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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2016 12:55:56 GMT -5
Record stores at least, are making a come back as vinyl is back in vogue. -M Vinyl is hip for a bit in certain circles, but it's not a mass medium any more. Precious little sign of record stores recovering either - I used to have 20+ record-selling shops (dedicated or part of some department store) within 3 or 4 miles, now there's 1 (mostly 2nd-hand) shop selling vinyl. Virtually nowhere sells turntables any more - I even offered to give mine away and didn't get any takers. Well there are as many if not more record shops as comic shops in the greater Dayton area where I live, the Half Price Books (all 6 or 7 of them in the Columbus-Dayton area, all have larger vinyl sections than CD sections now,and larger sections for vinyl than graphic novels/comics, and at the 4-5 semi-permanent flea markets I go to, vinyl dealers outnumber comic dealers, and CD sellers are nearly non-existent, and I could buy a turntable at Wal-Mart, the Family Dollar and several other discount department stores during the past Christmas shopping season, and Half Price Books had 4-5 different models of turntables for sale in their record sections as well, so my anecdotal experience in directly contradictory of yours. Record Store day is one of the fastest growing promotional days out there (it's gaining participants faster than Free Comic Book Day did in its first few years,and is not dependent on a single distributor as FCBD is-nor doe sit require its participant retailer stake a loss on the day while the distributor makes money like Diamond does to its retailer clients for FCBD). So I see plenty of signs here that record stores are reviving in this area as well as stores that are expanding to add sections for carrying vinyl that did not before. The difference is records don't have a leech holding a monopoly as distributor sucking the life and money out of the process hurting both the recording artists and retailers it is supposed to service the way Diamond milks both the retailers and publishers it is supposed to service. -M |
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 24, 2016 16:06:31 GMT -5
There are two further complications and one of them is responsible it seems for this thread. Time Warner and Disney are going to do what's best for Time Warner and Disney. And if what they want to do destroys Diamond, the Direct Market, the other publishers, current readers, new readers, the digital format or anything else, so be it.
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 24, 2016 16:08:03 GMT -5
Another surprising "analog" entertainment growth industry in recent years, board games.
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Post by earl on Jan 24, 2016 18:57:28 GMT -5
The Great Escape in Louisville is a comic shop that is also a record shop along with used DVD/video tapes. They also got some games etc.
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 25, 2016 19:53:53 GMT -5
Any guesses on the new lineup?
BATMAN x2
DETECTIVE COMICS
BATMAN TITLE #3??? (also possibly X2)
BRAVE & THE BOLD (a Batman team up title)
HARLEY QUINN X2
HARLEY QUINN & HER AMAZING ZOO CREW (some sort of Harley & friends title)
BATGIRL
WHATEVER DICK GRAYSON IS
ROBIN
CATWOMAN
JOKER
SUPERMAN X2
ACTION COMICS
SUPERGIRL
SUPERMAN TEAM UP or SUPERMAN/ BATMAN
LEX LUTHOR
GREEN LANTERN X2
GREEN LANTERN CORPS (or just fold everything into Green Lantern?)
FLASH
WONDER WOMAN X2???
AQUAMAN
CYBORG
SHAZAM!
JUSTICE LEAGUE X2
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
NEW SUICIDE SQUAD
SUICIDE SQUAD SPOTLIGHT
DEATHSTROKE
TITANS
GREEN ARROW
That's 30 titles with 35 or more issues a month. If Detective isn't going to be twice a month, I don't see that many more titles going to twice a month.
I also think that they might go 5 or 6 more to keep Starfire and Black Canary going and add some other "diverse" titles. Maybe Vixen?
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 25, 2016 20:44:49 GMT -5
I really don't see how the comic book shop can survive - record shops have died, video shops have died, book shops have been decimated; I can't see that comic book shops are going to buck the trend. The other thing that comics have in common with music and video is that, for the large part, dematerialising the physical medium actually gives a better experience - faster delivery, very little storage space, searchability etc; conversely, you get tied to a computer of some sort (eg tablet), but OTOH you can carry your entire collection around with you and don't need rooms and long boxes to store everything. This made me sad.  |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 25, 2016 21:02:13 GMT -5
As a strategy that just doesn't make any sense to me.
You already successfully marketed Batman. Shouldn't the comics be a testing ground for new properties that you can potentially put on lunchboxes? Marvel is very quietly turning Squirrel Girl and the new Ms. Marvel into merchandisable properties. Shouldn't that really be the monetary goal here?
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Post by hondobrode on Jan 26, 2016 0:23:24 GMT -5
I pretty much only buy my stuff on sale anymore, and it's usually not very new.
