On Usenet, Paul O’Brien takes a look at Marvel’s numbers for November. Interesting reading as always, and it highlights an odd trend at the House of Ideas: the retroactive mini-series.
As sales of certain titles swirl towards the bottom of the bowl, Marvel can’t seem to decide whether they were ongoings (and solicitations never indicated they were anything else until the axe falls) or mini-series. I can think of a few possible reasons for this:
- They were always mini-series to begin with, and Marvel biffed the solicitations. (Unlikely, to my way of thinking, though I certainly think they’re capable of screwing up solicitations.)
- They were always mini-series to begin with, but Marvel wanted to avoid the lower sales that usually come with minis by marketing them as ongoings. (In this case, if the minis are successful, Marvel can reserve the right to carry on with the title as an ongoing. If they bomb, out comes the accurate label.)
- They were meant to be ongoings, but dismal sales led Marvel to minimize its failed launches on paper by re-christening their bombs as having a fixed end point. (It’s not really relevant to the consumers of the books, but it would certainly be easier at the end of the year to have these titles fall into the “marginally successful mini” column than the “badly failed ongoing” list when you’re presenting a tally to investors.)
What it doesn’t indicate any way you look is awareness at Marvel that they’re putting out titles that simply don’t have an audience. (Okay, every title has an audience, but whether it’s a profitable one or not is an entirely different story.) As a number of new launches slide down the sales chart (particularly spun-off X-characters), I’m guessing we’ll see a few more newly minted minis in the coming months.
Mystique and Emma Frost have already gotten the axe but were too far along in their runs to facilitate any fudging. And both were perfectly readable books that I enjoyed. Gambit and Nightcrawler seem to be heading in the “it’s a mini” direction a bit faster. (Both of them have gotten fairly friendly critical responses.)
And what about the minis that are actually called that from the beginning? The best of them, Madrox, is selling poorly. The ones higher up the charts (Secret War, Ultimate Nightmare) are chronically late. And how, I have to wonder, can a quarterly book like SW still manage to be late? (I think O’Brien’s correct that the bi-monthly Pulse tie-in will spoil the ending.) The first issue of UN seemed like about a quarter of what an actual comic should be, leading me to bail, so I’m not sure what the issues are there.
The people who really seem to come out on the short end of this are retailers, who aren’t able to make informed ordering decisions because they have to guess at the term of the product. (I’m not a retailer, so I could be wrong.) But Marvel has already put them at a disadvantage by dumping dozens of new titles on the shelves without adequate marketing or even the realistic expectation that the books will turn a profit.
Have any comic journalists asked Marvel about this practice? I’d be interested in the answers.
(Marc-Oliver Frisch’s excellent DC sales analysis for November is also up. And O’Brien’s X-Axis Year in Review has arrived.)