- Ongoings should adhere to an insanely simple canon, be self contained but have long going stories, like a season of X-Files. Comics like The Dark Knight Returns, All-Star Superman and Watchmen both still sell very well, and will keep selling even after people have forgotten what these characters are currently doing in their respective series because these stories have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
- More advertising, sell in grocery stores and whatever. Also, take advantage of digital market places. Not comixology or specialty shops, as it simply amplifies the problem already existing with comic book stores, but Google Play, Amazon, and iOS. This will not only help comic books be more visible to the general public, but also make the sophistication clearer as it's in the same category as other works of literature.
- Don't have a weird maturity level. Right now we're in that sweet spot of disembodied heads and blood spewing rape, but Guy Gardener still shouts, "Oh that mother&%#+&% piece of $#!+!" I don't think that's really helping anyone. Besides the occasional dark story like The Dark Knight Returns, just have the maturity level around JLU, but don't entirely ban from swears, rape, blood, and murder, but do them tastefully. And Superman should NEVER say, "Lex Flippin' Luthor." We aren't at an elementary school.
- Focus on creative teams first. If a writer doesn't test well, they should be kicked off.
- Focus on characterization as well. You should have a general idea of when a character was really THAT CHARACTER. Like Superman was in All Star, Darkseid was in Fourth World... Hell, I'd go as far to say that Iron Man was the Iron Man movies.
>How to Improve Comic Sales
Step #1 No more pandering to wokies.
Problem solved.
Saying wokeness killed comics is like saying the last piece of cake killed the obese man.
>I'd go as far to say that Iron Man was the Iron Man movies.
So a person who doesn't read comics is trying to tell us how comics should be run. I'm glad you don't have any power.
This is all very nice but it's a huge risk so we're not gonna take. We'd rather keep milking what we can until we can't anymore. What happens next?We dunno lol, long-term thinking is for pussies.
>digital markets
What the frick is that? You mean like Amazon? We already sell comics there dumbass.
>creative teams
The writers we hire are friends or relatives or our friends or relatives. Why would we hire some nobody from the street?
>characterization
Look dude I don't even read our shitty comics, they're for kids. The writers will figure it out, they're getting paid for something aren't they?
There's really no saving comics now, and comics themselves will never go mainstream anymore. Their best hope is to appeal to hardcore fans again.
You're not gonna improve comic sales. No one cares. Eother people who want them are buying them. Those semi interested are pirating, and the rest are not even bothering.
Personally, i would love comics to go baxk to1-2, maybe 3 issue stories instead of 12 issue slogs that are padded out with nothing of real impoetance. Watxhmen worked because all 12nissues were filled with good story and very little 'filler'. Now it seems the other way around you get 12 issues story arcs that are 80% filler.
Obviously this doesnt mean you cant write long arcs and obviously indies and non capes stories need longer issue runs, but overall capes cant survive on villian of the month (just not every month in batman needs to be joker).
Also, STOP CROSSING OVER TO BOOST SALES OF DYING SERIES. LET THEM DIE AND LET THE STRONG SURVIVE. IF SUPERGIRL CANT SURVIVE WITHOUT A SUPERMAN CROSSOVER DONT GIVE HER A FRICKING COMIC AND IF 90% OF THE BAT FAMILY CANT SOLO DONT FORCE ME TO BUY THEIR SHIRTY TITLES FOR A CROSSOVER THAT IS MOSTLY NOTHING EXCEPT PART ONE AND FINALE.
The last comic I paid for was Mark Russell's The Flintstones. The reason I bought it was because I read the first issue here in a storytime and wanted to support the book. But I usually don't buy comics because of websites that host every comic ever printed for free. The only thing that makes me open my wallet is something that hits me in my patron heart and makes me want to vote with my dollar.
Most comic arcs are 6 issues so that they fit the trade format.
I hate the wrote for trades mentality.
Most people would still buy a 6 issue trade of non related stories.
Hell look at those caped crusader trades that collected mostly one and dones. They did well that they sold out fast and were popular enough to go into reprints, while some story arc trades barely sell and are now "rare" due to lack of reprints.
