The Death of Comics?

everyone is getting superhero ennui from all the capeshit spewing out of every entertainment orifice

Kill yourself faggot. That bitch should stream her suicide .

Attention whoring only works this much

>Diamond and the Big 2 have all but murdered comic stores
Why do casuals speak when they should lurk? Diamond/the direct market is the reason LCSs are sa thing, their shitty practices and shipping are the problem.

It's the constant renumbering and retarting the continuity more than anything. Nothing's ever lasted in comics but why should I become invested in a story if it won't matter in half a year?

Epic, edgy and totally current. You bring a lot to this board.

I don't think it's that. I do think we're going to hit superhero fatigue in the next decade but the main people buying comics were buying/would've bought with or without the movies. The price is another major aspect. Why should I pay $4 for a book that can often be read in less than five minutes?

Back to Yas Forums with you, casual retard. Nobody fucking cares about that ZQ cunt anymore

I dunno if there’s much that can be done at this point. How do you convince this generation to read comics when they have manga, video games, Netflix, and tv also not everyone is interested in superheroes all the time

Are you serious? They hired Zoe Quinn? When? I don't recall her actually writing any comics. What are her qualifications, being the biggest whore ever?

Pathetic

She wrote Goddess Mode i.e. the comic no-one bought. Also, the Deathbringer, another Donna Troy retcon. If you haven't heard of either, I really don't blame you.

>their shitty practices and shipping are the problem
So you agree, the big 2 and Diamond are to blame?

I blame Diamond distribution, which edged out all the small publishers and independent comic books. And the focus on super heros. When I was into comics I didn't read superhero comics.

>what were DC thinking when they hired Zoe Quinn.
Jesus Christ will you fucks let that go?

no

Except the sales struggle predates what you're talking about you dumbfuck casual.

>it's not Diamond's fault you causal, it's Diamonds fault
What?

It's confusing, like why are they so gung-ho on the whole identity politics shit ?

It's not as if comics was some massive market to begin with, and good luck replacing white males with LGBTQ PoC, the latter aren't interested in comics, and even if 100% of them were, they're a miniscule demographic.

Is it all just for progressive politics ? Are they willing to see their industry die on that altar ?

If you are a niche store selling niche comics which are basically a luxury product with questionable quality, you deserve to close. Also Amazon too convenient.

Comics shops are dying because floppies are dying. Monthly issues only exist to br collected in TPB form so they can be sold at regular bookstores without Diamond taking a cut. As comics shops die off, more stories will just go straight to paperback format.

Seriously, an industry hiring Zoe Quinn, can there be a bigger sign saying 'We just don't give a shit anymore, we know we're dead'

>let me pretend sales haven't been stagnant since the crash, if I can blame the SJWs I might feel something!
It's worse because you're not even pretending, you literally don't know that sales are effectively the same as they were in the early 2000s

>Are they willing to see their industry die on that altar ?
You say that like comic book shop fans are enough to keep their sales in the green, but they're not. They need to branch out and try to attract more new readers instead of catering to a small demographic that can't support them.

>They need to branch out and try to attract more new readers instead of catering to a small demographic that can't support them.
By targeting a demographic that are a hundred times smaller ?

>same as they were in the early 2000s
LOL, square in the terrible US economic recession, you are being facetious right ?

Its called consolidation, strenghtens government and corporations, weakens individuals

Depression Quest was nasically all text. On the merit of writing, yeah she probably was qualified to write a fucking comic book.

I don't think they'll ever "die" persay because the major companies that have bought the big publishers need them to survive in order to make movies off of their corpses.
The medium as we know it will be dead, regulated entirely to pulp that most people wouldn't wipe their asses with, but the concept of "comic books" will live on as a zombie for the silver screen.

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Have you ever actually played it, though?
It's called Depression Quest but it's impossible to kill yourself in it. It's the definition of an on-rails personal blog of hers that pretends to be a video game because you can click through it at any speed you want.

