r/ImageComics • u/Konradleijon • May 15 '26
Comic Why can’t famous comic creators draw the same audience they once did
Kieron Gillen mentions having trouble selling Power Fantasy in comic stores and then was after he did his famous Krakoa X-Men run and more famous Once and Future, Die, and Wicked and Divine.
Why is it that creators who made great hits no longer sell comics
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u/navidee May 15 '26
More people buy trades now, which hurts sales of singles. If no one buys issues, then there are no trades to produce.
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u/CanadianKaiju May 15 '26
It's crazy to me that singles are the backbone of the industry. All I want are trades. I'm sorry if I am part of the problem lol but fuck collecting singles.
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u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
My beef with singles is that it leads to incomplete storytelling and incentivizes piecemeal creation rather than selling finished works.
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u/gdamndylan May 15 '26
That's the actual problem with writing for the trades - it means there are very rarely stand-alone issues of a book that anybody could pick up and enjoy. Back in the day you could read a random issue that was probably part of a larger story arc that still stood on its own.
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u/dr3dg3 May 17 '26
Catwoman #83 drew me right in, despite being part 5 of a six-part arc. 🖤 Part of it for sure is that it featured Carmine Falcone actively being my ultimate mobster fantasy.
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u/BCdotWHAT May 16 '26
it leads to incomplete storytelling
I'm still waiting for the final four issues of Über: Invasion. Avatar Press going under is bad enough, but that we cannot get those final issues because they hold the rights and are apparently unwilling to return those to Kieron Gillen is just infuriating.
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u/Gold-Duck898 May 15 '26
I think it’s down to the financial model in how creators are paid and how the publishers make money. With single issues they get a regular page rate and the comics start making money month-to-month before the trades release. Maybe.
I do think eventual trade sales should factor into a series longevity, but I’m sure there’s some logistical things that’d factor into it.
I wouldn’t say you’re part of the problem. The real issue is maybe how comic publishers operate. Single issues can be more expensive to collect and they take up more space. Personally, I tend to gravitate to series that do one-in-done stories or are very dense for my monthly reading. Those longer piecemeal narratives find their way onto my shelf in trade paperback form.
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u/navidee May 15 '26
There are no trades without individual issues. Simple as that.
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u/NukesAndSupers May 15 '26
why?
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u/navidee May 15 '26
Because comic books are written/illustrated/colored one issue at a time.
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u/LiterallyABigfoot May 15 '26
Their point is that they don't see why comics cant also be written/illustrated/coloured as one full book
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u/m_busuttil May 15 '26
To answer this question: if you want to do this you have to be able to pay your entire creative team upfront, because they're now going to spend 6 months to a year working on the book before you put anything out. That's tens of thousands of dollars (as it should be, it's six months of full time work for the artist), and most creative teams simply aren't in a position to float that kind of money on a book that might or might not ever make that back.
If you sell the book in singles, you get a stream of income coming through while you produce the book, and then you still get to also sell the collected work at the end. Substantially more viable for anyone who isn't at the top of the success curve.
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u/LiterallyABigfoot May 16 '26
To answer this question: if you want to do this you have to be able to pay your entire creative team upfront, because they're now going to spend 6 months to a year working on the book before you put anything out. That's tens of thousands of dollars (as it should be, it's six months of full time work for the artist), and most creative teams simply aren't in a position to float that kind of money on a book that might or might not ever make that back.
Sure but what's the difference between doing that and marvel for example going all in and budgeting and paying for a 5 or 6 issue mini? It's not like marvel are going to cancel a short mini series to recoup any losses. Marvel already are committed to putting the same amount of money into it before getting anything back.
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u/m_busuttil May 16 '26
Sure, if the monthly market collapsed tomorrow Marvel or DC could absolutely do that and start publishing books direct to trade. But why would they do that now? As long as a book sells fine enough it's recouping the cost of making the material as they make it. If you're waiting for the trade, they'll make that money from you whether you buy the singles or not - so why not sell it to the singles people first in the meantime, make free extra money, and then sell the TPB?
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u/HatOfFlavour May 15 '26
Well releasing as singles gets you sales which gets you money to keep the project going and directly expresses interest and lets you cancel a failing project long before you finish it.
Like you can't guarrantee you've got a success until it's selling and if you've had to write a trade thats 4 to 6 single issues long that's (being as simplistic as possible) 4 to 6 times the cost of a single to write and art and ink and letter and colour and print and ship and that price is needed up front.
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
“Why can’t TV shows be written, shot, and edited as one full ~2h segment and released on a big screen?”
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u/kielaurie May 15 '26
What an awful analogy. Comics are written to be read as sequential issues, and whether you read 1 chapter a month or all 4-8 chapters in one go in a book you get the same experience. Writing directly for trades would actually be overall better for the writers because they aren't limited to arbitrary 20 pages of length per chapter, don't have to write in awkward cliffhangers every 20 pages in an attempt to get people to keep reading, can go back and fix early parts if the story if a creative decision later means it's now not so good, they don't have to remind the reader what happened 10 pages ago because its been a month since they read it, etc etc... There are very, very few series that actually use the 20 page, single issue format in a way that means they are best told in that way
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
Yah, doood!
