Challenge: Save the floppy comic book

Doug M.

Is there a plausible POD to save the classic "floppy" comic book? you know, 32 pages, glossy cover, three staples?



Yes, they still exist, but they've dwindled down to a niche product found only in an ever-shrinking number of specialty stores. Is there any way to keep them a mass-market product?


It's a nontrivial challenge, given that print magazines generally have suffered massive subscription collapses in the last 15 years. But the few magazines that have done okay are the ones that are sold in convenience stores and at supermarket checkouts -- both places where floppy comics have been sold in the past at times. (And Archie is hanging in there just fine at supermarkets across America, albeit not in floppy format.)


Keeping Marvel and DC from making their Faustian bargain with distributors and falling into the comic shop trap in the 1980s seems necessary, but is probably not sufficient. So this might require more than one POD. Still: anyone?




Doug M.
 
Heavy

Heavy

Banned
I suppose you'd need to keep kids and casual readers interested, instead of catering to an ever-shrinking audience of comic book enthusiasts.
 

Tyr

A bit of a problem is beyond...I don't know, the 60s? the 70s? Pop culture in general, especially that of kids, moves too fast.
For many kids something that has been around for ages automatically loses a big coolness factor. Having something remain consistently cool is really difficult to do. At best you get stuff like yo-yos that come in and out of fashion.

With American comics you've the 'problem' of the audience aging with the comics too and creating the market for more mature, serious stuff; which is much more profitable.
 

Blackfox5

The Big Two comic companies abandoned the retail market (grocery stores, conveinent marks, news depots, etc.) for the direct market (comic stores) because sales to the direct market were more profitable.

Direct market sales were not returnable. The idea being that any excess issues not sold would become part of the stores back issue collection. Retail sales were returnable - something like half of all issues printed were sent back if not sold within three months. This created a lot of uncertainty as to what was sold - and sometimes the returns happened much later than expected causing havoc with financials. Also, comics were always disliked by the retail stores as they cost less than normal magazines and thus were always neglected because they'd lose out in any competition for shelf space.

So you need one of two scenarios.

The first scenario is that in the postwar era, comics don't become smaller but keep the same sales price (a dime). Instead, comics have the page count of the golden age comics and increase in price. Obviously, this would change a lot.

The second scenario is in the late eighties and early nineties were retail distribution collapsed. You would need some very strong executives who see the danger in losing the retail market as a source of new customers, and who have the vision to reverse that. We know that no one at Marvel or DC had that vision at that time. Possibly the only person who might have done that was Jim Shooter, who was heads and shoulders above everyone as a busienss man in the comics community. He had lots of other problems as an executive, but he knew the business end and had ambitious plans for Marvel.

Shooter was kicked out as EiC in 1986. He mad a bid to buy Marvel when Cadence put it on the block to sell only one or two years later, but was outbid by Ron Perlman who subsequently almost destroyed the company. Let's say for whatever reason, Shooter wins and buys Marvel. He becomes publisher and probably EiC. Bad news is that lots of talent leaves Marvel because they were - let's say too enthusiastic about hsi departure. Certainly John Byrne won't be staying. Good news is that Shooter would keep some of the talent and probably identify a lot of new talent to take their place. After all, he did a great job with Valiant.

Now I'm assuming here that Shooter keeps the retail market alive and doesn't abandon it. If Marvel doesn't let it go, then DC will stay too. Economics is still against the retail market, but there are a variety of things that can be done. Expand page count and increase prices. Understand it may be a loss leader, but intend to make it up with other revenue generating businesses that would be spun out of it and that it's necessary to get people their first comics who will later turn into direct market customers.
 
Heavy

Heavy

Banned
Removing the Comics Code Authority and keeping non-superhero books on the shelves might help.

By all accounts, Wertham himself wasn't terribly pleased with the CCA; I understand that he felt the introduction of a ratings system (comparable to those used for films) would have been a more suitable approach.
 
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