Your argument seems to be this: if it made business sense for them to do it, they would do it.
I'm sort of assuming they actually don't know what they're doing. Infact, I think that the readers would rebel if there more than a couple non-comics related ads in the books and thats why they don't put them in there.
Why in the world would we rebel?
The only time I remember folks on the forum reacting negatively to an ad was the grotesque "feed your hunger" campaign a few years ago, and that was because it was ugly, not because it was non-comics-related.
As to your assumption that "they" don't know what they're doing: I think it's a fair bet "they" have far more relevant information to be working from than a bunch of guys talking out of their asses on the Internet.
Well, I'm not going to go over it all again. I was more responding to recent comments that made it seem like putting together several hundred page magazines was easy. Maybe it takes a day, or two or three to create a comics page and maybe an "hour" to physically write a page of copy for a magazine, but depending on what the content of the magazine is it may have taken days or weeks to get that content.
Anyway, I also disagree with your comments saying that comics distribution is soooo low. The top three comics have what? 300k buyers every month? Forbes magazine (which I also happen to read after getting a gift subscription last Christmas) has 900k readers per issue. Now, thats three times more. But its not some incredibly huge number. And again, it has 10x the content and probably 100x the number of ads. And you get 1 year for $10. And thats just an example. Forbes is in the top 100 of magazines. There are many hundreds more with much smaller readership that still have 10x the content and still have very good prices.
Again-- when you are an advertiser, it is not just about how many eyeballs. It is about WHICH eyeballs, and are they the ones that are harder to reach. It may be that the demographic picture of a reader that Forbes can present to their advertisers is more attractive. And a lot of specialized publications (e.g. a financial magazine) benefit from being able to appeal to a very specific kind of advertisers (e.g. those selling consumer investment products), and in some cases they have relationships with advertisers that go back decades.
Simply put- the comparisons between comics are magazines are apple:orange.
We're just going to have to disagree on this. I only used Forbes as an example because I read it. And btw, how specialized can it be if I'm reading it AND I read comics? I'm poor. Their advertising is not all investment products, its the same type of stuff you see on TV and every other magazine.
Your argument seems to be this: if it made business sense for them to do it, they would do it.
I'm sort of assuming they actually don't know what they're doing. Infact, I think that the readers would rebel if there more than a couple non-comics related ads in the books and thats why they don't put them in there.
Yes. Especially when it comes to successful companies (and DC and Marvel are that) I assume a rational market, and that decisions are made because they are using the best business sense they can. Doesn't mean they are always getting it right. But what other motivation would you suggest they are following, if not business sense?
I don't know the demographic snapshot of who a Forbes reader generally is. But even if they are different than you, that doesn't disprove what who their general reader is. Demographics of a magazine are not JUST about you. They are a larger snapshot based on research. Their ad sales are based on the larger demographic you are a part of. That doesn't mean that you represent the demographic norm. I know you said that you don't like or trust statistics. But you also seem to cite a lot of personal anecdotes as evidence to support an argument Well, when a business has to make decisions about how to spend their ad dollars, statistics are at least more useful than personal anecdotes.
The only negativity about ads in comics I can recall from years of forum discussion was to do with ad placement-- the two page car ad that would be right after the intro page in Marvel books. But that was not because people didn't want to see car ads, it was just poor placement in the flow of the book.
I just can't imagine readers rebelling against ads that acknowledge that not only kids read comic books, and that comic book readers also buy other things. I have never seen that pushback. If anything, I have seen the opposite: traditional advertisers and big brands were seen as a hopeful sign that comics were gaining traction in the market.
If you don't think they are doing their best to make as much profit for their investors and shareholders, @Planeis , what do you honestly imagine they do every day? I am not saying they always get it right, but I feel like time and again you just imagine there is this range of things you are thinking of that you clearly know they should be doing but they won't do them. How likely is that?
Your argument seems to be this: if it made business sense for them to do it, they would do it.
I'm sort of assuming they actually don't know what they're doing. Infact, I think that the readers would rebel if there more than a couple non-comics related ads in the books and thats why they don't put them in there.
Why in the world would we rebel?
The only time I remember folks on the forum reacting negatively to an ad was the grotesque "feed your hunger" campaign a few years ago, and that was because it was ugly, not because it was non-comics-related.
As to your assumption that "they" don't know what they're doing: I think it's a fair bet "they" have far more relevant information to be working from than a bunch of guys talking out of their asses on the Internet.
I actually just edited my statement before you replied. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel.
Your argument seems to be this: if it made business sense for them to do it, they would do it.
I'm sort of assuming they actually don't know what they're doing. Infact, I think that the readers would rebel if there more than a couple non-comics related ads in the books and thats why they don't put them in there.
Why in the world would we rebel?
The only time I remember folks on the forum reacting negatively to an ad was the grotesque "feed your hunger" campaign a few years ago, and that was because it was ugly, not because it was non-comics-related.
As to your assumption that "they" don't know what they're doing: I think it's a fair bet "they" have far more relevant information to be working from than a bunch of guys talking out of their asses on the Internet.
I actually just edited my statement before you replied. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel.
Um.
All right then.
Why in the world would the publishers think we would rebel?
If we haven't rebelled over price gouging, diminished page counts, constant creative team shuffling or Chronic Event Syndrome, why would they think we'd rebel over ads?
