Improving Sales by Improving Quality

As we've discussed before, comics companies have had huge successes with their film franchises, but the sales of actual books have remained relatively the same. While it could be said that the blame is on poor promotion, preconceived notions, or stigmas against comics and comic readers, I firmly believe that the blame rests squarely on the poor storytelling that's been a part of the comic industry in recent years.

It seems like lately, comics have been plagued by one bad decision after another. DC and Marvel both initiated new readership programs and we know how that turned out. Marvel then launched the ghastly AVX crossover that squandered the potential of the culmination of the Messiah Complex storyline.The list just goes on and on.

It's clear that the big two need to improve the overall quality of their books, and the first step to doing this is by increasing the amount of editorial support. There have been numerous instances of writers having to ask fans about certain aspects of a comic or download previous issues simply because the editors could not get the writers back issues. A "continuity bible" needs to be created, especially for the X-books, in order to ensure fluidity among writers and between story lines. Television shows do this and it's inexcusable that comic companies do not.

It's not just the editors though. The writers themselves seem to be pitching terrible storyline after terrible storyline. Comic companies need to start taking risks and hiring writers who are willing to try new things. There's a reason the X-Men soared in popularity after Chris Claremont took the helm. He was not afraid to introduce new characters, utilize lesser known characters, and to create story lines that no one expected. Instead, writers today focus on the popular characters and rehash the same stories over and over. I've picked on the X-books a lot in this blog post, but that's simply because they're such a mess right now and are a prime example of what has been wrong with comic writing in the last few years. When House of M happened, almost all the mainstays got to keep their powers and the ones that were depowered got them back a few issues later. Had the creative teams been a more daring, we could have gotten interesting stories about Cyclops, Storm, Psylocke, and others learning how to deal with the fact that they were now human, and could have had lesser known characters rise up and take their place and responsibilities.

 House of M was a mini reboot of sorts, in addition to being a crossover, and it shows, among other examples, that reboots and crossovers need to stop happening. They only serve to frustrate current readers, perhaps even driving them off, and they don't particularly help in gaining new ones. As a friend of mine recently said:

"Unless a character is in dire straights, all anyone really needs is to be reset to a clean slate. Mark Waid's Daredevil is a perfect example. He didn't ignore past story lines, but he found a way to acknowledge them and still give the character a clean slate. You can jump onto his run if you've been reading Daredevil for years, or if you've never read a Daredevil comic in your life."

 If a writer is truly talented and capable of producing excellent work, then he or she should be able to write around tough plot points; a complete reboot should never be necessary. If these writers were being hired, the quality of the comics would go up, news would spread, either by word of mouth or by reviews, and sales would increase. It's really that simple. It seems, though, that comic companies don't seem to grasp this idea yet and we may have to trudge through the muck for a while longer.