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2007-05-29 16:15:42

CIVIL WAR #7

Everybody seems to like this whole thread about format and content and distribution and pricing, so let's play with it for one more day.

>Regarding you talking about the increased ads from a few months ago, why doesn't Marvel do this all of the time, but drop the cover price, say a dollar? I know the main thing I was annoyed with was that I was paying as much for the advertising as I was for the story pages. If the price were lower, I wouldn't care how many ads were in the comic.

Posted by ltfrankc on 2007-05-07 17:44:25>

Again, cost of production and source of revenue. At the moment, our primary source of revenue isn't advertising--and, in fact, it doesn't materially factor into our P & L calculations when we're figuring out whether or not to do a particular book. It's nice enough money, but it's money that's spread out all across the line, which is a little bit different than revenue that's being directly applied against the cost and circulation of a single magazine. And the plain fact of the matter is that, not having carried more than a print signature's worth of paid advertising across the line for the better part of forty-five years (a signature is one of the large sheets of paper that winds up folded down and trimmed in the final comic. At print size, it amounts to 8 pages) we don't necessarily have a ready-made source of advertisers to fill twenty or thirty or fifty pages, or whatever you'd propose for this larger package. You'd need to change the course of revenue of the operation significantly to accomplish this, and while that's not impossible, it's not something you can achieve overnight.

What running those additional ads (which tend to cycle in around the X-Mas holidays, as that's when there are the most advertisers who'd like to book space in our books) does do is to help maintain the cover prices at the levels we have them now. The cost of everything is constantly going up--right now, a huge new factor is the price of fuel, which impacts in getting trees to paper mills, paper to printers and printed books to distributors and retailers. But the revenue we realized from the additional advertising that month wouldn't have allowed us to reduce cover prices line-wide, even for those months. They might, however, allow us to do things like adding additional pages to CIVIL WAR #7 without raising the cover price.

The good news in all of this is that advertising firms are starting to become aware of the fact that the readership for comics these days is much different from what's traditionally been the belief. This is why you've started to see ads for automobiles in comics the last year or so--an important source of ad revenue if the ad producers in question can draw a correlation between advertising in comics and the sell-through of a particular model of car. Any successes among this type of product-placement can only lead to more potential advertisers wanting to be featured in our pages.

> mcross76 above mentions glossy magazines that you might find in a grocery store checkout or on a magazine rack, which are about twice the price of a comic book. I've always wondered why you don't ever see comic books on the shelf alongside Cosmo and TV Guide. Is it just hard to convince stores to stock them?

Posted by davextreme on 2007-05-07 16:26:06>

The rack space that I think you're talking about--the wire racks in most supermarkets positioned right at the register aisles--is prime real estate, and you pay through the nose to get positioned there. So if you've got a magazine that isn't a guaranteed seller in those environs at a certain velocity, it simply isn't financially feasible to place comics there. There's a story told--and it may be apocryphal--that years ago, Archie Comics negotiated a perpetual deal for itself for its digest books in these slots, somehow acquiring favorable terms either by crafty bargaining or simply by an oversight in terms of the term of the deal (sources vary on this question.) But theoretically, that's why you can find Archie digests in certain register aisles to this day, while other publishers' wares are banished to elsewhere in the store, or out of it completely.

But again, this is an area where strides are being made, especially in terms of the acceptability of certain packages in these venues. We've had good success getting our material into outlets such as Target, both as collections specially packaged foe those venues, and also in limited pick-ups of selected Trade paperbacks.

More later.

Tom B

inflation
this is the bad news.
can't you really rewind ?
more new comics titles, and abrand new lower price....?
who are you kidding anyway ?

Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-05-09 05:10:00

Ad placement affecting trade layouts
Tom, very interesting. What do you think about ad placements that affect the overall flow of a single issue vs. when collected as a trade? For example, Punisher Born has an amazing splash page in issue four, where the story teases something, you turn the page and BANG, big honking splash of Frank. I didn't think it was as effective in the trade, since removing the ads subsequently led to the "tease page" being opposite the splash page. Is this something editors think about much?

Posted by jaredgood1 on 2007-05-09 11:32:13

So you are telling me that I need to go buy a Dodge truck and tell 'em Iron Fist sent me if I want to continue to pay 2.99 per comic? Now lets see if my wife will fall for that...

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2007-05-09 12:32:19

Just wanted to chime in with the mention of the format that Target has on their shelves recently. Very nice. We've picked up a couple and really enjoy the oversized chunk of comics at a reasonable price.

