88: Marvel Wants Us Back

Summary
The hosts discuss the state of the comic book industry, the challenges faced by comic book shops, and the experiences of comic book readers. They explore the impact of online retail, customer service, and the need for an experiential retail approach. The conversation delves into the role of corporate chains, the browsing habits of comic book readers, and the challenges faced by the industry in attracting new and returning readers. The conversation covers a wide range of topics related to the comic book industry, including the challenges faced by Marvel Comics, the impact of shortening series on collecting habits, the quality and accessibility of comic books, and the broader landscape of the entertainment industry. The discussion also delves into the state of the video game industry and the challenges faced by game developers.

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Original Music by Alex Productions
Show notes include some AI generated content

Transcript

Dave (00:05.94)
Welcome back to the Comic Dudes, a podcast about comic books and comic book related things. My name is Dave with me as always, my esteemed co -host and dear friend, Matt. Matt, how are you?

Matt (00:17.102)
I'm doing well, it's just the two of us, the two amigos today. It's kinda sad not having a third, but we'll have to get through it.

Dave (00:24.308)
I mean, we do this 50 % of the time. This is, it's not like we have Eric for 90 % of our episodes or anything. You're making me feel a little unwanted here from being honest.

Matt (00:36.398)
no, you're definitely, you're very wanted, especially your takes. I'm very, I want your takes big time on this one.

Dave (00:42.708)
Fantastic segue. If you saw the title of this episode, you'll know what it's about before I know what it's about. We are talking about something today. Matt has graciously teed me up to be rage bait for content, which is fine. I'm okay with being exploited from time to time, but I don't know what the topic of the day is. We've done this a couple of times where Matt just goes, yo, I got something that's really juicy and you're not gonna like it. So let's record a conversation about it and you just come in blind.

And that's exactly what I did. We are doing before we get into this. This episode is coming out one week after our last boys episode. We're trying to make up for what we did to you in May. So you're gonna get three episodes in June. We're feeling, I don't know if giving is the word, but we're feeling like we owe you something. So extra content, you got it. We also post regularly on TikTok and Instagram. You can follow us with the links that are in.

description of the episode as well as follow us on Twitter. We have the handles that we use on Twitter in there as well. And I've also started including the link to our Discord. So if you want to talk to Matt and Eric and I about all things comics and comic book related things and video games and whatever else, you can join the Discord and talk to us there if you don't use Twitter or don't like Instagram.

Matt (02:03.31)
That's awesome dude, I did not know that. That's fantastic. Please jump on the Discord people, I'd love to chat.

Dave (02:09.364)
You didn't know we had a Discord?

Matt (02:11.182)
I knew we had a discord. I didn't know that people could jump in and chat with us. that's awesome. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Let's do that for sure. So. All right.

Dave (02:14.004)
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's public. It's a free for all.

Dave (02:20.884)
Yes, sir. So all that being said, I don't think there's spoiler content in this episode. No. OK, then let's get into it. Matt, make me mad.

Matt (02:26.798)
No. No, no, no. No.

So Dave, I just want, we haven't done our like check in with the LCS and the local comic shop scene. And since we are a comic book podcast, we've talked a lot about boys, but I wanted to talk a little bit about like modern comings and goings and what's going on. So I've been actually reading a lot more. I was segueed and sidetracked on a lot of video games, but I'm getting back into the comic game for sure. So I've been catching up on a lot of series, reading some stuff and getting back into my like,

inner workings of the comic industry, kind of digging into some of that information. So I found an interview on ICV2 and what ICV2 is, they do a lot of the coalition of like data, like sales and all that kind of stuff and business stuff for comics. But I found an interview on ICV2. It was a two -part interview. We obviously haven't talked about this stuff, but this was, it was back in May. So fairly recent, like a month now, but, so this was in May. I don't know if you know who Dan Buckley is, Dave, he's Marvel's

president of Marvel Entertainment's president. So he has...

Dave (03:32.756)
Does this include movies, TV, and comics? And video games?

Matt (03:36.352)
I don't know, I'm pretty sure video game, the only thing I'm not sure on is the MCU stuff. But like, I'm not sure of that.

Dave (03:43.06)
Okay, I mean, probably not that because that's pretty separate from the other entertainment channels.

Matt (03:47.342)
Cause that would be like, that would be Marvel like studios. I'm pretty sure Buckley is like, yes, comics, video games, that kind of stuff, but not the MCU kind of stuff, but whatever. So I read this article. I'm not going to read the whole thing. There's three parts. I kind of wanted to read the first part is going to be the longest part. but I'll just put it out there. Like, I'm just like in the whole entertainment sphere right now, like I'm just done with just incompetent leadership.

Dave (03:50.804)
Yeah.

Dave (03:57.524)
Okay.

Matt (04:16.622)
just across the board. Like we can get into it. Video games especially, like I'm really pissed off about like all these layoffs going on in this industry due to people hiring people, moving people across country. And then like, we got to lay you off, sorry. Like I'm sick of like normal people like us being penalized for people in C -suites who can't manage a target. You know, I'm just getting really upset about that. And then I read this, go ahead. Go ahead.

Dave (04:18.196)
Okay.

Dave (04:24.5)
Yeah.

