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Post by chaykinstevens on Sept 5, 2020 10:07:04 GMT -5
How many copies would Liefeld's Captain America #1 have needed to sell to make Marvel a million dollar profit? Don’t know but it was a double sized book that probably cost 4 bucks. The cover price was $2.95. Taking account of the retailer's cut, the printing costs and the creators' pay and any royalites it would need to sell an implausibly high number to generate a million in profit. Comichron gives a direct market sales estimate of 274,070. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 10:14:30 GMT -5
How many copies would Liefeld's Captain America #1 have needed to sell to make Marvel a million dollar profit? Don’t know but it was a double sized book that probably cost 4 bucks. It had a $2.95 cover price and had 2 covers. With standard mark ups, distributors sold this at about a buck fifty to retailers, which meant they paid Marvel about 75 cents per copy. Don't know for certain that this was the scale actually used, but that is a standard retail markup of 100% at each level. At that mark up, 1.3 million copies would have had to have sold to make Marvel a million, and I don't think any of the Heroes Reborn books reached the million mark in sales, so as usual Rob us using hyperbole and exaggerating things to make himself look better. Doing a little research... Comichron estimates sales of Cap $2 at a little more than 274K copies (the poorest selling of the 4 Heroes Reborn launches by the way). The best selling non-Heroes Reborn book that month was Uncanny X-Men at a little over 200K and X-Men also over 200K. By issue #2, Cap was out of the top 10 selling books and X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, Sapwn, Spawn the Impaler, DC/Marvel All Access, Generation X and Curse of Spawn all outsold both Cap and the Avengers, as Cap was down to 130K in sales. So again, it looks like Liefeld's claims are full of it. -M edit: Looks like chaykinstevens beat me to it while I was typing the post |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 5, 2020 10:54:49 GMT -5
Don’t know but it was a double sized book that probably cost 4 bucks. It had a $2.95 cover price and had 2 covers. With standard mark ups, distributors sold this at about a buck fifty to retailers, which meant they paid Marvel about 75 cents per copy. Don't know for certain that this was the scale actually used, but that is a standard retail markup of 100% at each level. At that mark up, 1.3 million copies would have had to have sold to make Marvel a million, and I don't think any of the Heroes Reborn books reached the million mark in sales, so as usual Rob us using hyperbole and exaggerating things to make himself look better. Doing a little research... Comichron estimates sales of Cap $2 at a little more than 274K copies (the poorest selling of the 4 Heroes Reborn launches by the way). The best selling non-Heroes Reborn book that month was Uncanny X-Men at a little over 200K and X-Men also over 200K. By issue #2, Cap was out of the top 10 selling books and X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, Sapwn, Spawn the Impaler, DC/Marvel All Access, Generation X and Curse of Spawn all outsold both Cap and the Avengers, as Cap was down to 130K in sales. So again, it looks like Liefeld's claims are full of it. -M edit: Looks like chaykinstevens beat me to it while I was typing the post Taking it a bit personal , mrp? I went by what he said in his podcast where he stated that he and Lee received 3 million a piece to do Heroes Reborn and that the first issue made Marvel back 1 million of their salary. They received signing bonuses of 350k each for joining Marvel. Maybe he meant the combined books made 1 million and I misheard it. Either way they were sought after stars at that time. Surely you’re not going to dispute that because you heard from some nobodies at a con that Liefeld was an ass ? |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 5, 2020 10:57:15 GMT -5
And by the way , Liefeld says that of the claims that he’s made in the podcasts , the people on the industry at the time concur of the facts of His claims. They have responded in some forum attached to the podcasts.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 11:00:14 GMT -5
Nothing in those mrp posts seem out of line with his usual posting or like he's taking anything personally.
And I like Liefeld, but "Liefeld said people agree" is no more evidence of anything than the "nobodies" mrp spoke with.
