START // 2.27.03

THE WHEEL GOES ROUND
By Dave Potter

Tom Spurgeon's latest piece in THE COMICS JOURNAL got me thinking about Marvel's latest publishing push-Tsunami. That's a bit of a leap even for me, as Spurgeon isn't even talking about Tsunami or Marvel or even the "business side" of comics in general. So bear with me.

To understand the mental leap, you have to understand that Spurgeon was writing about the middle point in a cycle of events that I've been reading about lately. Tsunami would be the recent bookend of those events, and the market glut and crash of the mid nineties (a favorite topic of mine) would be the other bookend. See, in the days before I read the Spurgeon piece, I've started reading (finally) Comic Wars, a so far excellent book by Dan Raviv talking about the battle for control of Marvel Comics in the mid to late 90s when Ron Perelman owned the company and Carl Icahn was trying to steal it from him. Or buy it out from under him and the shareholders-I'm a little unsure of what the correct terminology is. I don't have an MBA or anything, but I'm pretty sure that the technical term for the ownership fight between the two of them is "clusterfuck". This was also, anyone will remember, a time period when the publishing side of Marvel was run pretty much into the ground by mediocre product that alienated a great deal of Marvel's longtime readers.

At one point in Comic Wars, Raviv makes reference to a fan trying to organize a Marvel Tea Party to protest the low quality product Marvel was publishing in the mid nineties. Sadly, they wouldn't actually get on a boat and throw their Marvel comics overboard into Boston Harbor, but they'd burn them in organized bonfires around the country on the same day. Which would really be more of a Marvel Bonfire Party, but it doesn't have the same propagandistic ring to it, I suppose. No mention was made in the book about whether or not the participants would dress up like Indians for this event either, but I suppose I'm being too literal about the historic roots of the proposed name for this protest.

To step back from how this jogged my mind in the present though, I have to say this is a fantastic idea. If it actually happened, and more importantly, if anyone has pictures of comics fans burning the Clone Saga, Nightwatch, Heroes Reborn, Darkhawk and other Marvel drek from that timeframe, please forward the info to me. The whole idea has a wonderful Lord of the Flies quality to it that amuses me.

Key point to it though, aside from burning shit up aspect (which I'm always in favor of), was that the fans would stop buying new issues of Marvel comics. They'd declare their independence by burning the books, quit cold turkey from buying new ones, and focus on buying only the back issues, because those contained the quality stories that they new and loved about the characters.

Until the point where they get to those AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues from the 1970s where Peter Parker grew four extra arms and was bouncing around as an eight-appendaged guy for awhile. Then the fans would realize that shitty creative periods are cyclical, bad ideas are immortal, and that as long time fans, they are well and truly fucked.

The important thing is that they understood the only way to get the publisher's attention was by walking away from the books. I don't know that they ever did organize themselves to do it in any kind of a large walk out, but the sales numbers show that over time, people went away. Or if not actively deciding to quit, were driven away by the bad product.

Fast forward to the late nineties and even the very early….aughts, I guess you call them. One of the key ideas that began circulating amongst the remaining community of comic readers/fans (I make the distinction here between readers and fans because some people seem to care, but really, I think its like arguing over whether you consider yourself a Trekker or a Trekkie. If you sincerely give a shit, then sorry, you're a Trekkie no matter what you want to be called) was that it was time to begin supporting creators, and not creations. This made a lot of sense, because odds are if you enjoy writer "A" or artist "B" on a project, you'll probably enjoy them on a different project as well. Combined with disdainfully referring to working on a corporate owned character as "serving trademarks", and there was a nice peer pressure movement to get people off the mainstream press and onto indie, creator owned work. Of which there was (and is still) a plethora of high quality choices available.

