Does Marvel write it's own fan letters?

[Spade]

I've never had an issue dropping a title I didn't like, but maybe that's because I'm not a huge collector like others. Still, why do people buy books they don't like? What's the book going to do, at most, after you buy it out of formality? Accumulate dust? Become a coaster for your Coors Light? I think that's a waste of cash. There are far less popular comics that have amazing talent on them yet lack the sales of big-name titles. Money wasted on a title you think is mediocre could easily go towards supporting good comics.

As for the "Marvel writing their own letters post-OMD" possibility: I doubt it. As much as I don't like it, many people will continue buying ASM because it's a Spidey book. A decent amount of those same people seem to be okay with the changes. It's only natural that they would praise what they see to be a good decision.

 

[Star]

People buy books they don't like so they can read them, go into a rage about them, write an angry fan letter and then buy the next issue to see if their rage was printed.


Also, as someone who has indeed bought a comic for a book she was starting to dislike, there is always that hope that the story will improve and you will find yourself loving it like you once did?

 

[Spade]

With all of the preview pages that get posted on the 'net, I would think it would be easy to tell when a title has gone back to form if you're really wondering. Plus, there's always a fellow fan that can provide a reliable review. All free options to tell if a title's back on track, none of which take up too much time or space.

 

[Elijya]

I've never had an issue dropping a title I didn't like, but maybe that's because I'm not a huge collector like others. Still, why do people buy books they don't like? What's the book going to do, at most, after you buy it out of formality? Accumulate dust? Become a coaster for your Coors Light? I think that's a waste of cash. There are far less popular comics that have amazing talent on them yet lack the sales of big-name titles. Money wasted on a title you think is mediocre could easily go towards supporting good comics.

I don't disagree with you personally, but for some people it's not a matter of them being comic fans. They may be Spider-Man fans or X-Men fans, and comics as a whole don't have the appeal to them the way that specific characters do. Some people also prefer the never ending drama of ongoing characters, they don't want to miss a minute of it, and aren't looking for a story that ends (which is what many of the "far less popular comics that have amazing talent on them yet lack the sales" are designed to do from the get-go)

 

[iloveclones]

He is fundamentally right, though, barbs aside. That's one of the things that annoys me about the comic book industry's setup.

Which means he's fundamentally right about every single business that ever existed, including prostitution. How exactly is Marvel different from People Magazine, Coke, Nike, or Hubba Bubba? They make a product that they hope people will buy. Period. If they stop buying, they will either reformulate, or die off. There is no conspiracy. This is all about fans who didn't get their way. There have been times I haven't gotten my way (in comic stories and in life). I decided to move on rather than blaming everyone under the sun for my inconveniences.

 

[yenaled]

I tend to only write into comics when I like what they are doing and want to support their book and let creators know that - I wrote in for support of The Thing and Manhunter in hopes of not letting them die. I recently wrote into the Sword because I liked the fact they did research on the Minoans (it happens to be my area of expertise when I was at university).

But I hardly ever write in to object to something because ultimatly I don't think it has ever mattered. The only time I ever wrote in to complain was to DC about them rejecting Kyle Rayner in favour of Hal and that obviously just got shredded.

What I am trying to say is - there maybe a lot of people venting on forums about their hatred but many of them don't bother to tell Marvel about it in mail because once a company has set it's goals on a particular direction it will take more than angry mail to get them to alter it.

 

[Xofenroht]

This is all because of the division between Comic Book Collectors and Comic Book Readers.

 

[Themanofbat]

I've had a couple of letters printed in Rex Mundi that was word for word, so I really doubt that the letter's page in BND are fake... besides, the people reading the letter's pages would have already purchased the comic, right?

 

[Xofenroht]

And THAT is why TMOB is cool.

 

[fifthfiend]

Even TMOB doesn't believe TMOB is cool.

Which means he's fundamentally right about every single business that ever existed, including prostitution.

See that's just not true at all, historically and even in many modern-day business transactions a dissatisfied client may have any number of recourses in an unsatisfactory exchange. The phenomenon of a business being insulated from a large dissatisfied clientele is much more modern development consequent from the mass industrial production of consumer goods, and of a national/multinational marketplace paired with relatively atomized and weakly socialized communities.

But the observation does apply to a lot of business as conducted under our present-day legal, social and technological framework. Which was more or less what I originally said.

