The Four Color Media Monitor

Not surprisingly, Marvel, assisted by Publisher's Weekly, is going out of their way to claim that crossovers like Secret Invasion are successes, except that there's one little problem with the press article here: I don't see any sales figures included here. I wouldn't be surprised if it did sell over 100,000 copies, but I wouldn't be surprised if it sold far behind Civil War either.

Here's one item I'll quote here that I can try to take issue with:

Crossover events-epic storylines that involve virtually every series across a comics publisher’s universe of characters and titles-have become tremendously important in generating both media interest and sales for both Marvel and DC Comics, the Big Two of American comics publishing. Like its previous crossover event, Civil War, which earned considerable mainstream press in 2006, Marvel hopes that pitching the niche to media outlets like Entertainment Weekly, which previewed the first ten pages of the series online, will catch the attention of consumers outside mainstream superhero comics circles.

After the outrage that came in response to One More Day, something tells me they may actually have trouble finding that many new ones. And might they also take into consideration that these "epics" end up costing a lot of money, and that the Big 2 should have to rely almost entirely on crossovers for the sake of sales is a shame.

It also doesn't generate any long-term sales boost for either company.

Labels: crossoverloading, marvel comics, sales