Looks like someone has also been reading BC
But hey, that doesn't mean you are wrong.
You are 100% right in-fact
Why the sudden outcry about this, I have no idea. But I am glad more and more people are talking about it. Marvel has been putting out well over 90 books a month for over 10 years (or so). Heck, you guys must have seen me complaining about that very thing on multiple posts here.
I have been yelling for years how that amount is ridiculous as hell and they need to stop.
However, and I can't keep saying this enough ... if the damn people that own the damn shops would just stop ordering the damn things, Marvel, whose only goal is to (like any company) make money, would stop pumping out that damn many. I see things on the shelf that I know, you know, the store owner knows, my grandmother knows that are not going to sell well enough to maintain more than 10 or 12 issues (if that), but yet there they are.
Look, yes, the bottom line is the way the system is now, you have to try and see if it hits, but sadly it seems the onus is on the buyer instead of anyone else to make that happen. That is the crazy part. It seems like they are telling us it is our fault when books fail. "You want variety, so we give you variety and you don't buy it"
Sadly, that is kinda true. If Marvel was to cut back to only 12 books a month, yet 6 of those were Spider-Man and the others were a variety of other titles, ONLY the Spider-Man titles would sell. We want variety, but we don't buy variety. And I mean that as a general populous, not as an individual.
People that buy from the big two buy what they like, what they are familiar with, yet somehow, and for some reason, Marvel wants to still try to get us to buy things like Mr and Mrs X-Man?
And I am not saying that is a bad thing, but how about just producing say two Spidey and X-Men titles a month, one of the core titles a month (say ... 15 or so solo titles and a couple non-X-Men team books) and then publish one or two "test" books a month. How about that.
On the flip side of my complaining ...
I will say Marvel has gotten better about titles they know won't last. They are doing more and more limited-series. If you look at the previews there are lots and lots of mini's in there. That is a good step in the right direction. I just wish there weren't so damn many mini's at one time and I wish the variety was there. Give me horror, give me a western. Hey, doing more mini's is a smart move but doing it in too large a fashion with more of the same headliners?
With that many titles a month it is like they are back in the early 70's when they and DC were competing for shelf and they had to make more titles to push their books. It is not like that anymore guys!! Slow your roll.
But yeah, owners ... it's okay not to order a book
It is just like those damn variants. People! STOP ORDERING THEM!!!!
You can't go one week without some store owner complaining about the way Marvel does business with variants, but you turn around and the same owner is buying more and more comics, that he won't sell, just to read some bullshit ordering goal to get a "rare" cover, so he can flip it on Ebay and make up the difference in the total he had to spend JUST to get the damn cover in the first place. I don't mean any store in particular of course *cough, cough* (Oh, if only it was just one store doing that
)
But sadly, some of those variants sell like crazy. I don't get it. I just don't. Yes it is cool to see a different cover, but come on people!! Wouldn't just one variant be okay? And could you image if Dynamite stopped doing variants?
They would be out of business in two months.
Still, I think if Marvel was to cut back on just having one variant a month and cut their monthly output of books to say a reasonable 45 to 55 a month things would be better for all.