Marvel's announced delays of forthcoming issues of its Civil War limited series and various tie-ins across the publisher's entire line of titles has spawned tirades from readers, and there's no need for me to repeat the criticisms of fans here. Disappointment has given away to over-the-top rants and derision on message boards throughout comicdom's corner of the web.
Marvel needn't really worry about the insults and threats of boycott. The most adamant of the criticisms are bound to come from two factions of comics readers: (1) those who don't care for super-hero crossovers and weren't reading Civil War to begin with, and (2) those readers who are already vested in the story and concepts and will follow it through to the end despite their present disappointment.
What the publisher needs to worry about is how this delay of so many high-profile books means in terms of perception. In comics -- as in just about every other aspect of culture and life -- perception is everything.
Even today, when I chat with someone about comics, be it a current comics reader or someone who was into the medium years ago, that person can be described with one or two terms: a Marvel guy or a DC guy (apologies to the ladies). It doesn't matter if the person I'm talking to started reading comics in the 1970s, '80s or '90s; that allegiance to a universe full of characters is almost always there. And that means such allegiances are being formed all the time by new readers. I suspect there are even times when those allegiances are tested and even changed.
That's what Marvel has to worry about.
DC has its publishing problems as well, but its much-ballyhooed Infinite Crisis never experienced six-week delays. That's because craft was sacrificed for commerce. Fill-in artists were brought in to keep things on track and minimize delays. And with its ambitious 52 series, visual consistency is rare, but it's clear the project remains on schedule. Storytelling is part of the equation, but DC recognizes that crabby customers make for bad business. Happy customers make for positive perceptions.
(On a side note, DC is perpetrating similar ill will among readers of its much-criticized but high-selling All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, the fifth issue of which has just been resolicited again.)
Marvel also has to realize it's got two sets of customers. The readers/fans are no doubt the publisher's primary focus, but it's got to keep retailers -- the people who really decide how many Marvel are printed, distributed and sold -- happy as well. Well, it should keep retailers happy, but that's not always the case.
To be fair, Marvel has made some moves that have helped retailers sell more of their product. The publisher abandoned its no-overprinting policy, and its three-week window for order increases and reductions, while adding to retailers' workload, has given them much more flexibility in determining the right ordering quantities for their respective stores.
But the announced delays of so many Civil War comics -- which, by all reports, are selling quite well -- are bound to recreate a recent scenario that hurt a number of retailers with whom I spoke. Remember June 28? Retailers do. Marvel shipped six Civil War tie-ins that week: Amazing Spider-Man #533, Civil War: Front Line #2, Fantastic Four #538, New Avengers #21, Wolverine #43 and X-Factor #8. With the rising popularity of the event, a lot of retailers had their cash flows tied up in those comics. The sad part was that there were no Civil War books the following week, making for a disappointing week for rabid readers following the story.
The delays of so many future issues are bound to result in similar gluts for retailers down the line. Most of them are small businesses, and spikes in product arriving in one week has a dramatic impact on those operations.
Ultimately, everyone's memories of the Great Civil War Postponement of Ought-Six will fade. It seems like a big deal now, but in the grand scheme of things, it's barely a blip on the industry's historical radar. But it does serve as a commentary on an unfortunate reality in comics publishing today: the star power of slower but popular creators will trump publishing plans and promises every time.
These delays are far from new. Ed McGuinness's most recent run on Superman/Batman was horribly behind schedule, and the release of new issues of the afore-mentioned All-Star Batman by Frank Miller and Jim Lee seems about as frequent as the Olympics. Readers have come to expect months between episodes of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates 2, and Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III's Seven Soldiers #1 was pushed back by half a year.
Editors and fans alike seem more than willing to wait when it comes to the big-name creators, and it's unfortunate that one could get the impression that those creators aren't being held to the same scheduling standards as others.
Mind you, that's just my perception of the situation. But remember... perception is reality.
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