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 5, 2020 11:25:06 GMT -5
Nothing in those mrp posts seem out of line with his usual posting or like he's taking anything personally. And I like Liefeld, but "Liefeld said people agree" is no more evidence of anything than the "nobodies" mrp spoke with. mrp edited his post and deleted the line that Liefeld was " talking out of his ass" or something to that effect. I'm just saying what Rob said in his podcasts and it's interesting to see what went on in his career. As far as I now, no industry pro has come out to refute anything he has said. As for his exit from Image, he says that he had already taken steps to separate from the company by soliciting his books in the diamond Catalogue. That's something that can be checked quite easily. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Sept 5, 2020 13:08:18 GMT -5
People who bought the investment cases of 100-1000 copies would have paid 60% of the cover price. It was a 40% publisher, 20% wholesaler/distributor, 40% retailer set up when I had any familiarity with the non-returnable direct market. I estimate those record setting books as having 5% actual individual buyers/readers which is probably being generous. I think generally with the '70s comics you could generously say 30%, whereas in the golden age '30s-'40s what with kids and others swapping around comics it was more than one reader per copy sold.
It is true that Neal Adams did not sell comics too well on newsstands compared to a Sal Buscema or Curt Swan, he seemed to be assigned books that were dying anyway a couple of times. You could say he 'failed' to bring X-Men and Green Lantern up enough to save those two titles. As a little kid I saw a Deadman and would stare at a page not quite knowing how to read it. So collectors/adults loved him, but with actual readers/buyers at the time... kind of average at best I believe is what the numbers showed. People influenced by Adams like Mike Grell and John Byrne with a lighter touch of that realism were more commercial. I don't know what Liefeld's infleunces were aside from Jim Lee maybe but I'm sure there could be people jealous of those sales figures who started earlier and sold a tenth the number though I've never heard of Neal Adams criticizing anyone on that.
I think it was Berni Wrightson though who when an editor pointed out that Citizen Kane lost money at theaters pointed out how huge it was later where everyone had seen it and referred to it. I think Snow White also lost money on it's first run, but there are loads of 1937 movies nobody remembers or wants to see and only one Snow White which no doubt has sold millions of video tapes and DVDs. In the long term something being sustainable is a real consideration. Whoever was doing the let's make such-and-such character 'darker' or more extreme, or let's kill such-and-such character, has been proven unsustainable. Kind of a scorched earth agriculture applied to comics... speculators buy unread copies of something because they think it might be a big important event and then find out actual readers who cared were low, speculators flipping amongst each other versus a healthy readership that keeps a comic going past a dozen or so issues... you know like people wanting those earliest Elfquest, Usagi Yojimbo and Bone comics that started out with small print runs. You start small and build and last, or you start huge and fizzle-out fast... and that seems to have been Liefeld/& studio among others from the outside looking in. If your customer is still sitting on cases of comics in mint condition unopened and unread how long do they keep coming back? They will drop out after case number thirty or one hundred maybe? They could recycle a lot of that excess stuff because nobody looks likely to ever actually read and enjoy it.
So to summarize: raw numbers moved does not equal genuine readers who paid full ticket price = inflation, not sustainable, shrinking audience, focus as a specialist collectable object. There were/are 'hit' records bought into the charts too.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 13:27:57 GMT -5
Nothing in those mrp posts seem out of line with his usual posting or like he's taking anything personally. And I like Liefeld, but "Liefeld said people agree" is no more evidence of anything than the "nobodies" mrp spoke with. mrp edited his post and deleted the line that Liefeld was " talking out of his ass" or something to that effect. I'm just saying what Rob said in his podcasts and it's interesting to see what went on in his career. As far as I now, no industry pro has come out to refute anything he has said. As for his exit from Image, he says that he had already taken steps to separate from the company by soliciting his books in the diamond Catalogue. That's something that can be checked quite easily. I edited the post to add that chaykinstevens beat me to it. Everything else in the post is as I originally posted it and I didn't change anything. As for Liefeld being an ass, well the things they talked about was stuff like refusing to pay production people or other creators if they disagreed with him publicly or cast doubt on anything he said, firing people for saying thins in interviews that didn't prop up his exaggerations or outright misrepresentation of facts, and trying to get people who disagreed with him blacklisted at other companies so they couldn't get work in the industry, which is why a lot of those guy went outside of comics to continue their careers (and most got much better paying jobs in doing so). So not personal, but I have zero respect for Liefeld despite any achievements he may have had. I liked some of his stuff as it was coming out when I was younger because it felt exciting if not exactly good, but I quickly cooled on his work. It wasn't until much later that I soured on him as a person as I learned how he treated others and did a lot that was completely antithetical to his claims of being a champion of creator rights and fighting for creators to get the respect and financial rewards due to them for their efforts. He wanted his, but was willing to screw anyone who worked under him at the slightest perceived provocation. If people like his stuff, that's cool. tastes vary, enjoy what you like, but Liefeld himself is not someone whose actions should be lionized or taken at his word. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 5, 2020 13:37:14 GMT -5
Liefeld stated that he overpaid some of his artists and colorists. I heard that from other sources years ago. He was part of the crew that did a few books that had various artists ink over Kirby’s pencils. He and the others didn’t take a penny for it. All the money went to Kirby who was still alive. Yeah, he must be a monster.
