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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 12, 2022 7:15:28 GMT -5
15 years (I think) after Dooley destroyed Hal Jordan, Geoff Johns managed to fix things. I was stunned. After, before long, there were 2 GL books-- Hal's, and GREEN LANTERN CORPS, a sort of better revival of the GL QUARTERLY. It had INTENSELY-fabulous art... but the visual storytelling wasn't there. It struck me as doing what GL always should have been doing-- "space cops"-- but almost never was. But if memory serves, Dave Gibbons (who wanted to do this stuff back in the early 80s!!) was writing it. And... his writing is never all that coherent... UNLESS, he's also supplying the art. I recall this one fill-in where he did the art, and thought, " Oh, man, this is SO MUCH better than the regular issues!" On the other hand, they started this "epic" storyline about "The Sinestro Corps" just about the time I ran out of money and had to stop buying comics regularly... and from what I saw, and what I later heard... I'm kinda glad I missed most of that. Apparently it went on as long as the "Spider Clone" story.
In the tradition of Len Wein's 3-year run on ASM... "I only have ONE story idea, so I'm gonna STRETCH it out over 3 years and hope nobody minds!"
He turned out to be so much better as an editor than as a writer! I heard an interview with several creative people from the GL run and they all said that the book was going to be canceled. I guess you have to decide if the Green Lantern book was better off being discontinued or trying a new idea to keep the book going. The same for the Daredevil title , it was bi- monthly and close to cancelation until Shooter gave it over to Frank Miller. It's a cold business and the bottom few books will always be in danger.
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 12, 2022 7:18:54 GMT -5
I had wondered why thre were so many GL books. I was thinking " are they really selling that much ?" I think the root cause of this, and the Joker/Harley books flooding the shelves is ..... Marketing. Having worked with IP Marketing people a lot in the past, they really like to latch onto a "hit" and run it into the ground. It can take YEARS for them to wise up and see that the audience that was there, or they thought was there, has dried up. I worked with more than one particular groups of marketeers who had ZERO ability or interest in predicting a trend, or in betting on an unknown property. They had no ability to judge quality or foresee how the public would receive something that was not proven or already popular. All they could do was see existing sales and interest and jump on the bandwagon. If one product had a substantial uptick in sales, they would immediately put into production as many spin-offs and copycats of that product as they could. It would take months or maybe years for the products to hit the public, and by then the public had moved on. I have seen it in toys, games, and videogames, first-hand. Now, traditionally, the production lead-time for comics has been about 4 months, and it takes about 4-6 months after publication to get a good gauge of how well something is selling (which is why Marvel is famous for taking an ongoing series, cancelling it after 6 issues, and saying it was a "limited series", after the fact). So you can see how, once the sales figures are able to be evaluated, other coattail-riding products are conceived, developed, produced, marketed, you are now possibly years from the initial "good sales" of a series or issue that started it all. Add into that movies, tv shows, etc. that merit being capitalized on, and you have a multi-year cycle that might or might not pay off. I'm not saying Marketing folks are bad, but the ones I have dealt with were. That's very interesting. Tom defalco said in a podcast that the Perlman people wanted to cancel half the Marvel line with the theory that the half that was doing well would double their sales. They thought that the fans would just automatically start buying the only books available.