Comixology, Dark Horse digital and Sequential Art, usually around $ 1/issue.
I LOVE the digital experience and having access to a virtual library.
I'm sad to see DC supposedly focusing all it's firepower on the media characters, since a lot of my favorite DC characters are not in the spotlight (Jonah Hex, Swamp Thing, Freedom Fighters, Plastic Man, Doom Patrol, Hawkman, Azrael...), but as I look at it, it's pretty smart.
Hasn't Marvel done this pretty well practically building an imprint within the Marvel brand itself with the mutant titles, and later with the Avengers franchise as well ?
As far as being innovative and trying to develop properties, didn't the DCYou pretty much show, along with the cancellation of lots of New52 titles, that the market simply doesn't support much outside of Superman, Batman and the JLA.
Maybe, just maybe, by narrowing the number of titles, and putting the marquee characters at the top of the cover, they can build up characters and tighter continuity, and popularity, by building out by spinning off titles and characters.
If they more prominently featured the characters I listed within those titles, maybe I'd be more willing to buy them, or, do what Stan did back in the Marvel Age, with split titles like Tales of Suspense, with both Iron Man and Captain America in separate features.
How about a Superman title with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the back half ?
or complete stand along stories in the back half of the book with those characters ?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 6:12:31 GMT -5
Hawkman is on the Legends of Tomorrow TV show , so he could get some exposure. I keep hearing rumors of another Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes attempt to bring Legion back and spotlight Supergirl.
I've also heard 2 contrary rumors-one that the Bat-project Marc Silvestri has been working on for the last year or so will be the opening arc for the new bi-weekly Batman book and that none of the new creative teams are really set, that DC "commissioned" 6 or so scripts from multiple writers for several series and didn't tell them they were pitches instead of greenlighted projects, and will decide who gets the books once they have all the scripts in house and review them.
So there is a lot of wild speculation out there, the only thing that everyone seems to be agreed upon is that Snyder is leaving Batman and taking Detective, with no announced artist attached yet, that Capullo is taking 6 months off to do something else and then reteaming with Snyder on another big unnamed project and that Capullo has submitted a redesign for Batman's costume that has been approved but not revealed yet and it will debut before the Snyder/Capullo Batman run wraps up in May.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 6:39:26 GMT -5
Some early retailer reactions to DC's REbirth announcment (courtesy reposts at Bleeding Cool)
I'm sure retailers cutting orders as a blanket policy and pull list customers cancelling DC books en masse is exactly what DC wanted to accomplish with this and will help oh so much with them regaining the precious marketshare in the direct market they seem fixated on...
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 7:33:49 GMT -5
The most eye-opening part of that was the last quote that DC is that shop's 6th best selling publisher - that's just... wow.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 15:43:20 GMT -5
I'm really not terribly surprised that DC is relaunching everything again. From what I understand, DC/Warner is going after younger people and their money. Young people of today have so much to spend their money on with so many platforms of entertainment. Relaunching everything with all new #1s is way to get attention, especially with DC's presence on TV and soon to be in the movies. My comic store has more Marvel/independent readers, however the Batman titles are all popular. The announced titles do seem to be geared towards the more mainstream media type characters. I imagine this will make some quick cash for DC, sputter out after a few years, then there will another rebirth or relaunch.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 26, 2016 19:39:02 GMT -5
Since I'm only buying a few Image titles, and one IDW and one Oni Press title, I'm interested to see over the next few years if there's a final breaking point with Marvel and DC fans if they go too far with these relaunches. It has to be getting close to that point with DC, given the fact that they have to do this is the first place. I don't quite understand the all-in nature of only focusing on movie and TV properties, given the general consensus that film/TV success doesn't translate into comic sales. This COULD work, in theory, but in my mind that would take an actual marketing and advertising plan beyond the comics community.
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Post by Batflunkie on Jan 26, 2016 20:04:00 GMT -5
I really don't think that DC should bother with re-launching the books now, wait a few years until both the TV and Movie properties get on their feet and then you can think about it
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Post by hondobrode on Jan 26, 2016 23:12:22 GMT -5
They're so far down against Marvel, they have no choice but to do what they can in the short term.
We'll see what a fresh coat of paint does. It's not a reboot as much as a re-launch. Marvel gained ground, so now DC follows.
Eventually, like a lot of things, the issues will be on sale on Comixology, so I might look at something if it's interesting, but even me, a die-hard DC fan, have grown to almost not caring anymore.
I've felt that way about most of Marvel for about 10 years now, with the rare exceptions including Agents of Atlas.
The stuff that's way more fresh, less bloated and more satisfying, is a newer more well done superhero universe like Valiant or the crazy stuff Image has been putting out.
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