06:35 GMT -5
Talking completely out my ass here, but maybe G. B. never developed a decent size underground comic scene like the US did - possibly because British mainstream comics were more appealing to adults than American books - and that meant that the UK never built up the audience or the talent pool that led to Bone-style huge smash hits for the kiddy market. You're right that there wasn't really an independent comic scene in the UK, at least not one that was particularly widely known, even among comics fans. But there are, and always have been, lots of comics aimed at pre-teen kids: British comic cornerstones like The Beano and The Dandy are good examples of that. Then, of course, there were lots of comics aimed at the 10-18 yo readership, such as 2000 AD and Battle Picture Weekly. In the late '80s and early '90s we did get more adult-orientated comics like Warrior or Revolver, but those were the exception rather than the rule...at least in terms of what was commonly available on the newsagent shop shelves.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 6, 2018 5:23:00 GMT -5
Fair points, except that the sales at my LCS included graphic novel collections. But I'm not saying that Spider-Gwen isn't selling: quite the opposite, I'm saying that it clearly is and that's what I find surprising. To me it's such an unbelievably lame concept for a character. As I think Nowhere Man said earlier, it would've been better if this young, hip Spider-Woman had been a totally new character. But, as he also rightly said, who the hell would create a new character for Marvel these days?
You will never see another original character created for the big 2 again, unless they own it. The creator would have to be insane to give up their creation. I doubt that the big 2 are willing to share or sponser ownership of something new so that the creator can be made rich in a movie deal or such. Until then, you will keep seeing derivatives of Spider-man, Batman, etc.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Nov 6, 2018 9:11:47 GMT -5
One could almost be led to believe that the character wasn't aimed at jaded old nerds but toward a different audience. The difference being that nowadays younger readers get shoddy concepts utilizing supporting characters that should remain supporting characters, or even in alternate reality Gwen's case, dead. I'm all for new characters not aimed at 40 year old me, but that doesn't mean that these concepts are above criticism either. At this point I honestly wouldn't be shocked if Uncle Ben comes back as an undead super-villain. I mean kids today won't even get things as "original" as Speedball, Nova or Cloak & Dagger, much less a Spider-Man, Hulk or Daredevil. At the end of the day they're all fictional characters and none of it really matters, but there are much better and more creative ways to create new characters that doesn't give a middle-finger to 50+ years of history and continuity.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 6, 2018 10:27:11 GMT -5
One could almost be led to believe that the character wasn't aimed at jaded old nerds but toward a different audience. The difference being that nowadays younger readers get shoddy concepts utilizing supporting characters that should remain supporting characters, or even in alternate reality Gwen's case, dead. I'm all for new characters not aimed at 40 year old me, but that doesn't mean that these concepts are above criticism either. At this point I honestly wouldn't be shocked if Uncle Ben comes back as an undead super-villain. I mean kids today won't even get things as "original" as Speedball, Nova or Cloak & Dagger, much less a Spider-Man, Hulk or Daredevil. At the end of the day they're all fictional characters and none of it really matters, but there are much better and more creative ways to create new characters that doesn't give a middle-finger to 50+ years of history and continuity. That Schwartz guy should have come up with new concepts instead of that lame re-tooling of Flash and Green Lantern, Hawkman and The Atom. They were perfected in the 40s. Poor young kids these days can't even get new concepts. And those hacks Lee and Kirby. Everyone knows that The Human Torch is an android. And the rest. A Plastic Man knock-off. Invisible Scarlet O'Neil. And a refugee from the monster of the month books. Where are the new concepts?
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 6, 2018 10:45:52 GMT -5
Those were nice retooling of concepts but there was also Super cat, Superhorse, Super Lizard... ![(puke)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sick.png) . And not to mention naming Spider-Gwen in the same breath with those characters is quite amazing.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 11:00:05 GMT -5
Those were nice retooling of concepts but there was also Super cat, Superhorse, Super Lizard... ![(puke)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sick.png) . And not to mention naming Spider-Gwen in the same breath with those characters is quite amazing. Those characters were no different than Spider-Gwen in terms of pedigree when they were created. They've had 50 + years to build that pedigree but your knocking a character that's what 3-4 years old for not matching that pedigree? Seems fair. -M
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 6, 2018 11:19:15 GMT -5
I know crap when I read it.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 6, 2018 14:30:37 GMT -5
Fair points, except that the sales at my LCS included graphic novel collections. But I'm not saying that Spider-Gwen isn't selling: quite the opposite, I'm saying that it clearly is it would've been better if this young, hip Spider-Woman had been a totally new character. But, as he also rightly said, who the hell would create a new character for Marvel these days? A new Spider-Woman was introduced, Silk...created by Dan Slott Yeah, I know...I read those comics as they came out. Actually, Silk was a damn good character, with an interesting back-story and a cool costume. Really, I'd say that she's much more deserving of the popularity that Spider-Gwen has gotten. But what do I know? I could never fathom why everybody likes Deadpool so much either.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 14:38:51 GMT -5
I know crap when I read it. A lot of the books you rave about, I think are crap and cannot fathom why anyone with any taste would like them. Doesn't make it them crap though, but doesn't make not crap either. It's just different tastes. You think Spider-Gwen is crap; doesn't make it so. There are those who like it. Their tastes aren't better or worse than yours, just different. But just because something isn't to your taste doesn't make it crap. Just because it is to your taste doesn't make it good either. Thinking your tastes are indicative of quality is hubris, and pride comes before the fall. If you don't like something, all it means is you don't like it. It's not an objective sign of lack of quality. Just because you like something, doesn't make it good. Just means you like it. People too often confuse liking something with some kind of objective standard of quality. Comic fans have an over-inflated opinion of their opinions on comics books. There I said it. -M
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