A Modest Proposal--Free Comic Soundtracks?!?

Look, Nexus was a grand book, the first 3 volumes of omnibi are on Comixology Unlimited so go read them, blah blah.

I'm here today to talk about something far more important--

COMICS IN STEREO!!

The third issue of Nexus' first run came with a free flexi-disc. Yup, an actual small floppy plastic vinyl record. Take a gander!


Look, they gave him his own theme song!! The rest of the "record" was just basically narrating the story.

Now, if DC can afford to foil covers for an entire month without raising prices, they can do flexi-discs for every comic, right?

Actually, I have no idea of the economics involved. And not that many people have vinyl turntables these days.

BUT--everyone has digital!! Marvel already gives away a free digital copy with all of their comics, and DC does with select (and seemingly random) comics. So the technology to print a sticker with a claim code beneath is already in use, and wouldn't present any more costs, right?

So here's the idea: come up with a theme song for every comic!! Give us the earworm that makes the hero and the book unforgettable!! Have a code so anyone can download the tune!!

And that's just the beginning. People love audiobooks, so go full audiobook on your comics. Have some of those expensive stars you've hired for your movies read 'em!! Since every comic is now nothing but narrative captions, you might as well literally narrate the things, right?

And kids these days are into the podcasts, right? Well, give 'em a podcast! Maybe not every issue...but why not? Writer commentary, artist remarks, editors explaining why they let Bendis keep using the word "baby" 7 times per issue...whatever!!!

And sure, it's all about corporate partnerships these days, so do it in coordination with Pandora or iTunes or Amazon or whomever. It's a win-win: already existing audio company picks of some of production/distribution costs but gets free advertising from every copy of every comic sold!! Reader peels off sticker, goes to website (and has to become a customer if they're not already!), punches in code, gets theme song/audiobook/podcast for download streaming.

Hell, they could even make a competition of it--which company can put out better theme songs? Which one is giving away better audio content? Get the millennials talking/arguing about it on social media!! Have them demanding the "Snyder cut" of songs!! Legitimate recording artists will clamor to do cover versions of the songs, or even do the initial recordings themselves. Soon, the landscape will resemble the 1970s. when every TV show had its theme song hit the Top 40!!

Yes, I just saved the comics industry. You're welcome.

Now go read Nexus.

A Modest Proposal--More TV Comics!!

A house ad from Mission: Impossible #5 (1969):

Man, Dell was kinda the IDW of its day, wasn't it?

But instead of just doing licensed comics about toys that were popular with nerds in the 1990s, the were all over the map, covering all aspects of pop culture.

For example, instead of My Little Pony vs. Transformers or G.I. Joe Meets Ninja Turtles, Dell was bringing the youth of the late 60s such gems as:

Admit it: you want to read this comic!

Or this, arguably the second greatest cover in comic book history:

Not to mention...

OK, maybe in retrospect, not such a good idea.

How about this, then?

Holy crap, that's awesome.

But it wasn't just comedies and lighter fare. Dell actuall published comics starring Barbara Stanwyck!

And let's not forget that there was once this title:

How can there NOT be a Mission: Impossible comic right now? How is that, well, possible? What could possibly go wrong with a modern comic book version of the franchise?

AIEEEEEEEE, MY EYES!!!!!!

Slightly more seriously, though--there is room for licensed comic books...but do they all have to be "nerd" or "toy" franchises? Can't we get a few comic adaptations of comedies, or dramas, or straight adventure series? I would read the hell out of a The Good Wife comic. A Hannibal comic? I mean EEEWWWW, but still, why not? Given all the heat right now, why not an Empire comic (the Fox series, not Mark Waid's joint...we'll let the lawyers figure out the trademarks)? Scandal or NCIS? DO IT!!

Seriously, IDW (and others)--licensed comics don't have to be just limited to thinks a twelve year old thought were cool in 1995. Instead of continually going after the same dwindling fan base, broaden it out a bit. Instead of another Star Trek crossover series (Star Trek/Green Lantern? Really?), how about a CSI/The Blacklist comic??