Dave (04:41.62)
You know, I actually, I actually think they can manage to a target. And that is the problem because they are simply managing to a number as a publicly traded company, they're going, we have to hit this profit goal or the streets going to be mad. And then I lose share value. And as a, as a CEO, a lot of your compensation is tied to share value. That's done on purpose.

Matt (05:03.886)
Yeah, no, no, they can manage to a target. I meant a target, like a, like a store target. No, they're, they're hitting, they're hitting their core demographics. They're trying to make money and yeah, all the satisfy all the things you're saying, but let's get into the article. So this is, this is, this is, I'm going to do some story time. This is the longest story time part. Like after that, the other ones are shorter. I just want to, I'm going to read something. I want to get your thoughts and kind of move from there.

Dave (05:11.668)
Dave (05:20.308)
Yes. So this is a story time you're going to read to us.

Okay.

Dave (05:29.14)
Okay.

Matt (05:32.878)
So this is the, no, I don't think so. You can fly off the hip. So this is the ICV2 interviewer. So he's just saying, all right, so Dan, let's start out big picture. We want to talk about the market. Let's start about the medium. What is your evaluation on the state of the comic book medium? Dan Buckley, it's in flux, but I think it's in a healthy place. I'm going to pause right there. I think it's in a healthy place.

Dave (05:33.108)
Should I be taking notes?

Okay.

Matt (06:00.014)
Obviously there's been a lot of change in distribution, specifically with our core comics business. As I mentioned in my keynote, there's been a great deal of growth and opportunity coming from middle grade original graphic novel business, where there's a lot of new readers that can be found, which is good. If you had asked me 10 years ago, what was the thing I was most fearful of was the new Stan business collapsing. We are no longer in a place for people to try out comics and learn how to read graphic fiction.

Now we have a world of people who really want to read it and it's our job to go out and convert them to this business. And I feel very good about that. The digital comics business is also going through a bit of a flux, but I feel like it's in a really good place. Business models and vendors are trying to figure out how to fit in this new ecosystem, but there's a great opportunity for growth. Sorry, one second. yeah, last part. The last piece is there's a great deal of interest on comics and graphic fiction in the Kickstarter world. It's.

It's probably more of a creator, create our own talent world than a publisher world, but it brings healthy and health and vibrancy to our industry. As I said, I think there's a lot of change, but I feel good about the industry. There are just some habits and new practices we need to get into. I don't know exactly where, where they are, but we're experiment, experimenting and playing different things to try to take advantage of those changes. That is Dan Buckley on the state of the industry.

As someone who is in comic shops, not just one comic shop, but multiple comic shops. I do not think this industry is in a good place at all. this man talked about his biggest fear 10 years ago. It's 2024, right?

Dave (07:46.132)
It is yes. I had to check the year what I had to do the math and I was like what what was 10 years ago 2014 got it.

Matt (07:48.078)
10 years ago would be 20. 10 years ago, 2014, right? And outside of you lived in a big metropolitan area. I haven't seen newsstands or grocery stores or anything distributing comics on a large scale. So the fact that if you can please check me the fact that that's his major concern is like.

Dave (07:57.492)
Yeah.

Matt (08:17.07)
I get what he's trying to say, I guess, but that hasn't been relevant for like 20 years. 30 years!

Dave (08:22.228)
think maybe what he's I think maybe what he's saying is, I think he's lumping the LCS into the new stand business. I think that is technically classed as new stand. Maybe I don't know, maybe it feels to me like that's what he meant. Maybe.

Matt (08:30.35)
Really?

Matt (08:39.566)
I just don't think local comic shops necessarily are places of great visibility for comics. Like, I don't know, I feel like...

Dave (08:46.42)
No, they're not. You have to know you want comics and know where one's at to stumble in there and find some comics.

Matt (08:52.558)
Exactly. So I'm like, that's where I was like, new stand. I'm like, Dan, like, what are you talking about? Like, I haven't seen a news. Like, I haven't seen a newspaper outside of, if I go to like a big city, Dallas, New York, Chicago, there's like, not like newsstands everywhere. Downtown Rochester, you know, like, I don't know.

Dave (09:09.652)
There's yeah, I mean, there's not really period. I mean, last time I was in New York, I was in New York City twice in twenty twenty three. I didn't see a damn newspaper anywhere.

Matt (09:13.774)
You, me.

Matt (09:18.734)
So like that really threw me off. And then like this whole like focusing in on like the original graphic novel market, which is, which is good. And trying to get into middle schools, bro, like you are not getting into middle school. Like those kids can care less about Marvel comics. Like I hate when, I hate when we lump in, you know, dog man and Ray and a Telga Meyer smile books and then be say, the industry is profitable and we're pushing so much growth. Like, no, you aren't.

Don't take credit for manga. Like, what are American, Marvel, and DC comics doing? Like, let's not take credit, take other people's work.

Dave (09:57.876)
I mean, they must be doing something because they solicit so many damn titles every month. Someone's buying them. I'm not, but someone has to be, right?

Matt (10:04.946)
I don't know, you would think someone is buying those.

Dave (10:11.572)
I mean, I, go ahead.