Posted by KentL on 2007-05-09 21:53:26

Gas
So, is the meteoric rise of gas going to start seriously hurting everyone who is shipping things back and forth? Is there anything being done to curb this increase? Or will this eventually bring us comics and whatnot that cost double - or more - our current prices, most likely within a few years?

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-05-10 08:35:11

Sorry to stray from the subject a bit...
Hi, Tom.

I'm sorry to stray from the subject a bit, but I'm not even sure where to put this comment, but I wanted to make sure that you saw it.

It's rare that I get so angry about something that Marvel has done that I feel compelled to actually *write* to you.

You might want to see the three pages and counting of horrified and angry comments from Marvel fans about the new Sideshow Collectibles statue of Mary Jane:

http://devildoll.livejournal.com/750924.html

You know the statue I mean? The one of her *barefoot,* bending over a bucket and washing Peter's costume? The one that makes her look like a baboon in heat, presenting?

I've been a faithful reader of Marvel and True Believer for over thirty years, through thick, through thin, and even through the darkest days of the nineties.

My average pull list for any given month of Marvel titles is about thirty issues; that means that I'm spending close to a $100 per month on Marvel product.

Guess what? I'm also a woman. I'm a woman that has tried, even through the worst instances of horrible and sexist portrayal of women in Marvel over the years, to defend Marvel as a generally good publisher of comics, and I've tried countless times to point out instances where Marvel does an excellent job of portraying strong, intelligent women. The fact that I still read Marvel at all should demonstrate that Marvel does things *right* enough times to keep me reading.

But when I saw this new statue of Mary Jane bent over a bucket and washing Spider-Man's costume? I felt nauseous. I felt rage.

Do you not understand how something like this sets you back thirty years in your portrayal and treatement of women in your various media? Do you understand why so many women (and men!) are upset after looking at this figure? Can you not see how sites like LiveJournal and Girlwonder.org are having a field day with this?

Every time I think of turning my female friends on to Marvel, I think of something like this and realize that I would be *embarassed* to try to persuade them to try a Marvel title when you license garbage like this. Every time I talk to young girls and explain how empowering and enjoyable reading mainstream comics can be, I think of something like this and realize that I cannot, in good conscience, recommend a company that endorses a figure that is so profoundly degrading, objectifying, and insulting to women.

Look at MJ. Look at her. If you can't see what's wrong with this figure, then there is something seriously *wrong.*

Lest you think I am some kind of bible-thumping conservative, I happen to be a very progressive and socially liberal woman who generally has no problem with scantily-clad depictions of the female form.

But this statue? Is garbage. It takes everything that female fans love about MJ -- namely, her spunk, intelligence, vivacity, beauty, and determination -- and throws it out the window in favor of a vacuous, empty depiction.

Sincerely,

Anne

Posted by songofthesiryn on 2007-05-10 16:36:09

Interesting
I had no idea that advertising had such a small impact on your actual profit. And why should ANYONE complain about having to read X-Factor each month to get their X-Men fix? X-Factor rules!

Posted by noperhapsyes on 2007-05-10 20:01:33

Mary jane statue
Where do i get one????????

Posted by mrfantastickkk on 2007-05-16 11:43:13

Yeah Anne, My wife is buying me that statue!!
That Statue Rocks!!! Thanks for bringing that up. Gonna look sweet in our living room. Where there's Spidey Statues and toys everywhere.

Keep On Thwipin'!!!
Sam

Posted by samkerby on 2007-05-16 18:30:52

What? I can't say I love the statue?
Where'd my reply go? It wasn't being rude. I just voiced my opinion of the Statue. I think it rocks, and so does my beautiful wife, who is buying it for me and my Spidey collection. It'll be a great addition to it.

Tap Tap Tap...is this this on???

Keep On Thwipin'!!!
Sam

Posted by samkerby on 2007-05-17 10:04:20

mary jane statue
it is just a statue not a person get over it folks. it's not kirsten dunst she never looked like the comic book version anyway. personally I see it as art and nothing more than the comic book character being brought to life. Mary jane to me has always been that kind of sexy and beautiful women.

Posted by Agamemnon218 on 2007-05-20 18:41:07

fine, anne can post her rant about a statue, (not even in the right forum) but i cant post my feelings about it...well, another reason to give up marvel comics...thanks.

Later
Sam

Posted by samkerby on 2007-05-22 09:37:41

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