A Modest Proposal--No More Variant Covers

A few days ago, after noting an amazingly huge number of variant covers in someone's solicitations, I tweeted this:

What if, for 1 month, everyone who drew variant covers just drew actual comic books, instead? #JustAsking #NotLikely
— snell (@slaymonstrobot) October 17, 2013

Well, some of you probably thought I was just being my cantankerous old self, hating on variant covers just because I don't like them personally.

Au contraire, my friends. I'm a live and let live kind of guy, and if it were just a matter of taste, I really wouldn't care whether these covers existed or not.

But I seriously believe that the overabundance of these "bonus" covers is hurting the industry, especially the smaller players. Allow me to explain.

I went through the January 2014 solicitations DC, Marvel, Valiant, Boom, Dark Horse, IDW, and Image. Dynamite hasn't released their January solicits yet, so I used December 2013. I counted only original "floppies"--no trades or reprints (most of which don't have alternate covers, anyway).

More caveats: These are just "back of the envelope" calculations (and yes, I did literally use the back of an envelope). I may have missed some, and I certainly may have accidentally double-counted some. Some companies are not as clear about how many cover there are (I'm looking at you, Boom!). Plans will change, some covers will be cancelled, some will be added.

But I made a good faith effort to honestly count each "bonus," "incentive," "chase," "sketch," "extra," "subscriber incentive," and every other kind of extra cover for January (or December in Dynamite's case). And I'm at least in the ballpark.

The results?

Dark Horse has only 2 variant covers (Bravo!). Image has only 8, which is kind of slow for them--this month they had 9 extra just for Walking Dead.Valiant has only 13...but the flip side is that every single one of their titles has variants. Boom! has 18.

Dynamite has 29 variant covers for their titles. IDW has 47.

DC has 42 variant covers solicited.

And Marvel? Marvel has 76 variant covers solicited for January. Seventy-six. Not 76 covers--76 EXTRA covers. Hell, Miracleman #1 alone has 7 variant covers. SEVEN!! (Marvel also has several "Variant by TBD"--uh, isn't the point of a solicitation to tell us what you're selling, so the stores can order it? How the hell is anyone supposed to order extra product based on "To Be Determined?")

Add it all together, and that's 235 variant covers hitting store shelves that month. 235.

Regarding my tweet above, wouldn't we rather all of those artists drew actual comic books rather than pointless incentive covers? 235 pages is what, eleven or twelve comics? And yes, I know, drawing one cover is not necessarily the same as drawing one page full of detailed panels. Still, the general point remains. Skottie Young, for example, is drawing at least 5 variant covers for Marvel in January. Is there anybody who would really rather have that than a 4 or five page story drawn by Young? And several artists who don't seem to have the time or wherewithal to meet monthly deadlines do seem to have time to churn out variant covers. It just seems a terrible way to allocate artistic resources.

But the most important point I think is this: Dollars and shelf space. 235 variants. Stores will need to order multiple copies of those, and for some of those they'll need to order dozens, or hundreds, of extra copies of the regular cover version in order to get the variants.

And having to buy all of those extra comics--just because of variants--means that your LCS has to spend gosh knows how many hundreds or thousands of extra dollars each month for comic titles we were already going to buy anyway! That's money they could be using to buy and promote other worthy books. If your comics shoppe doesn't order enough of some book you're looking for, part of the reason is that they have to tie up large amounts of their limited funds each month to buy ridiculous amounts of "bonus" covers that nobody really needs. They have to buy sketch variant or ridiculous "blank" covers, so they have to skimp on smaller titles. How many times have you gotten to your LCS and found them sold out of something because they only ordered one or two copies, yet they had tons of extra copies of Miracleman or Forever Evil laying around, because they had to order them to get the rare 1:100 drawn-by-someone-who-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-damned-comic variant?

