Back in the Game #51: Double Their Pleasure

I’m Thacher E. Cleveland, one of the Super-Fly Comics podcast hosts and until the end of November I was one of the two owners of Super-Fly Comics & Games. After a lot of soul-searching I decided it was time to hang up my Comic Guy license and move on to new adventures. Not only do I have a new job in a new city but I’ll be buying comics again for first time in almost 7 years instead of just reading whatever I want, whenever I want. With the comic industry at a turning point with price wars, “event fatigue” and digital distribution, I’ve picked a hell of a time to get…Back in the Game.

The past six months have been pretty fascinating for observers of the comic market. Ever since the DC relaunch was announced the market seemed to be waiting to see how much of a success or failure the endeavor was. When September rolled around and the sales seemed to be higher than most people expected eyes turned from DC to Marvel to see what the response would be. There’s been what appears to be a lot of readjustments at the House of Ideas in the past couple of months and while we’ll never know how much the DC relaunch factored into those changes (if at all), it seems that from looking at Marvel’s solicitations for February a publishing strategy has been established to try to win back the ground they’ve lost to the Distinguished Competition.

I was curious about what Marvel’s offerings for February would look like after the wave of cancellations of current and solicited but unpublished titles were announced. It seemed that Marvel was retreating to their tried and true best-sellers and continuing their fairly conservative publishing tactics. On first glance I saw that I was right; Marvel was publishing 56 separate titles in February as opposed to January’s 64 (and this includes ongoings, miniseries, one-shots. licensed titles and creator owned books from Icon) but as I looked closer I realized that while Marvel wasn’t publishing as many individual titles they seemed to be publishing just as many, if not more, issues.

Over the past year Marvel has been relatively flexible with their page counts and shipping schedules. Some $2.99 books have been shipping with less story pages and some have been shipping twice month (X-Force, for example). It’s an interesting idea, especially when you’ve got a big story you’re looking to move through and a speedy creative team. Amazing Spider-Man has been shipping bi-weekly with rotating artists ever since the “Big Time” status quo (a change from the three times a month, rotating creative teams of the Brand New Day era).

Another iteration of the increased shipping schedule has been the Point One initiative, where a .1 jumping on point issue is added in addition to that months issue. The actual “jumping on-ness” of these issues can be debated, but the end result is if you’re buying that book already you’re going to buy it twice that month. The blow is softened by the fact the all the Point One issues are $2.99, regardless of the series regular cover price and many of the stories are one-shots, and thus easily skip-able if you’re feeling particularly frugal. For example, the issue that kicked the initiative off, February’s Iron Man 500.1 was a retelling of Tony Stark’s origin and a summary of his adventures. If you already knew all that and wanted to save three bucks it was pretty easy to pass up.

It seems that Marvel has learned a few things since then and have taken multiple shipments in a month to a new level. In February, 17 different titles will be shipping more than once a month. No, that’s a not a typo. 17. They are:

1. Wolverine & the X-Men
   

   New creative team, new line-up. Secret Avengers #22 variant cover by Gabriel Hardman

2. Uncanny X-Men
3. Uncanny X-Force
4. X-Factor
5. New Mutants
6. X-Men
7. Amazing Spider-Man
8. Deadpool
9. Venom
10. Avengers
11. New Avengers
12. Secret Avengers
13. Avengers Academy
14. Winter Soldier
15. Ultimate X-Men
16. The Fearless
17. The Twelve

That’s a lot of books, and it includes nearly the entire X-Men and Avengers lines. Of the whole lot, only two of them, Amazing Spider-Man and Venom, are Point One issues (although Venom is a special case). Amazing Spider-Man comes out twice a month anyway but the Point One issue (#679.1, the series second .1) makes it three. The Fearless, the 12-part miniseries that spun out of Fear Itself is scheduled to come out twice a month anyway, and it’s the only one that was initially advertised as such. The Twelve is also a special case as it wraps up the long delayed series and even has a “Must Have” one-shot collecting issues 7 and 8. Other than that, every title on here is just shipping two issues in February.

You can’t help but admire the chutzpah of such a plan. The easiest way to raise your sales is by forcing your customers to buy more, and not just the easily skipable, self-contained and cheaper one-shots that make up the Point One strategy. It’s not just any titles that are chosen, but their most popular. Taking a look at the most recent Diamond sales data from October, more than half of the Top 20 titles published by Marvel are “double-shipping.” Those top 20 were:

1. Incredible Hulk
2. Wolverine & the X-men
3. Fear Itself
4. Uncanny X-Men
5. The Fearless
6. Amazing Spider-Man
7. Avengers
8. Amazing Spider-Man
9. X-Men Regenesis
10. New Avengers
11. X-Men Schism
12. Ultimate Spider-Man
13. Uncanny X-Force
14. FF
15. FF
16. Ultimate X-Men
17. The Mighty Thor
18. Secret Avengers
19. X-Men
20. Ultimates

Of the ones not on in the Top Twenty (which includes a couple of double shippers in FF and Amazing Spider-Man already), two of the titles shipping in February have no current history so it’s hard to say where they’ll fit in (and with a book like the Twelve it’s almost impossible to accurately assess demand). So with that many top-sellers on the list it’s clear that they’ve got the unit share side of the sales charts sussed out. To be fair, DC’s increase in unit share in October (over half the comics sold by Diamond to retailers in October were DC titles) had a bit to do with the nearly line-wine reprints sales of the New 52 demanded so unit share dominance on that scope isn’t really sustainable for DC.