Imagine someone saying “TV shows are written to be watched as sequential installments, and whether you watch one episode a week or 4-8 in one go, you get the same story.”
That doesn’t hold up at ALL!!!
U r vary smurt!
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u/kielaurie May 16 '26
That holds up perfectly? Are you okay?
The two peaks of Netflix viewership are when the first episode drops so that people can watch the episode to see if it's any good, and when the last episode drops so that people can binge the entire thing...
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u/LiterallyABigfoot May 16 '26
It doesn't hold up actually. There's a reason people binge shows and enjoy them that way so much
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u/LiterallyABigfoot May 15 '26
You act like books aren't written this way all the time...
It would still be a comic book even if it was only released as a gn...
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
Huh? I would absolutely delineate between a novel and a serial.
If a work of sequential art is released in installments, it’s a comic.
If it’s released as a single standalone work, it’s a graphic novel.
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u/LiterallyABigfoot May 15 '26
No, a graphic novel is still just a comic book. There has never been any need for comics to be released in installments. What makes comics comics is that they are books that tell story through sequential art as well as/instead of text, not that they are released in installments.
Your definition would mean that one-shot comics are not actually comics and I don't think anyone would be dumb enough to agree with that.
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u/theronster May 15 '26
The medium is called comics, it doesn’t matter what format it’s delivered in.
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u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
Oh it's much worse than that sir. They are created one page at a time. Some say they're even created a single panel at a time. Perhaps we should be making daily purchases as each panel releases, because without panels or pages we simply wouldn't see entire issues getting released.
See how dumb this reasoning is?
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
How dumb your attempt at pedantry is?
Yes. We all see it.
Those of us familiar with the form understand exactly the distinction u/Navidee was making.
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u/CosmackMagus May 15 '26
Cause then they're called graphic novels, not trade paperbacks.
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u/Terrible-D May 15 '26
No. They're called comic books. A graphic novel is a standalone volume. Only people who are insecure about the fact that they like comics call individual issues or runs graphic novels.
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u/CosmackMagus May 15 '26
Wooosh.
Nice try, tho. Next time, try not to work yourself up so much that you detour into personal attacks, lol.
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u/Terrible-D May 15 '26
Yeah, really got me there. Go contine to pretend your pretentious makes you clever.
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u/tonecapo_ May 15 '26
A graphic novel is just that, a novel with graphics. It’s an original story never told in single issues. While a trade paperback, in comics, is comprised of six issues. Usually an entire story arc.
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u/CosmackMagus May 15 '26
...which is why the answer to "why are there no trades without singles?" is "because then they're called graphic novels"
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u/tonecapo_ May 16 '26
Look, this is the Internet so some moron has to “acktually” you, and that moron is me.
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u/CosmackMagus May 16 '26
From one dummy to another, at least you're a lot friendlier than the other fella' 🙂
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u/NukesAndSupers May 15 '26
why?
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u/Livid-Ad9682 May 15 '26
An actual answer: comics making is labor intensive, time intensive, and breaking a project down into smaller bites creates cash flow. So, how long does it take to make it? A year? Even half a year? Optimistic , right? Even with an optimistic case--this comic as a trade will make some money but the publisher doesn't have enough to give a big advance, creators need something to keep them going while they make it. Other jobs, etc. One route, is the direct market and issues. They obviously have their own costs, manufacturing, etc, but some of the costs in editorial, production etc.. gets paid off by a successful floppy run. It makes some money, which goes to the creator during this time, and then the material gets made into a trade. If that makes it's production money back and some to the publisher, it's all "profit."
At the top end, people, publishing will give advances big enough for a creator to just sit and create the thing--which do have to earn out--but most things, comics, books, music, aren't that. A band doesn't tour and record at the same time, for example, but they'll tour to make a living and save some money to be able to break out some time to record.
Or, yknow, they have other jobs. They maybe make floppies to make some cash and still have other jobs.
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u/HatOfFlavour May 15 '26
A way around this can be launch it was a webcomic first and then arrange the trades as kickstarters. I've seen this done successfully by the Foglio's with Girl Genius and Abaddon with Kill Six Billion Demons. But the only big comic name I'm aware of try a webcomic first was Freakangles by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield.
But webcomics can be even more unknown than comics, I love Kieron Gillen's work and keep finding out they were the author of something I loved rather than searching for works they had done and I didn't know about the fantastic Power Fantasy until it was mentioned by Red on Overly Sarcastic Productions.
