Comic Book Resources

Man, that Thor release date keeps getting closer and closer.

I'm curious why Kick-Ass isn't mentioned as a licensed movie. Does Marvel not own any piece of it?

Marvel just publishes Kick-ass. Mark Millar and John Romita JR. own the rights to it. Marvel doesn't even have any involvement in the film adaptation.

If the publishing side is making a profit that big why are they raising prices..... Surely having such a successful movie side of the business can count towards keeping the prices down in the publishing side....

The movie news is nice, but the poor profits on the publishing side make me nervous. I hate to see the medium I've loved for 20+ years struggling to be a viable business model, especially in today's economy. It's scary to think that some of my favorite books are at risk due to struggling sales, but what can ya do, eh?

News like this makes me sick. JQ can give any excuse as to why the "need" to raise the prices on comics. He wants to change the industry and make it into something bigger than what it is at the expence of the readers. He is the one that keeps looking for writers from Hollywood to bring them in and then expects us to pay a higher price for it. All while turning his back on writers that can write awesome stories like Priest, Fabian, Busiek, DeFalco, and many many more.

He says it takes a lot of hours to put into making a comic and this is true. But artists get their work back to sell at high page rates AFTER they've been paid their page rate from Marvel. Colorist and inkers can do the same but I don't think they would get as much as the artists.

It was just last year and the year before that, that they raised the prices on titles. Next year we can expect titles to be $5.99 or $6.99. In the end it is going to hurt Marvel because in this day and age when people have to stand in lines for unemployement you just know sales will drop drastically because readers and fans can't afford food let alone the amount of comics they normally get or want to get.

>>News like this makes me sick. JQ can give any excuse as to why the “need” to raise the prices on comics. He wants to change the industry and make it into something bigger than what it is at the expence of the readers. He is the one that keeps looking for writers from Hollywood to bring them in and then expects us to pay a higher price for it. All while turning his back on writers that can write awesome stories like Priest, Fabian, Busiek, DeFalco, and many many more.

He says it takes a lot of hours to put into making a comic and this is true. But artists get their work back to sell at high page rates AFTER they’ve been paid their page rate from Marvel. Colorist and inkers can do the same but I don’t think they would get as much as the artists.

It was just last year and the year before that, that they raised the prices on titles. Next year we can expect titles to be $5.99 or $6.99. In the end it is going to hurt Marvel because in this day and age when people have to stand in lines for unemployment you just know sales will drop drastically because readers and fans can’t afford food let alone the amount of comics they normally get or want to get.<<

You can't blame JQ. He doesn't set the pricing directly.

Writers come from EVERYWHERE, same as artists. Joe isn't running around with a master plan of eliminating all comics writers to replace them with Hollywood writers at BIG BUCKS. That doesn't make fiscal sense.

As a small publisher, I can assure you that it DOES take a lot of hours to make a comic. What you're NOT aware of, apparently, is that not every artist sells their original work (or is required to). In fact, not all artists even GOT their work returned until the mid-80's. The page rate (or in our case, a percentage of sales) is what they work for. Some artists (INCLUDING colorists and inkers) work exclusively digital (on computer), meaning there is no "original work" to be returned or sold. I was just talking to Brian Bolland about that very thing at NYCC. He does all his work on a computer with a Wacom drawing tablet, so now there's no more "originals".

No publisher WANTS to raise prices. We want to raise SALES. This economy is tough right now, and comics are not a necessity. Sales drop, we have to raise prices or perish. Let's hope things turn around in the near future.

If publishers want to save costs then in the long run, they need to start taking seriously phasing out the serial format and replace it with full on novels/trades. As I understand print costs, it would seem to make more sense to just print novel/trade format only. If you're going to charge $4 for a 22 page book, of course readers are going to feel somewhat cheated. BUT, given that a lot of readers wait anyways til the trade comes out, why not be more cost effective and go totally novel/trade? $17 for a full 4-5 issues of story seems right to me. Theres's some Hardback books at Marvel that's going for a neat $28, but look how much is in that sucker? Ultimates 2 hardback is like $32 (I think) or so, but you get like 16 issues worth of work in it (a little more actually since some of those issues were 33 pages, 36 and 29) plus extra featires of commentary. Seriously, the more comic book publishing resembles regular publishing in novel/paperback format the better. Quality would be better too because artists wouldn't be on a monthly (well mostly better, some artists work bewtter on a leash). In Japan, they do manga only (black n white, 300 something pages that come out every couple months or so) and they sell like hotcakes. Plus, you get a little more variety in genre ranging from action to sports to romance to fantasy and so forth. That's something we could totally do here in the states.

To re-iterate what others have said, Kick-Ass is not technically a Marvel property. Icon is a Marvel associated group but that is only for publishing. The books that come from there are solely creator owned. So basically, like with Wanted and the ucoming Wanted 2 and War Heroes, Milla is going to make a sh*tload of money.

I thought Cap was going to be the first Avengers movie out of the block? I guess they will need to remove that "First Avenger" tag from the movie's title.

Masekela Polee, I agree with you completely. I abandoned weekly purchases in favor of the trade/ collected edition back in 2004 and haven't looked back since. After 18 years or so, I began to realize just how ridiculous keeping all these stapled pieces of paper was. I felt slight guilt initially, but got over it.

And whoever it was that want's Nicieza and DeFalco back in the bullpen, just read all your redundant 90's Marvel back issues. It's there, in all it's mediocrity. Busiek is good, though.

wants, not want's