Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 19:42:20 -0400 From: [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu] (Metroplex) Subject: FTP 554 ================================================================================ FIT TO PRINT by catherine yronwode for the week of January 1, 1996 THIS IS FIT TO PRINT NUMBER 554: Is it time for another wring-my-hands-and-cry analysis of the comic book industry? I guess so. Things haven't gotten any better since my last one, that's for sure, and they look to be getting worse. This has been the bar-none worst holiday sales season for comic book publishers that i have seen in my 16 years of reporting industry news. The impact it has had so far beats the fall-out from such fabled disasters as the DC Implosion, Black September, and the B&W Glut combined. You've probably seen the Marvel circulation figures published in CBG that showed several Marvel titles at a 30-year low in sales and indicated that no Marvel titles had gained in sales this year, but all had lost to a greater or lesser degree. Company stock is down, company morale is down, and upper management's faith in the editorial savvy is down so far, say insiders, that Marvel will be hiring out-side packagers to bring the books' sales up. DC's estimated sales figures (computed by comparing monthly DC title rankings to titles with known sales figures) look just as bad or even worse than Marvel's but, according to those who work there, morale is good at the company, and there are plans afoot to acquire a couple of good properties. Image, which has been a solid third-place contender for a long time, is in the midst of management changes that have taken the rumour mill by storm: Tony Lobito is out; Beau Smith is working for Todd McFarlane rather than for the Image line; one or more non-founding creators will be leaving soon; and Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee will soon be packaging books for Marvel. The titles they will be doing - The F. F., Captain America, Avengers, and Iron Man - are mainstays of the Marvel Universe, and behind-the-scenes gossip is that originally Marvel had offered Liefeld and Lee a license to publish them, which L. & L. turned down, figuring that if their six-month stint on the titles brought sales up, Marvel would not have renewed the license. I don't know if that's true or not, but the actual, announced deal gives L. & L. more security, because selling and promoting the properties remains Marvel's responsibility. But why would Marvel do such a thing in the first place? Are we looking at a corporation in chaos? Probably not: With their stock prices at an extremely low level, Marvel must generate sales quickly to show a good fiscal year report. And there are persistent rumours that the current owner of the company has gotten what he needed from it (capital to bail him out of some other difficult financial cul-de-sacs) and is now looking to unload Marvel as quickly as he can. To whom? Well, the logical buyer is DC, of course, or rather, DC's corporate parent, Time-Warner. And that rumour gives added fuel to the speculation surrounding the 12 "Amalgam Universe" titles DC and Marvel are planning as a follow-up to their hero-versus-hero cross-over series. Rumour has it that this concept was cooked up by some fairly desperate folks looking at some pretty dismal sales figures and wondering how to keep their jobs. Be that as it may (and it may only be the jealous talk of folks who wish they had those jobs), these "Worlds in Collision" heroes - which include Bruce Wayne, Agent of Shield; The Amazon (Wonder Woman combined with Storm); and a Superboy-Spider-Man conflation - sure sound like the fannish fantasies of a bunch of teen-aged dittozine publishers circa 1964-1970. But that's not really surprising, you know, 'cause it's those very folks and others just like them who are actually running the editorial departments at both companies now. Are we standing on the brink of a New World Order? It sure looks like it to me. The Distributor Implosion of the first half of 1995 was the sowing of the wind, and now we shall see the reaping of the whirlwind: DC doing Marvel, Image doing Marvel, Marvel doing DC, Image late comers packing their grips and heading on down the road, and the small independents and self-publishers wandering in the wilderness and subsisting on manna. I am not a doom-sayer, but this looks to me like an industry in upheaval, and what the future holds is anyone's guess. ==== Fit to Print appears in print each week in Comics Buyers Guide and is available via e-mail. Tell your friends! To subscribe to Fit to Print via e-mail send a request with the words "Subscribe FtP" in the subject header and your address in the body of the message to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] You will be added to the list and receive the next available issue. Back issues are available. FTP to nspace.cts.com and look in the Comics/About Comics/Comics News/Fit to Print directory. FtP is also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~91mithra AND http://www2.csn.net/~searls. Responses are welcome and should be directed to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] Fit to Print is Copyright Cathrine Yronwode. All rights reserved.