Killing the Golden Goose -

Interesting Convo in the comic shop this weekend.

The general opinion is that Marvel as a corporation is skimping on the quality and money it could put into it's comic division.

Instead it is Mining 50 plus years of continuity and strip-mining ideas into movie one-shots for immediate money instead of telling complete stories that would take two or three movies to tell.

The source of the characters and ideas they are making their movies from -with few exceptions - has been ignored with a too casual nod toward continuity,.............. Making for stories that more complain about than applaud.

My question here is:

Do you think that Marvel is killing the Goose?

 

Yup,.. Whatever you say.

http://www.marvel.com/company/pdfs/Annual Report 2006 3-07.PDF

Yup,.. The annual report here tells a different story with the ones in charge being VERY careful to not even hint at what they are giving their freelance artists and writers but mearly saying that their relationship with their employees "are good".

Signed on,.. But the point of the convo in the shop was about whether they would keep them. They admitted in the same report that their competitors may have "more to offer" then they have.

The bottom line remains that currently Marvel is treating the Comic part of the company worst than the merchandising and movie parts,.. Building a Multimillion dollar studio and making deals with companies like Hasbro while cracking the whip over the comics to make waves however they can - Quality be hanged,.. which explains for me :
The disasembled series
House of M
Son of M
Civil War
The Initiative
The Death of Captain America
And this Messiah mess on the horizon.

Movies are and will continue to be pulled from the comics that were written with more thought and less shock while too much of the current stuff will be written for shock value.


V.

 

I'm honestly just bringing the gist of the convo here.

It started with two of us talking about the Ironman movie and whether they were going to do the second hulk movie rite.

After awhile it was a group of us talking and someone started pointing out what I mentioned earlier,... Of course they started with the late arrival dates and the hit or miss on the major crossovers.

After waiting almost a Year for the conclusion of the Spiderman/Blackcat mini,.... (Geez I forgot - The things people do?),... I had learned to just be patient, (it's not like I'm going anywhere.) - but some of these guys were hot because as military they miss a lot of stuff because the books don't come out on time.
(Always a treat when their wives and girlfriends come in after the guy has been gone for two months and say - "Could I have the Latest Spiderman comic?")

Soon it boiled down my having less and less to defend with and more and more I couldn't dispute.

Bottom line seemed to be that Marvel the company was not trying to build on the comics as much as mine them for money making ideas.

Like for example - how Spiderman three compressed about 30 years of Spiderman continuity (ignoring all the changes to the original story.)

And while I said it was getting better,.. the lack of promoting some characters or books over others,... While going hog - wild over things like Transformers in the Marvel Universe.
On the same subject : This policy of wacking a new book before the readership gets a chance to digest it? Has that changed? I had folk coming in for months after the Thing "Suddenly" ended for them,...


Well,..
This is what I wanted,.. convo on the topic.

I have two weeks before I go back in there.


V.

 

I accept that but WISH they would at least have the comic creators have more control over the content - Maybe have them play co-producers or something.

V.

 

DC having more resources? C I 2 I (see eye to eye on this - no argument.)

No, my problem in this case is how Marvel is seen from the comic fan point of view - I'm not basing the "quality" on whether I liked it or not,..
there is good stuff I don't like but appreciate because of the obvious effort put into it - example : The Punisher.
I have the same problem with him as I do with Batman. Any Normal human who was THAT MUCH Trouble to the criminals whould find his un-super-powered behind ganged up on by supervillians hired to whack him.
Because of this I can't really get into either character,.. but EVERYTIME I read a Punisher comic I recognise the work put into it.
.

Chill.
I didn't even go into the convo as far as naming writers that came up last weekend - and Artists and Pencillers didn't even get complaint one,.. Even Cho Got cut slack because everyone agreed that he has spent years doing art at a much slower rate .

No,.. the general on that was if Marvel paid more attention to this part they would return some sort of control over the stuff that was easy to pick out.

Like continuity, Power, and character errors.

You made me smile at the thought of YOU defending Bendis - PROPS.

V.

 

Not funny.

If you can't defend,.. don't detract.

Not even upset,.. this is SOP here.