Marvel NOW ... relaunches

Paul Nolan · Post by **Paul Nolan** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 1:53 pm

Can I hope it's Miguel O'Hara?

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:26 pm

Marvel solicits for January are up:
http://www.comicbookpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1745

ctowner1 · Post by **ctowner1** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:29 pm

HipHopHead wrote:
BobBretall wrote:A "darker" Spider-Man does not sound particularly appealing to me. Even though it's been pointed out he's been in dark stories before that was never the raison d'etre (or mission statement) for the character, as it now seems to be moving to.
I grew up on Marvel Characters and have not been entirely thrilled with how Marvel has been reacting to the Distinguished Competitiion.

Spider-Man is "Amazing", Iron Man is "Invincible" and the Hulk is "Incredible" and so on. "Superior" "darker" Spider-Man really? Although, I missed most of the 1980 comic books, have we not been down the 'darker' road before?

So is there no longer and Amazing Spiderman & an Uncanny X-Men? Ithink Marvel has finally figured out how to get me to stop collecting some of their core titles that I haven't been able to stop myself on!!

e
L nny

Gilgabob · Post by **Gilgabob** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:27 pm

Excerpt from CBR article. An interview with Axel Alonso and SVP sales David Gabriel regarding double shipping.

Well, you've also done more double-shipping on titles in the main line so there are more than 12 issues coming out across the year. That makes up for the fewer titles in the line each week at the shop. How has that accelerated schedule impacted sales, and in terms of Editorial, how has it been working with freelancers whose workload has had to increase? How can you keep books creatively consistent in that environment?

Gabriel: I'll go back to what I said before, if the double shipping wasn't working a year into this, we wouldn't be doing it. On the sales end, it's been a good thing. Axel can talk about Editorial and the planning that goes into it, but what we're seeing right now is that we're having such a successful launch into the next year, that we can look out into the future and have to do less of those double ships. But the plan all along was to take away the books that the customers and retailers weren't buying and weren't jazzed about so we could give them more of what they were reading and what they wanted to buy. It certainly has worked for "Amazing Spider-Man." How many years did we do three times a month and then now have it going twice a month? It's been working.

And I'd like to be able to say, "This really didn't work on series B" -- I'm avoiding using A or X so people won't think I'm talking about Avengers or X-Men. [Laughs] But there hasn't been a book on the sales end that's been hurt by this. This is not a slam at our competition, but if you look over at their world, they have a rotating stable of artists and writers coming onto books every month. It's also to the point where artists are changing at the very last minute AND switched after the F.O.C.. Even covers are changing. But it's something that seems to not negatively affect the perception around those titles coming out. That's part of the industry, and it doesn't seem to be hurting anything over there, just like this doesn't seem to be hurting us here.

Now, do we want to have this happen? I'll let Axel speak to that more, but no. We don't want to [have to rotate talent] like that. But I think as long as a reader is getting a great story by a strong creative team, that's what will matter in the end.

Alonso: I'll just speak to the creative. We publish books that we think we can sell. We take risks, but we want to publish books that have a reasonable chance to be viable long-term. As far as the creative challenges of multi-shipping, yeah, putting out 18 issues of a book is more challenging than putting out 12. The writer has to be able to plan ahead to keep two or sometimes three artists working. But that's really speaks to the fact that we put books in writer's hands. Would it be easier to have rotating writers? Sure, but we put a lot of stock in creators' long-term vision. With Marvel NOW!, every writer -- from Brian [Bendis] on "All-New X-Men" to Gerry [Duggan] and Brian [Posehn] on "Deadpool" -- is deeply invested in his or her title, and we are invested in them. We're not test-driving anyone. We've taken great pains to make sure that each creative team -- even those that have rotating artists, like Jonathan [Hickman]'s biweekly "Avengers" -- has great chemistry. In almost all cases, the launch artist -- like Greg Land on "Iron Man" or John Romita on "Cap" -- is in it for the long haul. They are the core artist, drawing most, if not all, issues.

The whole interview can be found here:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=41889

Basically, they are double shipping and will continue to do so because as a strategy it's working. People are buying the books, until this changes double shipping will continue. Pretty much the same story for variants.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:42 pm

I can see how the double shipping can be keeping up the story momentum and how that can titles but with all of the Marvel ongoing titles doing less than 60,000 lately, I have to question if things are "working" particularly well for Marvel.

Gilgabob · Post by **Gilgabob** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:58 am

JohnMayo wrote:I can see how the double shipping can be keeping up the story momentum and how that can titles but with all of the Marvel ongoing titles doing less than 60,000 lately, I have to question if things are "working" particularly well for Marvel.

