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Post by dlw66 on Sept 5, 2008 12:52:20 GMT -5
Feel free to post any questions or observations about current trends in comic book marketing, or even musings on the history of such in the industry.
For starters:
An issue came up in the From the Vault thread a couple of days ago, concerning Bob Kane and his stable of ghost-pencillers on various Batman books. My question is this: DC obviously wanted to keep Kane's name on the character for the marquee value of it; but over at Marvel, Stan didn't seem to think it as important to keep Kirby's name on Captain America or his own plus Jack's on the FF. Do you feel that Marvel's policy of publicizing and even pushing their creators was good for Marvel and/or the various creators' careers? And conversely, do you think DC creators were at a disadvantage economically because at the time they toiled somewhat anonymously?
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Sept 5, 2008 13:02:31 GMT -5
Yes. It was a smart move at the time, and I will always believe that Stan was very smart to credit everyone from top to bottom. Simply put, if you were a person that disliked a certain author, and you went to buy a book where it was not stated WHO wrote the book, and it turns out that certain author was the one who wrote it, wouldn't you be annoyed? It's simple, really. Jack Kirby best suits this theory. I know there are comic book fans out there, who will read a comic book simply because King Kirby wrote or drew the book. Of course, sometimes this is a bad thing, as a certain author or penciller will do a BAD story, and the blind love you have for the certain person will hide that they did a bad job. Some people are like that. It's the same in music. If you're a fan of a certain musician, you may not believe that any of their songs are really that bad. Did I confuse you?  If I'm making you scratch your head, forgive me! Also, I think it's great that Stan wanted to credit everyone from top to bottom, because honestly, wouldn't you like it if you were credited for doing work on a book, even if it was just the lettering? It helped Stan's lesser known workers get some recognition, and helped them feel better about themselves. It also helped some people get higher paying jobs, because someone will go "Oh, that's so and so, he did the pencilling for this certain comic book series for a long time, he'll be a great hire!" That's why I also applauded when Stan would take up some space in bulletins when a former worker passed away. He wanted everyone who worked for Marvel to be one big happy family. (GREAT topic, dlw!!) |
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Post by scottharris on Sept 5, 2008 14:40:30 GMT -5
. Do you feel that Marvel's policy of publicizing and even pushing their creators was good for Marvel and/or the various creators' careers? And conversely, do you think DC creators were at a disadvantage economically because at the time they toiled somewhat anonymously? I do, but I think it was more the reasons behind this happening that were important rather than the fact that the names were on there. Under Lee, Marvel developed the "Marvel style", which consequently gave much greater freedom to the artists, allowing for a lot more creative freedom and hence creativity than most companies allowed. With the artists doing so much of the creation, it was more important to give them proper credit as collaborators. On the other side, DC was very editor driven. Not that there wasn't some good work going on, but the stories feel very micro-managed; think of the stories of Curt Swan being called in to re-draw Superman's face over everyone else's artwork, even Kirby, to present a unified company aesthetic. With artists and even writers being basically controlled by the editors and told exactly what they could and couldn't do, it stifled creativity -- and also made crediting the artists and writers somewhat unnecessary. After all, it was all editor-driven assembly line stuff anyway, so it didn't matter that much who did it. Even when top artists and writers were working on the books, they were rarely given enough freedom to do anything particularly notable anyway. I think if DC had allowed their artists and writers the freedom that the guys at Marvel had, the quality of their line would have gone up dramatically, fans would have taken notice and would have begun writing in to ask who was doing specific works, which would have caused DC to begin crediting their popular creators in order to capitalize on their new popularity by hyping them. But since they didn't give that freedom, they never had to credit them. edit: Actually, let me add that I do think Stan was very smart not just in crediting everyone, but more specifically in how he credited them. With the nicknames and the creation of the Bullpen and such, he created a friendly atmosphere that also made the reader feel like they themselves were part of the Marvel family. I think it really fostered a loyalty in the readers. |
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Post by scottharris on Sept 8, 2008 16:52:52 GMT -5