Like Venom? Well, you better come February... Cover to Venom #13 by Stefano Caselli

On the dollar share side of the street, well that’s easy. Of the 38 individual issues that make up this double shipping bonanza, more than half of them are $3.99 (there are 18 $2.99 books and 20 $3.99 books). “Now wait a second Thacher,” I hear you exclaim, “You said there are 17 titles double shipping, so there should only be 34 books!” Gosh you guys are clever. I mentioned Venom sporting a Point One issue earlier but it’s also getting a .2, .3, and a .4 as the series begins its own little weekly event. Points 1 through 4 of Venom will all be $2.99, but 13 will be “double-sized”(40 pages instead of 32) and thus $3.99 (as will Deadpool #50). Then, of course, there’s the third issue of Amazing Spider-Man for lucky number 38.

I can’t speak for all of you, but I know I’m not going to make twice as much money in February as I am in January. In fact, given how it’s the shortest month I’ll probably end up making a little less since I work at an hourly wage. I’m not particularly great with budgeting and finances but I’ve been working extra hard to cut down my pull list to a number that I can responsibly afford. Even after all that, Marvel has seen fit to make sure I buy more anyway.

The whole strategy is frustrating on a lot of levels. Since the titles chosen were picked due to their sales rankings entire “families” of books are included. Just reading Avengers titles? Well, congratulations your pull file just doubled. Decided to give the X-books a try after the highly publicised Schism event? Now you’re trying most of a line that’s already quite large twice, including the two flagship titles. There were other titles I dropped (from Marvel and DC) to sample more X-books since I enjoyed Schism so much and even then I wished I was getting more. I’m glad I wasn’t since it would’ve pushed me completely past the point I can afford in February. I was debating whether I was going to continue reading Secret Avengers once Rick Remender takes over and now that decision is even more complicated. If I do it, I’m going to be paying double. I’d even been toying with the idea of getting back into Venom, but if I do it’s sure as heck going to be after the “weekly event” is done (which features, ironically enough, the recently cancelled X-23 and Ghost Rider).

At it’s core this isn’t a new idea at all. This is more of the “sell more comics to the same people” mentality we saw in the go-go 90s, and we paid for that in a crash the industry never fully recovered from. For the post part, we were all in pretty good financial shape back then. Today we’re occupying our own country because 99% of us are broke, not to mention the fact that the comics cost more than twice what they used to back then.

I don’t begrudge Marvel trying to get back on top, but I do take issue with how they’re trying to do it. DC made it there these past couple of months by doing something daring. Love it or hate it it was unprecedented in today’s market. It may well be flash in the pan in the grand scheme of things but it got us talking, didn’t it? Sure, Marvel’s got new stuff coming (in the form of another big new event, ‘natch) but until then why not try something new? I’m not saying relaunch the line, but you’ve got a ton of characters that aren’t getting any spotlight at all. Why not throw some new #1’s of your own out there and see what sticks?

It’s not just Marvel that does this. Every publishing company, once they realize they’ve got a hit, tries to replicate that hit and they always do so past the point of sustainability. Remember the slew of Green Hornet books from Dynamite? I’ve been wanting to catch up with IDW’s G.I. Joe line, but with three titles and an event that crosses all of them together coming up that’s just beyond my means. Multiple characters with multiple titles is a staple of the genre that most of us seem to complain about but it keeps happening. Why? Because we let it. On some level, even if it’s short term, it works. The problem is that everyone seems to have a tipping point that, once pushed past, means they just stop buying. The “all or nothing” attitude that’s pervasive in the industry cuts both ways: people will buy all you put out for as long as they can but when faced with only being able to get some many will just pack up and buy nothing at all. It can be no Avengers or Batman or X-Men, other times it’s no Marvel or no DC, but sometimes it’s no comics at all. Wouldn’t we rather have someone that’s only reading one or two things (regardless of how much those two titles are selling) than nothing at all?

This isn’t new information. Any retailer can tell you stories of readers that are like this or readers that are buying things grudgingly and waiting for something to push them off the edge. Try telling them they’re going to have to buy double what they expected this winter. That’s one hell of a push.

Filed Under: Back in the Game

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