Not signed in (Sign In)

Welcome, Guest

Want to take part in these discussions? Sign in if you have an account, or apply for one below

Vanilla 1.1.10 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.

Welcome Guest!
Want to take part in these discussions? If you have an account, sign in now.
If you don't have an account, apply for one now.

General Comics Chat: Mark Millar is annoying me

Bottom of Page

1 to 21 of 21

  1.  
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2010
     
    Ok, so, just got finished glancing over a relatively pretty fight scene (AKA "reading Nemesis #3") which, at the end, had ads for Kick-Ass 2 and Millar's new pitch, sorry, series - Superman, sorry, Superior, pencilled by Leinil Yu.

    And this is now starting to annoy me.

    I appreciate that Millar has cool ideas and has written some cool comics but he's now tying up McNiven, Romita Jr and Yu on what I've unfairly prejudged as just being pitches for another movie. Can't he just pitch like normal writers? It just seems a waste of top artists pandering to Millar's desire to pitch endless Hollywood deals. Not sure why it's annoying or even if I'm being fair, but there you go.

    The other annoying thing is that I'll totally be buying Kick-Ass 2 and Superior...
    • CommentAuthorCaptain Si
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2010
     
    Hmm. Shameless self promotion: Yes. Pitch to Hollywood: No. I don't think Hollywood would be that excited by the prospect of adapting a comic book that sells to a maximum of 50,000 worldwide (this seems to be the norm for top sellers, these days, no?). It will certainly keep his profile high and allows to him to work with whomever he pleases though...until any further film adaptions tank. Arf!
  3.  
    Estimated orders for Kick-Ass #6 was 51300 and they made a movie out of that particular title.
    • CommentAuthorCaptain Si
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2010
     
    yes. i will shut up now :)
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2010
     
    50,000? Really, is that all they sell? What does X-Men sell? Or Ultimate Spidey?
  6.  
    July 2010 Top Selling Comics. This Direct Market only and (I think) USA only.

    1 MAR X Men 1 140,332
    2 DC Brightest Day 6 94,684
    3 DC Batman Return of Bruce Wayne 4 88,020
    4 MAR Avengers 3 87,410
    5 DC Batman and Robin 13 85,804
    6 DC Green Lantern 56 84,164
    7 MAR New Avengers (2010) 2 83,397
    8 DC Brightest Day 5 77,796
    9 DC Batman 701 76,398
    10MAR Secret Avengers 3 72,293

    The estimated total sales for the top 300 comics was 5,939,052 comics which is down by 178,383 units from June and down by 975,666 units from July 2009. Marvel Comics had the largest percentage of the top 300 comics with 46.89% of the total units sold followed by DC Comics with 37.53%.

    The top selling comic from Marvel Comics was "X Men" #1 in slot 1 with an estimated 140,332 units and for DC Comics was "Brightest Day" #6 in rank 2 with an estimated 94,684 units.

    The estimated total sales for the top 300 trades was 385,917 trades which is up by 12,341 units from June and up by 4,833 units from July 2009.

    Topping the trades list in July was "Scott Pilgrim v6: Finest Hour" by ONI Press with 21,305 units.
  7.  
    Most people seem to use the number of units for the top selling comic as a barometer of how the industry is doing - this makes no sense to me at all. The real indicator is surely how many in total were sold. Taking July as an example, a million less comics were sold* than last July - which seems a lot but given the "economic crisis" I'm not too sure. It would be intertesting to see how comics have fared during the recessions across the west compared to other forms of entertainment.

    *OK will now more on this than me, but I think the units "sold" on these figures actually mean bought by the comic stores, they are not necessarily then bought by customers. So if all the stores order 100 copies of say, Youngblood, it would probably be the #1 comic - however it would be quite possible that those copies remained on the shelves and in fact it has sold a fraction of that to the public.
  8.  
    For those who are curious

    http://www.comichron.com/

    And Captain Si ~ please don't shut up.
  9.  
    Ooooh! That's interesting stuff there, NT!