Matt (10:14.478)
No, no, no, I was gonna go to my last point, but go ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave (10:17.716)
No, I just I you know, one of the one of the TikToks we posted about the the X -Men relaunch, which we're obviously not super happy about the direction of based on the cover alone. It doesn't look like it's the X -Men that I'm interested in reading about. So we made sort of like a funny TikTok about it. And, you know, someone got like super mad and like, yeah, yeah, some some some random person just, you know, that's how it is. You post content publicly on the Internet, but.

Matt (10:39.278)
Did they re -

Matt (10:45.326)
Yeah.

Dave (10:45.396)
You know, so in defending like, hey, it's you know, maybe you just don't like the X -Men like just let them do different things and try different things. And I mean, it's a it's a valid. It's a valid thought. Yes. Do new things and try new things and see what works. But like, didn't we just do that and didn't work so well? At some point, you're going to be making someone unhappy. You're never going to please everyone 100 % of the time. And I get that.

Matt (11:10.03)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dave (11:14.516)
But I think there's probably a pretty vocal and not minority group of fans at Marvel, or who read Marvel, that are really into what Marvel is doing right now, or they wouldn't be producing so many comics every single month.

Matt (11:32.318)
Yeah.

Dave (11:33.364)
Unless they've got a blank check from Disney and they're just like, Hey, you print money with these MCU movies and shows. So like publish whatever you want. You know, I don't know.

Matt (11:42.83)
Yeah, maybe. And I disagree with him about Kickstarter. I feel like the people who are doing Kickstarter are not going to, to a significant number, ramp up their Marvel and DC subscriptions. They're going to be loyal to those Kickstarter creators. I mean, I just, I don't, that was kind of a weak point as well, in my opinion. Just like, they're not going to follow him.

Dave (12:03.892)
Yeah, it's interesting that it's interesting to hear an executive at Marvel talking about how robust the creator owned landscape is. And I mean, what like, what are you trying to say? You're not doing creator owned books. You dip your toes in it once in a while. You let Bendis do it because he was architecting the entire Marvel universe. So you let him have his own imprint and do whatever he wanted. And he took those creations with him when he left Marvel. But.

Matt (12:18.03)
Exactly.

Dave (12:30.804)
Marvel's not going to start doing creator -owned, I'm sorry. And if they do, no one's going to trust them.

Matt (12:37.966)
Why, in what regard, like, what's that point, sorry.

Dave (12:40.596)
that it's truly creator owned, that I can truly take my things and go whenever I feel like it. You better have a lawyer to read that contract, because you can't trust any evil empire of that size. Large companies do not care about you.

Matt (12:45.806)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (12:49.678)
Absolutely. I got you.

Absolutely, I get you.

tied to the mouse too. Yeah, absolutely. Like I got you, got you. So, all right. Next, next statement for Mr. Buckley here. So, ICB2, drilling down a little bit by channel. What are your thoughts on the state of the direct market? So, direct distribution of comic books shops. I also feel that the direct market is in a much better place than most people think it is, but I will admit.

Dave (13:00.82)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (13:24.238)
There are some challenges that we have to figure out on our way out of the pandemic. We have to find a way to get people in the habit of going to stores more. Let's get more of those Wednesday warriors back. I think a lot of those people are shopping at stores, but they're not browsing as much. What we're hearing is people aren't coming in every week. They're coming in every two, three, four weeks, picking up their bundles and leaving. I have, we have to get them to start coming in the store more often, start browsing more often.

Yes, we have to get new readers in there, but we have to get ones that have been habitual readers or elapsed readers to come in stores more often than they are.

Dave (14:03.284)
Dan, you're talking about me.

Matt (14:06.03)
Yes. The point you just made, like...

Dave (14:12.532)
Let me stretch real quick. Alright.

Matt (14:14.542)
Yeah, yeah, let it out, let it out, Dave, let it out. Let it out, let it out, let's go.

Dave (14:21.108)
We've talked about this before. We did an episode about this. I forget what the title was, but it was something salacious about like, is the LCS dead or something to that effect. And I, yeah, I remember making a comment and a very, a very pointed one at that, that part of the problem with the comic shop experience is that there is no standardization. It's just a bunch of independent retailers owned by fans turned business owners.

Matt (14:29.806)
Yeah, peace. Peace.

Matt (14:49.934)
Why'd you have to say turned like that? Turned!

Dave (14:53.172)
Because I mean, no one I've never gone into a comic shop and talk to an owner and had them not be a voracious fan of comic books. No one's dream is to run a comic shop unless you are interested in comic books. That's something that people do. Like, and to that end, you know, there's no like there's no corporate comic stores. There are small regional chains. Sure, there's Midtown Comics in New York City. There's there's.

Matt (15:02.798)
Yeah.

Matt (15:21.294)
Graham Cracker in Chicago.

Dave (15:22.996)
Yeah, there's what's the one in in Massachusetts in New England? I can't remember the name. it's escaping me. I should know this, but small chains exist. You know, there's a couple of places here in DFW that they have a couple different locations like sci -fi factory has two or three locations and there's some other like that. But, you know, until there's hi, this is me talking out of both sides of my mouth, but you need some sort of like corporate chain with a standard experience to appeal to people that.

Matt (15:27.342)
I don't know that.