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u/Livid-Ad9682 May 15 '26
This is true! I got into Kill Six Billion Demons finding the print copies and didn't know the webcomic at the time. I think though that's an answer for a cartoonist to go, but a change has to be a little more systemic. Meaning, there ought to be a few places readers can go to get exposed to a lot, and those places getting a critical mass of readers into whatever. Shops, specific sites on the internet, etc. Book publishing doesn't have mass market racks anymore, but still has bookstores, book clubs, and book tok--though that last one is who knows how stable.
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u/HatOfFlavour May 15 '26
I'm in Britain so perusing singles means I have to take a day out to London, trades are in every waterstones bookshop.
edit Newsagents and supermarkets might cary the latest of some popular singles7
u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
This really just reads as the comic book industry not being an economically viable business.
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u/Livid-Ad9682 May 15 '26
It's kinda not in the shape it's in. It wasn't super healthy decades ago and production and readers have kept changing.
For someone like Gillen, I think he needs shops to draw in more people in general. For shops, I think they should have all kinds of comics, and they support each other and maybe the customers/readers learn to move or like them all. (I write that like it's easy and I know it's not, but I do think it's healthier retail)
And some of it looks like it does because that cashflow/get paid while you draw stuff is handled differently in different segments of comics. Book publishing does have some advances because they can be bigger companies and healthier, that's where most YA comics live. (A lot of cartoonists probably do more than one project/job of course, but then so do lots of writers). And manga, all this stuff happens in Japan as anthologies instead of floppies, and they need anime tie-in hits too.
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u/Konradleijon May 15 '26
The manga series Bakuman about two young creators who decide to go into manga and made by the Death Note people says only one in a thousand mangaka get to succeed and has the main character uncle be a failed comic artist who died from overwork.
It’s a fictional story but it’s very clearly based on the creative team own experience with Jump
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u/BCdotWHAT May 16 '26
the comic book industry not being an economically viable business.
Possibly, but that is because the times changed for the worst.
I bet printing a comic is now substantially more expensive than ten years ago. And they can either choose to earn less or make comics more expensive.
People are getting squeezed all over the place. Everything is a subscription, costs are rising,... And the only people seemingly doing better is a couple thousand ultra-rich people who somehow still want more more more.
Look at how so many YouTube creators are in financial straits. Some random change to the YT algorithm and their channel craters. Some random day the YT AI decides your channel is bad and it removes monetization. Ads are scams half the time. Videos get claimed because of mere seconds of audio or video copyright infringes. And thus everybody goes Patreon, but I'm sorry, I am not made of money and I cannot subscribe to dozens of Patreons, let alone hundreds.
Or look at how rare it is becoming for musicians and actors etc. to come from "poor" environments.
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u/Raskuja46 May 18 '26
Nah, I reject this. The economy got worse for everybody but comics have been in a bad spot financially for a long time, so you can't point to a given economic downturn as the culprit. That's just cope.
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u/kielaurie May 15 '26
I ain't sorry about it, single issues have been the worst way to collect comics since the day the first trade paperback was released, there's no good reason for companies to continue making them other than to guilt trip gullible readers into paying a premium for an inferior version of the story they will later release as a trade
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May 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SendHairyAnusPics May 16 '26
Tbf more time (and money) could be saved just reading the first issue online before buying the trade compared to spending $5 on a single issue. There’s something that can be said about the joy of ephemera but realistically there’s no practical reason beyond that for physical single issues being a better choice than digital+trades
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u/kielaurie May 16 '26
reading by the issue makes the story stick with you more than binging a TPB in an hour
Genuinely, what are you talking about? If it was weekly then maybe, but reading 20 pages every month is not at all conducive to remembering the story - but reading a full and complete 80-120 page chapter in one go absolutely is!
they also lessen the time we waste on stuff we don't like but force ourselves to read because, "oh, I bought the trade, I guess I have to finish it." whereas if I think something sucks after the first issue and don't expect it to improve, I've only wasted 10-15 minutes.
A minor boon to consumers (except, you know, libraries exist, you can read the first part of the trade from your library or just digitally and not have to pay anything to sample the book, only buying if you like the story - but I digress, let's pretend this is a benefit that only issue readers have) but a massive negative to the creative team. If they just create the trade, you buy one thing. If they create 5 individual issues, and you just buy 1 of them, they lose so much money on the lost sales of the rest of the series. It's almost as if issues are bad for the creators and the consumers...
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u/GreenGuardianssbu May 16 '26
I love singles, I love the format, I love keeping up with my stories monthly, but they are just... a pain in the ass sometimes.
To start, they aren't sold at bookstores or magazine stands or really anywhere but dedicated comic shops. And then they also require a dedicated storage solution: bag/board/box. On top of that, if you're looking for specific back issues to complete your run, sooner or later you're going to end up in a situation where you have 11, 12, 14.
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u/dr3dg3 May 17 '26
Singles are easily my favorite and I stand by this. 🥰 I'm so excited for Catwoman #87 to arrive on Wednesday!
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u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
If people are buying trades then maybe they should produce trades so as to meet the market where it's at. But that would require the industry to make changes to how it does things and become economically viable as opposed to run on duct tape and good will from fans alone.
