I have to call that a FAIL

I check comics news sites just about every single day. Comicbookresources.com, Heidi McDonald's The Beat, and Newsarama.com on occassion (I used to hit Newsarama all the time, but I really don't care for the redesign of the site so now I hardly visit).
Quite often there is a column, interview, or news item related to Amazing Spider-Man. And to be honest, I have yet to click on a single one.
Because I just don't care anymore. The Spider-Man that Joe Quesada is publishing right now through Marvel Comics is not a Spider-Man I recognize as a valid character. I don't really know who that is under the mask anymore, but it certainly isn't the Peter Parker I had been reading the previous three decades.
I'm certainly not alone in this. I know a lot of people have abandoned the title/character. We're just not buying into it. Sales figures were certainly reflecting this. I know it did have a big spike recently due to a new storyline. But I wonder how many of those additional issues actually sold through? Or did retailers over-order and now they're stuck with a bunch of issues they can't move. I guess there is no way to know for certain.
What I do know is that my interest (or lack thereof) in the character will not change until the real Peter Parker (and his true history) returns and this current abomination of a misguided 'vision' is wished into the cornfield.

(not so) Amazing Spider-Man

I just found out the biggest Spider-Man fan that I know stopped reading Amazing Spider-Man 3 months ago.
This is a guy who used to buy Marvel titles that he didn't regularly read simply because they had a Spidey cameo in them (and that included even the smallest of appearances --- such as Spidey showing up in the background of some big group fight on a cover --- even if he didn't actually appear inside the issue in question --- or just having a very minor one panel appearance inside an issue). He previously bought variant covers of Amazing Spider-Man (along with the regular covers) just because he wanted to be as much of a completist as possible in terms of Spider-Man appearances.
But after DECADES of reading Spider-Man (and buying all of those extra appearance issues), he dropped Amazing Spider-Man like the bad habit it was because it just isn't worth reading anymore. There is no enjoyment to be derived from the current direction of the title.
NICE JOB Joe Quesada and crew.

Comics and Ike

Made two trips to the LCS this week (I wasn't able to stop in last week due to other time commitments). Picked up lots of good comics, many of which I haven't yet read.
And that is because hurricane Ike decided to blow through town very early Saturday morning. I was fortunate in that my home took minimal damage. A tree broke in half (luckily it did not land on the house), part of my gutters were torn away (so I had to take those down Saturday afternoon) and half of my fence blew down. I lost power Friday night about 10:00pm and didn't have power restored until Sunday at 1:00pm. The power came on in time for me to watch NFL games Sunday afternoon and evening (so that was a welcome diversion). I believe over 3 million + lost power in the Houston area and at this point I think there are still just under 2 million who still have not had their power restored (I'm quite lucky to live on the west side of the city where we didn't get hit quite as hard as other areas). My parents live south of Houston (about halfway between Houston and Galveston) and they are still without power.
So while I was waiting for power to return earlier today, I read part of the stack of comics I picked up earlier in the week. Titans no. 4 was nothing special, much like the rest of the series has been thus far. Honestly, if this is what they are going to be delivering with a relaunch, there is no reason to have started it again. I wasn't planning on picking up the Adam Strange Special, but since I get the Rann-Thanagar Holy War mini-series, the guys at the shop dropped it in my box. I'm glad they did. I'm a little ticked off at DC because on the cover of the comic it says Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom. Yet, when you open it up inside you have Jim Starlin (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciller), and Dan Green (inker). I'm a big fan of Rick Leonardi's work, so I absolutely would have planned to buy this had I known he was handling the art. Yet, one wouldn't know that just looking at the cover. How could they screw that up so badly??? Al Milgrom isn't even credited anywhere inside, and as best I can tell, he didn't do the cover either. So how did his name end up on the cover under Jim Starlin's?? Aces job there by the editor.
Trinity no. 14 and 15 were great. I've really been enjoying this series. In fact, if you're a fan of Superman and/or Batman and/or Wonder Woman, you should ABSOLUTELY be reading this title. Jeph Loeb is really doing a great job on this title. I reallly like the way they structure each issue as well, with a 12 page main story by Loeb and Bagley and then a secondary story by Loeb and Nicieza and a rotating cast of artists that adds additional support to the main story. Just a well written and well planned title all around. Batman Confidential no. 21 featured the final part of the Batgirl/Catwoman story. This arc has been a lot of fun to read. I would absolutely buy a monthly (Tales of) Batgirl title by Nicieza and Maguire. Green Lantern no. 34 was part 6 of the Secret Origin arc. I thought it was supposed to be the final part, but apparently the conclusion is actually in the next issue, even though Hal and Sinestro finished their battle against Atrocitus in this one (that wasn't a spoiler --- I didn't mention who, if anyone, won). Wonder Woman no. 24 was an enjoyable issue. Diana takes Tom to meet her mother. And Tom is now apparently an Amazon (I wasn't aware males could become part of the Amazon lineage). Hippolyta's parting words were a bit surprising however. I'm not familiar with the villain who shows up at the end of the story though. Is she perhaps the Queen of Fables the JLA faced in the story arc written by Mark Waid several years back (collected in LA Vol. 8: Divided We Fall)?