 

[Xofenroht]

Don't say that. Every time you say someone doesn't believe TMOB is cool, a MOB dies somewhere.

 

[iloveclones]

Even TMOB doesn't believe TMOB is cool.



See that's just not true at all, historically and even in many modern-day business transactions a dissatisfied client may have any number of recourses in an unsatisfactory exchange. The phenomenon of a business being insulated from a large dissatisfied clientele is much more modern development consequent from the mass industrial production of consumer goods, and of a national/multinational marketplace paired with relatively atomized and weakly socialized communities.

But the observation does apply to a lot of business as conducted under our present-day legal, social and technological framework. Which was more or less what I originally said.

My point was, though, that there is nothing special about the comic industry, which Corpy was lamenting about. It acts like every single other business. As it should. And if you don't believe that, try getting Coke to change it's formula. If anything, Marvel (and DC) respond to their customers much, much more than most companies.

Why should Marvel (or DC) care about the 100,000 or 200,000, or 1,000,000 people who think OMD or BND sucks? There are about 6,000,000,000 or so that don't even know or care either way. Are they supposed to cater to them, also? No, they cater to the people they believe that they can appeal to. Now and, if they're a well-thought out business, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years from today. And if disappointing 50K readers today (which even that high estimate hasn't been shown yet), to set-up the plate for gaining 200K or more readers 20 years from today, than it will have been worth it. Will that happen? I don't know (and either do any of you.)

 

[fifthfiend]

And if you don't believe that, try getting Coke to change it's formula.

Done!

 

[fifthfiend]

Ha ha okay no I mean in a general sense I totally agree. But seriously that was like the worst and most contradictory example you could possibly have picked.

 

[iloveclones]

Exactly. They made a change that nobody liked and paid the economic consequence for it. Exactly how the market is supposed to work. I've yet to see the economic consequence for Marvel, just a lot of whining.

 

[iloveclones]

Ha ha okay no I mean in a general sense I totally agree. But seriously that was like the worst and most contradictory example you could possibly have picked.

I picked Coke purposely because it worked exactly like it's supposed to. Spidey fans are just upset that history is not repeating itself. That the fans haven't risen up and made them effect the change. Believe me, more change comes about from apathy than anger.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Maybe it's because of the comics medium's more responsive nature that it annoys me. When Coke or some other giant company changes something, they don't usually reach out to the community the way many industry people do with comics. We've got sites like Newsarama and CBR where the industry insiders answer questions and interact with fans. The implied hope, of course, is that the fans' input may actually be taken to heart. That's what burns me when we learn that the comic industry still functions in practice just like any of those other mega-corporations--they give us the illusion that we provide valued input, and then they toss it aside and people like Joe Q laugh about how much controversy sells. And I'm equally annoyed at the comic fans who feed that controversy while continuing to buy the comic, thus proving Joe Q right.

I don't know if that made sense.

 

[Egotastic]

Says the guy who's picking up Secret Invasion.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

You make it sound like I'm chaining myself to it and marching in the SI Day Parade or something. I'm giving it a try after SI Saga. If it sucks, I'll drop it. I've gotten good at that since becoming poor.

 

[Egotastic]

"I get annoyed when fans buy comics that feed on controversy."

"Are you picking up the controversial SI?"

"Yes."

 

[TheCorpulent1]

That's actually not what I said, but I can tell you're having too much fun to care.

 

[Egotastic]

HAHAHA, he's a hypocrite! HAHA!! LALALA!

What?

 

[iloveclones]

You make it sound like I'm chaining myself to it and marching in the SI Day Parade or something. I'm giving it a try after SI Saga. If it sucks, I'll drop it. I've gotten good at that since becoming poor.

I did like that. Gives me a really disturbing mental image of a Skrull in a leather cop costume. Y-M-C-A.......

 

[Egotastic]

Is that the first thing you thing of when you think of a cop? Huh.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Here's a question I have. Never really understood it. Marvel and others always talk about how successful a comic is based on sales. All those people bought OMD so it must have been accepted for the most part... but most people have to buy them to read it. And most would THEN realize that it was the worst spidey story ever written. Their buying the comic doesn't mean they approved of it at all. And many of them may have been ticked off, but were nice enough to give BND a shot... and my have liked it, though they still hated OMD. And yet, all I hear is Marvel claiming the sales prove that OMD wasn't as horrible as people on the internet say.

I never got that.