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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2021 15:02:23 GMT -5
Looks like the 300th volume of Marvel Masterworks may be the last in its original format. Marvel is relaunching the line as 6 x 9 (digest sized) softcovers selling for either $14.99 or $15.99 (reports vary) and aimed at the book market (though there will be direct market variants with covers featuring classic art by Kirby. Ditko etc.). They will be starting over with Spidey, FF and X-Men the first to launch with volumes collecting the first 10 issues of each. Here's a look at the trade dress for the Spidey volume... Here's the solicit text for the three volumes... While I can't say I am a fan of the 6 x 9 size format, it is good to see Marvel take steps to provide affordable editions of these at a price point that works towards impulse buys and focusing on getting them in markets outside the direct market. Now whether they can keep them available and in print in that format or this is just another of their change things up so customers will rebuy the same stuff over and over moves remains to be seen. Not quite sure if there will be more volumes of Masterworks in the original format of stuff not already collected, but the tone of the articles I have seen seems to imply that 300th archival edition will be the last of the run. Not sure if that has been officially confirmed though. I divested myself of most of my Marvel collected editions (with a few exceptions like the Foreside books and a few select collections of favorite material) since I have Marvel Unlimited and needed shelf space, so I am not sure I will be picking any of these up, as I said I am not a fan of the smaller format, but I will likely take a look at them if I see them in the wild before fully making up my mind. -M
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Post by The Captain on Jan 29, 2021 15:09:42 GMT -5
Not for me, as I have all of these issues either in either Masterworks or Omnibus collections, but nice to see they are doing something different to put their classic books out into a wider market.
Now, if they would just release the Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection that starts with #124 and runs through #140, I'd be happy. Of course, with next year being the 50th Anniversary of the Punisher's debut, I'm betting they hold off until then to release this volume so they can tie it into that, which means I'll have to shelve my ASM reading until then.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 29, 2021 17:15:50 GMT -5
It boggles my mind that these classic collections have modern artists for the covers. I also find it a tad disrespectful. So please explain the marketing strategy behind this. You grab a new reader with a fancy modern style only to provide hundreds of pages of classic, retro, Kirby or Ditko art? Nonsensical. Are Masterworks impulse buys at bookstores? For me, I have zero interest in a collection of classic material with a cover by anyone besides the original artist. Clearly these sell better, or they wouldn't market it like this, but WHY they do fascinates me and irritates me in equal measure.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 29, 2021 21:38:06 GMT -5
Never understood the appeal of the digest size. I'll always take my comic art in the largest format available, please. I'm fortunate enough to already own all the Masterworks volumes I really want. though I did have to pay a pretty penny for one or two out of print Fantastic Four volumes last year.
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Post by Batflunkie on Jan 29, 2021 21:55:05 GMT -5
Don't see much of a point in doing this while the Epic Collections still exist, but seeing as how a lot of the earlier volumes are going out of print and are becoming expensive on the secondary market, this might be a good alternative Never understood the appeal of the digest size. I'll always take my comic art in the largest format available, please. Same, while I have an affinity for the digest format (I still cherish my 2 Marvel Comics Digest volumes), Silver Age Marvel demands to be seen in wide angle lenses
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Post by brutalis on Jan 29, 2021 22:05:07 GMT -5
Digest sized is a nice compact carry around for reading favorites. Growing up it was a great way for taking on family trips or on family holiday gatherings. Several digests with multiple stories could get me through the worst times or endure those long boring moments amongst family. And it used to be a very affordable alternative compared to the cost of back issues or getting comics you just couldn't find.
These days, I'm not sure what the reasons are outside of publishers seem to be going to extremes in strange sizes to generate sales. Is it cost generated with less paper to pay for? Charging more for an unwieldy size in the pretense of it being a great deal? Even paperbacks are moving into the digest size for pricing the cost higher.
I do like digest reprints of older material at a cost effectively making it worthwhile.
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Post by badwolf on Jan 29, 2021 22:08:48 GMT -5
Isn't digest size more like 4x5"?