Dave (15:51.924)
aren't already in the hobby and you have people like me who have been soured on the LCS experience by having numerous painful and frustrating experiences over the years in multiple different states, in multiple different cities, at multiple different shops. I'm sorry, but I just don't, I don't ever want to go to a comic shop and be condescended to by some fucking dickhead who has no idea what customer service even means. And I'm not like,

pounding the table about, you know, the customer is always right and you better treat me with respect and all that because no, the customer is not always right. In fact, the customer oftentimes is an asshole. But in comic shops, you get unprovoked condescension and that turns people off. We live in a time where I don't have to leave my house to get anything. The entire world that I need is right here on my phone.

I can order food, I can order groceries, I can order clothes, I can order furniture, I can order video games, I can order TVs, I can order pets, pet food, I can order literally whatever I want, whatever I want. So what is the draw for me to leave my home and go to a comic shop? There isn't one. There's no reason to do it. You have to incentivize the customer to leave their house and do this. And the only way to do that in 2024, the only retail that is even

thriving in the last, not even in 2024, but probably the last five to 10 years, it's experiential retail, or it's commodities that you cannot get in a easy or fast way by ordering online. Those are the only things that get people to leave their homes. And comics should be experiential retail, but no one's figured it out because it's just this scattered conglomeration of independent mom and pop shops, and plenty of which are run by, to be honest,

Matt (17:36.782)
Yeah.

Dave (17:46.548)
Jerks.

And if I'm a kid who watched superhero movies and I go, I want to read some comic books and my mom takes me to the comic book shop. And the guy behind the counters rude to my mom or mean to me, or it doesn't take my question seriously or doesn't seem like he wants to talk to me. One, this isn't, this isn't fun for me as a kid anymore. So why would I want to go back and do this? Or two, the mom goes, no, we're never coming here again. Like this is awful. And then all of a sudden mom is like, comic shops are stupid. I'm never taking you to a comic shop again.

Matt (18:09.87)
Yeah.

Matt (18:21.742)
You took that in a direction I did not think it was going to go, but I liked where you took that.

Dave (18:26.164)
I soapboxed quite a bit and I'm sorry for that but it needed to be said.

Matt (18:29.646)
No, do not apologize. Like, I don't... Man, where else am I gonna go? Like, I... The whole... I think what you're saying is correct. I don't know, man. Do you think it... So you think it's more of a... It sounds like you think it's more of a comic book experiential... That's why people aren't going to the comic shops and not so much the content, maybe. It's more of the...

Dave (18:55.924)
Why do you go to the shops you go to?

Matt (18:58.862)
I go for the experience, that's why I go.

Dave (19:01.14)
You like to talk to the people that work there. You have a good time interacting with them. They treat you with respect. They learn about you. They learn about the things that you like. I know you told me that the one shop that you go to primarily, the guy just like put stuff in your pull box that he thinks you might like.

Matt (19:03.374)
Yep, that's a good point.

Dave (19:20.436)
Those are rare experiences. You don't often get that.

Matt (19:24.91)
Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right.

Dave (19:27.604)
And there's so, there's so much, you know, I don't think that, that Dan Buckley is, is really off the mark. He's, he, he knows that that is a thing that we need. Yeah. You need people going to comic shops to buy comic books. Anyone can tell you that. How do you save the hobby? Well, you need people to go buy comic books. No fucking shit. However, he's not presenting a solution. All he's doing is trying to rally the troops. And guess what, man, the troops you're trying to rally really

Matt (19:48.726)
You

Dave (19:57.812)
for the most part, the ones that I talked to don't care for the content you're putting out anymore.

Matt (20:02.766)
Yeah, that's.

Dave (20:03.86)
So what do you want us to do?

Matt (20:07.662)
And for you, especially, you and my, you and our buddy Sheridan, like after, I mean Sheridan, both of you have had some very interesting experiences with LCSs, but like Sheridan is a amazing Spider -Man junkie collector. Every variant cover, one of those kinds of guys. So it only takes you a couple of times to screw up his pull box to where he's calling me. And then I'm like, dude, you just need to do the online thing that Dave does.

Dave (20:23.828)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Matt (20:37.166)
He does the online thing. He doesn't have to go anywhere. It's cheaper. And it comes to him. He's not coming back. I mean, he's he will go to the we will go to the occasional comic shop run like we do when we're in town. Like, let's go get some ribs and let's let's go look at some books. But like outside of like pulling up and having like a pull box and spending 50 bucks a month. He can sit on his couch. Why would he do that? Like, that doesn't make any sense.

Dave (20:40.564)
Mm -hmm.

Dave (20:49.876)
Mm -hmm.

Heheheheh

Dave (21:02.26)
Yeah, no way. No way. Dude, the the the place that I use, I use Lone Star Comics here in Dallas, Fort Worth or technically in Arlington, Texas, home of the Cowboys, the only Dallas sports team that cannot get to a conference championship. Cannot get to a com cannot buy a conference championship 2024 years or something since they were in it last this season. Literally every other Dallas sports team made it to at minimum the conference finals.

Matt (21:13.454)
As I say, go Cowboys. Not in the playoffs. Exactly.

Dave (21:31.828)
Rangers won the series and the Mavs kick off the finals against Boston tomorrow night. So stars are very close. Anyway, Lone Star Comics. Yeah, it was anti Cowboys rant if you were listening. So Lone Star Comics used to be a brick and mortar shop and then they just closed doors to be online only.