Well, I'm not going to go over it all again. I was more responding to recent comments that made it seem like putting together several hundred page magazines was easy. Maybe it takes a day, or two or three to create a comics page and maybe an "hour" to physically write a page of copy for a magazine, but depending on what the content of the magazine is it may have taken days or weeks to get that content.
Anyway, I also disagree with your comments saying that comics distribution is soooo low. The top three comics have what? 300k buyers every month? Forbes magazine (which I also happen to read after getting a gift subscription last Christmas) has 900k readers per issue. Now, thats three times more. But its not some incredibly huge number. And again, it has 10x the content and probably 100x the number of ads. And you get 1 year for $10. And thats just an example. Forbes is in the top 100 of magazines. There are many hundreds more with much smaller readership that still have 10x the content and still have very good prices.
Again-- when you are an advertiser, it is not just about how many eyeballs. It is about WHICH eyeballs, and are they the ones that are harder to reach. It may be that the demographic picture of a reader that Forbes can present to their advertisers is more attractive. And a lot of specialized publications (e.g. a financial magazine) benefit from being able to appeal to a very specific kind of advertisers (e.g. those selling consumer investment products), and in some cases they have relationships with advertisers that go back decades.
Simply put- the comparisons between comics are magazines are apple:orange.
We're just going to have to disagree on this. I only used Forbes as an example because I read it. And btw, how specialized can it be if I'm reading it AND I read comics? I'm poor. Their advertising is not all investment products, its the same type of stuff you see on TV and every other magazine.
Your argument seems to be this: if it made business sense for them to do it, they would do it.
I'm sort of assuming they actually don't know what they're doing. Infact, I think that the readers would rebel if there more than a couple non-comics related ads in the books and thats why they don't put them in there.
Yes. Especially when it comes to successful companies (and DC and Marvel are that) I assume a rational market, and that decisions are made because they are using the best business sense they can. Doesn't mean they are always getting it right. But what other motivation would you suggest they are following, if not business sense?
I don't know the demographic snapshot of who a Forbes reader generally is. But even if they are different than you, that doesn't disprove what who their general reader is. Demographics of a magazine are not JUST about you. They are a larger snapshot based on research. Their ad sales are based on the larger demographic you are a part of. That doesn't mean that you represent the demographic norm. I know you said that you don't like or trust statistics. But you also seem to cite a lot of personal anecdotes as evidence to support an argument Well, when a business has to make decisions about how to spend their ad dollars, statistics are at least more useful than personal anecdotes.
The only negativity about ads in comics I can recall from years of forum discussion was to do with ad placement-- the two page car ad that would be right after the intro page in Marvel books. But that was not because people didn't want to see car ads, it was just poor placement in the flow of the book.
I just can't imagine readers rebelling against ads that acknowledge that not only kids read comic books, and that comic book readers also buy other things. I have never seen that pushback. If anything, I have seen the opposite: traditional advertisers and big brands were seen as a hopeful sign that comics were gaining traction in the market.
If you don't think they are doing their best to make as much profit for their investors and shareholders, @Planeis , what do you honestly imagine they do every day? I am not saying they always get it right, but I feel like time and again you just imagine there is this range of things you are thinking of that you clearly know they should be doing but they won't do them. How likely is that?
repost from above, but just a minute ago I edited that comment. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel. For instance, a big thing in magazines is to have multiple pages of ads. Sometimes almost mini-booklets in a magazine if the advertiser is really trying to make a statement. I think the publishers and editors think that we would reject that. I'm not saying that we would. I've never been bothered by ads in any comic or magazine and I don't think most people are.
I'm not skeptical of statistics. I'm skeptical of statistics thrown around without talking about what's going on behind them. In the book thread someone threw out a bunch of things like "80% of households don't read" and "70% of college grads never read a book after college", a bunch of others and then provided a link to the site. Well, all of those sounded ridiculous, and upon check the site they provided it went on to list numerous other contradictory information like books being a $30 billion dollar business, that 1/3 of the American population read a romance novel last year, and even stated that book sales are impossible to track. That's what made me skeptical. I studied statistics in college. I know how they work and that they could be useful, or useless.
I'm not using personal anecdotes. I'm using an example. I could have used the same example without mentioning the fact that I just happen to get that magazine. I could have chosen any magazine from the top 100 list I was referring to. No one that I've noticed is even using any statistics or sales information, or ad rates in this thread so why are you accusing me of dismissing them? I can't dismiss something that hasn't been brought up.
I'll use one more example, and then I will never comment on this thread again, because really it doesn't matter to me. I don't even buy comics anymore. Comics are an entertainment product. Just like a radio show, a magazine, a cartoon, a movie, a tv show. They come out on a regular schedule just like a radio show, a magazine, a cartoon, or a tv show. Many comics happen to feature characters that are some of the most recognizable, well known, and well liked characters in western civilization. Some also have viewers (in this case, readers) similar in size and diversity to radio shows, magazines, cartoons, and tv shows. In fact, many magazines, tv shows, cartoons, and radio shows would love to have an audience of 300,000+ every single time. And yet, these other entertainment products are able to sell a lot of ads, but you've gone to great lengths to somehow argue that the eyeballs of comic book buyers aren't worth it.
