It’s also important to separate out people in general, and those on the internet. People on the internet complain. About everything. And they are certainly not, in any way, representative of the general public.”

right because internet users aren’t real people at all and comic book fans especially never EVER use the internet.

Sounds interesting but not for every one….

You are in effect saying that because of the way things are now, no serialized book should realistically expect a significant amount of new readers after the first issue is published.

If that’s the case, then for the publisher, there is no reason to overprint any subsequent issues beyond the first one, because that first issue sets the readership bar for that series, and the circulation for every issue after that will have the same circulation or less. As a matter of fact, it will always be less, because, as you point out, such a serialized title is not designed to attract new readers, and there will always have readers who drop a series after initially being on board. From a retailer’s standpoint, there’s no reason to order any more copies than the previous issue of any given title, and little reason to have large amounts of rack space.

Can’t you see that this is the antithesis of good business practices, which emphasizes growth — i.e., increasing one’s customer base?

This is why I think rampant serialization in comics is bad for business — especially in the long term. You and some others may like it because it makes you feel part of an exclusive clique, but such exclusionary practices, if widespread, kill one’s customer base.

It would be one thing if a miniseries or a six-, 12- or 18-month-long story arc were done only occasionally, but they now appear to be the norm. And this new norm, I say, is not conducive to the health and growth of the industry.

Imagine if Marvel had such an “anti-growth” philosophy in 1961 – one that eschews new readers and focuses almost exclusively on serialization and a relatively small and select readership base. If they had, the “Amazing Spider-Man” miniseries would have come and gone, and no doubt, the character would now be long-forgotten.

I’d also add that manga–which sells exceptionally well–is exactly the same. A new reader would be just as lost in the 40th volume of Naruto as in the 40th issue of Green Lantern. It’s the nature of sequential stories.

Not neccessarily. Comics have changed fundamentally from the time Jim Shooter was a heavy hitter. The fact that most arcs within a storyline are setup as part ___ of ___ is just one example. IF your picking up part 4 of 5 on a book that clearly states it there should be some expectation that you are maybe not going to understand all of what is going on as it is stands. Expecting anything short of this is lofty at best.

Reading and enjoying are different from being able to comprehend. I comprehend the Fountainhead but I don’t enjoy it.

I know this is heresy in some circles, but the storytelling in comics has changed, good, bad or indifferent. THe days of the one in done stories, hell even the days of Levitz and his triangulkar storytelling in Legion are over becaus ethe nature of the business with trades and all has changed. This doesn’t mean the story telling in these books is bad, it’s just different.

And, as any successful business manager will also tell you, a business generally doesn’t enjoy success by FORCING customers to “like it or lump it.”

In short, if a significant percentage of comic book customers are complaining that many of today’s stories are difficult to follow, than I think it would be wise to analyze the situation further, and if true, fix the problem. Trying to point fingers at the customers (i.e., inferring they’re just dumb), or rationalizing the issue away, is a recipe for failure.

I was complaining on a message board recently that the first issue of “Planetary” I decided to try (coincidentally, one of the final issues) was not only incomprehensible, but extremely boring. The response from one poster? “You were unlucky to probably pick one of the least new-reader friendly issues of it.”

Jim Shooter supposedly once said that every issue of every comic is always someone’s first, and I agree with that. I should be able to buy almost any comic book on the rack and be able to take it home, read it, and enjoy it.

I’m having a hard time doing that these days.

Like everyone else I think that both Marvel and DC have had some triumphs, tragedies and everything in between in the past few years, and the industry clearly has some issues, and maybe fresh blood would fix some of them. But I’m still enjoying myself, even if I occasionally complain about the wedgies in JLA, etc.

I fundamentally disagree with this statement. There’s a difference between wanting to know and needing to know information to understand story. It could just be difference in comprehension of the material or understanding of history in characters, but these are sequential comics and they are going to continue ongoing stories of the characters.

For every person who claims that “The Lightning Saga” or “Secret Invasion” or “Final Crisis” as indecipherable, I can tell you about people who have picked it up as their 1st comic in months, years, or ever (I work in a comic book store) and had no problem following the story based on the exposition in the piece and their basic knowledge of the characters (not to mention the fact that many of these things aren’t complete stories as of yet and so of course it’s not a completely story and maybe confusing because the STORY ISN’T FINISHED YET!)