I hate how fragile this industry is sometimes.
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u/hamsolo19 May 15 '26
You know, the older I get and the more experiences I've had it really feels like many things in the world appear solid but are fragile as hell underneath everything. So many things feel like a house of cards where one false move is gonna send the whole thing crashing down. It's weird, when you're younger it's a lot easier to have trust in things and be like "yeah, it's all good" but then you get old and it's like, "oh shit, I thought I was the only one who felt like they had no idea what they're doing but it's uh, well, mostly everyone."
Sorry for rambling. I only swung thru the sub to see what else is popular this week since I'm headed to the LCS later. Now I'm over here making novel sized comments like a doof.
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u/NuPNua May 15 '26
Bit entirely true, the European market exists on GN length "albums" for example.
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u/Historical-Draft6368 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
Not entirely. They do a lot of anthology magazines over there and many of those albums were previously serialized. most of the exceptions are by proven talent that a publisher is comfortable giving an advance to. Same deal with Manga.
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u/JordanM85 May 15 '26
I rarely even buy tpbs anymore. I've moved on to almost entirely hardcover releases. If a book doesn't get a deluxe release I probably won't ever read it. I've made some exceptions here and there, but I haven't bought a single issue of a comic in a very long time. I think it might have been TWD #50.
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u/JuvenJapal May 15 '26
This. People really underestimate the importance (or just don't know) of pre-ordering single issues for comics, especially creator-owned, for the entire industry. I've seen many comments from creators over the last 10-15 years saying as much.
I know we can't all purchase everything that looks interesting for a variety of reasons. There are creator-owned titles out there I think are interesting, but don't have the space for, so I hope others are supporting it long enough to keep it going by the time I get to it. Perhaps I'm doing the same for someone with the books I'm pre-ordering each month.
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u/vencyjedi May 15 '26
Honestly I feel like the industry should find a better way. Maybe switch to the manga method of publishing a big magazine with all your series every month and let people vote on what they like or something.
I live in Europe and it's extremely hard to get singles here. Most countries don't have comic shops and those that do they don't offer single issues. The little stores that do it is expensive and you have to pay more than the value of a single issue for shipping so it's not even worth it. I just buy collected editions. It's the best option for me and many others.
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u/Historical-Draft6368 May 15 '26
I think in order to make the big magazine method happen, you’d have to recondition America comic readers to embrace anthology magazines which they mostly have rejected over the past 30 years.
Not only that, we probably have to rethink how we make comics here in order to cheaply produce the amount of material required.
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u/Konradleijon May 15 '26
They use to be popular and most famous characters like Spider-Man and Batman where in anthology comics
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u/Historical-Draft6368 May 15 '26
They were and then those books eventually just became Spider-man and Batman books.
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u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
There's honestly a hole in the market for that. Heavy Metal Magazine is easily the best value purchase I can make at my local comic shop, bar none. It gets me reading a lot of stuff I wouldn't otherwise seek out and has plenty of good stuff on offer. I don't know how many of those kinds of periodicals the market has room for, but I think it's worth recognizing that there is value in having that format. Plenty of ongoing storylines from Heavy Metal have gotten bundled up into collected releases over the years, so it's not a bad idea to explore that space. It also allows for shorter form content that can't reasonably fill out a whole trade on its own or shoulder the full production cost, so it's a good way for less established creators to springboard into the wider industry while under the aegis of a larger publication.
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u/Feeling_Cow_8888 May 15 '26
Print is dead. A switch to manga style anthologies would have been great 30 years ago, but it's too late for that now. They need to embrace digital and copy the shonen jump app that Viz has.
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u/SnaptrapPress May 15 '26
It doesn't help that singles are wildly overpriced. I know there's inflation to consider and all that, but for example I bought the first issue of the new Ben 10 last week and it was five bucks for 24 pages of comics.
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u/Roy-Southman May 15 '26
There is also the fact that singles are more of a USA thing, some countries just sell the most popular singles and never other less well known series. I live abroad and for a moment I got really into comics but could only buy trades even though I wanted to buy each issue of my favorite series. You would need to live in a big city that has stores where you could order specific comics on demand, otherwise you are limited to marvel and dc main series.
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u/Money-Rest-380 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
Well; I suppose it's because of mainstream appeal
Krakoa is X-Men, of course it'd sell
DIE appealed to RPG fans
Once & Future had Dan Mora; quite the eye-catching artist and is based on Arthurian legends, again quite the large appeal
Power Fantasy has deeper themes and the more youthful-looking art of Caspaar Wingjaard; it's not often you find superhero fans looking for discussions of ethics and existential dread (I'm not sure Immortal Hulk would've been as popular if it featured original heroes instead of Hulk);
I love them all though 🥰
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
Immortal also didn’t really sell that well, because the general readership burned out on Krakoa after X of Swords…and he was only brought in because Marvel chose not to reset like Hickman had always planned.