In the article Gabriel confirms "Uncanny X-Men" has sales over 350,000. Variants being a major factor in those numbers. I am looking forward to next month's Mayo report. Should be a lot to discuss.

Gilgabob · Post by **Gilgabob** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:08 am

Also Bendis Blabbed on The Attack of the Show on Thursday, reaveling the return of a major character long thought dead but is now restored which is all reveled in aVENGERS 32.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:39 am

Gilgabob wrote:
JohnMayo wrote:I can see how the double shipping can be keeping up the story momentum and how that can titles but with all of the Marvel ongoing titles doing less than 60,000 lately, I have to question if things are "working" particularly well for Marvel.
In the article Gabriel confirms "Uncanny X-Men" has sales over 350,000. Variants being a major factor in those numbers. I am looking forward to next month's Mayo report. Should be a lot to discuss.

I can see how the sales on Uncanny Avengers #1 might be that high. But I expect it could drop as much as 60% or more with the second issue given all of the incentive covers of the first issue. Short term, Marvel Now might work out well for Marvel Long term, I'm not so sure.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:05 am

Gilgabob wrote:Also Bendis Blabbed on The Attack of the Show on Thursday, reaveling the return of a major character long thought dead but is now restored which is all reveled in aVENGERS 32.

Just read it. There was a lot more story in that issue than in the previous which had next to no story to speak of. Frankly, I wasn't surprised by who it was.

Paul Nolan · Post by **Paul Nolan** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 12:58 pm

Bleeding Cool pointed out some nice little contradictions with that characters return (don't click the link if you don't want to be spoiled)

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/10/24/ ... -avengers/

With regards to the Uncanny Avengers: retailers like larryscomics have said issue #1 sold numbers of a good selling Marvel comic, nothing to warrant such high ordering activity. With Issue #2 already delayed by two weeks attrition will be HUGE on this one.

boshuda · Post by **boshuda** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:59 am

JohnMayo wrote:I can see how the double shipping can be keeping up the story momentum and how that can titles but with all of the Marvel ongoing titles doing less than 60,000 lately, I have to question if things are "working" particularly well for Marvel.

Double-shipping was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Because the number of issues and amount of dollars fluctuated from month to month I decided to drop ALL Marvel titles. I don't think I'm alone in this.

While double-shipping might increase sales on a few issues from people who won't drop that title, I suspect that particular gain is offset by people who pick up fewer titles to stay within their budget. Assuming the above is true it's a losing tactic if other people just wash their hands of Marvel completely, or if the number of issues dropped exceeds the number of additional issues sold as a result of double shipping.

So no matter what it seems like a losing proposition because it just seems to upset a large number of people.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:31 pm

boshuda wrote: Double-shipping was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Because the number of issues and amount of dollars fluctuated from month to month I decided to drop ALL Marvel titles. I don't think I'm alone in this.

While I didn't drop all Marvel titles because of this, I did raise the bar on what would keep a Marvel title on my pull list with double shipping.

A title I don't consistently feel is a "high 4" or 5 out of 5, I drop it. Unfortunately, Marvel doesn't put out that many books that I'd personally rate that high so I'm down to 10 or so Marvel books, out of the 90 some that they publish.

I think me getting about 10% of their output falls right in line with Sturgeon's Law.....

HassanT · Post by **HassanT** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:16 am

Just what everyone was demanding (;s)

Another X-Men book written by Bendis and another book that begins with "Uncanny".

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/02/ ... nny-series

Gilgabob · Post by **Gilgabob** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:43 am

While thumbing through the latest Marvel Previews I came across this preview page for New Avengers #1

Is this sample page supposed to create excitement to check out this book? I'm not sure what the other pages are like but could they have found a more dull page than this? I'm trying to imagine the person responsible for using this page as a preview saying to themselves "I know what will create excitement for this book. A five panel black and white page of a contemplative Reed Richards, what pizzaz!".

It just seems like they aren't even trying sometimes.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 11:15 am

Gilgabob wrote:While thumbing through the latest Marvel Previews I came across this preview page for New Avengers #1

Is this sample page supposed to create excitement to check out this book? I'm not sure what the other pages are like but could they have found a more dull page than this? I'm trying to imagine the person responsible for using this page as a preview saying to themselves "I know what will create excitement for this book. A five panel black and white page of a contemplative Reed Richards, what pizzaz!".

It just seems like they aren't even trying sometimes.

Maybe they were trying to get across a sense of the pacing of the issue? It does seem a bit d...e...c...o...m...p...r...e...s...s...e..d...