Matt (21:37.966)
Yes.

Yes.

You used to know like a pro Dallas friend. I kind of like, you kind of went like, very pro Dallas.

Dave (21:58.932)
They do subscription service. They do auctions. They do consignments and they just sell back issues They buy collections and they turn and sell they're my comic shop calm now I get better customer service from this like faceless online retailer Than I do in most brick -and -mortar comic shops There was a problem with my payment one time like it was my fault like I put in the wrong CCV number or CVV number whatever the hell it is and like my my

Matt (22:16.846)
That's a shit dude.

Dave (22:26.42)
pre -order failed, like it wasn't shipping. So I called them and like they, like a real person picked up the phone and the guy was super nice. He's like, yeah, man. I think he just put it in the wrong, the wrong three digit code. Like we could try it real quick now. And like, he was apologetic. I was like, no man, it's like, it was my fault. Like, don't worry about it. Like they got my shit sorted out within five minutes and then shipped my order that day.

Matt (22:50.446)
Yeah, it's, it's, I'm a little concerned about what Dan was saying about like the browsing, which is true. Like even for me, like I get my previews, catalog, a flip through. I know what I want. I put my pre -order in. Will I pick up the occasional book? Yeah, I'll do a little browsing, but like what he's talking about, like going in and just picking up five books off the rack. Like, no, I don't even do that. Like I go in and talk to Mike and get my stuff and I pay it. I leave. Like I'm not.

Dave (23:02.196)
Mm -hmm.

Dave (23:18.772)
The only time I have done that, the only time I have done that is when Eric still lived here in DFW and before we would go to band practice, he would go to the comic shop to get his pull list. He would get all his books and I would just be like standing around and once in a while I'd grab something off the shelf and buy it. But that was only because I was just like bored and I was there with him. And I was like, try something new, why not?

Matt (23:20.27)
browsing like that.

Matt (23:28.75)
You're on the hunt for something. Yeah.

okay.

Matt (23:39.534)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (23:48.308)
And I found some cool stuff that way. That's how I got back into GI Joe. And I found a couple other like cool little like a walk through hell from aftershock. I picked that up on a whim there and then I forget what else, but some cool stuff once in a while, but none of it was Marvel. I can tell you that.

Matt (24:06.798)
You just listed off a bunch of very small independent companies after Chuck going out of business. No Marvel Comics though.

Dave (24:11.508)
Yeah, yeah. I ain't buying Marvel. No.

Matt (24:18.382)
This is good stuff. So, alright Dave, you ready for my last point?

Dave (24:23.956)
I don't know. Maybe. Okay.

Matt (24:25.262)
I think you are. Alright, so this is ICV2, last point. You mentioned trying to get Wednesday Warriors coming in for more. We've heard from retailers that the shortening up of series with more and more one shots and more and more mini series and fewer and fewer longer ongoing series makes it harder to maintain the habit of collecting. Marvel is definitely in that role. She put it out, they put it out there like that's y 'all. They put it out there.

Dave (24:52.628)
Get him!

Matt (24:53.602)
Alright, here's Dan's response.

at a time and not four or five. Hopefully we can get to 15 or 20. That is our intent because to be honest, it's a lot of our, it's a lot for our editorial staff to restart books all the time. There's a lot of work on our marketing staff to remarket a book coming out. It is to the benefit to figure this out for everyone. I say this one specifically because I wish we were a video podcast. Cause you see Dave rubbing his head right now.

Dave (25:52.308)
I'll post this on TikTok. I'll post it. This is going to be on TikTok.

Matt (25:52.366)
I say this, I say this with specific specifically. I figured this would be the one that would get a rise out of you the most. how do you, how do you feel about these 10 issue mini series? That's yay. That's a big, that's an ongoing is 10 issues now. How do you feel about that?

Dave (26:14.676)
I'll tell you this. The one thing that Dan Buckley is excellent at is like corporate spin, fucking bullshit, because that was the most non -answer to a very direct and pointed question that he could have possibly given this interviewer. I don't, did you say that? I don't have the interviewer's name. Did you say that their name? Okay. so the interviewer says people are saying they want ongoing series, not many series in a bunch of restarts. And he goes,

Matt (26:22.381)
Okay.

Matt (26:30.862)
I didn't get the name, no no no, I didn't get any names.

Dave (26:41.332)
Yeah, we'd really like to get to, you know, 10 or maybe 15 or even 20 issues. Are you fucking stupid? Does that sound like an ongoing series to you? No, it does not. That's not what ongoing means. Also, I call bullshit on the days of long running series being over. What's the what's Detective Comics at now? Can you remind me? that's right. It's over a thousand action comics. Where's that at?

Matt (27:02.99)
Yeah.

Matt (27:08.11)
A thousand something. If it... Yeah, I think...

Dave (27:09.332)
That's over a thousand. Yeah, where's where's where's Batman at? And this is like a relaunched Batman. But where's Batman at? It's in the hundred and fifties.

Matt (27:18.286)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (27:22.004)
Are you are you listening to any of this Dan? Are you are you paying attention to the industry in which you operate? No, I would say no. You're just some guy in a suit.

Matt (27:34.094)
What publisher did you just say? I mentioned those books around.

Dave (27:36.948)
DC.