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u/HatOfFlavour May 15 '26
All of those bar Power Fantasy I discovered on my own, PF I only heard about from Red on Overly Sarcastic Productions recently and I love it.
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u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
I wonder how much of it is comic fans simply dying off and not enough new blood flowing into the hobby to replace them.
Alternative theory: Maybe you just can't hit home runs every time.
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u/Historical-Draft6368 May 15 '26
There’s actually a growing of audience younger comic fans but a lot of them are buying through book stores and school book fairs and most of the major publishers aren’t catering towards them and they ghettoize their all ages books.
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u/flowerboyyu May 15 '26
the Absolute universe stuff is bringing tons of new fans, especially manga fans, into comic books
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u/jawsthegreat777 May 16 '26
I know plenty of young people getting into the hobby, but a lot read digital
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u/Wonderful_Formal_274 May 15 '26
Comics are massively popular now, and most of that is due to a huge growth in kid/teen readership.
Your second point is spot on. Gillen is not a ‘superstar’. He writes some stuff that’s popular and some stuff that isn’t.
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u/No_Resolve8571 May 15 '26
In my experience working for both the "Big 2" and smaller pubs / putting out original comics -- there is a SHOCKINGLY large % of Marvel / DC fans who will straight up tell you they dont buy anything outside those universes.
Aside from a few titles, fewer and fewer fans of originals are buying lots of Marvel/DC titles, and vice-versa. It genuinely seems harder to get readers to cross that line with you.
In terms of struggling vs his previous books - that might be more people's pocketbook pinch?
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
It really wasn’t struggling vs his previous books - in his newsletter, he explains that he was just trying to emphasize that every little bit matters for books like this.
But yeah, if I’m buying a Big Two Cape book at this point, there’s a 90% chance it’s a limited series by a creator I already know and like.
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u/snowkrash3000 May 15 '26
I love Power Fantasy but it just doesn't seem to be vibing with our customers in our store. We had a lot of people try it early on and the interest just fizzled and they didn't keep with it. This doesn't happen to every comic so I almost feel like the audience just isn't there for this as a monthly comic. I feel it should be doing better in the graphic novel market hopefully.
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u/who_ology May 15 '26
i picked up the first trade, it took until issue 6 for it to click for me. i’ll pick up the second eventually, but it really hasn’t stuck with me as a priority
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u/JasperFeelingsworth May 15 '26
I've been buying them as digitals on Amazon Kindle but I lost interest like the 3rd or 4th issue, the art just wasn't clicking for me
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be able to get it at mine if it weren’t on my pull - consistently sold out by 5 on Wednesday.
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u/snowkrash3000 May 15 '26
Well they probably don't order a lot for the shelf because it doesn't sell well.
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
No. It just sells out.
There’s usually plenty of extra capeslop (even the popular stuff) so it might be a function of living across the Atlantic.
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u/snowkrash3000 May 15 '26
That doesnt make sense. Unless your shop doesn't like money you just keep increasing your orders until you stop selling out by 5pm on Wednesday. The only reason you don't is if those extra issues consistently don't sale. Thats how comics business works.
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u/BiDiTi May 16 '26
Eh? By the third trade, they would occasionally have one issue left.
I can usually get a week-old Absolute Batman - that must sell TERRIBLY, huh?
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u/atcg0101 May 15 '26
Because their mass market potential is throttled by direct market distribution
Selling comics into comic stores (and digital comic platforms) only exposes their narratives to a small, niche audience within comics.
Even within social media, all of their exposure ends up mainly being directly to other folks in comics.
The major opportunity is to be able to expand their narrative content as widely as possible via socials, and then to be able offer derivative products (merch, comic books, trades, etc) to fans who want to support or own something from their narrative products.
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u/Wonderful_Formal_274 May 15 '26
Which is why the massive boom in comics over the last 10-15 years has been mainly outside of comic shops.
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u/reindeercurt May 15 '26
People have already made a lot of good points about economic trends influencing audience spending, the market being catered to habitual Marvel/DC readers etc. So I'll tackle this question from a culture angle.
Indie comics haven't ever really been cultural movers the way Marvel and DC have been, with two exceptions: the black and white underground comix boom, and the 2010s Image renaissance. Underground comix started out in the direct market, but are now almost entirely in the graphic novel market (Fantagraphics being a prime example). The legacy of that shift has been a splitting of the audience: Direct Market comic book readers, and graphic novel readers, with little overlap between those groups. On both the creative and the readership level, there are now two comics industries, and a lot of writers like Gillen, Marjorie Liu, Brubaker etc. are producing comics in the system dominated by superhero stories and readers. People interested in original comics stories are reading OGNs and generally have no desire to see what Direct Market creators are doing. People interested in superheroes generally have no desire to see what exists in the DM space outside of that. It's a vicious cycle.