Writing a lot of something doesn't qualify you to be a writer, though.

>>let me pretend that the 90's era investor bubble was the trend to chase instead of comparing and contrasting with the uninflated 80's market
t. retard

>effectively the same as they were in the early 2000s
Why are you lying you fucking dumbass, sales, both unit and revenue, have increased since the 2000s

I would say I'm glad that online piracy sites are eating their lunch but I honestly don't believe that people care enough to even pirate in large numbers

There is no point in comparing to pre-crash at all desu, it's very very different from now

>2005: Are comics dying?!
>2006: Are comics dying?!
>2007: Are comics dying?!
>every year since: Are comics dying?!

You know, I'm seeing a lot of mad replies but he's fucking right. And yes maybe I'm salty over Tarot, an actually great classic avengers/defenders book, doing so poorly. You have to do something "controversial" or "epic" to be even talked about, a simple capeshit story garners 0 attention at all. Look at how much HiC sold, fucking trash

>Implying the move to nearly exclusively direct doesn't make the pre-crash stuff worthless in terms of BD and marketing strategy
Fucking mong.

>revenue
By a small percentage apples to apples after adjusting to the CPI, which is almost entirely accounted for by the emergence of digital, a completely stagnant platform. Also comics are about 15% more expensive at the big 2 on average compared to 2000.
>units
I'd need to check again because the info is (likely intentionally) more difficult to get than revenue but I'm pretty sure it's down or flat.

>Implying a move to a system where sellers are distanced from buyers is sustainable at all in the long term and wouldn't just lead to constant store deaths as we've been seeing because muh "the stores buy it now who gives a shit about the customer!" fuckery will last forever
here's you (YOU)

>(likely intentionally) more difficult to get than revenue but I'm pretty sure it's down or flat.
It's right at comichron you mong, direct market only, not accounting for digital. Same for revenue, NOT accounting for digital at all, only direct
>2000
Units: 69.26 million copies
Dollars: $209.95 million
>2018
Units: 77.48 million copies
Dollars: $392.89 million

Inflation was ~46% from 2000 to 2018
Now do the math you fucking idiot

Didn't they started adding gay shit because cape shit didn't sell well.

This, the thing that most corefags don't or won't realize is that monthly comics have never been a particularly lucrative business, hence why IP licensing to other media has been their goal since the early days of the industry. There's no way that the comic book shop was ever going to be sustainable as a long term retail model, especially after the internet expanded.

>I’m mean, what were DC thinking when they hired Zoe Quinn.
Yes, this post is SURELY meant to be about the decline of comics as a business and not at all related to the culture war.

>I’m mean, what were DC thinking when they hired Zoe Quinn.

why do people keep bringing this up when her book was one of the like 3 that actually came out from that vertigo relaunch?

This, each decade is so vastly different from each other.

The 70's was still relying primarily on newsstand even though the direct market started up in the early 70's (and was still trying to iron out its issues throughout the decade). Some people have said newsstand sales were declining during this decade but I haven't checked how yet.
The 80's was when comic companies realized they could offer direct-market exclusives, and you also saw more indie companies start up. The late 80's (like maybe 88 or 89) all the way to the early 90's was when the speculators came in and the numbers got over-inflated to unreasonable levels. Then it crashed during 94-96 in different ways.
Mid-90's was when newsstand market was so reduced that you rarely saw comics at places that use newsstand distribution, like grocery stores. Direct market still plugged along even though it was reduced by the fallout of the early 90's and Diamond becoming sole distributor.
00's was when companies started emphasizing the trade paperback market, with digital in its infancy and the largest scale place that was still consistently using newsstand distribution for monthly Marvel and DC comics was Borders bookstores.
10's was when Borders was gone, but Barnes and Noble started stocking Marvel and DC monthly comics from newsstand distribution until Marvel pulled out of newsstand distribution in 2013 and DC pulled out of it in like 2017 or so. Digital also started gaining ground but not as fast as people thought.

Why do you insist on being ignorant?

