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NEWSARAMA - WIZARD WORLD TEXAS 2005 RECAP
So, this is what passes as comics news from Wizard World. Granted, WW is driven by WIZARD, which is interested primarily in the franchise characters from the big two, so there's not going to be much in terms of anything that isn't a superhero book. Which is to say, there's barely any news of interest to anyone outside comics. Heck, there's barely any news to those folks interested in comics. Teasing that major characters are going to die and that the fan's apple carts are going to be upset is strictly by the numbers these days.
I was interested to see the issue of ad space in Marvel books being brought up. More ads means more money for Marvel as a result of publishing (though not particularly because of the cache of any single character, since ads are similar all across the line in any given month -- an assumption, grant you, but I don't think I'm too far off on this.) Either that or they had to cut their ad rates to entice more advertisers into their pages to keep ad revenues stable (pure conjecture).
It has seemed to stir up a few fans, though. I wasn't real happy myself when I had to dredge through their monster books to find all the story pages (but still, it's not as bad as the 70s when you had 3-4 pages of ads at a time). However, it does make me want to wait on the trades of a lot more things from Marvel (as much as I like BIG IN JAPAN, I can wait). Whether or not it will have any impact in their real bottom line in terms of monthly numbers has yet to be seen. Squaking on blogs and messageboards is something we're all good at. Actually taking our dollars elsewhere is where we usually fall short.
I've gotten to the point where I don't care about exclusives any longer. We all know that it's the characters that drive the mainstream market. Yes, there are creators who have built in fanbases (cf myself and Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart, Darwyn Cooke and others). However, those fanbases aren't enough to ensure unqualified successes on books that don't involve franchise characters. Sad fact. Stephen King sending in plot breakdowns for DARK TOWER comics is really not that big a deal (I mean it's a deal, not a huge one.) Joss Whedon sells a lot of X-MEN, but I bet if he brought FRAY over to Marvel, it wouldn't do too much more than it did over at Dark Horse. Betcha.
And is it me, or does the idea of 4 writers simultaneously writing 52 sound like a really not good idea? I can't imagine two writers who approach superheroes more antithetically than Greg Rucka and Grant Morrison. I just can't. Both are strong-willed creators who know what they want to do with their characters, and they do very very different things.
But news that's going to bring more readers who aren't interested in comics now to the table? Didn't see it. Absolute Sandman, uh no. Collectors only.