You've shown absolutely no evidence to back this up and I'm not saying you have to, because I don't think there is any.
As to what DC is thinking with the relatively small ads they put in, I'll tell you what I think. I think the makers of comics think of them as art. Which they might be, but in terms of what they really are, I'd say they are an entertainment product. But, DC thinks of them as art and so they want to put as few ads as possible in there so that it doesn't mess up their art, and so the readers don't protest that the art is being messed up.
As for the shareholders? WB is a huge, huge, huge huge huge company. Comics are selling
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As to your assumption that "they" don't know what they're doing: I think it's a fair bet "they" have far more relevant information to be working from than a bunch of guys talking out of their asses on the Internet.
I actually just edited my statement before you replied. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel.
Um.
All right then.
Why in the world would the publishers think we would rebel?
If we haven't rebelled over price gouging, diminished page counts, constant creative team shuffling or Chronic Event Syndrome, why would they think we'd rebel over ads?
We have never rebelled.
Not once.
All we do is bleat at each other.
Whatever. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
I actually just edited my statement before you replied. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel.
Um.
All right then.
Why in the world would the publishers think we would rebel?
If we haven't rebelled over price gouging, diminished page counts, constant creative team shuffling or Chronic Event Syndrome, why would they think we'd rebel over ads?
We have never rebelled.
Not once.
All we do is bleat at each other.
Um. All right then. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
hmmm... my whole post didn't post. oh well... here's a part of it that got lost somehow
Whatever. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
It's like Bobcat said, "I lost my job. Well, I didn't lose it. I mean I know where it is. But when I go there, there's some other guy doing it."
Man, this thread is turning into a bummer. I didn't say you don't know you've been replaced. I'm saying when I open up a magazine there isn't a list of every person who worked on the book (like the creators in comics). If you worked on the layout of a magazine there usually aren't by lines or anything unless it's the writer or the photographer, so if someone else does it next month I probably won't know (unless you have a distinct style I can pick out). I'm not saying everyone is replaceable and I don't care about your well being. I was just trying to calm everyone down, I guess I 'll just bow out of this conversation and let everyone duke it out since that is what people want to.
Sorry for the bummification. I was trying to lighten it back up.
Ok, sorry I misunderstood you. It's all good! Problem with the internet is there is no tone, glad it was just a miscommunication. Upward and onward!
@Planeis said: I'll use one more example, and then I will never comment on this thread again, because really it doesn't matter to me. I don't even buy comics anymore.
Really?
Then why have you been wasting our time?
@Planeis said: You've shown absolutely no evidence to back this up and I'm not saying you have to, because I don't think there is any.
You've shown absolutely no evidence either. All you've done is talk about what you think somebody else thinks.
@Planeis said: As to what DC is thinking with the relatively small ads they put in, I'll tell you what I think. I think the makers of comics think of them as art. Which they might be, but in terms of what they really are, I'd say they are an entertainment product. But, DC thinks of them as art and so they want to put as few ads as possible in there so that it doesn't mess up their art, and so the readers don't protest that the art is being messed up.
I'll tell you what I think.
I think you have absolutely no clue about how the publishing industry works.
@planeis I've got to agree with WetRats on this one. There are some fundamental misunderstandings in the argument you are making, but if you supposedly don't care in the first place, then why bother explaining further, especially when you have made it clear you have little interest in listening. So it goes.
Well, I'm not going to go over it all again. I was more responding to recent comments that made it seem like putting together several hundred page magazines was easy. Maybe it takes a day, or two or three to create a comics page and maybe an "hour" to physically write a page of copy for a magazine, but depending on what the content of the magazine is it may have taken days or weeks to get that content.
Anyway, I also disagree with your comments saying that comics distribution is soooo low. The top three comics have what? 300k buyers every month? Forbes magazine (which I also happen to read after getting a gift subscription last Christmas) has 900k readers per issue. Now, thats three times more. But its not some incredibly huge number. And again, it has 10x the content and probably 100x the number of ads. And you get 1 year for $10. And thats just an example. Forbes is in the top 100 of magazines. There are many hundreds more with much smaller readership that still have 10x the content and still have very good prices.
Again-- when you are an advertiser, it is not just about how many eyeballs. It is about WHICH eyeballs, and are they the ones that are harder to reach. It may be that the demographic picture of a reader that Forbes can present to their advertisers is more attractive. And a lot of specialized publications (e.g. a financial magazine) benefit from being able to appeal to a very specific kind of advertisers (e.g. those selling consumer investment products), and in some cases they have relationships with advertisers that go back decades.
Simply put- the comparisons between comics are magazines are apple:orange.
I'm sort of assuming they actually don't know what they're doing. Infact, I think that the comic publishers have a belief that the readers would rebel if there more than a couple non-comics related ads in the books and thats why they don't put them in there.
Then what about in the 70s,80s and 90s when there was always non-comic ads in each issue? Back when I was a kid it was through the non-comic ads in the various Marvel titles I read that I learned about the new toys/tv shows/movies. I always looked forward to the double page spreads that would show each of the big 3 networks new Saturday morning lineups.