Matt (27:39.214)
I mean, they do tend to lean more towards their lineage than Marvel, in my opinion. Like, they lean more on that history than Marvel always kind of have, but...

Dave (27:45.852)
yeah, absolutely.

Dave (27:49.812)
Marvel's Marvel's entire strategy is a snake swallowing its own tail. They released the movie and then they just want to like be in a circular spin forever of like movie begets comic begets show begets movie begets comic. And we are just stuck in a loop. We don't innovate. We don't adjust. We don't change. We don't listen to the fans clearly because he was given a very direct question.

Matt (28:00.43)
Just in check.

Matt (28:08.718)
Yeah.

Dave (28:16.788)
and could not answer it in a way that was satisfactory for me.

Matt (28:21.806)
So I didn't have enough. I wanted to pull my best Dave. I didn't have a lot of time. I kind of, we've been a little under the weather in the house and the kids are up at three. The kids are up at three AM last night. So I didn't get to do as much as I wanted, but I did flip through. This is the most recent Marvel previews from June to August. And I wanted to just share some numbers based on what Mr. Buckley just said for us. So.

Dave (28:30.003)
no.

Dave (28:34.068)
Jeez.

Matt (28:49.038)
I went through the whole catalog from just for Marvel and I looked at all their printed comic books that month. I excluded Star Wars and I excluded all the Fox predator property, like Predator solo books, just like Marvel, Marvel universe books. So series that were over 12 issues. sorry.

Dave (28:51.796)
Okay. Okay.

Dave (29:04.66)
License stuff doesn't count. Yeah. Got it.

Matt (29:16.302)
The total printed line was 65. There were 65 books in this sample size. So series that were over 12 issues, Dave's already shaking his head. 10 books were over issue number 12. So that's 15%.

Mr. Buckley was talking about series that go to 20 issues. So I went to look at 24, which would be the equivalent of two years in Marvel Comics time. I want to say that's probably a year or a year and a half because we got to double ship a lot of stuff. But how many, how much, what percent of their line do you think is over 24 issues? 12 is 15. What do you think over 24 is?

Dave (29:59.54)
I mean, Amazing Spider -Man's one of them.

It's got to be in the single digits, I'd say it's probably between three and 5%.

Matt (30:10.926)
Damn, you're close. You're so close. It's 6%. There's four books. I should have wrote them down, but ASM was one. I think Avengers was, no, Avengers was like 17, but regardless, six books, six per 6%. More importantly, how many series I counted, how many are at three 99. We're trying to hold the line at three 99. So of.

Dave (30:19.188)
course.

Dave (30:39.252)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (30:40.654)
Of those 65 books, 26 of them were 399 for 40%. That's actually higher than I thought. I thought it was actually going to be a lot lower than that, but I didn't have time, but some of those books, man, they're like some 699, some 799. It's like the Spider -Man, one of them is like 499. And the next issue is like 799. So it's like, here's your problem. Your problem.

I'm not expecting you to have 500 issue runs. I'm not even expecting you to have like a hundred issue. I would like to see some hundred issue runs at this point, but like ships. Like if we can get a hundred, if we can get a hundred issues, I'd be happy with that. Honestly. I mean, this is, we're doing annual reboots. Like at this point, like we're at 12 issues and that's like, when you're rebooting that much, like none of this matter. It just, it truly does not matter.

Dave (31:19.956)
I expect that.

I want that.

Dave (31:26.868)
Me too. DC can do it.

Matt (31:38.382)
And this is why.

Dave (31:38.484)
Eric Larson can do it. Todd McFarland can do it. G .I. Joe Reumann -Hero can do it.

Matt (31:44.558)
This is why, I mean, this is why the Wednesday Warriors are gone. The old heads are gone, in my opinion. This is, this is.

Dave (31:50.548)
Even Robert Kirkman could do it and that guy can't put a book out on time to save anyone's life, including his own. He's still got over 100 with two series.

Matt (31:55.438)
I think this is a big, the rebooting, now we have some numbers and the cost. I think even like, I think the quality of these books, like if you looked at a red Marvel comic, like there's like no action in these books, bro. There's no, like I was on unlimited flipping through them, like there's like no action. In 20 of these pages, like 15 of it is just talking. And it's like, nah, I don't.

Dave (32:08.116)
Well...

Dave (32:18.068)
You know why.

we want to create serialized content like a TV show because the only thing that matters is movies and TV shows and sometimes in a TV show have you I mean you've watched some of the MCU TV shows right there are full episodes where nothing happens you're getting that in the comics that is what you wanted this we spoke with our wallets and we loved the MCU so now you're getting an MCU coat of paint slapped on your comics

Matt (32:34.094)
Yeah

Matt (32:40.846)
I don't...

Not me, bro. I got off out of there. I've been critical for a long time. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but.

Dave (32:46.612)
I mean, so did I, but at one point, you know, we've voraciously consumed that content. And this is what you I mean, remember, the MCU started in 2007, that was 17 years ago.

Here we are. This that we're we're reaping our our rewards. Personally, I, you know, I Marvel can keep doing me wrong. I don't care. I have plenty to read and it is excellent. When I last episode, I talked about how I was stuck on a plane for nine hours on a 45 minute flight. I read so much DC stuff. While I was on that plane. And it is excellent. my God.

Matt (33:11.534)
Yeah.