The Image renaissance represented the last time original comics from the Direct Market attracted a mainstream pop culture audience. That is off the back of some mega-hits like Saga, and a whole lot of what could be described as activism from creators. Kelly-Sue DeConnick was putting out newsletters and going to in-person events to teach women and children how to set up pull-lists. LumberJanes created a community around itself advocating for opening up comics culture to women and minorities. That was the era of peak comics twitter and comics tumblr, with lots of direct interaction between creators and fans.
Then, gradually, all the big titles started to delay or go on hiatus. Saga, Bitch Planet, The Manhattan Projects, Morning Glories, Rat Queens. There were multiple reasons for this (monthly comics is a grind, and indies don't have an infinite bench of replacement talent), but the result is that the excited new audience watched their favorite books disappear without warning. Tumblr had its user exodus, then Twitter had its user exodus. The MCU went from a bold, exciting new thing to a leviathan "ruining film". Pop culture moved on from comics from more or less 2016 to now, and all of the creators who saw success in the prior era were left in the lurch. Bendis, Remender, Brubaker, DeConnick, Fraction, Gillen. Those used to be the top names in comics, and now aren't, because their mainstream audience is gone, and the "core comics audience" of Marvel and DC readers have extreme recency bias and basically forgot about them.
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u/lokithelion May 15 '26
Because billionaires have decided the economy doesn’t exist for normal people anymore. Price gouging everywhere has destroyed peoples, basic economic freedom and people don’t have money to spend on five dollar comics anymore. They have to figure out how to pay for five dollar a gallon of gas.
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u/artyblues May 15 '26
I think a big factor is the amount of disposable income shrinking with the cost of necessities constantly increasing.
Comics become a luxury when the rent and groceries become a bigger part of the pie
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u/NodNolan May 15 '26
Because Comics are expensive.
Remember if you buy US comics in the UK the shipping addition is massive and the Exchange rate isn't nice.
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u/Blitzhelios May 15 '26
Most people trade wait especially on limited series
Another thing is that the amount of competition comics have now like for the price for a comic m you can get a streaming service which most people see as better value
Adding into this you have the problem of comics only being sold in limited places. I live in one of the biggest cities in the UK and we have one comic book shop which is in a really odd place if comics aren’t accessible books aren’t gonna sell
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u/NuPNua May 15 '26
Because for various reasons, the industry has been on a downturn for the last fifteen years or more and comic shops don't want to take a risk on anything that's not a sure thing for their shelves.
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u/barknoll May 15 '26
The industry is not currently in a “downturn”. The past two years have been the most successful years in comics in decades, trending upward basically since 2020.
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u/Livid-Ad9682 May 15 '26
I fell out of the direct market a while ago so this is heartening to hear, but I guess for me the context goes as far back as the 80's and 90's, when comics would make appearances in mainstream culture, so this comeback still feels so small.
The necessities of the direct market--stores buying floppies and possibly having dead stock vs bookstores where books can be returned and sold at a lower price is one part. (Yes, floppies can be sold too, but books sell easier.) Heck, Diamond just closed. Stores aren't that common.
If everybody who bought every comic went to comics shops--the means adding manga, YA, and all ages, then comic shops would be health. But the foundation is still collection-oriented with variants and special editions and blockbusters, it maybe selling more lately but it's not necessarily healthier.
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u/barknoll May 15 '26
It really does depend on the shop. We have an entire room of just manga at our shop, because it's a collection that actually moves in a way Big Two back issues or the vast majority of capes trades don't. We have a large children's section, a robust YA section, a fairly good-sized indie section. These are all critical to our continued success, for sure.
But also the breakaway success of the Absolute line from DC, their Compact Editions initiative (and the follow-ons by other publishers), and the continued (baffling) success of Invincible get new capes readers into the door, and then they pick up something new, like Daredevil #1 last month or an indie book getting big press like D'Orc.
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u/Livid-Ad9682 May 15 '26
That sounds like a great shop! Retail is just hard and I know shops are trying their best, often with limited resources.
I guess for me, it's hard not to separate things like the Absolute line to be like the Ultimate line was (and I'm sure there are other examples). Totally fun, but quite the same as really healthy creative industry.
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u/Konradleijon May 15 '26
It’s so cool D’Orc is such a success. Who would have thought a indie fantasy comedy would be a success
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u/barknoll May 15 '26
it perplexes me - I think the book is poorly written and very ugly - but I'm happy for an Image book to be hitting
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u/Raskuja46 May 15 '26
But those are the kinds of comics I like to pick up.
Every week it's wall to wall DC and Marvel and then a smattering of interesting stuff with much of it selling out before I can get there.
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u/Wonderful_Formal_274 May 15 '26
The industry is the best it’s been decades, what are you talking about?
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u/nacheteferrero May 15 '26
Where did he talked about this? Just curious
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u/dick-cricket May 15 '26
He mentioned it a couple of times in the back pages of the single issues of The Power Fantasy.
