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.

Comics and Online Privacy: How Comics Could Take Advantage of the Willingness to Provide Information

While we're well past the Golden Age of comics, we're square in the Golden Age of the Internet. Speeds are becoming faster and faster, content is being published like never before, and connecting with friends and new people is easier than ever thanks to social networks. It's also easier than ever for others to discover information about us online, which may lead some to label this the Gilded Age of the Internet.

It's this ease of discovery that causes people to get nervous about doing anything online; after all, who hasn't heard a story of someone getting their identity stolen and having huge amounts charged onto their credit cards. However, it seems as if the younger generation doesn't seem to care about people finding out stuff about them, or rather, have different priorities in what they allow to be found out about them. They post every important life event on Facebook, tweet every second of their day on Twitter, and share every meal they have on Instagram. This plethora of information is a marketer's dream; more information means tailored advertisements which equals higher sales.

But how can comics take advantage of all of this information? The most obvious option would be to show advertisements to people who said they liked a comic movie adaption. It can, and does, go deeper than that though. Comic companies could take advantage of people's willingness to provide information and desire to express themselves and their opinions by asking readers to give their thoughts on recent storylines, characters, artwork, and any other comic related aspect. Then, comic companies could take this information into account in crafting future stories, ensuring that readers would like the choices being made and thereby increasing, or at least maintaining, readership and sales.

This campaign could be easily implemented across social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or specific message boards that could be created on official company websites so readers could post their opinions. By doing this, readers could feel like they were a part of the comic making process which would result in relationships being formed between the company and the reader.

Of course, great care would have to be taken by the comic companies to ensure that they weren't alienating any customers. They should state specifically that data was being collected and what it was being used for, and then give users the option to opt out of the data collection program in case they were uncomfortable with this. Giving people this choice would reduce the potential problems of data collection and would retain all the people that actually wanted to share their information, bettering the product for everyone involved.

Assuming it's all done correctly, online privacy might actually be beneficial to comic companies. By embracing what people like to post and share online, these companies will be able to incorporate their products into people's identities, thus creating a long and lasting relationship between everyone involved.