Anyway, I've still got several comics left to read (finished the DC stack, now I have DC's Vertigo imprint, Dark Horse, Image, and a few other independents remaining), plus a couple of manga trades that have been sitting on my table for a few weeks.

Off the Shelf

Been almost a month since I last posted, so I'll try to make some brief mention of what I've read recently and what I thought of it.
The first issue of Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds (DC) was really quite good. Written by Geoff Johns with art by George Perez and Scott Koblish, it was definitely one of the more impressive titles I picked up that particular week. It is obviously a Final Crisis tie-in (hence the words Final Crisis in the title) but not required reading. But if you're a Legion fan, or you enjoy Geoff Johns and/or George Perez's work, then you should definitely pick it up. Geoff has expressed previous interested in writing the Legion of Superheroes, so this is his chance to fulfill that desire. It looks like it is going to be another excellent project from him.
Trinity (DC) has been a very enjoyable series thus far. I really didn't NEED another weekly series, but this is definitely a solid project. Jeph Loeb and Mark Bagley have done a bang-up job thus far. I really like what Loeb has done in establishing the connection between the characters and the different ways they represent a special trinity. Some very interesting stuff in this one so far. Definitely worth a look.
The concluding issue of the most recent Wonder Woman (DC) story arc finally made its way in front of me and it was a pretty good pay-off. I thought perhaps Diana defeated her foe a little too easily once it was all said and done, but there are only so many pages to fit it all into so I can understand why that part of it might have been more rushed. Anyway, this title continues to get better and better under Gail Simone's hand.
The fourth issue of the current Batgirl/Catwoman story arc in Batman Confidential (DC) showed up in the comic shop unexpectedly (at least for me ... I didn't remember seeing it on the shipping list for that week). I've really been enjoying this one. Fabian Nicieza should write a monthly (Tales of) Batgirl title.
I decided to pick up the first issue of Joe Kelly's I Kill Giants (Image). It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it is only a five issue mini-series so I can stick around for the duration. Hopefully it will be a little more entertaining within the next couple of issues.
I ordered Red Mass For Mars (Image) even before I started hearing good things about it, and once some of the reviews started to filter in, I was even more excited to read it. The first issue did not disappoint at all. This is definitely a worthwhile read.
It was a slow week at the LCS, so I decided to pick up the first issue of the third volume of Fathom (Aspen). I had picked up a Fathom one-shot the previous month and it was decent enough to make me check out more. There has obviously been a lot that has happened in the previous two volumes, but J.T. Krul (the writer) did a good enough job establishing the principle aspects of the story that I didn't feel lost. And it certainly doesn't hurt that Ale' Garza is handling the pencils on this title. I'll definitely pick up the next couple of issues and kind of see where it goes from there.
Terry Moore's Echo (Abstract Studios) has been nothing short of fantastic. I definitely recommend this one. The story is very entertaining, the characters likeable, and the art is great. The trade collecting the first story arc will be in stores soon. You should definitely pick up a copy.
And the final book I'll talk about is The Bond of Saint Marcel (Archaia Studios Press). Archaia Studios Press really puts out some high quality material. I've been impressed with almost every single one of their publications that I have picked up. This particular mini-series is a vampire tale. It reminds me a little of Hellsing just in some of the set-up. It is written by Jennifer Quintenz and features some really fantastic art from Christian Gossett. I rate this one as definitely worth a look (if even just for the art alone --- but the story looks pretty interesting too).