    I liked this bit:

    "Marvel's new X-Men title, without the multiple covers, saw a second-issue drop of nearly 49%; to place it in historical context, the previous multiple-cover X-Men #1 from 1991 saw an astounding 82% attrition from its first issue, dropping from the all-time industry record 8.19 million copies to 1.47 million copies for #2. "

    So that's okay then! A 49% drop in sales is just great! In fact it's an improvement on 1991! Only in the wacky world of comics would it be expected, nay acceptable, perhaps even a cause for celebration, for the second issue to have a 49% drop in sales. That's just a fantastic attitude to have. I can't understand why people think physical Comics as an economic entity are in trouble. It's okay though there'll be another comic book movie along in five minutes. A 49% drop in sales - high five! Unbelievable. Just keep those trademarks ticking over, guys. Good grief.

    I am having to use one of those weird red-buttons-in-the-middle-of-the keyboard affairs as a mouse. Now, that's itrritating.
  10.  
    It is interesting. I'd totally forgotten about the Heroes World distribution fiasco... :)
  11.  
    There's a really nice graph on that website (I heart graphs) that shows monthly total sales and compares with each year back to 1996. It's actually not as bad as I thought. Sales are lower than they have been at times, but not the lowest. Given the "economic climate", and the rise of console games and digital media over the past 10 years then the overall sales of comics are pretty impressive.

    The sales figures over the past 10 years do however seem to support what I suspected - namely that all those blockbuster super-hero and comic movies haven't attracted new people to the medium.
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeOct 4th 2010
     
    I'm replying to Mike's post whilst waiting in the pub for Mike - is that silly? Dunno...

    Anyway, I never really expected that movies would generate a particular upswing in readership. It's a different medium for a different market. I'm sure it sells a few extra trades, but I wouldn't expect many extra people are buying Iron Man Legacy each month thanks to Robert Downey Jr.
  13.  
    hmm. i bet films just preach to the converted. the first film and a handy new #1 (invincible iron man) is what got me picking that up and giving it a try. doesn't work with everything, though (hello x-men).
  14.  
    I've got a friend who loves super-hero movies. Has them all on DVD. He buys Spider-Man T-Shirts, had his expensive drum kit painted with pictures of The Hulk, and writes songs about Bat-Man villains. But he doesn't buy ANY comics. I lent him The Killing Joke after he raved about The Dark Knight film - he thought it was "OK". He hasn't asked to borrow any more comics.
  15.  
    p.s. I'm back from the pub.
    • CommentAuthorLee
    • CommentTimeOct 4th 2010
     
    Great. Did you have a good time?
  17.  
    Until you turned up. B'dum tsch.
    • CommentAuthorPanoptikon
    • CommentTimeOct 18th 2010
     
    I kinda know what you mean with this, it is almost like Mark Millar is using artists to storyboard Movie scripts, rather than make comics. Perhaps he is supremely well connected and is fortunate enough to have Movie execs bugging the shit out of him for pitches, while he is prepping his creator owned comics. Yesterday, I noticed he tweeted that he was thinking of the guy who plays Don Draper in Mad Men for Superior, which was exactly what some powerful film exec(who has the clout to get him) was also thinking, so he's probably just lucky. Think about it, his first comic portrayed Jonathan Ross as the anti-christ and now they are total BFF's or whatever!
    Actually, anyone that fortuitous is f£^&ing annoying, just on basic principle!
    • CommentAuthorsmiggy3000
    • CommentTimeOct 19th 2010
     
    whats worse maybe is that this is only the beggining, Radical Comics have had Wesley Snipes writting for them, and Sam Worthington's production company created an imprint with them, and I quote, "The projects produced by the partnership will involve Worthington and his partners Michael and John Schwarz with an eye on launching movie roles for Worthington and John"...
  20.  
    Panoptikon gets up very early. Or goes to bed very late.

    I wish someone would create a comics imprint with an eye on launching movie roles for me. Bald Knucklefaced Giffer Comics or something. Someone do that for me! Only Hollywood or TV can validate my existence!
    • CommentAuthorBrigantian
    • CommentTimeNov 24th 2010
     
    Yes he is a bit annoying but you have got to give him huge respect for getting a mag called Clint with it's optical fuzziness making it look like c*nt onto the shelves of supermarkets and WH Smiths. I'm probably a bit slow because I read issue 1 and thought it was just a crap title. Then I got issue 2 and the penny dropped. Doh!

1 to 21 of 21

  1.