September comic news roundup

Fresh from the pages of the Daily Bugle

Editor’s Note: It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s New Comic Book Day and another edition of Amazing Journey!

The Amazing Journey column will touch on a comics-related topic, such as writing the first issue of a series, what it’s like to run a comic book store, working with artists, and how writing comics is different from writing prose.

Amazing Journey back issues

True believers unite (#1) | My comics origin story (#2) | Comic event series (#3) | The comics of Kickstarter (#4) | Single issues or trades? (#5) | From prose to comics (#6) | Adapting a celebrated fantasy series into a comic (#7) | Charting a career in comics (#8) | Comic book spoilers (#9) | Lessons from Kieron Gillen’s masterclass (#10) | Comics marketing 101 (#11) Designing memorable characters (#12)

I am still trying to get back in the swing of things, so this week’s column is a news roundup from the past few weeks. But read on to find out what pieces I have planned for the next month!

My local comic shop, JHU Comics, is closing its Manhattan location.

I’ll have a longer piece about this news and how comic shops build community around the medium we love, but the short version is this is a big blow to the borough of Manhattan and to comics in general. I’ve gotten to know Nick Purpura (one of the owners) over the past four years, and he epitomizes the best of what a local comic shop can be. Fortunately, the shop will live on at its flagship Staten Island location, but unfortunately for me, the ability to pop into the shop each week, pick up my books, and chat with Nick and the other customers will not.

How much should a comic book cost?

Marvel has made a big marketing push for its new cosmic book G.O.D.S., written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Valerio Schiti. Those are two headlining creators (Hickman’s bonafides are well-known and Schiti killed it on last summer’s Judgment Day, with Inferno, S.W.O.R.D. and Empyre before that).

But there was a lot of consternation about issue one’s $9.99 cover price, with a major comic book store commenting that the high price was killing pre-orders and that the shop had pre-ordered a tenth of what it had ordered for House of X #1 (also written by Hickman). This led the Marvel Editor-in-Chief to reply directly to the comic book store’s tweet, stating that issue one was 60 pages (i.e. triple-sized) and that it was not split up at the request of Hickman.

To be fair to both sides, three issues of a normal priced comic would cost $12, so this tripled-sized issue is less. And this is a top-tier book with top-tier talent that I am assuming was paid top-tier money to create it. On the other hand, House of X #1 was 56 pages (granted some were data pages), and it cost $5.99.. And on the other, other hand, the House of X/Powers of X launch was preceded by the entire X-Men line being cancelled and relaunched. So it’s not exactly a fair comparison other than that both books involve the same creator, as G.O.D.S. is something entirely new and filled with all-new characters.

I don’t know how much money Marvel is leaving on the table by pricing the book at $9.99 instead of $5.99 or $6.99, but there probably was a point in the middle that would have satisfied retailers, readers, and the publisher. We will just have to wait and see how the book performs (I am rooting for it so that the book gets extended past its initial 8-issue run).

Mark Millar on how to save comics

Mark Millar of Nemesis, Kick-Ass, and Kingsman fame (and of also selling all of his IP to Netflix fame) made waves a few weeks ago when he suggested that comics are dying and the only way to save them is for the most popular creators from the past 20 years to return to Marvel and DC to bang out superhero books:

According to Millar, around 20 legendary comic book writers should stage a comeback at both DC and Marvel, for at least two-year runs. Millar emphasized, “We’ve got to man the stations. I think everybody’s got to come in and do a couple of projects and find an artist who’s as good as you can possibly get and just do some killer run on something.”

Millar opined that creator-owned books were not moving the needle and that there has not been a big book launched since Saga in 2012. This prompted the circulation of Image’s top #1 debuts from 2012 (from which Saga is absent).¹ Notably, of the top 10 titles on this list, 9 of them were released in 2020 or later.

I think Millar’s suggestions, while novel, don’t have a good read on the market or where it should be going. Sales of illustrated stories are way up in the past 20 years, but the bulk of that success is from sales of graphic novels like Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man and Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, Guts, etc., and of course manga. People are already reading comics, they are just not reading what we think of as traditional American comics. Thus, the solution to the decline of comics sales, in my mind, is not to try to recapture the customers of 20 years ago, but to try to build a bridge between the two audiences currently reading comics.

Coming soon on Amazing Journey!

Here are some pieces you can expect in the upcoming weeks:

• Comic book stores are the lifeblood of the industry (clickbait version: Why comic book stores are better than bookstores)

• I went to New York Comic Con and all I got was this lousy t-shirt to meet all of my comic role models

• Writing the first issue: Thoughts on jumping into the deep end by actually writing a comic by someone doing it for the first time and from seasoned pros

That brings me to the Questions of the Week:

1. What’s the last non-comic graphic novel you read?

2. What topics would you like to see in a future Amazing Journey column?

What I’m reading this week

It’s an Al Ewing special this week with three of his four ongoing Marvel books out with new issues!

• Avengers Inc. #1: It’s the Wasp and Victor Shade solving Marvel mysteries!

• X-Men Red #15: The enigmatic Fisher King gets the spotlight in this continuation of the ongoing Genesis War on Arakko.

• Venom #25: An oversized anniversary issue featuring Doom vs. Venom across time!

What are you picking up this week?

Thank you for reading ARC Worlds!

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1. Saga is a notable comic in that its sales have grown since launch, so its absence from this list does not necessarily say anything about its overall success.