Comics Disassembled: Ten Things of Note from the Past Week in Comics, Led by the Rise and Fall of the Savior of Comics

By David Harper

April 3, 2020

Remember those old Marvel Universe trading cards from the early 90s? The ones with the power ratings and the great art? I loved those, as did many of the people who ended up making the comics we love today. Some of those people joined me at this year’s Emerald City Comic Con, as we opened packs of Marvel Universe Series II trading cards – the well-agreed upon peak of those cards – to talk about their memories of these cards, characters and creators who worked on them for a video interview series I call The Marvel Universe Unpacked.

This week, I’m joined by writer Tim Seeley, as he joins to discuss his memories of these cards, attempts to name the artist for every card, shares his favorite Spider-Man villains, talks Death’s Head, and a whole lot more. One note, however: our lavalier microphones did not work with this one, so the audio quality is a bit weaker here.

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Notable Replies

chrisburton says:

April 3, 2020

I’m not saying ComicHub’s proposal was the right answer, but I will say this: at least everyone involved was trying to find one. That the response to it wasn’t “how do we make this better?” instead of “you’re the worst and I hate you” speaks to where the direct market is these days, really.

David, this was really well said and was spot on. The hostility towards a group that is actually trying to come up with a solution is disheartening. Why not collaborate and build off the framework, instead of going scorched earth with complaints. I don’t know that I will ever understand those that have a perpetual hostility to change, yet never offer any ideas of their own. I think that sort of attitude is going to lead to a big chunk of stores going under.

I also don’t understand why the retailers don’t see that if there is no access to new books thorough any means for, let’s say, 3 months, that creates an extremely easy opportunity for their customers to just jump off of being comics consumers, and when/if stores reopen they might find themselves with a lot fewer customers.
actualtotoro says:

April 3, 2020

I imagined the retailer hostility level must’ve been very high to see Image in particular confirm it was out so quickly.
SKTCHD says:

April 3, 2020

From what I understand, those Facebook complaints quickly became emails/calls to publishers. Pressure was…considerable. I don’t want to say who was in and who wasn’t, but I will say some who said they weren’t were, at least until the uproar.

chrisburton:

David, this was really well said and was spot on. The hostility towards a group that is actually trying to come up with a solution is disheartening. Why not collaborate and build off the framework, instead of going scorched earth with complaints. I don’t know that I will ever understand those that have a perpetual hostility to change, yet never offer any ideas of their own. I think that sort of attitude is going to lead to a big chunk of stores going under.

I totally agree. I’m not even saying there is a solution. But fear of a digital first option leading to a physical product at the end in an environment where people can’t leave their homes and are desperate from content is bonkers to me. If people are locked inside, they’ll either get to digital themselves or they’ll just stop reading, as you noted. Not universally. But enough where it hurts. At least this option gave them control.

That said, a big part of the blame falls on ComicHub. They tried to roll it out too fast. Get people onboard, then slow roll it for scale, then profit. Instead, they flipped a switch and it turned itself off in a day.
actualtotoro says:

April 3, 2020

To what extent do you think retailers may have shot themselves in the foot here by overreacting? The many flaws and questions that never had time to properly be addressed aside, the reality is this was probably one of the closest-to-ideal options retail had to have anything viable to generate revenue for the next… let’s conservatively say 6 weeks.

As far as I can tell, there was never anything preventing the digital storefronts from opening tomorrow. Wouldn’t it have been better to try to rally behind an LCS counterpart than to immediately scream bloody murder? If they’re afraid of a digital future, I have to imagine a digital future with no kickback to shops is worse than one with.
SKTCHD says:

April 3, 2020

It’s really hard to say. There are a lot of variables that were uncertain. Would ComicHub be able to scale quickly without degrading the product? Would the reading experience digitally not be horrible? How would the print order fulfillment work, especially if a shop you ordered from ended up closing? Would shops maintain good cash flow to ensure they get the required product once they were open again? There are a lot of questions involved.

At the same time, if your other option is waiting for death or rescue, I probably would have preferred the lifeboat offered. Because Marvel was not very convincing that they won’t go digital first next week! They were like “we’re off this week, and we’ll see what next week looks like.”

But yeah, if I was a retailer I might have been like, “Okay, this is a good start of an idea. How do we make this better?” Then rebuild it, re-present it, and then roll it out to publishers and retailers with more confidence, rather than kiboshing the whole thing. But those involved know better than I do if it was dead.

Long story short: I think they definitely could have shot themselves in the foot, but it’s an understanding self-shooting to a degree? I just don’t believe in the channel bleed argument many of them were using. I don’t buy that at all.

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