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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 19:07:50 GMT -5
According to Shooter, Epic barely made a profit, but Shooter was never fully behind Epic from what I've read on the subject. Seems like Archie Goodwin was the brains behind it and the soul person most responsible for its success. I agree that Epic probably did pave the way for DC's Vertigo in a lot of ways and that Marvel dropped the ball on Epic and particularly holding on to license like Star Wars and Conan. I think they're currently dropping the ball on having IDW, Dark Horse, and Fantagraphics reprinting their most acclaimed classic material. Same with Disney in general. They spend all their effort publishing all these monthlies, the ones that are tried and true proven classics will eventually be licensed out. Because in their shortsightedness they'll think it's easier to just license it and collect their money than bother getting into the fine archival TPB racket. But they also thought it would be a good idea to license out a bunch of their movie rights to Fox... I think it won't be too long until Marvel and DC just plain license the comic book rights of their entire catalogs to other publishers. 20 years or so and I think Disney and WB are out of the comics publishing game completely. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 19:10:21 GMT -5
Marvel would be wise to flood the market with Star Wars titles, particularly titles based on the Ewoks and Jawas. When you come right down to it, they're the most interesting aspect of Star Wars. I'll fight anyone who disagrees. I have spoken and I remain Unconquered. Ewoks have great potential. They weren't done all that great in Return Of The Jedi, but they were cool in the Battlefront game. They're just primitive tribal aliens in a highly advanced galaxy. Boba Fett wasn't done all that well in the movies either but people like him. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 19:13:42 GMT -5
Marvel would be wise to flood the market with Star Wars titles, particularly titles based on the Ewoks and Jawas. When you come right down to it, they're the most interesting aspect of Star Wars. I'll fight anyone who disagrees. I have spoken and I remain Unconquered. I love the bloody ewoks. Their hides make great shoes. They're low-fat and high in protein. They make great throw rugs. Their pelts are warm in cold winters. I have an ewok-hide blanket which I break out on cold snowy nights... |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 19:15:44 GMT -5
That's all true, but when you factor in variants, limited series, etc., I'm sure the number of titles inflates beyond what's seen in that checklist. Obviously if you only focus on the core titles, it shrinks even further. This was of course right at the end of Shooter's tenure and featured his Marvel at its most bloated. Back in 1975-76, Marvel was basically only trying to push DC off the racks since that was the only real competition. When you focus that practice down to specialty shops, and factor in that there are far more publishers publishing comics nowadays, things look a bit more cutthroat to me. Basically, there wasn't an Image, or even a Dark Horse, back in 1975 that had any kind of potential to compete with the Big Two. Marvel won't even play nice and do crossovers anymore. I agree that they've always been ruthless, I'm just stating that I feel that they're even more so today. There were no variants or limited series' not on the checklist. The checklist was always complete, and there was no such thing as a variant, as far as I can recall, in 1986. There were variants, they just didn't have variants created for the purpose of marketing as collectibles. Price variants, UPC code variants, print variants, Whitman variants, ect. A different color variant was rare, but I believe TMNT was doing it through various prints, and I think some undergrounds had different colored backgrounds or title banners at the time. Then there were variants to indicate print runs, like the Gobbledygook comics. I think at the time there were definitely people buying and collecting variant covers, but the publishers hadn't quite started marketing to them yet. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 19:17:38 GMT -5
DC and Marvel should put out monthly anthologies, aimed at younger readers, that could be sold with magazines in Target, Wal-Mart, and other mass-market stores. Each could be anchored by a main character/team, but also have stories with lesser-known characters. Even at $9.99, it would be cheaper than a trip to the comic shop for parents w/ younger kids. They should also purposefully write for "readers," not "fans"--minimal references to continuity, main stories done in one, subplots that get resolved, fun. And don't fall into the trap of padding with puzzle pages or features about the stars of the TV shows. They actually have those, and I'm shocked that comic collectors completely ignore them. They're magazines with comic stories, coloring book pages, crosswords and connect the dots, ect. They have Wolverine, Spiderman, can't remember who else, I think Iron Man. Don't know if they're monthly, if they're one shots, or what. But I see them at Walmart. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 29, 2016 20:28:12 GMT -5
