MARKLEY’S FEVERED BRAIN: I’M SO sad

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Wayne Markley

by Wayne Markley

Recently, DC has announced they are ending a number of books, well five so far, and while I complain quite a bit about the new 52, it is still sad when some of my favorite books get cancelled. So I am going to look at a few of the titles that are cancelled or have ended recently that I miss even though they ended for the most obvious of reasons, poor sales. It is a shame that in the comic world it seems that the only thing that sells is the straight superhero book. Over the last 75 years, the majority of the time, superheroes are what sells and very little else. Yes, there was a period in the 1950s where almost everything but superheroes sold, but that was really for less than ten years and was driven by outside factors.

Saga

In the rest of the world, comics thrive with all sorts of genre’s selling,such as in Europe, Mexico, Japan, and Russia, where comics of all sorts sell much better than superheroes. and depending on the country, some have little to no superherohero comics. but for reasons which I will not go into here, in America, superheroes have dominated the landscape. To be fair, there have been some terrific superhero books over the years, and there are still terrific superhero books today, but there are so many other genres that comics could explore, but don’t as they cannot not find an audience. image has shown that there is an audience out there, with the success of The walking Dead (helped by the television show) and Saga, which word of mouth has literally made into a best seller, particularly the trade collections. With those two exceptions, almost all the other bestselling comics are superheroes. Unfortunately, I think this is largely due to the direct market and the death of comics on the newsstand where they had the best chance to find new audiences. There are numerous other reasons also, such as demographics, marketing, history of the business, all which take up a number of other columns. While there are attempts to do other genres, there is rarely any real attempt to reach the markets those genres would appeal to. and the successes are in spite of the direct market.

All-Star Western

As much as I have complained about All-Star Western and how they had Jonah Hex in Gotham City then in the present day and then they took away his scars (which I hope they return before they wrap up the series), the book has always been a good read in spite of my complaints. When it was Jonah Hex, it was great. As All-Star Western, it was very good in spite of the restraints put on the writers. Alas, now it is coming to an end. I hope DC will find a way to bring Jonah back again, in a traditional western setting. but he does not seem to fit in the world of superheroes which populate today’s DC Universe. Thankfully, there are a number of places to read classic Jonah Hex; there are two showcase collections, a number of collections of his previous series, and four collections of All-Star Western so far.

The Phantom Stranger

The Phantom stranger has never been all the terrific of a book in its current incarnation. I have read the Phantom stranger in all his various series, from the original 1950s run to the terrific series in the 1960s/70s, which was most notable for the art by Jim Aparo, to the most current version. outside of the 1950s version, it always seems to me the character was a bit too ill-defined to work that well. In the new series it went too far in the opposite direction explaining his background and telling stories that were too fantastic. To me, the Phantom stranger worked best as an observer or guide to the odd and supernatural, when he was around the edges of the story, not the focal point of story. The current version made him part of the Trinity of sin and took the whole mystery away from the character. I still read it every month hoping they would return to the mysterious, but now the book is ending so it will have no chance. For those interested, there are two showcase collecting the 60s/70s Phantom Stranger, there are two collection of the new Phantom stranger so far, and I do not think the 1950s material has ever been reprinted.

Wonder woman Chronicles

I also miss the DCs trade series called Chronicles. DC was collecting and reprinting all the stories of their characters in the original order they first appeared. For example, they would reprint Batman from Detective #27-30, and then Batman #1, and then Detective #31-35, then World’s best Comics #1, etc. Unlike the Archives, where they would reprint all the stories in numerical order, such as Batman #1-6, Detective #27-40, the Chronicles were done in order of publication and they included the characters appearance in other places, such as anthologies, which were common in the golden Age. DC was doing Chronicles of Superman, Batman, wonder Woman, Flash, and green Lantern,and they had announced the Justice league but it was cancelled and never published. I am guessing the sales on these books were not terrific and the material had largely been reprinted already in DC’s Archive series, a bit in different order, but these low-cost trade collection were easy to read and a lot of fun. Admittedly there is little advantage to reading the stories in sequential order as there was little to no reference to other stories (Marvel would pioneer the concept of a big picture universe in the 1960s), and it was still fun to read these old classics. I should note that DC has been going back and reprinting a lot of this material in large hardcover omnibus format.So far they have done the golden Age of Superman, Justice league of America, Flash, and green Lantern. I suspect these high dollar versions are what have killed the nice trades.

Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories

The final thing I miss (well, there are tons of things, but for the purpose of this blog at least) is Walt Disney Comics. By this I mean the traditional characters of Donald Duck and Mickey mouse and all the lesser known characters such as Scamp, Chip and Dale, Bucky Bug, all of the Duck Clan, etc. in a monthly book. Fantagraphics has been reprinting the classic Carl Barks material, and it is beautiful, but I miss my monthly dose of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. I loved the original series and I loved the Gladstone/Gemstone giant monthly comics anthology that reprinted material from all over the world from all through-out the ages. Well, since the 1940s. These books were a goldmine in storytelling, from classic Carl Barks’ Donald Duck to Paul Murray’s Mickey mouse to reprints of the Italian Mickey mouse story retelling Dante’s Inferno using Disney characters (an outstanding story well worth seeking out). It was filled with short stories about tons of different characters, all which were fun to read and enjoy. marvel currently has the rights to all this material and I wish they would bring back a monthly anthology of Comics and Stories, although it would surely be a money loser.

Alas, money is the cause for all of these titles discussed today to be cancelled. None of these titles found a broad enough audience to make the books profitable enough for the publishers to keep them going. This is what I find sad. First, that there is not a large enough audience for comic books to support non-superhero comics, with a few exceptions, and secondly, the publishers cannot (and I understand why) continue to publish books that fill a niche, but do not make money in the long run. Thus, keeping the cycle of superheroes only going.

Everything I have written here is my opinion, and it is greatly simplified for space. It in no way reflects the thoughts or opinions of the Westfield Comics or their employees. I welcome your thoughts at MFBWAY@AOL.COM. What books do you miss? Is there hope for something other than superheroes in today’s comic book world? will marvel bring back Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories? Please let me know what you think.

Thank you.