Apr 17
Normal service will resume shortly.
Posted on Sunday, April 17, 2011 by Paul in Uncategorized
Chances are that by the time you read this I’m back in the country. Chances are that I’m also probably asleep.
Normal content will resume in the next couple of days. Thank you for your patience.
Welcome back!
Cxx
Huzzah. I’ve been patiently awaiting your return. Or maybe not so patiently. Glad to see it resume and welcome back.
(Can’t talk. Suffering X-Axis withdrawl symptoms.)
Phew… My very weak, very latent mutant power of patiently waiting for an intelligent comic news fix had almost been exhausted! 🙂
I’m really hoping to hear your thoughts on 2 things. First a review of Uncanny X-men 535 that I feel was a drastic improvement to the title in just 30 pages. I also would like your thoughts on Tom Brevoort’s claim to CBR on Friday that we all misunderstood the point of .1 comics. What we all believed to be a “jumping on point” was never called that but rather a glimpse into “the direction of the title in a few months.”
Oh that Brevoort, he’s such a scamp! Somebody should take that shovel out of his hands. Unfortunately most of the stuff he says is quite rubbish so it’s probably too late.
Also funny was Brevoort praising the editors, you know, the guys who had the .1 issues come between Parts 1 & 2 of ongoing stories.
What bothers me most about Brevoort is that he has a real nasty habit of talking down to the readers as if they are morons for not seeing what Marvel *really* meant.
It’s gotten quite sad & embarrassing that Marvel need to concoct a witch-hunt every time they make a mistake instead of holding their hands up or saying nothing at all. The whole “no more $3.99 books…err, wait you ALL misheard/misquoted us” debacle is another example.
Hopefully you chaps do an extra-long podcast as well if time allows.
From the official Marvel press release (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=29145)
Geared for new and long-time readers alike, the all-new Marvel: Point One initiative delivers the perfect jumping on points for the biggest super hero series in the world! Beginning in February 2011, select Marvel comic series marked with a “.1” after the issue number feature full-length, self-contained stories by Marvel’s top creators, laying the groundwork for the next year of storylines. From Invincible Iron Man to Avengers to Amazing Spider-Man, each Marvel: Point One issue of the associated series not only begin major new storylines, but also seamlessly introduces new readers into the dynamic Marvel Universe and its popular super heroes.
I can’t help but notice the words “perfect jumping on points” in the very first sentence, there.
Has Brevoort been even remotely believable since at least Civil War? Civil War is the period when I noticed a lot of the stuff that Brevoort said contradicted previous information and statements (including his own.)
I’m not even sure you can call what he does “spin doctoring” when he flat out denies previous stuff and ignores anything else he doesn’t want to address.
Glad to hear you’re back safe. I’m going to imagine you doing the next episode wearing party hats with a clearly home made “welcome back Paul” banner in the background.
Jeremy, I’m not a Brevoort fan, but you have really done him a disservice. If you read the paragraph you quoted more carefully you’ll see that it spends a lot of time talking about what he’s claiming they meant than what you seem to have thought they meant. “Laying the groundwork for the next year of storylines” and “begin major new storylines.”
I went to check, and he does not, in fact, say in cbr that the .1 issues are not jumping on points — only that their main purpose was to serve as a sort of beginning for the stories that will come next. The two things could both be true. If you weren’t putting words in his mouth there wouldn’t be a contradiction at all.
BTW, I am a different Thomas than the one who posted on this above.
I’m not the one who quoted him as saying that the Point One books weren’t actually meant as a jumping on point, and reading his actual comments, I see that he never actually said any such thing, so you have a fair point. But looking at his actual comments is even more troublesome.
Brevoort: “I’ve seen some of the internet chatter about this over the last few days—and honestly, these people don’t really know what they’re talking about. First of all, as I always say, as I always say, the numbers that you see released online are not accurate. They never have been, and they never are.”
Now, I think most fans know that the Diamond sales charts never tell the whole story, but even if the numbers aren’t completely accurate, I think it’s fair to say that the month to month figures should give a pretty accurate idea of sales trends. And the sales figures for the Point One books show that they simply had virtually no effect on sales. Most of them sold lower than the regular issues preceding and following them, and the one that actually did spike sales (Amazing Spider-Man) didn’t even focus on the title character, instead acting as an introduction to the new version of Venom.
I know it’s not really Marvel’s style to admit failure, but the constant boundless optimism and dismissive tone comes across as rather insulting.
“Many of them have performed at a level slightly higher than the monthly issues, and even the weakest of them sold at around the level of the monthly book. That’s a massive success!”
Yes, a massive success is a promotional campaign that doesn’t actually drive readers away…