Matt and I had a little back and forth on Twitter last night, so I figured I’d clarify what my problems with the Marvel promotional efforts are.
I have zero problems with Marvel promoting the new #1s and the new creative teams. That is what they are supposed to be doing. Promote the heck out of those books. Get the excitement and interest up! They announced the new teams and books late last week. I know we talked about them Wednesday at the podcast and all we had to go on was a word and the teams, so the full info didn’t come out until Thursday or so. So I was very surprised to get a press release in my inbox on Monday already promoting the #2s. At first I thought that they were promoting the December issues and that is when I started writing. I felt that they were promoting far too far ahead of the game to have any real effect. When I started cutting and pasting in the press releases, I saw that they were for November, which meant that all of these titles were shipping 2 issues their first month. That has its own problems.
Here are my specific problems with this:
1. The press (Newsarama, CBR, The Beat, Bleeding Cool) will only run a story on the same thing so many times. They had the promotional thing last week. They could have had more about the number ones this week. DC spaced out the reveal of their number ones over time and it created a great amount of excitement and they ran with that. By doing press releases already for the #2s, it means Marvel is done with the hype for the #1s right now and they are moving forward. I think this is a mistake. I think they should have spent more time telling us why we should get excited for #1S before moving on to #2S.
2. I personally feel that a press release is more than a solicit. It is the sales team saying “Look at me! Look at me!” They can be very effective, but I think that by promoting the #2s right now, they are doing nothing more than muddying the waters. I feel that having the solicits go up online is mostly just informational. Its the same thing that will be in the Previews coming out the end of the month. A press release is an attention grabber, but I think that they were misplaced in this instance. Let the excitement and buzz for the #1s continue.
3. I don’t think that double shipping titles (shipping a regular book twice a month) is a good plan. It works for some things, like Deadpool vs the Marvel Universe which is weekly and meant to be that way. I think that people expect their books to be monthly and shipping them more frequently causes its own set of problems. No artists can do 2 issues a month nowadays, so you are already setting up inconsistent art. Before the last issue, the prior 4 issues of Uncanny X-Men (which shipped bi-weekly) had 4 different artists. That doesn’t create the continuity of a book that people like. You are expecting one thing and open the book to find something else.
4. I also think that double shipping is tough on the wallet. If your budget is $X a month, but 4 of your books are double shipping, you can’t just add that extra $12-16 to your budget. Something is going to have to go. Also, not everybody makes it to the store weekly, so when they look on the shelf and realize that they are now 3 issues behind on a title, many decide to pass on it and pick up some thing else where its not going to be $12 to get caught up.
I have no problem with Marvel doing new #1s for the creative changes on these books. Spark some interest, bring back readers who had left a title, make things exciting. I just think that they are stepping on their toes by starting to promote the second issues of the new runs this early. I just looked at Newsarama and Comic Book Resources. Neither of them had anything on their front pages about Avengers vs X-Men #10 on their front pages. Why not? Shouldn’t that be what everyone is talking about for tomorrow? I’d much rather they use their time and effort to get people excited about what’s coming out now than something that is shipping in 14 or 15 weeks. Too much is going to happen between now and then to make talking about it now effective. Talking about the #1s and the new teams and directions, sure. But not the #2s. Not yet anyway.