Matt (33:26.19)
Do you enjoy it? Good.

Dave (33:28.82)
Batman, Catwoman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman. All excellent, excellent comics. Enjoying all of them thoroughly.

Matt (33:40.686)
So when I've been getting back into my weeds here, the most popular, when I've listened to podcasts and kind of read and Twitter, all kinds of stuff, the most popular things I've seen are Ghost Machine, which I'm on board with.

I will give Marvel credit. The Marvel Ultimate line is apparently fantastic. I'm reading Ultimate Spider -Man. It is very good. There's Ultimate X -Men, which Peach Momoko is doing. And then there's also Ultimate Black Panther, which also looks interesting. I'm not a big Peach Momoko person, so I'm not on that one. But Ultimate Black Panther I'm going to try too. And you know what the number one hot book is, right? The hotness is. It's the Energon line. That's been like the Energon Transformers books.

Dave (34:29.396)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (34:31.118)
People that don't even like G .I. Joe or reading G .I. Joe, like they might like one character, but they're like, I got to read all these characters. I read Scarlet Number One today. It was actually really good. I didn't like the art, but the story was, it was good. You'll love it. I think you'll like it, but tight cohesive universe.

Dave (34:41.108)
It just showed up today. I'm going to read it this weekend.

Dave (34:46.9)
Then there was a quick downgrade. You went from you'll love it to I think you'll like it. That was fast. You said you love it and then immediately said I think you'll like it. Instant downgrade. I will.

Matt (34:51.118)
You'll love it. I hate the art. I don't wanna start, but.

You'll love it. I think you'll love it. I think you'll love it. But it's just, I think it's tight, cohesive universe. It's accessible and most of the books have good art. That's all we're asking for. And it's not a lot. It's not a huge investment. Whatever, you know, if you do, it seems the G .I. Joe strategy is like two character specific books and Energon is like Transformers and Void Rivals. So you're picking maybe like five titles up a month. Ghost Machine is similar.

Dave (35:21.364)
Yeah, the individual character from GI Joe and Cobra, that's where it's leading. They're just giving you these run -ups. If I had to put money on it, what's gonna happen is they're gonna continue to introduce more and more of their version of the GI Joe lore with individual character five -issue or six -issue series. Then we're going to get a GI Joe versus Transformers mini.

Matt (35:26.062)
I wish it was just one. Yeah.

Matt (35:32.27)
stories.

Dave (35:49.652)
which will spin out into a GI Joe ongoing and potentially relaunch transformers.

Matt (35:56.014)
Got you.

Dave (35:57.14)
That's my that's my prediction. It is 915 PM Central Standard Time on June 5th, 2024. If this is what happens, just remember I said it first.

Matt (36:00.718)
Heheheheh

Matt (36:08.782)
You said it here first. We got you. Well, we keep a tight record here on the comic dudes. No, I'm not. And I think that that's where it's at. And I mean, we both been critical. I think Jason Aaron's probably going to do a pretty good job on TMNT. I think he hates Marvel in D .C., to be honest with you. I think he'll probably do a much better job with the turtles. But, you know, I think that's also that book has the potential to bring some people back into the shops as well to those last Ronan books.

Dave (36:13.684)
Hehehehehe

Matt (36:36.334)
The sequel just came out, that's doing really well at my shop. So yeah, that's just where I wanted to just pick your brain real quick on some thoughts from Dan Buckley. I'll be honest, man, you're a lot more positive. You gave Dan more props than I did, and I appreciate that. Like a little.

Dave (36:51.924)
I mean, he's not wrong in some of that. It's but it's also it doesn't take a very sharp mind to point out that, yeah, we need to bring people back into comic shops. Yeah, we need to sell more comic books. Yeah. Yeah, man. Maybe maybe start looking in the mirror, not out the window.

Matt (36:58.09)
You

Matt (37:05.518)
Are you?

Are you implying that Dan Buckley has a tremendous amount of PR training? Or is that what you're implying, sir?

Dave (37:16.212)
would imagine so at his level yes he's he's coached on how to handle the media they all are they all are and they are publicly traded company so now granted their their share price is tied to Disney they're not they're not their own separate entity anymore so that that stock goes where the parks business goes where the cruise business goes where the resort business goes and also

where Disney Plus goes. That's why you got ads. That's why the price went up.

Matt (37:51.47)
I don't know, crazy times.

Dave (37:52.372)
All I'm saying is Disney on its own is not making enough money to let Marvel Publishing do whatever it wants. The edict here is clearly you need to do whatever you need to do to make money to be profitable because it's a publicly traded company with a parent company that can't afford to have a large part of the organization not be a profit center. And...

It costs a lot of money to print on paper and ship it to comic shops for people to buy. So the way to make money is to relaunch stuff, do short series, et cetera, et cetera. you know, he can show up publicly and give all the spins that he wants about, we got to bring back the fans we lost and we got to do better about longer series and whatever else, you know, is at this point, just lip service until they actually do something to change this. but until they actually do something to change it.

You know, the sales don't just magically appear because you said I want to bring the weekend or the Wednesday Warriors back to the shops. Dude. Okay. So what? Give me a reason to go. You can't. You can't.

Matt (38:57.358)
Yeah.