One More Day - The AfterMath

Back in January of this year, I commented (in my zine for the MZS APA) on how Joe Quesada's move to cancel the lower selling Spider-Man titles in order to consolidate everything under the Amazing Spider-Man banner (with 3 issues published per month) would allow him to hide the decline in the actual number of readers of the main title even while the overall monthly sales would be higher. I even tossed out some numbers, citing an expected attrition in existing ASM readers who couldn't or didn't want to fork out for 3 issues a month as well as defections by fans unhappy with the new direction. In the original example, I noted how Spider-Man sales at the time sat around 190K per month (with 100K from ASM and the other 90K split between Spectacular Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man). I estimated a 15% attrition rate (readers who didn't want to buy the extra two copies of ASM per month) and another 20% decline (from the original 100K number) due to unhappy readers leaving the title. I also noted I thought the 15% attrition rate was probably a conservative number and the 20% decline was far less conservative (in fact, I mentioned I thought that number might actually come in closer to 10-12%). So the final breakdown was 100K - 15K (15% attribition) - 20K (20% decline) which left the title with a cool 65K of sales PER ISSUE. With the title now being published three times per month, that would make the total monthly number 195K, which just comes in ahead of the 190K the were doing with three different titles. Taking the more conservative view, it seemed likely the per issue number would be a little closer to 72K, resulting in nearly 216K per month, which is a clearly a more notable increase over the 190K number.
Well, we're six months past the end of One More Day so we've got 18 issues of sales numbers to examine. Thus far the numbers have not quite settled. There has been a continual decline in sales from issue to issue. I will note that these numbers are only estimates as Marvel and Diamond do not release actual sales numbers. However, the estimates should be consistent between pre-OMD numbers and post-OMD numbers (in other words, regardless if the actual numbers are incorrect, they were calculated using the same methodology, so whatever the pre-OMD numbers are wrong by is what the post-OMD numbers would be wrong by --- long story short, that means they can be compared against each other and any resulting difference should have some reasonable validity).
I'm using the numbers as estimated by the guys over at ICv2.com - you can find their analysis here if you're curious: http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/1850.html
So let's break it all down. We're going to start all the way back in January 2007 to show what sales were pre-OMD and then finish with the numbers up through June 2008.

January 07
ASM (537) - 114,800
SSM (34) - 47,000
FNSM (16) - 41,800

February 07
ASM - 142,900
SSM - 59,400
FNSM - 52,800

March 07
ASM - 137,700
SSM - 56,100
FNSM - 50,700

April 07
ASM - (no issue)
SSM - 57,500
FNSM - 50,300

May 07
ASM - 119,628
SSM - 48,460 (annual)
FNSM - 49,891

June 07
ASM - 108,220
SSM - 57,057
FNSM - 47,886

July 07
ASM - 105,671
SSM - 55,323
FNSM - 46,446

August 07
ASM - 106,485
SSM - 52,180
FNSM - 44,661

So we can see that pre-OMD, the Spider-Man family of monthly titles was actually averaging about 220,729 copies per month (I threw out the April figures since ASM wasn't published that month and there is no way to properly gauge how many issues one more issue of ASM would have sold given the fluctuations in the monthly sales numbers of that title over the 8 month period)

-------------------------
One More Day

September 07
ASM - 150,788

October 07
FNS - 110,295

November 07
SSN - 105,050

December 07
ASM - 129,085

These numbers held fairly steady with what ASM was doing before the big change (complete with major fluctuations)

-------------------------

January 08
ASM 546 - 127,958
ASM 547 - 101,213
ASM 548 - 97,959

February 08
ASM 549 - 101,112
ASM 550 - 90,874
ASM 551 - 88,084

March 08
ASM 552 – 89,835
ASM 553 – 82,648
ASM 554 – 81,072

April 08
ASM 555 - 86,902
ASM 556 - 78,458
ASM 557 - 77,057

May 08
ASM 558 - 76,966
ASM 559 - 74,206
ASM 560 - 74,012

June 08
ASM 561 - 72,372
ASM 562 - 71,409
ASM 563 - 70,792

We can see post-OMD a significant decline in sales. Up to this point, the title has averaged about 257,154 copies a month (which is obviously 37K more than the Spidey books were doing pre-OMD), though obviously the trend has it only selling 214,573 in June while showing only minimal signs of stopping the decline.
The numbers speak for themselves. As of June, ASM isn't selling anywhere near close to what it was averaging per issue before Joe imposed his vision on the Spidey universe. It was averaging well over 100K per issue and is currently sitting at about 70K. In my own opinion, even with the move to a three times per month publishing schedule, ASM is a title that should still be able to do 80-85K per issue. There should be a strong enough core fan-base for the character to achieve those numbers. Right now, they obviously are not doing that.
Let's look at reality versus expectation. The reality is the book is currently selling 70K per issue (and still falling). The expectation is that a title like ASM should be sitting between 80-85K. That is a difference of 15K per issue at the moment (and if the book does fall to 65K, that would make it a 20K difference). 15K per issue times three issues a month is 45K issues. 45K issues that ARE NOT selling each month.
Go look at the June charts - http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12929.html
According to those numbers, a title that sells 45K for the month would be in the top 50 list. In other words, Marvel has the equivalent of a top 50 title that isn't hitting their bottom line. Now let's take it even further. 45K times 12 months is 540K. That is over half a million copies PER YEAR that isn't hitting Marvel's bottom line as it should be.
Clearly Joe's vision isn't working. He should be answering questions before Marvel's board of directors and their stockholders as to why the publishing division is leaving so much money on the table with this particular flagship title.