Im not against 6 issue arcs, but yiu can do both
>How to improve comic sales
-Have characters reading comics in other media
-Have influencers talking about comics
-Sponsor events to get in people's faces
-More episodic, less serialized stories. Stop writing for the fricking trades.
-Give back to society in some way because we're still in that era.
When I was a boy, I read Milk and Cheese because David and Darlene had Milk and Cheese shirts on Roseanne. I also read Hate because Casper read Hate in Kids. I read Eightball because Daniel Clowes did a music video for the Ramones. I was 12 reading b&w indie books with no super powers or world ending stakes all because of monkey see, monkey do. Trust me, this shit works.
>-Have influencers talking about comics
>-Sponsor events to get in people's faces
I can count on my hand the amount of times I have seen comics mentioned in the wider media over the past 20 years. And by wider media I mean mainstream news publications rather than clickbait nerd sites. And by mentioned I mean small articles.
>New 52 initiative.
>Batwoman being banned from getting married.
>Hydra Cap.
>Black Batman for Future State(?) I can't quite remember which one it was for.
This isn't scientific but over 20 odd years I have seen this shit mentioned and nothing more. Comics really spends nothing marketing itself. But then, do you know how difficult it is to get a comic? Usually if you want a comic you have to:
>Read previews magazine and order it in advance to actually get a copy.
>Have a pull list with a comics retailer.
>Keep up with what is coming out.
>Most online comics Youtubers have a small group of shit they talk about coming out.
>Ultimate Spider-Man by Hickman sold out recently.
>So has gone for a second/third printing.
>Meaning you probably needed to order it in advance otherwise you end up waiting for future printings and fall behind.
I remember a comic event that had every news station in the country reporting on it.
I said in the past 20 years. Like no shit, Death of Superman was a big media event even though it was bullshit but that was the 90s.
-They've tried to truncate continuity, it doesn't work, it worked exactly once of the 4 times its been attempted for an ongoing. Standalone separate universes sure, ultimate was popular, as are your examples but replacing the established stuff just creates a hostile evnoirment.
-Sure
-That was more so the 00s, edgelord stuff is not super prominent these days.
-Sure.
-Trying to go for a platonic ideal of a character rather than actually respect how they're written in the books themselves is dumb af.
The writers of the books themselves don't respect each other's writing. Which is bizarre to me that alleged comic fans care so little about continuity. All they want to do is push their own shit, contradictions be damned.
Here we go again.
>Canon has never mattered as much as you think. Canon should never be so loose nothing matters or so tight that you can't tell any stories. Even back in the day (I have been around for a long time) a new creative team could completely change things. Focus on telling good stories.
>They are in grocery stores, heck in my country you can even get anthologies! There is digital. Comics however aren't completely built for a digital format.
>There are different maturity levels: kids comics, normal stuff and mature.
>Only a proportion of fans care about creative teams; most people buy books just because of the character.
>Characterisation is a fickle thing and a good creative team can completely change a character for the better.
We've been through all this before. What do you want?
>Comics aren't cool, cultural baggage = comics are for kids, blah blah history, blah blah CCA.
>Entrenched creative issues.
>Entrenched industry issues.
>Poor quality of writing and art.
>Physical media and print media are dying.
>Comics died as a proper past time in the 90s just as new stuff was becoming big (videogames/manga etc)
>Too much competition from other media (video games etc).
>Manga doesn't have the same issues and has a stronger base in Japan.
>Comic book shop model and floppy format.
I mean frick it, compare a Western vs Japanese audience:
>Japanese pay more for entertainment/art, they enjoy physical media and don't pirate as much.
>Westerners have massively devalued entertaiment/art, barely buy any physical media and pirate a lot.
The medium is fricking dead. You can't get people to follow good creative teams because half the people scream about the comics they read during the 90s and want everything to be bland like that. Most people think the choice is: woke superhero, mature grimdark superhero, Image bland sci-fi, pretentious autobiography and that is it. No one bothers trying anything. People here don't like the medium of sequential art.
Take a standard 22-page script, pad it out to 100 pages just by slowing the exposition and pacing own without actually adding anything, hire a horde of manga-style artists to draw it all in black and white. Boom.