Now you might think, if and when you go to a comic shop, and you pick up a comic off the rack, and you hand the money over to the cashier, that is when a comic is sold, right? That's where everything matters, and buying it like that is where you make an impact on the sales of a comic, helping it last long, hopefully avoiding cancellation.
That makes total sense. It's a method that values the consumer's choice at a relatively consumer friendly level. It's also completely wrong.
Comics are sold to retailers through pre-orders. Comics are also, due to a long complex history of fuck ups dating back to the 70s and a distribution monopoly starting in the 90s and whatnot, non-returnable. Any comic a retailer buys, they are stuck with that comic. That's why you see all those bins full of back issues. Any comic not sold can't be sent back to the publisher for a refund. So they have to hope they can sell it off later by someone digging through, hoping to complete a collection or the like.
Back to the matter of pre-orders: A comic shop actually orders these non-returnable comics three months in advance. At a time when all anybody might know about a comic is the title, the cover, maybe the creative team, and a small description of the book in a solicit... that is when comics are "sold".
Comics sales aren't determined by how much a retailer actually manages to sell. They're determined by how much a retailer thinks they can sell. And this decision is made 3 months in advance, including for issue number ones, where people have little to no idea of the quality of the book.
Or, far more frequently, they have no idea that the book exists.
So, point one of my telling Marvel to shut the fuck up: Your ordering system is one of your real biggest problems.
Let's dig a little deeper into this.
After being told about comics direct market's pre-order system, you might say to yourself "That's one of the worst fucking systems I've ever heard." And guess what! I'd completely agree with you! But it actually gets worse!
Not only is this system incredibly consumer unfriendly, most people don't even know about it. And yes, that includes many people who already read and buy comics. Be they buying it in digital, or in trade form, or even going to their comic store - if they have one in their area - and buying it off the rack. People, whether they don't know the first thing about comics, or if they can recite point for point the entirety of the plot where Captain America turned into a werewolf, often have absolutely no fucking clue that the way they're "supposed" to buy a comic is through a pre-order system.
When I talk about comic sales a lot, people often ask me "Does this include digitial?" No, never does. Nobody ever says how much a comic actually sells in digital, for one. The most we can ever go on is getting vague ideas of what's doing how well in digital by looking at Comixology's top sellers.
And even we did know digital sales numbers, they're irrelevant here. The quotes from David Gabriel were about direct market sales and retailers. Ultimately, this conversation is about the direct market and the difficulties retailers have been having on making a profit with Marvel's books, not the success of those books as a whole on their own. If a book does dynamite sales in digital, it means nothing in this regard - and actually functions as a retailer's worst nightmare, as they're terrified of losing customers to digital sales. It's not like comics are a particularly profitable field in general.
So we're talking about direct market sales exclusively. Ms. Marvel's incredible digital sales help keep her book successful, but they mean jack squat to a retailer who's just trying to keep their head above water.
Which means we're talking about a system where a comic's success, whether it avoids cancellation or not, can be determined before you read a single issue.
In this case, my mind immediately jumps to Iron Patriot.
Iron Patriot is a little... all over the place. Some people might remember Iron Patriot from the Iron Man movies, but before that, Iron Patriot was the name Norman Osborn took on during a plot where basically a bunch of supervillains replaced the Avengers. And currently, Iron Patriot is piloted by Toni Ho, over in Al Ewing's U.S.Avengers.
But for a brief time in the comics, James Rhodes was Iron Patriot, like he was (also briefly) in the movies.
I'll get back later about the timing and marketing about all this, but first things first is talking about his series proper.
In 2014, Iron Patriot was launched as part of the All New Marvel NOW! line. Which... okay, I'll need to come back to the All New Marvel NOW! which is different from Marvel NOW! which is different from Avengers NOW! which is Marvel NOW! 2.0.
I don't like pointing fingers at any one specific deal that causes comics' problems. It's a lot of things coming together. I'll try to avoid going on tangents.
Anyway. Iron Patriot, 2014. Marvel gives James Rhodes his own book for the first time in awhile, trying to piggyback some off the movies with making him 'Iron Patriot' at all instead of keeping him as War Machine (this decision actually happened earlier, while he was in Secret Avengers). All good, right? Rhodey's been able to maintain his own solo before as War Machine, and he's taken over as Iron Man for Tony Stark more than once.
Buttttt here's the thing. Before the series even gets its first issue out, it gets downgraded from an ongoing series to a miniseries.
That's right: before anyone got to read a single page of the book and decide for themselves if it was worth their money, it was already downgraded. In so many other mediums, in so many other industries, this kind of thing would sound ridiculous, but this is the way comics is. Everything's determined deep in advance. A book's early survival, issues 1-3, and the foundation for everything after, really all comes down to how many people are interested and willing to go to their local comic store (if they have one) and tell the person behind the register that they want to buy this comic when it comes out. That way the retailer notes their interest, adds it to their order, maybe pumps it up even a little more because they might think they're able to sell more of this book now that interest has been expressed.
And that's before you get to see a single page. Most comics don't get any real previews released until the week before release, and that's far too late to contribute to the shop's orders. They're moving on already to deciding how much to order of issue 3 before you even walk in the store that day.
This ordering system, this economic system, is why 'quality' is largely irrelevant to a book's success. Many times, you may not even know who the creative team is on a particular book by the time you're 'supposed' to order. And you can imagine how difficult this makes things for new artists, new writers.
And that's Iron Patriot just getting downgraded from an ongoing series. Series can actually get outright cancelled before they come out. There was supposed to be a Victor Von Doom mini in 2011. It got axed the month before it was supposed to start. It happened again with a Thanos mini-series in 2012. There was also a mini-series called Destroyers featuring She-Hulk along with The Thing, Beast, Devil Dinosaur and others in 2012 by Fred Van Lente and Kyle Hotz... which also got thrown to the chopping block before anyone could read a single issue. Hell, Newsarama had an interview with Van Lente on his plans for the book.
But that's the way things are. If a retailer doesn't order enough of a book that they're largely buying blind, if not enough buyers in the area come to their store and show interest in a book to encourage to the retailer to buy those comics blindly, they can easily just never come out at all. This puts huge pressure on the retailer to basically take wild guesses on what will sell well and what won't, and also puts a giant weight of pressure on the comics readers and consumers to research and keep up with comics news month to month, week to week, and go to their retailer and commit to purchases three whole months in advance.
And again, knowing almost nothing about said books, except a title, a cover, and a creative team. And sometimes not even the creative team.
It's not just how fucked up the ordering system is that bothers me, though.
It's how Marvel doesn't tell anybody about it.
Let's talk Mockingbird.