Then what about in the 70s,80s and 90s when there was always non-comic ads in each issue? Back when I was a kid it was through the non-comic ads in the various Marvel titles I read that I learned about the new toys/tv shows/movies. I always looked forward to the double page spreads that would show each of the big 3 networks new Saturday morning lineups.
Heck. There was a thread a while back about people's favorite ads.
The page counts for both comics and magazines are based on signatures of 16 pages—based on how the sheets of paper are folded and cut. If you don’t use a full signature, it’s going make your cost per page increase significantly, so everyone tries to stick to full signatures, or at least half-signatures. Hence the 32-page comic, and for the old-timers, the 48- and 64-page comic.
With most magazines, ads take up about 25-30% of the page count. Some magazines will even vary their monthly page count based on how many ads they sell, though most try to sell a set number each month. Comics go with the latter approach because they have a fixed page count each month. Any ad space that doesn't sell becomes a house ad (and a certain amount of space for house ads may be built in to the system).
With comics in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, ads took up about 25% of the page count—on the low end of the scale of the typical magazine. A 32-page comic (cover produced separately) would have 18 to 22 pages of story, a couple of house ads, and the rest would be paid ads. The 28-page Daredevil issue (the covers are no longer printed on a separate stock, so they have become a part of the 16-page signature, bringing the total count up to 32) that I picked up this week had 21 pages of story, 7 paid ads (counting the inside and back covers), a a 2-page house ad. Pretty much the same formula they’ve had for decades. Oh, and those ads in Daredevil—Red Baron pizza, Harley Davidson motorcycles, a TV show, a video game, Honda Civic, and a couple of company selling Marvel-licensed gear.
To add more ad space, you'd either need to have fewer story pages or add another signature onto your page count. I think you'd lose readers if the stories suddenly went down to 15 or 16 pages. If you add the signature, you now have a 48-page book. Unless you're planning on running 16 more pages of ads—resulting in more ad pages than story pages—you’re going to need more content. Most artists can barely finish a 20-page story in a month, so unless you're going to alternate artists every other issue, you're going to need a back-up story. You’re going to have to pay those guys, and if all your books are 48 pages, you're going to need to hire more editors too, or cut back on your number of titles. Plus the additional shipping costs for books that are now 33% thicker and heavier. Maybe it would be worth it if you had a 6-page back-up and 10 more pages of ads. Maybe.
When I said replaceable, I just meant that people generally don't know the names of the people who work on the articles they read (the exception being op-eds and the like). Didn't mean to offend, it was a poor choice of words. My point is that we generally will follow creators to other books, which is something we would not do in the magazine industry. Writer X could write for ESPN one day, and you may enjoy his work. Chances are, you do not generally check the byline, and even if you do, you probably wouldn't follow the writer to Time unless you happened to be buying that already. We do this all the time in comics because creators have a dedicated following, much like musicians. My overall point is just that comics are more similar to the music industry in that the names of the people who create the work are much more important to the sales of said work than in magazines. Furthermore, that they are art. Yes there is art involved in the creation of a magazine, but it is ancillary. A magazine is much more about the factual content, they are a source of information more than they are entertainment. Did not mean to offend or turn this into negativity, just wanted to share a different perspective. I do genuinely apologize to those who took offense.
hmmm... my whole post didn't post. oh well... here's a part of it that got lost somehow
Whatever. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
Desertion is hardly the same thing as rebellion.
Indeed. I imagine things have to explode as part of a rebellion.
Actually, I would argue that there are far more people who buy, say, X-Men no matter who the creative team might be than there are people who buy anything any one particular writer or artist works on. That's just based on my experience while working at a comic shop for five years. And there are a lot of readers who will not follow a favorite writer or artist when they leave Marvel to go to DC, or vice versa. And the numbers show that just because a lot of fans love so-and-so’s run on Batman, it doesn’t mean they’re going to go buy his/her creator-owned book.
And I think your Writer X example is a poor one. While I agree that most people aren’t going to pay attention who wrote an article on scarves for Vogue—unless it was a big-name fashion designer or critic—if you’re the type of sports fans who reads about sports rather than just watching the games on TV, you definitely know who the quality writers like Dick Schaap are and will even pay the extra fee on espn.com to be able to read their columns. That is why espn.com can charge money for that content.
And no worries; I took very little offense to your “replaceable” comment. I've heard things like that far to often for it to bother me much now. Apology accepted as far as I'm concerned.
When I said replaceable, I just meant that people generally don't know the names of the people who work on the articles they read (the exception being op-eds and the like). Didn't mean to offend, it was a poor choice of words. My point is that we generally will follow creators to other books, which is something we would not do in the magazine industry. Writer X could write for ESPN one day, and you may enjoy his work. Chances are, you do not generally check the byline, and even if you do, you probably wouldn't follow the writer to Time unless you happened to be buying that already. We do this all the time in comics because creators have a dedicated following, much like musicians. My overall point is just that comics are more similar to the music industry in that the names of the people who create the work are much more important to the sales of said work than in magazines. Furthermore, that they are art. Yes there is art involved in the creation of a magazine, but it is ancillary. A magazine is much more about the factual content, they are a source of information more than they are entertainment. Did not mean to offend or turn this into negativity, just wanted to share a different perspective. I do genuinely apologize to those who took offense.