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Post by MDG on Feb 12, 2022 9:34:53 GMT -5
I think the root cause of this, and the Joker/Harley books flooding the shelves is ..... Marketing. Having worked with IP Marketing people a lot in the past, they really like to latch onto a "hit" and run it into the ground. It can take YEARS for them to wise up and see that the audience that was there, or they thought was there, has dried up. I worked with more than one particular groups of marketeers who had ZERO ability or interest in predicting a trend, or in betting on an unknown property. They had no ability to judge quality or foresee how the public would receive something that was not proven or already popular. All they could do was see existing sales and interest and jump on the bandwagon. If one product had a substantial uptick in sales, they would immediately put into production as many spin-offs and copycats of that product as they could. It would take months or maybe years for the products to hit the public, and by then the public had moved on. I have seen it in toys, games, and videogames, first-hand. Now, traditionally, the production lead-time for comics has been about 4 months, and it takes about 4-6 months after publication to get a good gauge of how well something is selling (which is why Marvel is famous for taking an ongoing series, cancelling it after 6 issues, and saying it was a "limited series", after the fact). So you can see how, once the sales figures are able to be evaluated, other coattail-riding products are conceived, developed, produced, marketed, you are now possibly years from the initial "good sales" of a series or issue that started it all. Add into that movies, tv shows, etc. that merit being capitalized on, and you have a multi-year cycle that might or might not pay off. I'm not saying Marketing folks are bad, but the ones I have dealt with were. That's very interesting. Tom defalco said in a podcast that the Perlman people wanted to cancel half the Marvel line with the theory that the half that was doing well would double their sales. They thought that the fans would just automatically start buying the only books available. Well, that's like when Valiant/Akklaim got research that showed that all of their sales in the shops happened the first or second week the books were on the stands, so they decided to start publishing the books twice a month, which tanked. Just because people bought the books right away it didn't mean they wanted more.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 12, 2022 14:44:34 GMT -5
I had wondered why thre were so many GL books. I was thinking " are they really selling that much ?" I kind of have to agree. I love Green Lantern, but at most he probably only really needed the main book and maybe Tales Of The Green Lantern Corps
But then you had the Brightest Day & Blackest Nights events and the New52, where there were like six or seven GL books. Thankfully in later years they've kind of shortened it down to just one or two
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Post by profh0011 on Feb 12, 2022 18:17:08 GMT -5
That's very interesting. Tom defalco said in a podcast that the Perlman people wanted to cancel half the Marvel line with the theory that the half that was doing well would double their sales. They thought that the fans would just automatically start buying the only books available. I can't say one way or the other if that would work or not... but, from everything I've ever seen from Tom DeFalco, he almost HAD to be better at marketing than he was at WRITING.
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Post by profh0011 on Feb 12, 2022 18:26:28 GMT -5
I heard an interview with several creative people from the GL run and they all said that the book was going to be canceled. I guess you have to decide if the Green Lantern book was better off being discontinued or trying a new idea to keep the book going. The same for the Daredevil title , it was bi- monthly and close to cancelation until Shooter gave it over to Frank Miller. It's a cold business and the bottom few books will always be in danger. As I saw it at the time... FLOODING the market with too many series and too many guest-appearances with a character that they had only just rescued from oblivion a couple years earlier was a huge mistake. Diehard GL fans might love 1 well-done book a month... but not 3 or 4, "plus".
GREEN LANTERN GREEN LANTERN QUARTERLY GREEN LANTERN MOSAIC JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE
plus guest-appearances in...
L.E.G.I.O.N. #44-47
ECLIPSO: THE DARKNESS WITHIN #2
FLASH #69-70 MAN OF STEEL #20 SUPERMAN #76
TRINITY #1-2 L.E.G.I.O.N. #57 DARKSTARS #12 MAN OF STEEL #26 SUPERMAN #82 HAWKMAN #1-2
This is all within a year-and-a-half before "Emerald Twilight" hit.
Gerard Jones didn't deserve to be fired off that book. Kevin Dooley did.
Frank Miller was a definite IMROVEMENT when he first got on DAREDEVIL with Roger McKenzie. But after he replaced McKenzie as sole writer, about halfway thru THAT run, I started to get fed up with him. I read all those books when they were coming out.
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 13, 2022 6:50:28 GMT -5
That's very interesting. Tom defalco said in a podcast that the Perlman people wanted to cancel half the Marvel line with the theory that the half that was doing well would double their sales. They thought that the fans would just automatically start buying the only books available. I can't say one way or the other if that would work or not... but, from everything I've ever seen from Tom DeFalco, he almost HAD to be better at marketing than he was at WRITING. It wasn't Defalco's idea , it was Perlmans people that thought it would work. They had no clue what buyers wanted. I enjoyed Defalco's writing in the FF series . That's the Alicia is a Skrull / Sue in a stripper outfit era, which is reviled by some.