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u/nacheteferrero May 15 '26
Thanks. It’s weird, here in Spain sells a lot (the author, The Power Fantasy just released)
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u/beast79- May 15 '26
They can, it is usually the case that this happens only with a writer/artist. Comics, like it or hate it, are a visual medium and talented writers on their own will struggle to draw an immediate crowd if they don't have an equally talented artist working on a book. You can like a writer all you want but if he's working with someone you've never heard of you might prioritize another book over his most recent work and promise yourself to check it out later when its collected in trade.
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u/toofatronin May 15 '26
Price of singles keeps going up. If most people are like me went from having 30 books on a pull list at $3 each to probably half that because they jumped from $3 to $4. It’s also harder to get into new series now not knowing if the will last longer than 6 issues and get an ending.
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u/FF267 May 15 '26
I worked at a comic shop many decades ago (late 90s/early 00s) and had several dozen books on my pull list. I was into many indies (helped that I had access) and mainstream titles too. At $7.50 an hour, I could afford everything even as titles went from $1 to $1.50 and approached $2 a book (with an occasional $2.50 or $3 for something oversized).
All that to say that I don’t know how anyone maintains a significant pull list these days, at current prices! I can only imagine that it’s harder for a new book to gain traction, even with a great creative behind it, given how many options there are out there and how expensive individual issues are.
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u/toofatronin May 15 '26
I know that I’m not the only one at my store that use to buy every new #1 Image put out that went to only picking them up if it’s a favorite writer/artist.
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u/zudovader May 15 '26
Personally I just have less disposable income. I would love to follow all the comics that I want. But I can only afford 10 to 12 comics a month. At my height of comic buying I was buying 10 a week.
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u/browncharliebrown May 15 '26
I also would like to argue that Kirkman is eating up the image market sadly because of the sucess of invincible
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u/kumuhl00 May 15 '26
I would say its more of a double edge sword. Many people who never even looked at Image now pick up books because of the Kirkman books.
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u/YT-1300f May 15 '26
Yeah Walking Dead is what got me started as a comic reader because I thought the big 2 stuff was mostly lame. I hate stories that really don’t end or reference a whole bunch of other bullshit in the universe I don’t care about. I have to imagine that’s not an uncommon experience especially with the Invincible show absolutely killing it right now.
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u/browncharliebrown May 15 '26
I would say it’s a double edge sword. But to me I think the shift from Gaiman ( before the allegations let me clear and is a completely shitty human being ) an author who I think really embodied a lot of alternative comics sensibilties to Kirkman who is a lot more of a safe author really signals a shift.
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u/Mekdinosaur May 15 '26
Invincible sold poorly for years before the series caught on. Power Fantasy is only on its second year. I get that these creators have a good story to tell but sometimes you need something extra to grab and keep attention. Spawn sold poorly up until issue 300 and then Todd made a big push to grow the franchise and grab some attention and boom Spawn was selling again.
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u/csista May 15 '26
Fans can eventually move on for various reasons, and new readers don’t always connect to old favorites. Happens in all forms of entertainment. It isn’t a knock on their ability. Most artists just have a peak in popularity that eventually dwindles.
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u/44035 May 15 '26
This happens all the time in the arts. Bands, actors, directors, novelists get hot for a while, and then interest fades.
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u/BiDiTi May 15 '26
Immortal really didn’t do that well by X-Men standards, because it was stuck artificially propping up a creatively spent status quo, rather than being allowed to do anything interesting or good.
His Uncanny sold far better.
Anyway!
Gillen’s indie work always been a bit too weird and smart and good to do the sales of someone like Hickman or Kirkman…and there’s more sales pressure on a true indie book than when you give an imprint a cut.
All that said…Power Fantasy did really well! A big part of KG and CW’s ambivalence about whether to go past 16 came from how much they put into the book, haha
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u/Bobotts123 May 15 '26
A lot of collectors, including myself, have switched from floppies to trades. I personally have no interest in reading week to week and would prefer to wait until it’s collected in a hardcover. There are a few high profile creators that put out books through Image that are all but guaranteed to see their books released in this nicer over-sized format.
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u/SenseiRaheem May 15 '26
When the cost of everything goes up, people become more selective about how they spend their money and whether or not they’re going to take a chance on a new IP that may or may not ever see a conclusion.
(Side note: SAGA is perhaps one of the best selling original IPs in recent comics history. It has been MIA since March 2025. Every time they take a hiatus, they risk alienating readers and it has an impact on longtime readers who can move on to other properties.)
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u/BarstoolProphet9981 May 15 '26
Spare a thought for Morning Glories, which while i still cradle a small ember of hope for returning, seems to be one of those edwin drood type situations. Last published issue was 50, in july 2016.
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u/MrTeamZissou May 15 '26
I think I read about how Saga's sales have dropped significantly since they returned from their multiyear hiatus. I can say that personally I picked up the first two post-hiatus trades but haven't read them and then decided I'll just wait until the whole series is done so I haven't bought any of the more recent ones. The hiatus went on for so long that I feel like I'll have to start over from the beginning anyway. I have a feeling a lot of readers are in a similar boat and have stop making Saga purchases a priority.