I didn't take true offense, I just hate being replaceable, and felt the need to humanize the faceless replaceable worker drones. My one-finger salute should really have been directed at the Harvard School of Business, not you.
hmmm... my whole post didn't post. oh well... here's a part of it that got lost somehow
Whatever. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
Desertion is hardly the same thing as rebellion.
Indeed. I imagine things have to explode as part of a rebellion.
@nweathington@wetrats, glad to quash the tension! lol. ESPN was probably a bad example, I agree. Maybe the better comparison would have been Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping. And while many people will blindly buy a book (for instance, myself with Amazing Spider-man), they will generally still follow the creative teams they really care about. I for instance am now buying Animal Man, JL Dark and Frankenstein (in trade) because of Sweet Tooth, I will pickup any new title that I hear James Robinson is working on and will avoid Rob Liefeld like the plague. I don't think those kind of attitudes exist in other print mediums, so I generally liken comics to more creator driven mediums like music. Again, there is no apples to apples comparison between comics and any other medium because comics are unlike any other.
@nweathington@wetrats, glad to quash the tension! lol. ESPN was probably a bad example, I agree. Maybe the better comparison would have been Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping. And while many people will blindly buy a book (for instance, myself with Amazing Spider-man), they will generally still follow the creative teams they really care about. I for instance am now buying Animal Man, JL Dark and Frankenstein (in trade) because of Sweet Tooth, I will pickup any new title that I hear James Robinson is working on and will avoid Rob Liefeld like the plague. I don't think those kind of attitudes exist in other print mediums, so I generally liken comics to more creator driven mediums like music. Again, there is no apples to apples comparison between comics and any other medium because comics are unlike any other.
I still think there is far less of the general comics buying audience following certain creators over certain titles than you believe, especially in the given economy where many are limited to buying only a handful of books each month. Again, that’s just from me observing customers for five years while working at a comic shop. You have no idea how many times I heard a variation on, “Man, this book sucks now. I hate the new artist.” When I asked them, “Why don’t you drop it then, and find something else?” they invariable would say, “But that’s my book.” Perhaps that attitude is starting to change—and I hope it is—but why then have Batman’s numbers stayed so consistent (relative to comic sales as a whole) over the years given the number of changes of creative teams? And if 33,600 people read Matt Fraction’s Mighty Thor book, and 32,500 people read Matt Fraction’s Iron Man book, why are only 5,600 people reading the superior (IMO) Casanova? There’s a reason the Big Two are the Big Two.
And as for other print mediums, back in the day when Details was a popular magazine, I read it for a particular columnist. When that columnist left, I stopped reading the mag. I doubt I was the only one. It really depends on the type of magazine you're talking about because there are literally thousands of magazines being published in any given year. Magazines like Good Housekeeping are a lot like Batman—they'll have pretty steady sales from one issue to the next no matter who’s providing the content. There might be a slight spike if Martha Stewart writes something for GH, or if Jim Lee draws an arc of Batman, but then things settle back to business as usual.
I'm not saying you can’t make comparisons between the comics industry and the music industry, because they are certainly there. And given the recent trend of creators leaving the Big Two to take on creator-owned projects, I think those comparisons will become stronger in time.
With most magazines, ads take up about 25-30% of the page count. Some magazines will even vary their monthly page count based on how many ads they sell, though most try to sell a set number each month. Comics go with the latter approach because they have a fixed page count each month. Any ad space that doesn't sell becomes a house ad (and a certain amount of space for house ads may be built in to the system).
With comics in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, ads took up about 25% of the page count—on the low end of the scale of the typical magazine. A 32-page comic (cover produced separately) would have 18 to 22 pages of story, a couple of house ads, and the rest would be paid ads. The 28-page Daredevil issue (the covers are no longer printed on a separate stock, so they have become a part of the 16-page signature, bringing the total count up to 32) that I picked up this week had 21 pages of story, 7 paid ads (counting the inside and back covers), a a 2-page house ad. Pretty much the same formula they’ve had for decades. Oh, and those ads in Daredevil—Red Baron pizza, Harley Davidson motorcycles, a TV show, a video game, Honda Civic, and a couple of company selling Marvel-licensed gear.
To add more ad space, you'd either need to have fewer story pages or add another signature onto your page count. I think you'd lose readers if the stories suddenly went down to 15 or 16 pages. If you add the signature, you now have a 48-page book. Unless you're planning on running 16 more pages of ads—resulting in more ad pages than story pages—you’re going to need more content. Most artists can barely finish a 20-page story in a month, so unless you're going to alternate artists every other issue, you're going to need a back-up story. You’re going to have to pay those guys, and if all your books are 48 pages, you're going to need to hire more editors too, or cut back on your number of titles. Plus the additional shipping costs for books that are now 33% thicker and heavier. Maybe it would be worth it if you had a 6-page back-up and 10 more pages of ads. Maybe.
That was very insightful. And I thought at the end of reading it about how there aren't any ads in the digital comics that I've seen. Thoughts?
I'm not saying you can’t make comparisons between the comics industry and the music industry, because they are certainly there. And given the recent trend of creators leaving the Big Two to take on creator-owned projects, I think those comparisons will become stronger in time.
