The Four Color Media Monitor

According to the following columnist on CNN's Money section, Paul R. La Monica, Marvel's shareholdings for this past year were not as good as they could've been, and it seems as though, in order to survive, they've got to do it not by making better comics, but by making movie deals. As told here:

In November, Marvel shocked Wall Street with sales and earnings guidance for 2006 that was substantially below consensus estimates.

Shares of Marvel (Research) plunged 22 percent on the news. If Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons" were a shareholder of the company, he would undoubtedly declare that it was the Worst...Earnings Announcement...Ever.

Now this may actually be more in relation to their moviemaking deals than their own comics-producing department. But even so, if only the writer knew, that a possible reason for this failure could very well be due to the editorial board's incredible contempt towards the readership. Not the only reason, I'm sure, and those movie versions of the Punisher and even the Hulk were crummy indeed, but even so, as someone with an understanding of what writing goes on in the comics industry itself, I'm really disappointed in Joe Quesada for his own contributions to the damage at a company whose creations I so love.

And of course there are readers who do realize when the time comes that they should avoid what bad stuff Marvel puts out. But that's still a shame, that Marvel should be doing whatever possible to alienate them, and not make really serious efforts to bring in respectable writers whose selection isn't based on whether they're "hot" or not. The same, now that I think of it, also goes for DC.

Labels: marvel comics, sales