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Author Topic: Limit printing to 30 titles?  (Read 2733 times)
Perry
Just an old man
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« on: September 24, 2012, 07:27:59 PM »

I was thinking the other day about how many comics Marvel use to print back in the early 70's and that led me to thinking ... pondering this -
Would it really hurt DC and Marvel to start printing just 30 titles a month?

I remember about a year to a year and a half ago, I counted the titles in the Marvel Previews catalog for the upcoming month and it totaled about 97 titles they were pushing to print for that month. Currently it is about 60 or so (same with DC .. again "or so"), but other than the sad part of people losing their jobs, would DC and Marvel really hurt themselves by only having 30 titles?

I mean, other than say the avid collector, I know very few people that buy more than 20 of any publisher, so would they really lose any readers by doing this? Well, yes, they would lose a few readers, but wouldn't the fewer titles have a better shot of obtaining newer readers?

I will be honest and say that once the X-Men books started spreading out by more than 3 titles I jumped ship, but if they would return to only having 3 "X" related titles, I could easily return.

Of course, with the Marvel NOW hitting the shelve soon, combining the X-peeps more in with the Marvel-Hero peeps ... integrating them more instead of isolating them ... that is not a great example, but I think ya get my point.

Anyway, I think if the big 2 just concentrated their monthly library down by half ... would anyone really care? I can only list about 20 Marvel titles I would buy (if I had more time to actually read them) and that is pushing it. Would anyone really miss the "CAPTAIN AMERICA AND ..." title if it was never even produced? I doubt it because it is now canceled. Do we really need 6 AVENGERS titles?

The watering down of titles aside, I just think it would be smart to tighten up the product line and have about 25 base titles and only about 4 or 5 spots open for mini's or kids only titles.

My Marvel production list would be something like ...(In no order):
AVENGERS
AVENGERS (2nd title)
X-MEN
X-MEN (2nd title)
SOLO X-BOOK
FANTASTIC FOUR
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
SOMETHING SPIDER-MAN (2nd title)
THOR
IRON MAN
CAPTAIN AMERICA
DAREDEVIL
HULK
BLACK PANTHER
POWER-MAN AND IRON FIST (or some 'buddy book')
BLACK WIDOW
SHE-HULK (ANY VERSION)
~ANOTHER SOLO BOOK~
~ANOTHER TEAM BOOK~
~A SPACE BOOK .. Guardians OR Nova?~
A "PRESENTS BOOK" - spotlight character in a one and done format
KIDS TITLES ... at least 4

That's only 24 titles and that covers a good portion of the MU. I mean you could easily throw in another 5 titles but still, you are pretty much covered with this line.

Am I alone in this rationale? I know as a business you never want to limit yourself with product, but sometimes streamlining is not a bad thing.



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jedicow
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« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2012, 01:13:20 AM »

i would stick with this:

amazing spiderman
avengers
captain america
iron man
thor
fantastic four
uncanny xmen
incredible hulk
dr.strange
daredevil
powerman and iron fist
marvel team up
sub-mariner
tales to astonish (featuring hawkeye, black panther, and other rotating features)
cosmic tales featuring the silver surfer (with rotating stories of guardianns of the galaxy, nova, thanos, and adam warlock)
 
and with DC

action comics (including superboy, supergirl and jimmy olson stories)
superman
batman
detective comics (100 pages including robin,nightwing and batgirl stories)
JLA
JLA tales (featuring solo tales of captain atom, martian manhunter, the atom, blue beetle and others)
green lantern
green arrow
flash
wonder woman
firestorm
teen titans
aquaman
justice society

if this happened....maybe i could come back.  maybe.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2012, 01:14:53 AM by jedicow » Logged

Light Warrior
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« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2012, 03:46:34 AM »

From a  business perspective: oversaturation is a serious problem.  Consumers' time, money, space, and interest are not infinite, so it's erroneous to think that selling ten times the titles will equate to ten times the sales, even if you meet popularity demands and aren't pushing something fans didn't demand.  I can't afford all the titles I want, so things get left on the shelves.  Much of this is due to problems expanding the market beyond the diehard fan for the last 20 years.  While something like video games have seen growing sales implying an increase in market share, comics have largely stagnated to the same level.

On a story level, while I see that there's a large character list we all want to see get time, it has gotten out of hand.  DC does alright providing a wide range of titles in varying genres, and the number of titles serves to try and deliver that diversity.  Marvel blows it with a few too many "duplicate" books.  Okay, some get off on a technicality like Secret Avengers which could still exist as Heroes for Hire, or anything else and is just using the name for sales.  But so much of the MU is pulling multiple duty by overusing popular characters in multiple books, and offering titles that are "same book, different lineup."  Sometimes even the spinoffs are too narrowly focused such that we can forget a good cosmic book, or some hidden section of the MU getting a reimagining, in favor of books that spun out of Spider-man and X-books.  Scarlet Spider?  Venom?  How about something not tied to Spider-Man.  At best it's tiresome.  At worst, it's hard to read just one due to crossovers, so you end up reading none.

I'm all for companies having as many books as possible, but you have to know the size of your market, and can't limit by just re-selling the same thing..
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