You make a lot of cogent points. I think maybe this is just my perspective as someone who doesn't remember comics before Image and has only become a serious collector during this current boom of QUALITY creator-owned and indy books. Maybe it just seems like that's the reality to me when it is actually a recent trend. I'm hoping that's the way it is moving permanently because that says to me we are taking comics more seriously as an art form and not just slapping Superman on a cover and selling a bunch of copies.
That was very insightful. And I thought at the end of reading it about how there aren't any ads in the digital comics that I've seen. Thoughts?
Thanks. I’ve only read a couple of digital comics, so I don’t know if every publisher is going without ads or not. And I’m not sure I have a good answer without knowing Marvel’s and DC’s digital sales numbers. Maybe they’re not up high enough yet to convince their advertisers it’s a worthy investment. Maybe they just haven’t figured out what they can reasonably charge their advertisers. Maybe they feel that they make enough from print ad sales and don’t need to include them in the digital editions.
I’m guessing, though, that it is intentional on their part. Marvel and DC are charging the same price (the first month at least) for the digital edition as the print edition, right? They don’t want to undercut the brick-and-mortar retailers—not yet anyway. So they need to give the reader some perception of value for buying the digital copy versus the print copy without lowering the sticker price. Look kids! No ads! That's my theory anyway.
I'm not saying you can’t make comparisons between the comics industry and the music industry, because they are certainly there. And given the recent trend of creators leaving the Big Two to take on creator-owned projects, I think those comparisons will become stronger in time.
You make a lot of cogent points. I think maybe this is just my perspective as someone who doesn't remember comics before Image and has only become a serious collector during this current boom of QUALITY creator-owned and indy books. Maybe it just seems like that's the reality to me when it is actually a recent trend. I'm hoping that's the way it is moving permanently because that says to me we are taking comics more seriously as an art form and not just slapping Superman on a cover and selling a bunch of copies.
Fair point.
There are times when I feel I've been reading comics so long, I can't really enjoy them as much as I used to.
Then I see something like the new Hawkeye series and realize I still can.
@Wetrats, I need to check out that Hawkeye book. I keep hearing really great buzz. I'm just really soured on marvel right now, between double-shipping, nearly everything being 3.99, over-saturating the market with Avengers and X-books, and the really underwhelming AvX and Marvel NOW concept, I just don't have any patience left for the folks at Marvel.
@Wetrats, I need to check out that Hawkeye book. I keep hearing really great buzz. I'm just really soured on marvel right now, between double-shipping, nearly everything being 3.99, over-saturating the market with Avengers and X-books, and the really underwhelming AvX and Marvel NOW concept, I just don't have any patience left for the folks at Marvel.
I've been off Marvel since Civil War.
Hawkeye's the first of their books on my pull list since then.*
One of the best first issues I've read in years.**
That was very insightful. And I thought at the end of reading it about how there aren't any ads in the digital comics that I've seen. Thoughts?
Thanks. I’ve only read a couple of digital comics, so I don’t know if every publisher is going without ads or not. And I’m not sure I have a good answer without knowing Marvel’s and DC’s digital sales numbers. Maybe they’re not up high enough yet to convince their advertisers it’s a worthy investment. Maybe they just haven’t figured out what they can reasonably charge their advertisers. Maybe they feel that they make enough from print ad sales and don’t need to include them in the digital editions.
I’m guessing, though, that it is intentional on their part. Marvel and DC are charging the same price (the first month at least) for the digital edition as the print edition, right? They don’t want to undercut the brick-and-mortar retailers—not yet anyway. So they need to give the reader some perception of value for buying the digital copy versus the print copy without lowering the sticker price. Look kids! No ads! That's my theory anyway.
Eric,
That's an excellent theory, and one that I hadn't thought of.
I'll offer another theory.
I don't think Comixology has built a proper ad management system yet.
In print, Honda probably buys an ad for all Marvel comics for the month of September. Add up the circulation for all Marvel books printed that month, and that's the number of impressions. Simple. Hostess snack cakes are still getting impressions for ads printed 30 years ago. That's money on the table when it comes to digital.
If you are reading comics on the Comixology app and you are connected to wifi, that app should go download new ads each month. That way when you are reading old books for the second or third time, you will see new ads. Now the impressions for Honda go way up. And when they are done advertising, Marvel can sell all those impressions to the new video game or movie that wants to advertise. No impression is left on the table.
I really hope they take this approach. It could really bring in a lot of money for them, which will help control the costs of the comics. Plus, as a reader, I get to see something new. While it can be kind of fun to see old ads for Nintendo games from 1987, I would probably rather see an ad for something I might actually be interested in today.
There might be some issues with Apple and having new content approved and distribution of said content and such, but I just think Comixology was so focused on getting tons of content and thus becoming the Diamond of digital, that they put ads on the backburner. Hopefully we'll see this very soon.
@brydeemer: I was thinking about that too, Bryan, as far as how to make ads work for digital comics. Like you said, you wouldn't want to be stuck with an ad that's out of date in two months—say, and ad for a 2012 model of car—in a product that has the potential to be available forever.
But even assuming they work that out, if people get used to buying comics without ads, and suddenly there are ads, they’re going to expect to pay less for them. But if the publishers charge less, they'll be undercutting the brick-&-mortars.
Comments
The only time I remember folks on the forum reacting negatively to an ad was the grotesque "feed your hunger" campaign a few years ago, and that was because it was ugly, not because it was non-comics-related.
