Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Marvel Age and Tsunami Digests...
OK.. changing gears here... I think everyone has now heard about Marvel doing a new line for newstands called Marvel Age. It is taking classic stories and putting new art on them along with updates for the times.
At first glance, it is easy enough to say Ultimate Spiderman. This does seem a little different in that it is aiming at a younger age and will be more episodic. Still, at $2.25 an issue and the fact that most stores don't want to deal with thin-style comics anymore, I have troubles seeing it doing amazingly well.
However, there is in fact some good news. I haven't seen anyone quote the following yet:
As far as collecting the Marvel Age stuff, that sounds good as well, but hopefully they'll still do it even if the sales of the singles aren't very good. I'm still thinking this Marvel Age stuff would probably be better as a cheap anthology, though. Its good to have more stuff aimed at a younger set, even if it is rehashes of old stuff, but I have serious doubts that the monthlies will get far off the ground. Sure there is interest from the movies and merchandising, but how visible will these comics be? How will kids and parents be able to distinguish it from Ultimate Spider-Man or any of the Spider-Man monthlies? Do they play on packing any of these things in with the toys they are selling? Any kind of campaign of awareness or special displays in stores? Will they get it in more stores in general? If not, then how will it distinguish itself from the few comics that are currently on spinner racks and aparantly not selling well?
So, the digest news is really good, but the rest is pretty eh...
At first glance, it is easy enough to say Ultimate Spiderman. This does seem a little different in that it is aiming at a younger age and will be more episodic. Still, at $2.25 an issue and the fact that most stores don't want to deal with thin-style comics anymore, I have troubles seeing it doing amazingly well.
However, there is in fact some good news. I haven't seen anyone quote the following yet:
Retooled versions of classic Silver Age Marvels will not be the only fodder for Marvel Age. In April, Marvel will reprint affordable 5x8 digest-sized collections of the contemporary titles Spider-Girl, Sentinel and Runaways.Nothing had been said about the Tsunami digests for some time now, but this information seems to be new. I know that Spider-Girl was never mentioned before, and the April date also seems new. This is great news, IMO, and I think those have a chance at doing well..
Marvel also intends to collect the Marvel Age: Spider-Man comic books as well as other as yet unannounced Marvel Age titles and publish them in low cost digest editions.
As far as collecting the Marvel Age stuff, that sounds good as well, but hopefully they'll still do it even if the sales of the singles aren't very good. I'm still thinking this Marvel Age stuff would probably be better as a cheap anthology, though. Its good to have more stuff aimed at a younger set, even if it is rehashes of old stuff, but I have serious doubts that the monthlies will get far off the ground. Sure there is interest from the movies and merchandising, but how visible will these comics be? How will kids and parents be able to distinguish it from Ultimate Spider-Man or any of the Spider-Man monthlies? Do they play on packing any of these things in with the toys they are selling? Any kind of campaign of awareness or special displays in stores? Will they get it in more stores in general? If not, then how will it distinguish itself from the few comics that are currently on spinner racks and aparantly not selling well?
So, the digest news is really good, but the rest is pretty eh...