Anyway, I'll stick with the old ones and the omnibuses.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 29, 2021 22:29:42 GMT -5
I have zero interest in digest sized books.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 29, 2021 23:00:33 GMT -5
The paperback editions of the original masterworks that we got, at B&N, sold okay, relative to other stuff. They were standard trade size.
6x9 is the size of what the book market calls trade paperback format; what you average paperback fiction books is printed in, rather than the mass market size paperback, for your big airport news shop thrillers and hot authors. Think more like the Penguin Classics line kind of thing. Archie did some of theirs in that format, too. That's also about the size of your average YA series book, like Harry Potter (the paperbacks), Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, etc...
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 29, 2021 23:56:15 GMT -5
Never understood the appeal of the digest size. I'll always take my comic art in the largest format available, please. I'm fortunate enough to already own all the Masterworks volumes I really want. though I did have to pay a pretty penny for one or two out of print Fantastic Four volumes last year. I think the appeal is mostly price. I wonder if books stores will shelve these with the Manga? And if so, if that would help or hurt sales? That's both a bit larger and a bit more expensive that the average manga volume, but I could see it bet more impulse looks/buys there.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2021 0:11:49 GMT -5
The paperback editions of the original masterworks that we got, at B&N, sold okay, relative to other stuff. They were standard trade size. 6x9 is the size of what the book market calls trade paperback format; what you average paperback fiction books is printed in, rather than the mass market size paperback, for your big airport news shop thrillers and hot authors. Think more like the Penguin Classics line kind of thing. Archie did some of theirs in that format, too. That's also about the size of your average YA series book, like Harry Potter (the paperbacks), Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, etc... and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, the Raina Telgemeier books, the the DC Ink/Zoom books and all the other YA targeted graphic novels and trades that are the fastest growing sector of the book trade over the last 2-3 years. It is pretty much the industry standard size format for comic material sold in the book trade for the YA market. It's also close to the format/size of a lot of manga series that also sell well in that sector of the market. If Michael Cho is the cover artist for al of them, he is the artist who took over for Darwyn Cooke on all the DC Silver and Golden Age collections in omnibus and softcover collections in that line and has a mostly retro style that fits with the older material. As to why these when they have epics, because Epics are twice the price on the market and not priced at impulse buys, do not sell well in the book trade or with potential customers who are not already habitual comic purchasers, are not released in sequential order making it difficult for new readers to jump on, are not kept in print because they don't sell well enough or have a long shelf-life all of which adds up to them being unattractive products in the book trade or as a product that catch on in the one growth market comics have-the YA book trade. These aren't being targeted towards 40-60 years old dudes or towards people who have traditional comic book collector sensibilities-that is a shrinking market that is slowly dying off as those customers die off and is frankly not large enough to sustain comics and largely out of touch with current market sensibilities anyways and unlikely to support products that have a chance to catch on with the wider audience. They are targeted towards the one growth market that comics have, which is a young adult reader who does not frequent comic book stories and who buys lots of series fiction in graphic novel format is the 6 x 9 format size who likes to jump in at the beginning and who follow series long term as long as the material is released sequentially, in regular intervals and maintains a consistent look and level of quality-the last one may be difficult for Marvel to achieve with their rotating creative teams over the years, but early Kirby/Lee FF and Ditko/Lee and later Lee/Romita Spider-Man have a chance to fulfill that last parameter where other Marvel Silver Age stuff does not. In terms of going for the segment of the market that is growing and who makes up that segment of the market, the format, size, price and cover art all makes sense. In terms of appealing to someone like me (and apparently all the other crotchety old folks on this forum, not so much) but that is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact I think it's what comics need to do to capture the next generation of readers. Comics designed for the book trade, whether they were the the Fireside collections, the Tempo paperbacks or the Pocketbook editions, have long had success as an outreach product that wasn't geared towards traditional readers or collectors but succeeded in reaching and introducing vast new audiences to classic comics and created new readers of them. This is what Marvel (and DC) need to do if they are to survive the entropy that is enveloping/shrinking the direct market almost tot he point of non-viability if they wish to survive past the eventual collapse of that market. The direct market allowed comics to survive past the collapse of the newsstand era. What is there that will allow comics to survive beyond the end of the direct market era? Nothing lasts forever in comics, but comics themselves usually find a way to endure. The direct market ran a good race, but all signs point to it reaching the end of its road (in it's current dynamic) in the not too distant future. It's a good thing that publishers are looking at what viable options they have beyond the direct market and designing/creating products that can thrive in such new markets whether we old guard liek it or not. -M
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jan 30, 2021 1:34:08 GMT -5
I question the wisdom of trying to sell 60 year old comics to a modern, impulse-buying YA audience. I think you're probably on to a loser with that right from the get-go.