As to your assumption that "they" don't know what they're doing: I think it's a fair bet "they" have far more relevant information to be working from than a bunch of guys talking out of their asses on the Internet.
I don't know the demographic snapshot of who a Forbes reader generally is. But even if they are different than you, that doesn't disprove what who their general reader is. Demographics of a magazine are not JUST about you. They are a larger snapshot based on research. Their ad sales are based on the larger demographic you are a part of. That doesn't mean that you represent the demographic norm. I know you said that you don't like or trust statistics. But you also seem to cite a lot of personal anecdotes as evidence to support an argument Well, when a business has to make decisions about how to spend their ad dollars, statistics are at least more useful than personal anecdotes.
The only negativity about ads in comics I can recall from years of forum discussion was to do with ad placement-- the two page car ad that would be right after the intro page in Marvel books. But that was not because people didn't want to see car ads, it was just poor placement in the flow of the book.
I just can't imagine readers rebelling against ads that acknowledge that not only kids read comic books, and that comic book readers also buy other things. I have never seen that pushback. If anything, I have seen the opposite: traditional advertisers and big brands were seen as a hopeful sign that comics were gaining traction in the market.
If you don't think they are doing their best to make as much profit for their investors and shareholders, @Planeis , what do you honestly imagine they do every day? I am not saying they always get it right, but I feel like time and again you just imagine there is this range of things you are thinking of that you clearly know they should be doing but they won't do them. How likely is that?
All right then.
Why in the world would the publishers think we would rebel?
If we haven't rebelled over price gouging, diminished page counts, constant creative team shuffling or Chronic Event Syndrome, why would they think we'd rebel over ads?
We have never rebelled.
Not once.
All we do is bleat at each other.
I'm not skeptical of statistics. I'm skeptical of statistics thrown around without talking about what's going on behind them. In the book thread someone threw out a bunch of things like "80% of households don't read" and "70% of college grads never read a book after college", a bunch of others and then provided a link to the site. Well, all of those sounded ridiculous, and upon check the site they provided it went on to list numerous other contradictory information like books being a $30 billion dollar business, that 1/3 of the American population read a romance novel last year, and even stated that book sales are impossible to track. That's what made me skeptical. I studied statistics in college. I know how they work and that they could be useful, or useless.
I'm not using personal anecdotes. I'm using an example. I could have used the same example without mentioning the fact that I just happen to get that magazine. I could have chosen any magazine from the top 100 list I was referring to. No one that I've noticed is even using any statistics or sales information, or ad rates in this thread so why are you accusing me of dismissing them? I can't dismiss something that hasn't been brought up.
I'll use one more example, and then I will never comment on this thread again, because really it doesn't matter to me. I don't even buy comics anymore. Comics are an entertainment product. Just like a radio show, a magazine, a cartoon, a movie, a tv show. They come out on a regular schedule just like a radio show, a magazine, a cartoon, or a tv show. Many comics happen to feature characters that are some of the most recognizable, well known, and well liked characters in western civilization. Some also have viewers (in this case, readers) similar in size and diversity to radio shows, magazines, cartoons, and tv shows. In fact, many magazines, tv shows, cartoons, and radio shows would love to have an audience of 300,000+ every single time. And yet, these other entertainment products are able to sell a lot of ads, but you've gone to great lengths to somehow argue that the eyeballs of comic book buyers aren't worth it.
You've shown absolutely no evidence to back this up and I'm not saying you have to, because I don't think there is any.
As to what DC is thinking with the relatively small ads they put in, I'll tell you what I think. I think the makers of comics think of them as art. Which they might be, but in terms of what they really are, I'd say they are an entertainment product. But, DC thinks of them as art and so they want to put as few ads as possible in there so that it doesn't mess up their art, and so the readers don't protest that the art is being messed up.
As for the shareholders? WB is a huge, huge, huge huge huge company. Comics are selling
As to your assumption that "they" don't know what they're doing: I think it's a fair bet "they" have far more relevant information to be working from than a bunch of guys talking out of their asses on the Internet.
I actually just edited my statement before you replied. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel.
Um.
All right then.
Why in the world would the publishers think we would rebel?
If we haven't rebelled over price gouging, diminished page counts, constant creative team shuffling or Chronic Event Syndrome, why would they think we'd rebel over ads?
We have never rebelled.
Not once.
All we do is bleat at each other.
Whatever. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
I actually just edited my statement before you replied. I meant to say that the publishers THINK we would rebel.
Um.
All right then.
Why in the world would the publishers think we would rebel?
If we haven't rebelled over price gouging, diminished page counts, constant creative team shuffling or Chronic Event Syndrome, why would they think we'd rebel over ads?
We have never rebelled.
Not once.
All we do is bleat at each other.
Um. All right then. Many have stopped buying due to price gouging, dimished page counts, constant creative team shuffling and chronic even syndrome. Many people have.
Really?
Then why have you been wasting our time?
@Planeis said: You've shown absolutely no evidence to back this up and I'm not saying you have to, because I don't think there is any.
You've shown absolutely no evidence either. All you've done is talk about what you think somebody else thinks.
