A couple times now (most recently in today's 10 Answers at Newsarama), Dan Didio has mentioned one of the co-features will be cycling out, making way for a new feature starring a some young magic-oriented characters. My speculation is it's the Ravager feature: she'll be replaced by another bunch of teen characters, which'll fit nicely with a Titans book. But I could be way off base. Also, Didio mentioned that they'd like to expand the program; they feel it's been working fairly well. Which books do you think/hope will get backups, and what would you like to see? Me, I'd love to see a Bat Lash backup in Jonah Hex -- preferably by Sergio Aragones and Cliff Chiang (if Nick Cardy would prefer to stay retired, and at 89 who could blame him?) I think the Atom and Firestorm would also make great backup features.

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  • I'm just thinking that the backup series are a tool to raise prices on the comics, and that after about a year, tops, we'll see another DC Implosion. Oh, the prices will stay high; but the backups will simply be dumped.

    However, I wouldn't object to an anthology title for five bucks that had a steady lead (or rotating strong leads) and some rotating backups - maybe three a month. A little bit like Action Comics Weekly used to be.

    Right now, Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern all have multiple books per month - so who's hot right now that needs a title that could pull enough readers for backups? Flash? Wonder Woman? Or what about bumping Adventure Comics up to full size, with both a Superboy story and Legion of Super-Heroes story in each book (or the occasional - quarterly or so - crossover between them)? Now that Paul Levitz is back on Legion, that might just do well enough to make it float...

    I remain,
    Sincerely,
    Eric L. Sofer
    The Silver Age Fogey
    x<]:o){
  • There will never again be a "DC Implosion"-like event. Because the major comics publishers have guaranteed purchasers for 95% of all the items they print (due to non-returnability from the Direct Market), they don't have to worry about the cash flow problems or over-saturation that caused events like that in the past.

    "You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it." -Groucho Marx

    Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies

    Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!


    • No, I didn't mean due to monetary issues; I just meant that there are titles that just don't sell, so they have to be scrapped. There are ideas that have been executed which aren't financially viable, and I think the backups is one of them. It's one thing if there is a book dedicated to strips that might carry an audience - again, I'm thinking of an anthology book such as World's Finest, Comics Cavalcade, All-American, etc. But that book would still need a big lead(s) to pull audience. However, adding eight pages and a buck to the cost of an existing book adds NOTHING to the value of the existing book and character intrinsically, I think; it just makes it more challenging to sell the thing. As someone noted once, if a character can't carry his own book, what's going to make him more viable in another book?

      As an example, Doom Patrol is just getting started again (!!!), and its backup is Metal Men. If Metal Men isn't good enough to have its own title, why is it going to make Doom Patrol sell better? The two concepts aren't really related (save that they're teams formed in the 60s which have been through too many revamps to be clear any longer... not exactly a GOOD common thread.)

      No, my thought of the implosion-like occurrence is going to be that the backups will get axed, MAYBE one or two will get a title (as I cannot see Legion of Super-Heroes NOT being published independently, I just can't) and DC may pare down a book or two.

      Then again, with the non-returnability that Dag mentions, DC may just start taking a bigger sales hit, having to relegate itself to quarterly comics and the occasional TPB, leaving the characters for "exploitation" elsewhere. Like that thrilling "Superman Returns"... :)

      I remain,
      Sincerely,
      Eric L. Sofer
      The Silver Age Fogey
      x<]:o){
    • I have yet to have a customer drop a DC book due to the back-ups/ extra dollar. In fact, I have yet to have anyone complain to me about it.

      There are a lot of characters that can't (long-term) support their own books:

      Hawkeye

      Human Torch

      Scarlet Witch

      Red Tornado

      Manhunter

      Cyclops

      etc.

      What they can and often do very well, however, is be a stand-out character in a team series, which is one way to deal with the characters.


      Anthologies are another way, one that has been shown time and again to not work very well for long. The last successful and long-lasting one I can remember was Marvel Comics Presents (series 1, not hte recent sales disaster of a title), which was really a solo Wolverine title with back-ups for most of its run. The market is so different now that I would bet it would take a major character/ major writer/ major artist combo to have an anthology even crack the top 50 more than 3 issues into it. The most recent one, Wednesday Comics, had these numbers:

      36/43/52/58 - WEDNESDAY COMICS
      07/2009: Wednesday Comics #1 of 12 — 47,9800
      7/2009: Wednesday Comics #2 of 12 — 42,382 (-11.7%)
      07/2009: Wednesday Comics #3 of 12 — 39,050 (- 7.9%)
      07/2009: Wednesday Comics #4 of 12 — 36,143 (- 7.4%)

      and that's with some major name folks working on it.


      I think DC's "Co-Feature" plan is a terrific one. Marvel has already added $1.00 to many of their top selling titles and all mini-series with no added content at all, and their share of the market just keeps growing. Adding 8 pages of a character that is definitely someone's favorite may just (and has, in my experience with the phenomenon so far) get that Metal Men fan to purchase Doom Patrol. Even if it just increases the sales of Doom Patrol by 10% overall, that's a lot more people getting exposed to more characters they might like but never saw before.


      Even when (not if!) some of these back-ups fail or get spun off into their own ongoings, that leaves room to try more things on a limited basis

      BTW, Marvel has already started imitating DC by adding some back-up stories in a few of their $3.99 books.

      "You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it." -Groucho Marx

      Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies

      Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!


    • I just saw Superman Returns last week, and it was awful. "Super-stalker Returns" was more like it.

      "You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it." -Groucho Marx

      Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies

      Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!


  • Count me on board as thinking the backups are, on the whole, a good idea -- at least so far as they keep the backups that don't appeal to me (Ravager) in the books that don't appeal to me (Teen Titans).

    I actually would have passed on a Doom Patrol $2.99 book. It took sweetening the pot with the Metal Men--a team I like less than the Doom Patrol, but with a creative team I adore--to get me excited about the book (I'm likely dropping it with issue 3, but I gave it a try).

    The Legion backups have actually brought me on board with Adventure -- well, that and the prospect of Levitz returning. And the Batwoman/Question pairing in Detective seems to me the best value in comics right now.

    I expected to be turned off by the $3.99 books, since I was cutting back on comics across the board. But instead, I find I'm kind of drawn to them -- they let me follow more stories at once, even if some of those stories are shorter.
    • Count me as a fan of the back-ups. If the books have to go up to $3.99, then thanks for the extra content, and a look at some characters who don't usually get their own strips any more.

      Unfortunately, I agree that it's probably unsustainable, as all experiments of this nature in the past have proven to be. (Anyone remember Dollar Comics? Man, that was a lot of bang for the ... uh, you know.) But I'll enjoy it while it's here.

      Incidentally, anyone remember when Green Lantern was a back-up in Flash? That was two A-listers for the price of one! (And a very colorful comic book!)
    • Dollar Comics...I still miss Superman Family...
    • I loved World's Finest when it was a Dollar Comic. Batman and Superman, Green Arrow, the Marvel Family, the Creeper. Good stuff!
    • I really liked the occasional "monster sized" books that Marvel did a few years ago. Apparently that didn't work too well either, as I haven't seen any books of that order in a long time.
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