The Four Color Media Monitor

University paper The Daily Iowan spoke about a local specialty store doing well enough in its area, even as comicdom's sales are in decline, but predictably, won't explore any of the valid reasons why:

While Daydreams Comics is the only shop dedicated to comics in Iowa City, comic readers and its surrounding areas, it doesn’t stop the store from reaching a large base of superhero and graphic novel fans.

In recent years, a decline has been noted in the comic book industry. In the first two months of this year, publisher NPD Books noted a national decline in print sales for comics and graphic novels compared to 2022.

[...] In addition to traditional superhero stories, the store also sells graphic novels and other pop culture collectibles.

Comics are usually released through weekly issues, which can range anywhere between 15 to 30 pages for a typical book. Publishing giants like Marvel and DC, which rose to popularity in the mid-20th century, often release multiple ongoing series starring multiple characters at once so stores can stock a steady flow of issues every week.

This doesn't describe the situation clearly, but company wide crossovers and other such events are just the beginning of what brought down the Big Two, and they weren't the only ones who obsessed over this approach to storytelling. Even the original Valiant did at least one crossover along those lines (I think it was called Unity), and anybody who's going to rely so heavily on such a now outmoded approach to storytelling is doing a disservice to the medium. Why, even crossovers based on characters from 2 or more different companies and franchises can get way out of hand. Though Marvel moved away for the most part from doing that with licensed merchandise by 1985, after guest-starring characters like ROM and the Micronauts in their mainstream comics, or vice versa, such an iffy approach to storytelling did make a comeback in some way or other since the early 2000s at other publishers, and DC tried to merge some 3rd party creations with their own universe, but unlike up to the end of the 1980s, it hasn't worked this time.

According to Power, maintaining a large selection of new release issues as well as older back issues has been and continue to be the most important selling point for Daydreams.

Some of these back issues include limited-edition issues that can sell for thousands of dollars. Daydreams has a range of these rare copies, including a first edition of Daredevil by Stan Lee from 1964 priced at $4,000.

Seriously, if this is all a specialty store can exist for, what's the point? Why can't there be specialty stores building almost entirely on paperbacks and hardcovers? I've heard of ordinary book shops specializing mainly in suspense and science fantasy novels, so why a similar approach can't be taken with graphic novels is mystifying.

As the internet developed, digital comics and “webtoons” became popular as well. Publishers launched their own comic book streaming services, like Marvel Unlimited or DC Universe Infinite, to which readers could pay a yearly fee for access to backlogs of entire comic series and delayed releases of current issues.

While physical comic book media began to fizzle after the digital age emerged, comic book characters and stories were entering the height of their popularity. Comic book movies have been a staple of Hollywood for decades, but when “Iron Man” premiered in 2008, superheroes became pop culture icons.

On the big screen, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, brought lesser-known comic book characters into the public eye on a massive scale. The franchise has dominated the movie industry for 15 years, grossing more than $17 billion for 22 movies, according to the Harvard Business Review.

The superhero genre has long been a multimedia pop culture phenomenon. Shows like “The Boys” and “Invincible” on Amazon Prime have proved the genre can take many forms and cater to a wide audience outside of comics.

Nathan Parriott, Daydreams Comivs employee of over 10 years, noted the effect the MCU has had on physical comics.

“You’ll see Iron Man move from his pretty well-worn spot as a B-plus player to, you know, somebody that people actually show up for in the comic shop,” he said.

And it makes no difference to them how Marvel since destroyed what made Tony Stark a character in the first place, all for the sake of political correctness and wokeness, one more issue going unexplored here any more than in a more common newspaper. Far-left politics is something they don't have the courage it takes to question. There may be people showing up at Daydreams to buy some of this stuff, but they sure aren't turning up at most other specialty stores around the country. That aside, comics only became pop culture icons as far as movies were concerned, not as reading material. It's just so insulting to the intellect.

The transformation from comics to movies worked both ways, as the movies have also had an impact on how comic stories are told. Comics have shifted from spanning hundreds of issues worth of tales to taking place in bite-sized miniseries.

“For example, instead of trying out a character with their own ongoing series, Marvel has put out a series of like four or five-issue mini-series and just called those each volume one, two, three, and so on. Then the volumes are all collected too,” Parriott said.

Collecting storylines and characters in volumes of graphic novels is not a new trend in the industry, but promoting these books makes it easier for newcomers to get on board.

Any chance these newcomers are willing to read the earlier stories published up to the early 2000s? I just don't understand why only the newer ones post-2000 count. But how intriguing they justify the existence of the newer material by claiming it's all being done as miniseries, when what's actually happened in the past 2 decades is, they started relaunching a lot of these titles repeatedly, apparently under the assumption marking them with Numero Uno alone on the premiere issue would actually lead to a big boost via collectors. Judging from dismal sales as a whole, the answer is no, and none of this explores whether there's any merit in writing and art. Otherwise, they notice the Big Two have gone that creatively bankrupt. Even though the store management says the following:

“We’ve made the shop more curated to having quality over quantity in the graphic novels department,” Power said. “It’s satisfying helping new readers find something they can enjoy and providing more recommendations as they continue their comic journey.”

If those happen to be brand-new DC/Marvel, they're really misleading. But if they're alluding to independent creations, that's something else, far more relevant today, though independent creations obviously require merit to impress upon anybody. Too bad the college paper won't do any in depth study of all that, though it was sadly to be expected.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales, technology