If not for the overwhelming glut of variants, comic stores would have more funds available to buy more copies of comics that deserve your attention--both from smaller publishers and smaller-selling titles form the larger ones. More shelf space could be given to those comics, too. Comic stores would be able to take risks and spread their dollars around to more titles. That would be a good thing, right?

It will never happen. The strategy is too entrenched, the opportunity to artificially increase sales and market share too tempting--even if it does seem to be inevitably pushing things towards a 1990s-style collapse, because there's no sign it will end at 235.

Still, a Monstrobot can dream...

The Hunger Comics

In the far future (or is it the distant past?)...

DANNISS: Well, all of the other Districts have been absorbed--Fawcett, Charlton, Quality, Wildstorm...

GEOFFNISS: But how will we keep them from rebelling? How will we keep the unruly fans in line?

JIMMITCH: Simple. At regular intervals we shall demand "tributes" from them. The captive universes shall have to offer up their best and brightest characters to culling events!

DANNISS: I love it! "Worlds will live, worlds will die!"

GEOFFNISS: But won't the fans rebel? Won't they be upset that their favorite tributes are being wiped away?

JIMMITCH: That's the beauty part! Everyone will read anyway! No matted how much they complain, they will keep reading, as if they're forced! Indeed, the more they claim to hate it, the more controversial, the MORE they shall read! The more hated we are, the more they will read...because we will always leave them hope...

DANNISS: I love it!! We can repeat it indefinitely! The Crisis Games! The Infinite Crisis Games! The Final Crisis Games! The...

GEOFFNISS: But won't we end up doing damage to our own characters? So many games, so much death so many lies and "retcons ", so much abuse of the Tributes...

JIMMITCH: That's all right...we can always replace them with Tributes from MY District. People are much more interested in Grifter and Voodoo than they are Wally West or Donna Troy, anyway...

DANNISS: I love it! And one year we can have 52 Tributes! 52!!! God, I love that number!!!

GEOFFNISS: But won't one of his own books be one of the first culled...?

JIMMITCH: Sshh, let him have his fun. Now, let's talk about finding work for my friend Robbniss...

DANNISS. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Modest Proposal--Damn The Numbers, Full Speed Ahead!

Last week at the Fan Expo '11, members of a Marvel panel were questioned repeatedly about non-ending stream of re-numberings and re-launches. Among other speakers, Matt Fraction replied:

If someone saw the Iron Man movie, and looked at the comics and saw Iron Man #489, that will intimidate them.

So that's the world Matt Fraction lives in: a consumer is motivated enough to go into a store looking for an issue of Iron Man, but they're NOT motivated enough to overcome their fear of large numbers. "AIIEEEEEE, it's #489, run, save yourselves!!!"

It should also be noted that this is coming from a writer whose Iron Man leaped from #33 to #500 to #500.1 withing a two-month period, so it sure seems as if Matt is slamming his own company. And of course, Marvel has arbitrarily jumped up hundreds of issue numbers in recent years on Incredible Hulk and Avengers and Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four and Captain America and Thor in the past few years, so Mr. Fraction is obviously in deep disagreement with Marvel's own marketing department.

What do I think of the theory? Let me put it this way: virtually every single person working in the comic industry today started reading comics with big issue numbers (including Matt Fraction). Virtually every single person buying comic books today started by reading and buying high issue numbers. Somehow, all of us became creators and fans, and weren't intimidated. Either every potential reader today is a dumber, more fearful creature than we were back in the day, or the theory is a load of fetid dingo kidneys.

Meanwhile, constant re-launches and new #1's surely are no less intimidating for a fan. Picture Fraction's hypothetical potential fan who walks into a store, and fearing high numbers, asks for Iron Man #1. Now picture that fan's reaction when the clerks asks if he means 1968, or 1996, or 1998, or 2005, or 2008, or...Yes, that's much less intimidating.

And don't get me started on zero issues or 1,000,000 issues or -1 issues or 1/2 issues or...