Dave (39:00.308)
I'll keep reading Valiant and Energon and Real American Hero and, you know, the occasional interesting mini series. And I'm reading a book from Dark Horse right now called Dawn Runner that has very, very big Pacific Rim vibes. Yeah, I mean, the Pacific Rim comics are dog shit, so I got to get that fixed somewhere. I can't just keep watching the first movie over and over again. I mean, I can and I do, but that's not enough sometimes.

Matt (39:13.774)
So you're getting your fix there. You're good.

Matt (39:23.342)
Big. Sometimes it's a sad proposition sometimes.

Dave (39:30.164)
It is. It is. Well, yeah, I mean, this was it was it was interesting. It was interesting to hear, you know, one of the things that I I often avoid is listening to executives talk about the hobbies that I love. And you mentioned it earlier, you know, in the video game space, you know, we have fallen victim to what essentially amounts to like hedge fund type of activity and, you know, companies just buying up other companies.

Matt (39:32.846)
That's it. Thanks for a lift.

Matt (39:42.862)
I don't, I love it.

Dave (39:59.444)
swallowing them up, juicing them for whatever talent is there, and then shuttering that studio and putting a bunch of people out of work. And I get it, it's a business, not a charity. And we wanna make money because that's the way we continue to make video games. But also, over the years, and I think this sort of happened with the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation, as the development costs shifted,

and games as a service models started to take over and free to play models started to dominate. I'm talking about games like Fortnite and Rocket League, Minecraft, Roblox especially. There wasn't much room left over for the traditional AAA experience or the traditional single player experience. And we have very few studios left.

that can produce those types of games on a consistent basis with the funding to make them actually fun and playable and good. So the industry really, you've got this extremely rich and deep sea of small dev and indie games to sift through. And then you have companies like Warner Brothers chasing live service bullshit like that Suicide Squad game. You've got...

Microsoft, Bite Above A Cheat Game Studios, forcing them to do things outside of their expertise and then closing the studio when the game doesn't perform. You know, Arkane Austin had like almost 100 % turnover during the development cycle of that game, with which I will not name. And, you know, those are sad things because...

Matt (41:46.734)
Did you know people there?

Dave (41:48.18)
Mm -mm.

I did not. I don't know many people left in the industry, to be honest. I know a couple of people at Gearbox and our mutual friend in New York, but he's not on the dev side. So, you know, people that are working on game dev and I really only know one person left that's in game dev at Gearbox. Everyone else is on like marketing, retail, support type operational stuff and not tied to game development, but it's a

Matt (42:05.646)
Yeah, true.

Dave (42:20.5)
The landscape for video games is weird and kind of scary.

Matt (42:20.91)
It's a weird, it's...

Yeah, I don't like the graduates coming out of like RIT. I'm like, that would not be want to be that would not be an industry I'd want to be getting into right now breaking into the new hire like that seems crazy.

Dave (42:33.78)
Yeah, it's it's really, you know, that Suicide Squad game is probably the last we ever see of Rocksteady. You know, those people will go on to do other games and create new studios. But I don't think we ever get we'd never get a Batman game like we got with Arkham Asylum and Arkham City Arkham Knight was an Arkham Origins was not Rocksteady. That doesn't count. But yeah, man, there's.

Matt (42:41.422)
That's sad.

Dave (43:02.516)
You know, people making decisions to make the wrong type of games with the talent that they have is just a sad thing. And you see it more and more as costs of doing business increase. It affects hobbies that we love in a very negative way. And, you know, not much you can do about it, but just sort of sit and, and mourn from the sidelines.

Matt (43:28.27)
All right, that was great.

Dave (43:31.156)
Not to end on a downer, but it was that kind of an episode. That's OK. We'll be back in two weeks with the boys part six. Eric will be back so you'll be happy. You won't be stuck with just me. And then we'll be officially halfway through. The boys will be volume six of 12. Halfway feels good, feels bad at the same time somehow, but it does feel good.

Matt (43:45.87)
Shut up.

Dave (44:01.096)
Also, our 100th episode is coming up this year. Matt and I were starting to talk about what we should do for episode 100. If any of you are wonderful, attractive, intelligent listeners, have some ideas, hop in the Discord and tell us or follow us at one of our socials and let us know what you think we should do. I kind of want to like give some stuff away. We've not done like any giveaway type stuff before. We have to do that on

Matt (44:27.918)
Okay? Yeah.

Dave (44:30.324)
like one of the socials and we'd need some like, we have to set a goal. Like we need like a certain amount of followers or interactions on a piece of content or something. I don't know. I'm just spit balling here. I don't know what we would give away. I know what we'd give away. We'd give away some copies of invincible. You haven't invincible. Fuck you. Here's volume one. Read it or else probably show up at your house and I'll read it to you and you don't want that.

Matt (44:39.79)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (44:48.526)
Yeah, nah, that'd be good. That'd be good. Story time.

Dave (44:54.58)
I'm going to sit you down. We're going to read Invincible. God damn it. I don't know. Well, now we're solutioning live on the podcast. I'm going to just cut us off there. We'll see you all in a couple of weeks. Until then, my name is Dave. Take care of yourselves, everybody. Bye -bye.

Matt (44:58.19)
That's pretty great, yeah.

Matt (45:10.958)
I'm Matt.

Peace.