@Planeis said: As to what DC is thinking with the relatively small ads they put in, I'll tell you what I think. I think the makers of comics think of them as art. Which they might be, but in terms of what they really are, I'd say they are an entertainment product. But, DC thinks of them as art and so they want to put as few ads as possible in there so that it doesn't mess up their art, and so the readers don't protest that the art is being messed up.
I'll tell you what I think.
I think you have absolutely no clue about how the publishing industry works.
With most magazines, ads take up about 25-30% of the page count. Some magazines will even vary their monthly page count based on how many ads they sell, though most try to sell a set number each month. Comics go with the latter approach because they have a fixed page count each month. Any ad space that doesn't sell becomes a house ad (and a certain amount of space for house ads may be built in to the system).
With comics in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, ads took up about 25% of the page count—on the low end of the scale of the typical magazine. A 32-page comic (cover produced separately) would have 18 to 22 pages of story, a couple of house ads, and the rest would be paid ads. The 28-page Daredevil issue (the covers are no longer printed on a separate stock, so they have become a part of the 16-page signature, bringing the total count up to 32) that I picked up this week had 21 pages of story, 7 paid ads (counting the inside and back covers), a a 2-page house ad. Pretty much the same formula they’ve had for decades. Oh, and those ads in Daredevil—Red Baron pizza, Harley Davidson motorcycles, a TV show, a video game, Honda Civic, and a couple of company selling Marvel-licensed gear.
To add more ad space, you'd either need to have fewer story pages or add another signature onto your page count. I think you'd lose readers if the stories suddenly went down to 15 or 16 pages. If you add the signature, you now have a 48-page book. Unless you're planning on running 16 more pages of ads—resulting in more ad pages than story pages—you’re going to need more content. Most artists can barely finish a 20-page story in a month, so unless you're going to alternate artists every other issue, you're going to need a back-up story. You’re going to have to pay those guys, and if all your books are 48 pages, you're going to need to hire more editors too, or cut back on your number of titles. Plus the additional shipping costs for books that are now 33% thicker and heavier. Maybe it would be worth it if you had a 6-page back-up and 10 more pages of ads. Maybe.
And I think your Writer X example is a poor one. While I agree that most people aren’t going to pay attention who wrote an article on scarves for Vogue—unless it was a big-name fashion designer or critic—if you’re the type of sports fans who reads about sports rather than just watching the games on TV, you definitely know who the quality writers like Dick Schaap are and will even pay the extra fee on espn.com to be able to read their columns. That is why espn.com can charge money for that content.
And no worries; I took very little offense to your “replaceable” comment. I've heard things like that far to often for it to bother me much now. Apology accepted as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry.
And as for other print mediums, back in the day when Details was a popular magazine, I read it for a particular columnist. When that columnist left, I stopped reading the mag. I doubt I was the only one. It really depends on the type of magazine you're talking about because there are literally thousands of magazines being published in any given year. Magazines like Good Housekeeping are a lot like Batman—they'll have pretty steady sales from one issue to the next no matter who’s providing the content. There might be a slight spike if Martha Stewart writes something for GH, or if Jim Lee draws an arc of Batman, but then things settle back to business as usual.
I'm not saying you can’t make comparisons between the comics industry and the music industry, because they are certainly there. And given the recent trend of creators leaving the Big Two to take on creator-owned projects, I think those comparisons will become stronger in time.
I’m guessing, though, that it is intentional on their part. Marvel and DC are charging the same price (the first month at least) for the digital edition as the print edition, right? They don’t want to undercut the brick-and-mortar retailers—not yet anyway. So they need to give the reader some perception of value for buying the digital copy versus the print copy without lowering the sticker price. Look kids! No ads! That's my theory anyway.
There are times when I feel I've been reading comics so long, I can't really enjoy them as much as I used to.
Then I see something like the new Hawkeye series and realize I still can.
Hawkeye's the first of their books on my pull list since then.*
One of the best first issues I've read in years.**
*Getting Waid's Daredevil in trades.
**Other than Terry Moore's last two series.
That's an excellent theory, and one that I hadn't thought of.
I'll offer another theory.
I don't think Comixology has built a proper ad management system yet.
In print, Honda probably buys an ad for all Marvel comics for the month of September. Add up the circulation for all Marvel books printed that month, and that's the number of impressions. Simple. Hostess snack cakes are still getting impressions for ads printed 30 years ago. That's money on the table when it comes to digital.
If you are reading comics on the Comixology app and you are connected to wifi, that app should go download new ads each month. That way when you are reading old books for the second or third time, you will see new ads. Now the impressions for Honda go way up. And when they are done advertising, Marvel can sell all those impressions to the new video game or movie that wants to advertise. No impression is left on the table.
I really hope they take this approach. It could really bring in a lot of money for them, which will help control the costs of the comics. Plus, as a reader, I get to see something new. While it can be kind of fun to see old ads for Nintendo games from 1987, I would probably rather see an ad for something I might actually be interested in today.
There might be some issues with Apple and having new content approved and distribution of said content and such, but I just think Comixology was so focused on getting tons of content and thus becoming the Diamond of digital, that they put ads on the backburner. Hopefully we'll see this very soon.
Bry
But even assuming they work that out, if people get used to buying comics without ads, and suddenly there are ads, they’re going to expect to pay less for them. But if the publishers charge less, they'll be undercutting the brick-&-mortars.