No, it seems to me that if you truly believe that high numbers are deterrents to new readers, re-numbering or re-launching just makes things worse. The real question is--why use issue numbers at all?

If you go to a newsstand, look at the magazine section. How many monthly or weekly periodicals display issue numbers on their covers? Damn few (but congratulations to Rolling Stone on making it to issue #1138!!). Some will list it on the table of contests of indicia (People Magazine is on Volume 79, no. 6?? Hurray!!).

But we all know that nobody, and I mean nobody, refers to any of these periodicals by by an issue number. When cited in the press or research, no one says "Time Magazine, Volume CLXII no. 23." They say the "August 26, 2011 issue of Time." No one reminisces about issue #763 of Playboy; they remember the centerfold from the June 1998 issue. And even those magazines that do put issues numbers on the cover are never referred to by those numbers. No one knows what Maxim #492 was; they will know if you ask about the September 2011 issue, though.

I'm sure there's some reason, some historical accident that caused comic books, and comic books almost alone amongst periodicals, to emblazon their covers with huge issue numbers, and to be identified in discussions primarily by those issue numbers. I'll leave that research paper to someone else.

But it clearly didn't have to be that way. Take, for example, Justice League Of America #1 (1960):

Look closely there, kiddies--you won't find an issue number anywhere on that cover. DC believed at the time that new titles would scare away readers (and more importantly, newsstand vendors), so they left the #1 off the cover. Hell, it was a common practice for DC to leave of the "#1" on their early Silver Age debuts:

Yes, I know, that seems like Bizarro World-marketing in 2011...

And yet the world continued to spin on its axis. The issue sold, the series sold, and the lack of a prominent issue number did nothing to hurt the books collectability.

So if--IF--you believe that high issue numbers, or issue numbers in general , are a barrier to new readers (and I don't believe that for a minute)...if the Big Two seriously believe that, than why not dispense with issue numbers all together? I don't see that referring to Fantastic Four #170 as the May 1970 issue of FF would be of any detriment to anybody. For weekly or semi-monthly comics? Put the full date. A July 17, 2009 issue of Trinity would smell just as sweet as Trinity #36.

Wouldn't that solve the "intimidation" problem, DC and Marvel? No more scary numbers, just dates.

So, the ball's in your court, comic companies. You can continue to talk smack about your own product (and then act surprised when new customers don't come storming in); you can continue to jerk current readers around while erecting more barriers to new readers with constant re-numbering/re-launches; or you can do something to actually fix the "problem," and just drop the issue numbers altogether.

I call your bluff. Your move.

Who's The Boss?

You know, every time I hear the name of the new Batman series:

I can't help but be reminded of this song:



So, DC, how much money do you think it would take to get The Boss to re-record a new version of the song, but replacing "murder" with "Batman"?!? I mean, c'mon now:

Bobby's got a gun that he keeps beneath his pillow
Out on the streets your chances are zero
Take a look around you (come on now)
It ain't too complicated
You're messin' with Batman Incorporated
Now you check over your shoulder everywhere that you go
Walkin down the streets, there's eyes in every shadow
You better take a look around you (come on now)
That equipment you got's so outdated
You can't compete with Batman Incorporated
Everywhere you look now there's Batman Incorporated

Man, that just flat out works (and rocks!!)

Plus, you could include it as a CD single, poly-bagged with each copy of issue #1!! Instant collectors' item, as Springsteen fans storm the comics shoppes to get this rarity!!

Yes, I know Bruce is with Columbia Records, dire enemy of Warner Music. But that's why you gotta spend the cheddar, Warner/DC. Plus, you could sell it to Columbia as cross-promotion, as making a lot of new Bruce fans the very week he's releasing a new box set.

Besides, Bruce is The Boss--you convince him, they'll probably let him do it. Just promise him free Batman comics for life, and I'll bet he'll go for it!

Somebody make this happen, please.

The Ant, Or The Grasshopper??

A modest proposal:

Many of you out there aren't old enough to remember the concept of a "skip week."