As great as we might think the Lee/Kirby/Ditko comics of the Silver Age are, they must seem woefully archaic to modern teenagers, both in the dialogue, the "set dressing", and the style of artwork. They're a very different beast to, say, the Raina Telgemeier books, which are very modern. Seems to me, it'd be a more promising proposition for Marvel if these digests were filled with complete story arcs from the past 5 years or so, rather than comics from when your Grandad or even Great-Grandad was a kid.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 30, 2021 2:17:57 GMT -5
I question the wisdom of trying to sell 60 year old comics to a modern, impulse-buying YA audience. I think you're probably on to a loser with that right from the get-go. As great as we might think the Lee/Kirby/Ditko comics of the Silver Age are, they must seem woefully archaic to modern teenagers, both in the dialogue, the "set dressing", and the style of artwork. They're a very different beast to, say, the Raina Telgemeier books, which are very modern. Seems to me, it'd be a more promising proposition for Marvel if these digests were filled with complete story arcs from the past 5 years or so, rather than comics from when your Grandad or even Great-Grandad was a kid. I tend to agree, based on what I saw kids examining at B&N. They tended to go for the modern stuff, though they would check out the earlier stuff. I probably saw more kids looking at Ultimate Spider-Man than the Spider-Man Masterworks trades. My wife's grandson has looked at some of the trades I had kept, but was so-so on the 60s Marvel stuff. 70s and 80s stuff was more what he expected. However, they are more about the films and tv shows than the comics.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2021 3:07:35 GMT -5
You can try something different and maybe fail, maybe not, or keep doing the same old thing over and over and expect a different outcome which is a definite recipe for failure. The same old thing isn't working, hasn't worked in quite some time and won't work in the future. Something has to change. It may not work. It probably won't work, but at least they are trying something different for once. I'll give them props for that rather than criticize them for trying a product that isn't in my wheelhouse. Catering to stuff in the wheelhouse of guys like me for the last 3 decades is what has them in the situation they are currently in and have been in for some time. There have been some feeble attempts to try to appeal to a wider audience, the problem was it was in a format that appealed to guys like me, not the new audience. Now they are trying the format that will appeal to a younger audience but with content geared to the old timers like me. Will it do any better. Not sure. Probably not. Maybe at some point they will get to the point where they will target content to a younger audience in a format also geared to a younger audience, but that takes an investment in creative costs to pay creators to do the work (even recent material reprinted has more costs than the classic material as newer work-for-hire contracts have higher reprint fees than the classic material does). Packaging existing material in the new format is much more cost effective and gives a larger chance the line could be profitable while they establish themselves as a presence in that YA market. Once they have a foothold, they can them try to expand their footprint with content more geared to that demographic in that format (maybe masterworks volumes in that format for Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, etc.) maybe with OGN in that format. Who knows. But it's a start, and for that I will give them some credit, even though I have a lot of reservations about the potential success of the line.
-M
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jan 30, 2021 3:45:44 GMT -5
I'd say repackaging 60 year old comics that only old farts like us are into for the umpteenth time is the very definition of Marvel "doing the same old thing over and over and expecting a different outcome". Better that they should start with material from the last decade that actually has a chance of resonating with the majority of modern teenage readers, if that's the audience they're targeting.
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