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Post by Mormel on Feb 13, 2022 7:41:19 GMT -5
I like that old X-Men spoof video on Newgrounds where Cyclops says "We will split into teams! Team A will consist of myself, Emma, Colossus, Beast, and Wolverine. Team B will consist of Havok, Polaris, Xorn, Iceman, and Wolverine." Wolverine: "Uhhh, okay..." Cyclops: "Team C Will consist of Storm, Psylocke, Jubilee, Bishop, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine." Wolverine: "Now wait just a second here!!!"
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Feb 13, 2022 11:18:13 GMT -5
I like that old X-Men spoof video on Newgrounds where Cyclops says "We will split into teams! Team A will consist of myself, Emma, Colossus, Beast, and Wolverine. Team B will consist of Havok, Polaris, Xorn, Iceman, and Wolverine." Wolverine: "Uhhh, okay..." Cyclops: "Team C Will consist of Storm, Psylocke, Jubilee, Bishop, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine." Wolverine: "Now wait just a second here!!!"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2022 10:11:23 GMT -5
Not too keen on the recent 'facsimile' editions produced by Marvel. Without use of the word, or 'reprint' on the cover, there is scope for fraud, especially when the 'fascimile' is of a recent (hot) book with the same cover price.
Not supporting them and we don't sell them.
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Post by Trevor on Feb 14, 2022 13:10:12 GMT -5
Not too keen on the recent 'facsimile' editions produced by Marvel. Without use of the word, or 'reprint' on the cover, there is scope for fraud, especially when the 'fascimile' is of a recent (hot) book with the same cover price. Not supporting them and we don't sell them.
Woah, I didn’t realize they’ve done it with $4 cover price books. I’ve been buying most of them from DC and Marvel, nice to read them without having to dig them out of long boxes and worry about value/condition. Or in many cases, I’ll never own the things otherwise. Especially love seeing the old ads and letter columns and such.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2022 5:21:04 GMT -5
Certain 'homage' covers look good enough to just get....besides I like her so win:win
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2022 11:10:47 GMT -5
A couple of my friends were proudly showing off their CGC 9.8s....very pricey books (in the $800-$1000 range)....and then they looked on at some of my raw books and expressed envy...
And I told one of them....son (he's in his mid 30s), if you want to spend all your disposable cash on a couple of pretty books in overpriced slabs, you're missing out on a whole lot of other deals that can come your way.
Of course I also have CGC books that they have no clue about but it's fun waxing philosophical on these guys. Maintain a balance. If you want something fancy, make sure it doesn't come at the expense of having to forfeit everything else.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2022 8:23:09 GMT -5
A couple of my friends were proudly showing off their CGC 9.8s....very pricey books (in the $800-$1000 range)....and then they looked on at some of my raw books and expressed envy...
And I told one of them....son (he's in his mid 30s), if you want to spend all your disposable cash on a couple of pretty books in overpriced slabs, you're missing out on a whole lot of other deals that can come your way.
Of course I also have CGC books that they have no clue about but it's fun waxing philosophical on these guys. Maintain a balance. If you want something fancy, make sure it doesn't come at the expense of having to forfeit everything else.
I think you have to ask yourself at times why you are in a given hobby. Do you really have a love for the material itself, or do you want to "win" a contest with collectibles? I'm FAR more impressed with someone who demonstrates knowledge of say how to grade comic books than the fact they paid money for someone else to assign them a grade. One of the greatest joys with collecting for me was over the years handling enough comic books and seeing how "real world" all the different dealers at shows and whatnot approached their grading practices. If people weren't allowed to show their numeric grade on a slab to anyone else, would they still derive as much enjoyment? It's a very worn topic at this point. The marketplace has clearly indicated the demand is there, so it is what it is.
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Post by MDG on Feb 23, 2022 8:36:03 GMT -5
I think you have to ask yourself at times why you are in a given hobby. Do you really have a love for the material itself, or do you want to "win" a contest with collectibles? I'm FAR more impressed with someone who demonstrates knowledge of say how to grade comic books than the fact they paid money for someone else to assign them a grade. One of the greatest joys with collecting for me was over the years handling enough comic books and seeing how "real world" all the different dealers at shows and whatnot approached their grading practices. If people weren't allowed to show their numeric grade on a slab to anyone else, would they still derive as much enjoyment? "One of four 9.8s on the CGC Registry!"
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