This is slightly tangential, but a question that has been nagging me for a little while. First, take a look at this great in-house ad for the MMMS that was printed in the March, 1965 issues of Marvel:  Now, a little backstory. After the collapse of the comic industry due to the congressional hearings in the mid-1950's, Atlas/Marvel almost went under. In 1957 (if memory serves me), Atlas was forced to basically lay off everyone except Stan Lee, and the line of comics was reduced to eight titles, which they printed using a year's worth of stories they had accumulated in their files. In order to survive, Atlas was forced to make a deal with DC to distribute their books; DC put them out, but limited Atlas to just eight titles. After the company got on slightly better footing, Stan wiggled his way around the eight title restriction by putting out 16 bi-monthly titles instead. When he finally decided to try FF, he covertly slipped it in as a 17th title under the radar. During the early days, when superhero stuff started taking off, he began replacing the monster titles with superhero books, such as Amazing Fantasy, Journey Into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish. However, they kept putting out better selling romance and western titles; in the recent Stan Lee issue of Write Now, one of the people that worked on these books said that his Millie the Model issues were selling as well as Amazing Spider-man, so it makes sense that Stan would keep these steady performers around while they tried out this new superhero stuff. Okay, there's the background. So here's my question: did this restriction on the number of titles Marvel could publish prevent Stan from creating even more classic superheroes? Was the Marvel Age of comics limited and truncated by DC's distribution policy? If you take a look at that MMMS ad, you'll see it's still 17 titles, just as it was when FF came out in November of 1961. Daredevil #1 came out in April of 1964; from that point until mid-1968, when Marvel got out from that contract and vastly expanded their line, Marvel didn't really put out any new titles. yes, the creativity continued within the nine superhero titles they were putting out, but it's interesting to note that after Daredevil came out to put them at 17 titles, that flood of new character and titles that gave us all the classic Marvel heroes suddenly stopped. This could be simply because Stan was overworked and busy managing what they had already created; an effort to keep quality high. But looking at this ad I can't help but wonder what might have been if Marvel were allowed, say, 20 titles. Would we have ended up with another 3-4 groundbreaking superheroes? Would Stan have continued creating new concepts in order to fill out the line to its maximum capacity? What do you think? As great as the Marvel explosion was, was this creativity actually abbreviated due to interference from DC's distribution arm? |
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Doctor Bong
Reservist Avenger
Master of belly dancing (no, really...)!
Posts: 167
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Post by Doctor Bong on Sept 8, 2008 17:14:29 GMT -5
Maybe he would have actually come up with... (gasp...!) the Sentry...!!! ;D
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Sept 8, 2008 20:34:53 GMT -5
That's a great question, scottharris (And wonderful scan!) I think it was less of Stan being prevented from making more titles, and more of him being exhausted. Keep in mind that the 70's Marvel book boom happened when he had so many members in his Bullpen, that it was hard to keep up! One perfect example of this is the Tales to Astonish series, which Stan mentioned in issue 62 was the hardest one to draw, specifically Hank Pym's stories, since so much growing and shrinking was happening. I'm sure that there weren't enough artists willing to do that much comic book work, and Stan was writing/plotting almost all of his books at the time! It was probably fatigue more than anything, that kept him from adding more superheroes and mags.
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Post by sharkar on Sept 8, 2008 23:43:24 GMT -5
What do you think? As great as the Marvel explosion was, was this creativity actually abbreviated due to interference from DC's distribution arm? On the contrary: (IMO) the limited number of comics fostered the Marvel Age and allowed Stan to spend time crafting these books with Kirby, Ditko, Heck, etc. Remember, by 1961 Stan had been working in comics--as both an editor and writer--for 20 years. He was known in the business to be an efficient editor and someone who could spew out scripts quickly in a variety of genres, whatever Martin Goodman happened to be publishing at the time. But with the huge numbers of titles Timely (and later, Timely/Atlas) was turning out, it was understandable that he had to churn out his work and from what I've read about his work back then, it was, shall we say, not very memorable or known for its quality. So, the limited number of comics was a blessing in disguise, as it allowed Stan the luxury to develop the FF, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, etc., and to devote time to creating a "Marvel Universe", which was almost accidental, a by-product of having one person as the main voice for the new characters/books. Sure, he sometimes used other people to script (dialogue) such as his brother Larry Lieber--but the small number of books allowed Stan to oversee everything. As I've mentioned in other recent threads, we also can't discount the advantage of having principal artists artists--Kirby and Ditko--who were by 1961 proficient with minimal direction and were used to working from abbreviated scripts (since Stan had worked with them this way in the late 1950s). The fact that he did not have to produce "full scripts" for them on a regular basis freed him up to concentrate on dialogue, editing, marketing, etc. During this fertile period, I look at Stan as being a Roger Corman or a Robert Downey Sr.