Two recent announcements by Marvel have captured the attention of the comics industry for no other reason than being so painfully expected.
The headlines in fan press read:
“Marvel Comics Saying Goodbye to Newsstand?“
and
“It’s official: Stars Wars license moving from Dark Horse to Marvel“
Regarding the newsstand, how is that even news? The traditional newstand market for comics has been gone now for years. When was the last time anyone saw comic books for sale at a corner newsstand, convenience store or local pharmacy?
Spinner racks filled with comics have long been extinct.
Marvel hasn’t left the newsstand, the newsstand left Marvel and every other comics publisher.
I’m sorry but book stores like Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million are not a newsstand. They qualify as a specialty shop and are not much different than your local comic shop other than they sell a broader range of books and magazines. The real difference is the distribution. Comics sold to bookstores are returnable where most comics sold to an LCS in the Direct Market are not. Marvel, like every other publisher, is just tired of eating returns and waiting months for remittence on product that actually sells.
Marvel is reducing risk. They are selling their comics now in just two places: The Direct Market where most sales are pre-ordered and guaranteed, and digitally where the expense is negligible and all profit is icing on the cake.
Marvel is in a position to eliminate risk altogether by giving up entirely on the periodical pamphlet format and focusing all energies on repackaging the seventy-five years of existing content both digitally and in print. Their tremendous wealth of IP generates more revenue from films, television, licensing and merchandising than it does from comic books . It would not be surprising if Marvel didn’t eventually farm out all publishing to licensees as as well. No risk, all gain.
Which makes Disney’s decision to have Marvel publish Star Wars a bit puzzling. Why grant the publishing rights to Marvel when Marvel is pulling out of markets that current Star Wars publisher, Dark Horse, is maintaining? Sure Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars so it seems obvious to keep everything in the House of the Mouse but Disney also has a long record of farming out IP to licensees. No risk, all gain.
Maybe Disney is merely protecting information about the new Star Wars films from leaking out since Dark Horse would need to be privy to story lines well ahead of film release in order to have a timely and marketable product related to the new films available. Maybe Disney expects the next Star Wars bonanza to be so great that it can’t justify sharing profit from a sure thing with someone else. Then why would they allow Marvel to abandon the book store/mass market/newstand with such a cash cow on the horizon?
We may be witnessing a brilliant marketing strategy or a comedy of errors that will dramatically change the face of the comic industry forever.
Force or Farce is yet to be determined but it all reminds me of a more simple time.
It was spring of 1977 and as a young and avid comic collector I was rummaging through the new comics at my local 7-ll. The first issue of Star Wars sat in the rack, priced at thirty cents, bragging to be a comic adaption of “The greatest space-fantacy film of all!” Big words for a film that had yet to be released.
Little did I know that comic book would be the first glimpse the world would have of a global phenomenon poised to erupt and that thirty-six years later no kid would be able to buy a comic book that would change their life on a newsstand ever again.
Making Comics Because We Want to,
Gerry Giovinco