Marvel would be wise to flood the market with Star Wars titles, particularly titles based on the Ewoks and Jawas. When you come right down to it, they're the most interesting aspect of Star Wars. I'll fight anyone who disagrees. I have spoken and I remain Unconquered. I love the bloody ewoks. Their hides make great shoes. They're low-fat and high in protein. They make great throw rugs. Their pelts are warm in cold winters. I have an ewok-hide blanket which I break out on cold snowy nights... I have a stuffed ewok that I used to beat Jar Jar Binks to death. I knew it would come in handy! |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 29, 2016 21:58:34 GMT -5
Marvel would be wise to flood the market with Star Wars titles, particularly titles based on the Ewoks and Jawas. When you come right down to it, they're the most interesting aspect of Star Wars. I'll fight anyone who disagrees. I have spoken and I remain Unconquered. Ewoks have great potential. They weren't done all that great in Return Of The Jedi, but they were cool in the Battlefront game. They're just primitive tribal aliens in a highly advanced galaxy. Boba Fett wasn't done all that well in the movies either but people like him. This man clearly has a soul! For all you Ewok haters out there, you need to realize that you're just flat out wrong about them. Frankly you need to get your shit together and join the human race. In a real world sense, a vote against the Ewoks is a vote against this:  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 22:52:54 GMT -5
According to Shooter, Epic barely made a profit, but Shooter was never fully behind Epic from what I've read on the subject. Seems like Archie Goodwin was the brains behind it and the soul person most responsible for its success. I agree that Epic probably did pave the way for DC's Vertigo in a lot of ways and that Marvel dropped the ball on Epic and particularly holding on to license like Star Wars and Conan. I think they're currently dropping the ball on having IDW, Dark Horse, and Fantagraphics reprinting their most acclaimed classic material. Same with Disney in general. They spend all their effort publishing all these monthlies, the ones that are tried and true proven classics will eventually be licensed out. Because in their shortsightedness they'll think it's easier to just license it and collect their money than bother getting into the fine archival TPB racket. But they also thought it would be a good idea to license out a bunch of their movie rights to Fox... I think it won't be too long until Marvel and DC just plain license the comic book rights of their entire catalogs to other publishers. 20 years or so and I think Disney and WB are out of the comics publishing game completely. Not really, the had little choice 1) it was before super-hero movies took off and no one knew there was actual money in it...and almost a decade before Marvel Studios released its first movie. and 2) they were in bankruptcy proceedings and desperately needed an influx of cash or they would have been dissolved by the courts, the Fox license of the rights allowed them to produce the liquid capital they needed to avoid dissolution and kept them in business. IT wasn't they thought t was a good idea, it was do that or lose everything, in which case there never would have been a Marvel Studios to bitch about not having the rights to FF and X-Men. The first Fox X-Men film by Bryan Singer, for all it's flaws, is what put super-hero movies on the map for the general public. (beyond Batman, but the Shumacher films had become a joke by that point and Nolan's Batman Begins hadn't been released yet to revive the Bat-franchise). The Sony Spider-Man movie cemented the idea super-hero movies could be good in the minds of the mass audience. Without those licenses to those 2 studios and the films they produced, there's no chance Marvel Studios comes into being and does there own movies. For all the acrimony towards Fox (and their output has been more terrible than good so a lot of it is deserved) super-hero movies are what they are today because Fox took a chance on the X-Men license and Singer produced a movie that struck a chord with general audiences and convinced name actors like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan to do them. So yes, in hindsight they would like to have those licenses back, but all in all licensing those characters has done them more good than harm, even though the relationship has soured in the past 5 years or so. -M |
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 30, 2016 0:46:22 GMT -5
Considering how much I've enjoyed their Star Wars line in the last year, my message to Marvel is FLOOD BABY FLOOD!  I dunno, like anyone wants to see Maz Kanata get her own book   I want an Admiral Ackbar mini series. The variant cover for issue #1 will be 1:10000 and will feature the cover copy "You can't handle speculation of this magnitude!" |