--he was creating small, independent, personal films, making do with what he had in terms of resources/budget etc...as opposed to the big, slick, expensive Hollywood studio pictures put out by the DC "MGM film factory" (and there was nothing wrong with DC's approach; their formula had worked for decades especially in terms of superhero comics, and they had successfully weathered the Wertham storm). But...the times, they were a-changin', and Stan tapped into a whole new audience--the first baby boomers--he had in essence created a new product- -comics as something more than just a disposable piece of entertainment. His comics--with their almost crude, idiosyncratic art, and dialogue lifted straight from Stan's 1950s romance comics--touched a nerve. These comics weren't pretty pictures; these were real. Now, a little backstory. After the collapse of the comic industry due to the congressional hearings in the mid-1950's, Atlas/Marvel almost went under. In 1957 (if memory serves me), Atlas was forced to basically lay off everyone except Stan Lee, and the line of comics was reduced to eight titles, which they printed using a year's worth of stories they had accumulated in their files. In order to survive, Atlas was forced to make a deal with DC to distribute their books; DC put them out, but limited Atlas to just eight titles. The famous "stash of inventory" was discovered in 1957, and Goodman forced Stan to fire everyone (or tell them there was no work, as they were freelancers). Lots of artists were p.o.'d at Stan for this, including Johnny Romita (as he relates in the recent JR book "All That Jazz"). But once the stash was used up (circa 1958), Stan was able to re-hire the freelance artists. But some artists who'd worked for Timely or Timely/Atlas previously (as freelancers) had gone into other, more secure fields fields (such as advertising or even DC!), including Buscema and Romita...they could not be coaxed back until the mid 60s, when Marvel had become something special. |
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Post by sharkar on Sept 9, 2008 0:18:57 GMT -5
. Do you feel that Marvel's policy of publicizing and even pushing their creators was good for Marvel and/or the various creators' careers? And conversely, do you think DC creators were at a disadvantage economically because at the time they toiled somewhat anonymously? I think if DC had allowed their artists and writers the freedom that the guys at Marvel had, the quality of their line would have gone up dramatically, fans would have taken notice and would have begun writing in to ask who was doing specific works, which would have caused DC to begin crediting their popular creators in order to capitalize on their new popularity by hyping them. But since they didn't give that freedom, they never had to credit them. Take a look at some 1960s DCs (prior to 1968, when DC attempted to "Marvelize")...there are a good number of letters from readers requesting the names of the artists, writers, etc., and the editors would supply the names. Due to these exchanges, it seemed in many cases the creators were already well known to the readers of a given book. Lois Lane readers, for example, knew that Kurt Schaffenberger was the artist (and he signed his stories); readers knew who wrote and drew the Legion (this was disclosed in many letter columns), etc. I don't think the DC fans--or editors-- were uninterested in credits; it was just that DC had a different method of communicating this information to its readers. edit: Actually, let me add that I do think Stan was very smart not just in crediting everyone, but more specifically in how he credited them. With the nicknames and the creation of the Bullpen and such, he created a friendly atmosphere that also made the reader feel like they themselves were part of the Marvel family. I think it really fostered a loyalty in the readers. Yes; while credits weren't the practice (EDIT: I'm referring to pre-Marvel Age here), some people--such as Stan (as writer in the 40s-50s), the Simon-Kirby team, Bob Kane (because he had a contract specifying he "owned" the Batman character), Andru and Esposito, etc., signed their work; and EC regularly included artist credits in their stories. But as you say, Stan made it fun...fans were on a first name/nickname basis with the talent. I think I've read somewhere he likened it to how fans think of players on their favorite baseball team--the Babe, Joe D, the Say Hey Kid, Mickey, the Splendid Splinter, Yogi, etc. There's a familiarity. And I think Stan was probably influenced by EC in other ways, too; for example, they had a fan club called the "EC Fan-Addicts." EDIT: clarification, see above |
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Post by Shiryu on Sept 11, 2008 13:51:55 GMT -5
It's a very interesting topic!
I mostly agree with Scott's posts, but I'd like to contribute with information on what was happening around the same time at Disney Company.
Over there, the support the idea that Walt Disney himself was writing and drawing the stories (when in truth he couldn't draw and only wrote a very very few of them), the writer and artist's name was never written, and their work was totally anonimous. Both Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson, despite creating characters as important as uncle Scrooge and writing the backbone of the current Disney universe, were only credited after they retired, in a very hushed way (their names initially came out on the fanzines).
So I suppose that, in comparison, what was happening at DC was acceptable, and what was happening at Marvel was pure heaven for the creative teams. In turn, it's possible that this pushed more people to want to work for Marvel and produce better results.