You see, with 12 months--but 52 weeks--in a year, you've got 4 "extra" weeks in the year. And back in the day, when the Big Two were all there was, and they published fewer titles, and they cared about maintaining their schedules, they basically took those weeks off--"skip weeks"--in order to put out only 12 monthly issues per year, rather than 13. Nothing (well, virtually nothing) came out during those skip weeks. So, 4 times a year, no comics (although Marvel & DC didn't always use the same weeks as skip weeks...so the blow was lessened).

In more recent times, though, "skip weeks" have become extinct, obsolete. More companies releasing stuff, the Big Two publishing far more titles and mini-series and specials, more and more books being late...there seems to be always enough to publish, eliminating the need for the dreaded skip weeks.

Ah, but this year, it's back. Due to the way the holidays fall, Diamond will not be shipping any books for December 30, the week between Xmas and New Years. No books. Nada.

Which is quite a pain in the hinder.. it's a week many people have off from work and pockets full of gift certificates, so it would seem to be a prime week for people to hit their local comic shoppes for new goodies. Sorry, not this year. No new books for you!!

(There have been rumors online that Diamond will ship Blackest Night #6 the week of 12/23, but "ask" retailers not to put it out for sale until 12/30, so there would be a "big" new title to draw people into the stores. A noble idea, if true, but it seems destined for failure, as once one store breaks the embargo--even accidentally--the floodgates will be open.)

So here is my modest proposal: Save one comic a week.

Counting tomorrow, there are 9 Wednesdays before the dreaded skip week. So, if you set aside just one of your purchased new comics each week between now and then, you'll have a stack of 9 new, unread comics to read that holiday week. A little nest egg to soften the blow from the dreaded skip week. Delay the self-gratification, and set aside a little Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa present for yourself.

Of course, every person will doubtless choose a different comic to save for themselves each week...which means that any and every comic over the next 9 weeks will be unread by someone out there. So, in order to avoid spoilers, no one should comment on any new comics, or write any reviews, or kvetch about anything Bendis has done, until December 30th. Total new comic blackout in the blogosphere...just write about old comics, or Smallville, or Rickroll folks for the next nine weeks. Anything except new comics, because if we do write about new comics, we'll be spoiling someone's Christmas!!

Remember...one new comic per week, set it aside. Together, we can take the skip out of skip week!!

[Editor's note: Due to a necessary impurity in his brain, snell has no intention of going along with this mad scheme. He talks ant, but man, he's 100% grasshopper...]

A Modest Proposal--Price Points

Or, snell saves the comic industry.

While at my local comics emporium, me and the droogs were discussing some of the odd price points on a couple of this week's comics.

Which led me to blurt out, "You know, a comic's price point should be the same as its issue number."

And we all looked at each other, as we simultaneously realized what a great idea that would be.

Issue #1? 1¢. #2? 2¢. Issue 25? 25¢. Issue 249? $2.49. (See the pattern yet?)

Now think about how genius this system would be.

• It would encourage the companies to keep titles going, rather than cancelling and relaunching them with new #1's constantly.
• At the same time, it would encourage creators to keep increasing the quality of the book, in order to make the buyers feel justified in plunking down a higher amount of money each issue. And if they couldn't produce $4.26 of quality, well, maybe it's time for the book to end.
• It would be a huge boon for creators of new series, as potential readers would be FAR more likely to sample a new series for a penny than they would for $3.95.
• It would be an easy sell to the suits upstairs. FATCAT: "Well, Quesada, how's that new book doing?" QUESADA: "Great sir! Issue #2 showed a 100% revenue increase over #1!!" FATCAT:"BLARGH!! Keep up the good work, minion! Now go pick up my dry cleaning!"
• The savings in ink alone would be enormous, as they would no longer have to print both the issue number and the price on the cover.
• It would be the perfect justification to NOT eliminate the penny.

This is why I make the big money, people--ideas, always ideas, they can't be stopped..