Marvel Produceth a Hit, Readers Giveth One in Return

“Marvel publishing dropped 4% in the first quarter.”

I know, this is old news to anyone who gets PW Daily, but I haven’t gotten a chance to write about it yet, so it’s still relevant! Marvel owns some of the world’s most popular comic book properties (though arguably not the two biggest), most of whom were created by hands down the world’s most famous comic book personality, Stan Lee. So what gives?

Marvel says the decline is in part because their big initiatives have either past or are forthcoming. This might be true. It might also be true that people just read less. It’s certainly true that the way people read comic books is changing. At the PW “Think Future” panel on graphic novels, the horse’s mouth spoke of the major shift from loyal comic fans buying monthlies at their comic shop (or “specialty store” as they preferred to call it) to the average Joe-book-reader buying the trade paperback from a chain. One thing they mentioned that really stuck out in my head: “These specialty stores don’t return.”

This shift didn’t happen overnight, and 2008 isn’t the first year of this boom, but the more anyone moves to alienate their core audience, the more problems their going to see. I hope that’s not the case here.

Not that Marvel has terribly much to worry about. With the success of “Iron Man,” the first feature from Marvel Films, I’m sure they more than made up for the $1 million lost from the publishing side. And since Marvel owns the properties that will be made into films, they can be as faithful as possible, and—much to the delight of their core audience—have as many crossovers as they want.

Maybe I was wrong about the alienation part. Maybe the focus just shifted

Posted by : Seth | 05/12/2008 12:05 PM

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