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Date Posted: 19:34:42 06/17/08 Tue
Author: silveragent
Author Host/IP: 63.199.111.93
Subject: Re: Comic books are too slow!
In reply to: 93curr 's message, "Comic books are too slow!" on 16:09:26 06/17/08 Tue

The market is not much, therefore there is little effort put into them.

At this point, Comics are either vanity projects, or intellectual property holding actions. Wonder Woman for example must be published continuously otherwise Moulston's heirs get the character back. Circulation is fairly low.

Editors and writers have only themselves to blame: Comics are written and marketed to men 35 and older. They are too expensive, available only in Comic shops, and have themes alien to a younger audience. What revenue that does come from comics is from the Trade Paperbacks available in mass-market outlets like Barnes and Noble.

You can see Marvel's financial reports at the SEC "Edgar" database, their annual report showed a few years ago that publishing accounted for only around 11% of revenue from operations. I would assume DC, Darkhorse, etc. are the same.

If there was more money in the contract, rest assured Whedon would be churning them out. Though it's doubtful he can appeal to a young male audience who are the most lucrative and have largely deserted for video games. At any rate, comics fight over the ever-decreasing readers able to pay high prices in specialty comic shops. Many comics have only 30,000 copies sold. As compared to Superman comics selling over 2 million in the early 1990's.

The money is in the movie adaptions, so that's where the effort flows.

Entertainment by it's nature is a mass-audience good, there's too many substitutions, so I don't think Comics and Buffy comics in particular can sustain the sort of Rolls Royce (luxury status good) model of a few copies selling for lots of money to sustain a lot of pages by any writer.

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Replies:

[> Yup Comic books are too slow. Loved though Buffy;s last issue and Wonder Woman is AWESOME now!! -- Christian, 22:20:37 06/17/08 Tue [1] (64.12.117.20)


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[> [> Re: Yup Comic books are too slow. -- Jesse, 03:01:23 08/08/08 Fri [1] (76.114.253.10)

I don't think anyone can complain about 20 pages a month. When Joss was writing for Astonishing X-men those comics were like 20 pages every 3-4 months. I know it wasn't Joss's fault but it was still irritating. His writing was the only thing saving that comic.


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