As for the number of titles, I've always seen Lee as a "try and see" person, who created a number of titles out of experiment more than of careful thinking (didn't this hit him back in the seventies or late sixties, when he had to close several books?), so it's probably good there was a limit somewhere ^^
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Post by dlw66 on Sept 12, 2008 12:56:24 GMT -5
Great information, all -- but then I knew you'd take off with this.  How do you feel about covers that have nothing to do with the interior story or artwork, but seem these days to serve as more of an art showcase for the painter? Anyone desire a return to cover hype or even word balloons?? Or just to "story-relevant" artwork? |
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Post by Shiryu on Sept 12, 2008 13:13:56 GMT -5
Me, definitely! I can survive without the hype or the baloons, but the non relevant, or even openly misleading covers, are a pain. To be fair, over the last 12 months or so, I've seen an improvement in this sense, with more covers resembling, at least partially, the story itself, so things appear to be moving in the right direction. And I so miss the heads or full body figures in the top left corner!!  |
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Post by starfoxxx on Sept 12, 2008 15:07:36 GMT -5
I really enjoy when an artist pays tribute to a classic cover by basing his/her design on a classic cover, usually with different characters, or as an "inside joke" kind of thing, but the "Skrull-y" interpretations from the Avengers titles have really wore out a cool concept, IMHO. Now with the "monkey" covers coming out soon---come on, that's just weak.
I fear Marvel is in danger of returning to it's ultra-gimmicky ways of the 1990's. It seemed like a return to quality in the late 90's-early 2000's, but in the last few years gimmicks like multiple covers, too many sub-par titles, cross-over-kill, and too many sub-par writers/artists (instead of sticking with the proven talent), along with a $2.99 cover price, I fear that quality and integrity appreciated by old-school Marvelites will take a hit.
I realize Marvel is probably selling more books than ever (thank you Hollywood) and I am currently enjoying a number of great titles (Wolverine, FF, Guardians ofthe Galaxy, Captain America, to name a few), but the gimmicks and rip-off stuff I mentioned in this post makes me feel like the crappy 90's-type comics may return. It would be too bad for the true fans, and I hope Marvel can save the (seemingly) sinking ship.
P.S. Sayonaro Bendis, go ruin some other franchise, We now have hope for the return of the AVENGERS!!!
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Sept 12, 2008 22:12:14 GMT -5
I sorta wish that we'd return to the covers of old, but I sorta also see the point in what the artists are trying to accomplish. It seems like a catchy, appealing to the eyes cover is what gets people to buy books a lot more than usual, these days, with all of these homages to covers of old (For example, the Mighty Avengers book recently that paid homage to Avengers #213!)
I'd LIKE to see a return, but I don't see it happening anytime soon, no.
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Post by spiderwasp on Sept 12, 2008 22:28:56 GMT -5
How do you feel about covers that have nothing to do with the interior story or artwork, but seem these days to serve as more of an art showcase for the painter? Anyone desire a return to cover hype or even word balloons?? Or just to "story-relevant" artwork? What I really don't like about the covers that don't have anything to do with the story is that I have trouble telling one issue from another. I can pull out a book from 20-40 years ago and I instantly know what the book was about. Lying in front of me at the moment (Don't ask why) is Avengers 120. Just a glance at the cover fills me with fond memories of the Avengers/Zodiac clash. These beautiful but random covers mean nothing to me. I can pull out most issues of Ms. Marvel and go "Oh look, there's the issue that features Ms. Marvel." No memories, no placement in time, nothing. I've even had cases where I'll see an issue on the rack at the comic book store that's a month or two old and I'll have to grab it, open it and take a quick scan before I'm even sure whether I have it or not. Personally, I don't need another awesome picture of the Fantastic Four posturing. As for the classic covers updating, that has totally lost it's appeal to me. I thought it was really cool when Marvel Zombies did it. Now that Secret Invasion has worn it into the ground, I find myself seeing the new monkey thing and just thinking "That's stupid." |
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Post by dlw66 on May 27, 2009 13:13:31 GMT -5
Giving this one a bump back to the front page -- thought some of our newer members might like to voice an opinion or two!
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Post by humanbelly on May 27, 2009 20:27:18 GMT -5
Gosh, my experiences were so similar to Spiderwasp's, that I had to wonder if I'd somehow written that post via time warp.
I'm not sure I understand how editorial moves like this (All-PinUp-Covers-All-The-Time) are agreed upon. How do campaigns like this originate? Is it scientific? Is there a research/marketing department? Does someone high-up have a "cool idea", and everyone has to commit to it? (Actually, that last one would explain MUCH about MANY things that happened over the years. New Universe, folks?) Anyone have insights on these kinda workings?
HB
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Post by dlw66 on May 28, 2009 7:44:06 GMT -5
For newer posters around here, over the past many months from time to time we've had threads dedicated to various cover themes -- you should check 'em out. We haven't done a theme dedicated to pointless posturing nor to contortionist female anatomy...  |
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