Why The Comics Industry Needs To Change (Before It's Too Late)

The direct market is bad for business, but neither Marvel or DC will admit it.

[ResidentIsland]

I think the biggest problem with todays comics is the lack of creative ideas.Remember when Bane broke Batmans back in Knightfall and it was shocking .They try to recreate that same moment in City of Bane and fail to forget what made it speacial.

[StudioUAC]

bring back comics to newsstands in pharmacies, gas stations, and supermarkets!

[animegeek]

Graphic novels is what they should be releasing not single issues. Just my opinion.

[DarthSchwartz]

bring back gass station spinner racks.

[LLPOF]

A) DC and Marvel should each produce only 7 titles a month.
B) Drop ALL SJW, political, and religious material completely.
C) Write good stories for both adults AND kids
D) Produce only excellent artwork.
E) Get rid of the middlemen and treat comic shops as partners
F) Maximum of 1 cover for any comic
G) Implement a legally enforceable gag that prevents your writers and artists from trashing fans. Or better yet, just don't hire assholes to begin with.

[CAMnami]

Comics need to look at manga and see why they're so big

[josephwiessner]

I think Marvel and DC should be looking towards how Manga in Japan is sold. The Weekly Shonen Jump format where you get a bunch of stories in a weekly magazine style format and from there you can collect each set of stories become TPB or HC books as well. We are seeing them with the DC 100 page specials that were sold in Walmart but now hitting the shops, but those are reprints of older content, the newer model should have not just a few issues of new content but also interviews with writers and artists, upcoming content, even sneak peek images of their Live Action or Animated features.

[derekblacktechz]

1.Focus on telling singular stories with singular characters with a clear beginning middle and end. Ex Invincible/Manga


2.Sell in volumes as opposed to singular issues.

[edwardjones]

I used to read comics a lot. I still do actually just not American comics. I read foreign comics, they are free and don't reboot. A lot get canceled but there are a lot of diamonds in the rough.

[AscendantStoic]

1-Way too many events and relunches, also artists and writers changing way too often (as opposed to Manga where the writer/artist create the series and work on it consistently with help from assistants)
2-Non returnable comics due to monopoly by distributor Diamond (forcing many comic shops to close)
3-Marvel (and to a lesser extent DC) hiring people based on their immutable traits rather than their talent or ideas, resulting in a huge drop in quality of writing, art and lackluster editing.
4-Way too much political correctness and a crippling fear of innovating or pushing boundaries for fear of offending twitter mobs.
5-Serious competition from manga and indie comics (I.e indiegogo) which are rapidly growing in size and popularity.

If this keeps going the comic industry is heading straight towards a crash.

[Confederate]

Lets blame everything except the things actually responsible: Diamond Comics, creators who attack their customers, woke nonsense in a superhero setting and the inability of retailers to return unsold copies (as was standard practice in the past)... of $4+ comic books lol

[jezzainb]

Too much relaunches hero's coming back to life that's why I read Manga's now you can pick up any Manga and get into it they have a start and a finish in comics you get the same hero's over and over again

[antsheeran]

Comics need to return to newsstands, it was one of the worst mistakes the industry made, making comics direct market only

[FreedSamurai]

I love comic / specialty / collectors shops but there’s literally none that have stayed in business in my area for miles to come. Comics need to be available everywhere. Also, the month to month story release is ridiculous. We live in a time period where you can watch any of your desired shows or comics whenever you want, but comics have not kept up with the times on the release date front. I also feel like stories need to be more standalone based on whoever the author of a given book is. The reason the walking dead is the best long running comic of the last two decades is because it was the vision of one man the entirety of its run

[hillerm]

It has blown my mind for years that the comics industry, especially Marvel, hasn’t capitalized on their movies. While the Marvel characters were dominating the big screen, many of those same characters were put on the sidelines in the actual comics. All New, All Different Marvel comes to mind. If these companies had any brains, then if their character is on the big screen, then that same character should have fresh stories on the comic racks.

[gangofheroes]

What they need to do is
1. Start selling there books in places newsstands, convenient stores/gas stations, supermarkets and bookstores
2. Only sell the sure fire books in issue form like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and etc.
3. Bring back the anthology books for potential series Marvel bring back Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish and DC turning Action and Detective comics back into them.
4. Devise away to track which stories people are gravitating to with in the anthology books, like some type of online poll voting system.
5. Stop doing so many events back to back make it a 3 to 5 years thing.
6. Stop cannibalizing their sales by having a character have multiple books (this is most a DC thing, Superman and Batman don't need 4 books a piece, a Trinity tile and Justice League) they wonder why nothing else can sell 🤦‍♂️, you don't see the movie having multiple movies about them released at the same time.
5. Find a way to reduce the price of single issues from 5+ dollars a book, some people mainly children and teens don't have or want to speed 50+ bucks on a weekly to monthly basis especially when they have other forms of entertainment that gives them more bang for their buck, example by ten comics for 50$ that will give me about 30 or less minutes of entertainment or a new game that going to give me multiple hours of entertainment.
6. And finally just put out good stories and cut back on the politics that only alienate people.

[EliDEVITTSpeaks]

Step 1: GET RID OF DIAMOND
Step 2: worry about everything else later.

[Akkbar]

The question is this: is there more money in successful trades or floppies? That’s the “why” that would drive the market elsewhere from its current state.

[MrWeebs-gcjj]

Comic: stop acting you're superior
Manga: but im superior

[ramoncitomercader]

I miss the batman that doesn't go to the center of attraction. The one who is on the side track but purely badass. DC comics have a lot of good characters in it. They need to improve their marketing strategy for their characters and not just for the big three.