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 5, 2020 13:44:49 GMT -5
I respect what he has accomplished in the industry. I don’t assume everything that he says in the podcasts is a lie just because he doesn’t draw like Neal Adams. There is a lot of jealousy because he has jetted past many more talented people.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 13:45:16 GMT -5
Liefeld stated that he overpaid some of his artists and colorists. I heard that from other sources years ago. He was part of the crew that did a few books that had various artists ink over Kirby’s pencils. He and the others didn’t take a penny for it. All the money went to Kirby who was still alive. Yeah, he must be a monster. Another Liefeld story. He was booked to appear at our local show. He announced he was going to charge what were some extremely high prices for signatures. The organizer asked Rob if he would consider lowering some of those as he tries to run a fan friendly event. Rob refused. All good so far, creators can charge what they want for signatures, but then Rob books himself at another con the same weekend as this show and waits until the night before the show to inform the organizer he's not going to come to the show he signed a contract to appear at when he knew months before he has no intention of coming. Mostly because he felt he was disrespected by being asked to tone down his asking price for fans. But he, he's an altrusitic guy I guess. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 13:47:34 GMT -5
The rest result is that the organized had to issue a lot of refunds for people who had bought tickets on the premise that Rob was going to appear, and had to eat the money he paid for Rob's airfare and hotel booking.
-M
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 5, 2020 14:00:50 GMT -5
Too bad. I’m not his lawyer but he should answer for his actions that really happened not some made up fake news.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Sept 5, 2020 15:35:31 GMT -5
I guess it’s his side of the story but he backs it up with the fact that he solicited the Awesome label In the diamond catalogue. You have to submit those months in advance. Even if Liefeld solicited under Awesome prior to his exit from Image, this wouldn't necessarily substantiate him intending to quit Image, as he had been publishing stuff outside Image since 1995 as Maximum Press, which had led to Marc Silvestri falling out with him. Awesome doesn't seem to have published anything before 1997. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 5, 2020 17:11:21 GMT -5
It is true that Neal Adams did not sell comics too well on newsstands compared to a Sal Buscema or Curt Swan, he seemed to be assigned books that were dying anyway a couple of times. You could say he 'failed' to bring X-Men and Green Lantern up enough to save those two titles. As a little kid I saw a Deadman and would stare at a page not quite knowing how to read it. So collectors/adults loved him, but with actual readers/buyers at the time... kind of average at best I believe is what the numbers showed. Adams' work was a major victim of what's called "affadavit fraud". By the late 60s, national magazine distributors no longer required that unsold copies be returned. Even cutting off the title logo and returning that wasn't required anymore. They just accepted whatever the regional distributors said about how many copies were sold. Ambitious comics fan/dealers would go to the regional distributors and buy entire cases of popular comics before they even got to the stands, and the regional distributors would claim those as unsold. One of those fan/dealers, Robert Beerbohm, is working on a book about the history of the comics industry, and he posts about his findings on Facebook. He posted this about a month ago: |
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