Same thing with Lazarus, honestly.
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u/09philj May 15 '26
It definitely doesn't help that Saga post hiatus is not very good and released very sporadically. Also it feels like it's gone beyond being written for the trade and escalated to being written for the hardback or compendium.
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u/Evening-Disaster-901 May 15 '26
I was so excited to find out Lazarus is going to be finished! I have to say I don't really care what happens to Saga, despite having bought the original run before the hiatus.
Lazarus has aged very well, whilst reflecting on Saga, I'm not convinced. I liked that it tried something different, I just don't personally feel it hit the mark. What I do think it did was have some cross gender cut through - It was very popular with a number of women I know.
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u/Konradleijon May 15 '26
Stop referring to stories as “IPs”. The very term trivializes art as a product
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u/scruffye May 15 '26
It's very strange to me to hear Gillen say that considering I've seen more chatter online about The Power Fantasy than I have any of his other works.
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u/fjvgamer May 15 '26
The audience is aging. I dont really see young people getting into comics. Im not sure what the industry will look like 10 years from now.
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u/Wonderful_Formal_274 May 15 '26
Comics are huge now exactly because young people are reading them.
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u/fjvgamer May 15 '26
That is welcome news. Are sales up with the big companies or is it indie/Manga they are reading?
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u/Halfrican_Guitarist May 15 '26
When something solicited feels like it’s written for a trade, I’ll buy it when the trade is out. I hate reading a monthly book that would flow way better in one shot. A lot of marvels mini series and even their “ongoing” series that get cancelled at issue 10 feel like they distinctly were made to work in a trade format but get split into individual issues. The creative team alone is no longer enough for me to buy into a book like that.
The only books I buy floppies of now are ones that feel like they are going to be ongoing for awhile, which for me is few and far between. Or the rare event a creative team seems really cool, like Skinbreaker, which in and of itself suffered in single issues IMO (can’t wait to re read it in deluxe B&W hardcover though).
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u/clevelandexile May 15 '26
I was interested to check out power fantasy but when I read the synopsis it read a lot like many many series I’ve read in the past. Not saying it’s not good, just doesn’t feel new or interesting to me so I passed.
Even the hottest creator’s will have a hard time bringing new ideas to the table over longer periods of time and fans don’t want to read the same ideas over and over.
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u/aczerepinski May 15 '26
With comics, it takes two or three years to get the amount of story that you'd get in a novel. It's hard for me to stay interested and even remember details from 6 issues ago. I bought the first 5 or 6 issues of Power Fantasy and didn't get sucked in. I know 100% for sure that I would have enjoyed it 5x more if it was the whole story in a thick book.
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u/Shakalooloo May 16 '26
Because there are always up and coming new creators, and an audience can only read so much. As with any creative industry, new audiences will want new stuff, and old blood must make way for new.
That, and you're only ever as popular as your last creation, and the Krakoa stuff was far from universally liked.
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u/Stavesacre83 May 16 '26
Good creators and established IP on is a good recipe to sell comics. Good creators and original IP isn't a guarantee of anything.
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u/dr3dg3 May 17 '26
Ron Marz is the whole reason I'm going to Galaxy Con this week. 🖤 I actively collected his first Witchblade run and its corresponding event series back in the day, and it eventually culminated in my first lesbian romance story, which was a huge representation moment for me.
Adam Warren is an absolute rockstar to me, one who I've had the immense fortune of meeting at a con years ago. I desperately wish more people knew more about both these creators. 😅 It's also cool to be a fan of something obscure, though. I never tire of explaining my Empowered tattoo to people.
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u/dmfuller May 18 '26
Fwiw it’s kind of a pain in the ass to actually obtain comics nowadays for some reason. Even for monthly releases that I have subscriptions to, outside of just going to the local store and hoping they have it, I normally do a monthly sub but they’re still like 20-30 days late, sometimes don’t even ship until I message the shop and remind them I ordered. Idk what it is but tried with 3-4 different shops and they just all seem incredibly lazy and unfriendly
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u/MajimaBuu May 15 '26
Creators will point to every explanation possible other than their latest work isn't that appealing
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u/Historical-Draft6368 May 15 '26
Here’s a subjective take: The title Power Fantasy kind of sucks and it’s super generic. I keep getting the book confused with that Lost Fantasy book also published by Image. I know it’s dumb but a title can really make a difference. I really think a significant portion of D’Orc’s success is the title is really catchy and memorable.
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u/FamousWerewolf May 15 '26
Frankly I think it's a miracle so many comics are still being sold in print at all. Just compare to the decline of the magazine industry over the same time frame.
To be honest I'm also not entirely convinced that 'famous comic creators' have ever been a major driving force behind sales anyway. Obviously for diehard fans it's a big selling point, but I think the average consumer just goes for what looks cool and what they're familiar with. If specific creators were a big factor then Marvel and DC wouldn't dominate to the degree that they do.