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Post by Action Ace on Jan 30, 2016 0:49:03 GMT -5
You've basically just described the Panini (or whoever the successor was) line of reprint comics in the UK - all sold in newsagents That's what I was going to say. And the Titan line of DC reprints. Unfortunately there is nothing like this in the American market... -M Except for that Legends of Tomorrow 96 pager DC is trying out starting in March. |
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Post by tingramretro on Jan 30, 2016 3:31:34 GMT -5
Ewoks have great potential. They weren't done all that great in Return Of The Jedi, but they were cool in the Battlefront game. They're just primitive tribal aliens in a highly advanced galaxy. Boba Fett wasn't done all that well in the movies either but people like him. This man clearly has a soul! For all you Ewok haters out there, you need to realize that you're just flat out wrong about them. Frankly you need to get your shit together and join the human race. In a real world sense, a vote against the Ewoks is a vote against this: But it's also a vote against Caravan of Courage, and I'm fine with that. Acceptable casualties, and all that... |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 30, 2016 4:09:59 GMT -5
This man clearly has a soul! For all you Ewok haters out there, you need to realize that you're just flat out wrong about them. Frankly you need to get your shit together and join the human race. In a real world sense, a vote against the Ewoks is a vote against this: But it's also a vote against Caravan of Courage, and I'm fine with that. Acceptable casualties, and all that... Blasphemy!  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 6:05:31 GMT -5
Unfortunately there is nothing like this in the American market... -M Except for that Legends of Tomorrow 96 pager DC is trying out starting in March. Is that available in the mass market? No. Is it lead by a recognizable iconic character the mass audience would recognize? No. Are the stories in it complete with beginning, middle, and end in the same book? No. So, no, it fails on the three most important criteria of the format I suggested. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 22:25:01 GMT -5
1) it was before super-hero movies took off and no one knew there was actual money in it...and almost a decade before Marvel Studios released its first movie. and 2) they were in bankruptcy proceedings and desperately needed an influx of cash or they would have been dissolved by the courts, the Fox license of the rights allowed them to produce the liquid capital they needed to avoid dissolution and kept them in business. IT wasn't they thought t was a good idea, it was do that or lose everything, in which case there never would have been a Marvel Studios to bitch about not having the rights to FF and X-Men. By that time the Superman series was a generation old classic and the Batman movies had changed popular culture. They could have licensed the rights out with less generous terms to Fox. License them for three movies. License them for ten years. Something other than the open ended "Maybe forever" they went with though. They could have always renewed the license later. And they knew how licenses worked, they were paying for plenty of comic licenses before that. They went straight with their biggest properties too. Weren't even trying to license out Scarlet Witch and Dr. Strange. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 23:17:43 GMT -5
By that time the Superman series was a generation old classic and the Batman movies had changed popular culture. They could have licensed the rights out with less generous terms to Fox. License them for three movies. License them for ten years. Something other than the open ended "Maybe forever" they went with though. They could have always renewed the license later. And they knew how licenses worked, they were paying for plenty of comic licenses before that. They went straight with their biggest properties too. Weren't even trying to license out Scarlet Witch and Dr. Strange. Marvel had zero leverage in that deal, Fox was offering them a lifeline when they were about to be dissolved by the bankruptcy court, buh-bye Marvel no more company all its assets auctioned off to the highest bidder. Fox could have played harder ball and waited and gotten the rights lock, stock, and barrel at auction and owned the characters outright, but they cut a deal with Marvel that allowed them to survive and emerge form bankruptcy. If Marvel had tried to play hardball in the deal and it fell through, they were done, stick a fork in them, so no, they really couldn't have worked out a better deal, they had zero leverage to do so. As for the Superman movies, Richard Pryor and Quest for Peace ended any goodwill Superman movies had had in the public eye form I and II, and Shumacher had made the Bat-movies a laughing stock again, so the public perception had turned against super-hero movies until Fox's X-Men revived interest and showed it was possible to make a serious film in the genre the public would like again. -M |
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