My memories a bit hazy on this but bear with me it was news at the time
>ANAD happens
>Marvels Marketing guy says it didn't work out and people didn't like Diversity^tm
>Journofags, Journofag
>Walks it back
>Marvel has a conference with store owners
>A fuckton of them complain about Diversity^tm shit driving down sales
>Freak out and shutdown mode marvel calls them x-ist and x-phobic
>ANAD is damge controlled with Generations and Legacy numbering
what a fucking trainwreck that was

>Corefags
What does Metalcore has to do with this?

No it was more like:

>Marvel has success with Marvel Now
>Continues to keep shaking up the books and do more line initiatives like All-New Marvel Now and Avengers Now
>Marvel also replaces or changes a lot of their characters in a short timeframe, and also does Secret Wars in 2015.
>By the time All-New All-Different Marvel is out, there is a sense of reader indifference at best, and reader hostility at worst.
>Then came the shitshow of 2016-2017 where they kept fucking up not just in comics but also multiple PR ways and led to Axel Alonso being forced out as EIC.

You're talking about what happened before.
The marketing guys comment and the conference shitshow I distinctly remember.
Maybe they where among the PR disasters of 2016-2017 (Among them the Hail Hydra fiasco) but that's the part I want to focus on because it shows the internal sometimes willful disconnect from any and all feedback at all levels

Why does every DCope thread happen under the guise of a "all comics are dying" topic?

Marvel is never dying while under Disney's control. Stop pretending they're in the same boat.

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Comix are kept afloat by CIA/ruling class money, they’ll be propped up for a long time.

It's already dying, but it's a slow death. Less and less people are buying books, so companies are just raising prices, which drives even more customers away. This can last for years, or maybe even a few decades, but eventually this business model is unsustainable and will collapse.

>It's DC and marvels insistence on forcing culture change that is the problem.

You could have just posted "I'm a post 9/11 zoomer and have no fucking clue what I'm talking about." To save us all the trouble.

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I was completely wrong about units clearly (however this doesn't break down singles and trades with the rise of the trade as a publishing and purchasing platform occuring in that time). As for the dollars, 311 MM to 392 MM after adjusting for CPI, a growth of 26%. But a chunk of that growth is due to prices being raised. Marvel's baseline comics in 2000 cost 2.25 and 2.99 (pic related from Comichron), compared to 3.99 and 4.99 in 2018. Using the CPI to adjust 2.25 and 2.99 we go to 3.34 and 4.45 so a 19% increase on the low end and a 12% increase on the high end. DC's baseline was 2.25 and 2.50 (3.34 and 3.72) they basically only sell 3.99 comics (with a few prestige issues selling for 4.99) so that's the same 19% jump on the low end (and theoretically a 34% jump for some issues on the high end). With that in mind, I was being a cunt (I had previously done a similar analysis with 1997 as the baseline, which is why I was being retarded) however I don't think it's ridiculous to say that the industry is in a similar place to 2000 financially. At least half of that growth can be attributed to price hikes.

Aaaand forgot pic

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>Nothing's ever lasted in comics but why should I become invested in a story if it won't matter in half a year?
Invested how? A good run has a beginning, middle, and end regardless of how it connects to what comes before and after. A good run has something worthwhile to say about the characters or at least offers a fun and engaging story on own. You don't need to invest in a character or universe to enjoy a good comic.

Dilate

You're missing the forest for the trees here. There have always been a glut of bad comics, just like there will always be a glut of bad content in any art medium.

The comics industry has a myriad of problems. Incestuous hiring practices that lead to no new talent getting in, skeleton crew editorial staff and other penny-pinching measures that lead to sub-par products being released, these are the problems from the comic companies themselves.
Meanwhile, Diamond continues its stranglehold on the industry, and they continue to practice distribution methods that make comics very difficult to get into for casuals who otherwise would very much like to read comics.

And on top of all of that, ALL of it, comics are selling better than ever before. Just not cape comics.