I'm getting ahead of myself though, because this time period and whether or not these ideas and effects are still working today is a big part what Spurgeon is writing about. He would argue that they were largely inefficient. And it's hard to argue with him overly much. While the catchphrase of the past few years was certainly "give us What We Want", apparently what people really wanted was better super hero comics. Seriously. What we all wanted was for the big publishers to pay some fucking attention to the fact that their core business was publishing good super hero comic books and not crappy ones. Oh, and giant robots that beat the shit out of each other and never get hurt. Sales figures definitely proved we wanted that and not more Micronauts, which is what every cynical bastard out there would have bet on.

But who can blame us for wanting to read the better super hero books? Many of them are written and drawn by some of the top flight indie creators of yesteryear, who by virtue of having bestselling work under their belts are now simply top flight creators-no indie label attached.

Whether this is a step forward or backwards can be debated for a long time, because the truth of the matter is, it's a bit of both.

Which brings us-bet you thought I forgot-to Tsunami. Marvel is again flooding the marketplace with its product. Ten years ago, Marvel pushed a lot of product onto the shelves because the market would support it and it kept retailers from committing dollars to trying out work from upstart companies like Image and the like. Cynics have suggested that the promotional name for the push, Tsunami, is not accidental. Or that if it is, it is in fact the most happy accident since Marvel published a comic called GIANT SIZED MAN THING, which is such a happy accident that it's still funny nearly thirty years later, like that skit from Johnny Carson where they throw a tomahawk into some guys crotch on accident. The only way the situation could be funnier is if Marvel published a book called MAN THING: BIGGER, LONGER AND UNCUT, which could actually happen under the Max imprint. It's tailor-made for that, actually. But the title has already been taken, so I guess that's out.

Tsunami is going to test that one interesting philosophy of the past few years-the Rock Star Age of Comics idea of following creators. The list of creators for Marvel's Tsunami books thus far includes a fair number of people who have enjoyed indie success but not mainstream-Brian K Vaughn, Sean McKeever, Matthew Clark, Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir, Andi Watson, and many others.

All people with built in audiences working on mainstream properties that will be playing to bigger audiences than they have yet in the medium.

Will their fans come with them?

If all we wanted were better super hero comics, then the fans will definitely come. But if people are interested in breaking down the stranglehold that the major publishers have on the market-and preventing another Marvel "glut" from occurring-then the creators fan base will stay away, regardless of how much interest they really have in sampling the work.

The easy thing to do is say this is 1994-95 all over again, and if we looked back in time, we could find other examples of publishers flooding the marketplace with product. But this is a little different. Let me ask, what if Marvel creates a glut of mainstream books done by indie creators who become associated with the Marvel brand? Books that, regardless of their commercial success, are acknowledged as solid creative efforts?

No lose scenario for Marvel.

The most telling thing about the Tsumami books-some of which are done by creators I love and will definitely sample-is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of buzz building for them. Someone has sarcastically noted that while Marvel may be trying to create a market flood, all they may wind up with is a killing field.

But what happens if a moderate level of commercial success is all Marvel's looking for in the direct market? Back in the mid 80s, the peak of Marvel's publishing, they had about 70% market share. You don't get that level of dominance just by holding all the top selling books. You have to dominate all strata layers of the sales charts. If the Tsunami books all sell solid "DC numbers" and knock some of those books down a bit in sales-how is that a bad thing for Marvel? And honestly, why wouldn't that be a reasonable goal?

The wheels of publishing cycles will continue to spin long after we're gone. Anyone who says this cycle is exactly the same as the last one is being overly simplistic, as is anyone who says it's completely different. But by leaving shitty books in the last cycle and returning when they had good creators again, fans reminded Marvel that good stories are the first, important concern. The pocketbook is the only real way readers have of sending a message to publishers.

Whether you try or even support any of the Tsunami books, keep in mind that you're sending small signals out into the marketplace. You're signaling support for more Marvel publishing initiatives or support for non Marvel work. Your retailer is listening. The publishers and creators are listening. Your chance to again affect the direction the wheel is going is here, and it's a big one.

I hope you know what you're going to do.

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