There is a huge difference in basic comprehension needed to follow a story and wanting to know every detail or “easter egg” place dinto a story to understand how it all ties in. THey are two completely different things, and sometimes I feel like people overread things to the point of a lack of comprehension.

Again, there is a seeming need in everything today for instant gratification instead of being able to wait for things to play out. This especially ends up unfortunately in the negative kerfuffle (borrowed with thanks to Greg Rucka) that occurs over the last week. I mean, people’s need for instant gratification had Jimmy Palmioti installed as the new E-I-C of DC by Friday afternoon.

Of course as a reader I used to more informed on things like continuity, but I cut back drastically. It is a difference if you pay 6 USD for a story you feel disappointed with at the end or 18.

There are so many things which leeches the fun out of DC´s or Marvels output. The ever faster revolving writers and artists, the more often than not ill-conceived editorially dictated storylines, the sheer hypocricy of today´s editors. You can´t dismiss the vocal internet critics as meaningless fanboy whining on the one hand if you hype your product across the boards nearly weekly as the best ever. Why do all that work for a few hundred idiots in the first place? If that is you idea of marketing, you really have a problem. Back before the Internet the editors didn´t give press releases at the drop of a hat. Why today? Are the Didio´s and the Quesada´s and the Millar´s that desperate for attention?

And if you as EIC insist on doing event-driven comics only, fine. It is your call. But if you are unable to cordinate your series that the key-points of your story match - as so aptly demonstrated with the whole New God´s debacle - you are not doing a good job. It is that simple.

People can complain about Countdown (I personally thought it was inconistent at times but was by no means unreadable), and sure it wasn’t as sucessful as 52, but it still sold 70,000 a month and did conistently better than most of the rest of their books conistently coming in the top 20 that was hugely dominated by Marvel. And since 52 by all accounts over-acheived from what they expected, the “Paul is dead” type of announcements about Countdown being ac omplete failure are just that. The fact that people thought it was “so bad” and it still outsold most of their line shows me at least exactly what they buying base is compared to the extremely vocal “base” on the internet.

Bottom line is, in a year, when the hardcover comes out for Final Crisis, are we going to be talking about the inconcistencies between two stories that are going to mean nothing to the DCU as it stands at that point, or are we going to be talking about this brilliant story Grant Morrison has written..blah blah blah. The latter I guess remains to be seen by many of the reviews of the first issue, (I ersonally thought it was a brilliant beginning to an awesome story, and the instant gratification generation showed itself in spades in some of the reviews that came out) but still exists.

At the end of the day story is going to always win out long term over small continuity gaffes. If you can’t get over the small stuff, and ejoy what’s out there, well then, I really feel sorry for you.

Not all their out put is bad and their are some creators that are pouring their hearts out over there.

As the numbers have indicated, many people have stopped buying DC Comics and DC sales are in the toilet.

It didn’t help.

You do that, he’ll be out of a job next Friday.

In comics…

It’s all a crap-shoot, people. Don’t just blame DiDio and call it a day. He makes the big decisions, but he can’t make people buy the books.

The things people will choose to spend their money on are hard to predict. If you had told me a new Mike Meyers comedy would only gross $14 mil. on opening weekend in the middle of the summer, I would have laughed. You really can never tell until the work is out and the people vote with their wallets.

Also, if you don’t like what’s going on in the DCU, buy Brave and the Bold. From what I understand, it’s not tied into anything and tells a complete story in every issue. Stop ranting about “event fatigue” and take some done-in-one medicine to get you through the summer.

The emphasis goes on the second ‘Di’… diDIo. dih-DEE-oh.

Sorta like P.Diddy (who is now just Diddy), only stressed differently.

Though also some of the pitches and attitude I see in con interviews, that DC Nation bit, and even promo videos I haven’t been impressed with DiDio. Of course, “if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?” I got complaints but no answers, no replacement for him.

Well, seems we’re stuck with this commander in chief for four more years, or however long the new contract is.

Richard Pachter (a/k/a Rockin’ Rich) Says:
“I won’t believe this until I hear about it officially… from Warren Ellis.”

Yes! It is not true until the prophecy of internet Jesus himself has confirmed it! :p

Characters are like puppets, they are only as stale or good as their puppeteers.