On Thursday, Image Comics co-founder/President Todd McFarlane took what has emerged as a somewhat unusual position among high-profile comic book industry figures. As everyone tries to formulate a response to the coronavirus crisis that has stopped the publication of new comic books in its tracks, McFarlane broke with some vocal retailers and some of the few publishers who have expressed a position at all. The fan-favorite writer/artist advocated that the major publishers embrace digital as a tool to help keep readers’ interest in comic books active while the industry awaits Diamond’s resumption of distribution.
McFarlane also proposed a coordinated response from the major publishers like Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse (and he probably should have at least included IDW), suggesting, among other ideas, major events and intercompany crossovers when print publishing resumes to help draw readers back to comics.
And separately in comments elsewhere, he went so far as to suggest he’d be up for a Spawn/Spider-Man crossover, putting his money-making pen where his mouth is.
What McFarlane didn’t get around to, however, was the idea that a marriage of all his ideas actually already kind of exists, albeit in limited form. And while it may have only modest upside, Marvel, DC, along with Image and others already have volumes of crossover stories that haven’t been reprinted in years and more to the point, some that have never been published digitally at all.
Maybe it’s time to change that right now.
Now we’ve had some conversations with some individuals with knowledge of why much of this material is out of print and has never been available digitally and we get the sense there are likely some very good, and maybe even some very complicated legal reasons why so much of it remains in publishing purgatory.
In this day and age when Marvel is owned by Disney and DC by AT&T, the notion that intercompany crossover stories usually don’t generate ancillary revenue from toys, merchandise, and media rights is likely a factor worth considering.
And while this is just speculative, and there are gems like the highly-regarded Uncanny X-Men/New Teen Titans in the bunch, simple confidence in some of the material could be another. The two Amalgam (1996 and 1997) portions of the Marvel-DC smash-up crossover, for example (maybe the richest source of untapped material available), was a fun but somewhat goofy concept that neither publisher may consider their best foot forward 20+ years later when many of the source characters are now billion-dollar and potential billion-dollar multimedia franchises.
But there’s also arguably a certain synergistic quality for the reprint return of Marvel vs DC (collected only once in 1996) and all the Amalgam material.
As John Jackson Miller of Comichron reminds us, Marvel vs. DC’s origins were in an “already tumultuous” period for the Direct Market. The crossover was hatched to fill a void in the down winter months a couple years after the market collapse that began in earnest in the winter of 1994, a result of the credit bubble of the early 1990s.
“When Marvel found some success in staving that off the following year by placing Age of Apocalypse in winter 1995, DC and Marvel saw the chance to try to do the same thing in 1996,” he explains.
While Marvel vs. DC did serve to get people interested in something in the winter of 1996, he says, its ultimate effect is hard to measure because of the ‘Distributor Wars’ of that era that makes estimating sales difficult.
“The malaise had several years to go,” says Miller, “so the crossover was a help to the winter, but not a game-changer for the industry.”
Fast-forward to 2020 and “tumultuous”is an understatement and no one expects a game changer.
But as we argued when we proposed a new Marvel-DC crossover a couple of weeks back, we’re in unprecedented times. That word gets thrown around a lot casually but in April 2020 it finally literally applies.
None of the publishers seems to have a solution to the crisis – at least (and hopefully) not yet anyway – and as McFarlane pointed out, the discourse about what to do during the ‘tumult’ has so far been mostly dominated by what not to do.
Would digitally reprinting volumes of existing material of questionable quality and uncertain interest be an elixir?
Certainly not, but in an age where few solutions exist and high-profile publisher executives and creators are admirably drawing sketches every day to raise money to help comic book shops survive and creating webcasts to try to entertain readers while the news cycles are hard to look at, is there any harm in generating a few additional dollars for the cause, and giving fans a few more hours of temporary distraction?
This is comic book material that’s already been paid for decades ago, sitting on files somewhere, that would be brand new to the digital platform and perhaps brand new to a generation of readers. And for the moment it wouldn’t be taking up valuable shelf space, requiring shipping fees or tying up limited retailer wholesale dollars.
Maybe most importantly it’s material that under normal circumstances the publishers haven’t been willing and/or able to give to retailers to sell for years anyway.
Much of Marvel and DC’s crossover history (not including Marvel vs. DC–Amalgam) was collected in the 90s and early 2000s in a series of “Crossover Classics” volumes. DC even considered volume 1 of a 512-page omnibus collection as recently as 2011 (you can still Google a listing on Amazon), which was never published.
So why not put the material on platforms that can be used right now for a very nominal fee, and donate whatever net proceeds it generates to the charities that directly help comic book shops?
And if any interest eventually warrants, make the material available in print to the Direct Market at a steep discount when distribution resumes to help generate some more additional cash.
Would retailers still be concerned this very specific class of new digital material could serve to draw fans away from comic book stores before this is all over?
We don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to that question, but couldn’t the publishers also provide supporting marketing material in the digital volumes promoting comic book shops?
It’s also important to note some intercompany crossovers do exist digitally right now. Readers can find several collections and one-shots from DC and Dark Horse on comiXology, for example, including the 400-page DC Comics/Dark Horse: Batman vs. Predator collection published in 2017.
Again, no one is suggesting Spawn/Batman, X-Men/Teen Titans, Marvel vs DC, Amalgam, JLA/Avengers or even going into the wayback machine for Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk would be a significant remedy, or suggesting it would have any evergreen benefits aside from a temporary distraction that maybe generates some additional funds and maybe helps promote awareness of its cause.
But if it raises even one extra dollar, scratches a nostalgic itch for long-time readers and/or serves as a temporary curiosity for newer readers, is there a downside?
Readers may recall the events of September 11, 2001 helped bring the major comic book publishers to the table to agree to the first Free Comic Book Day on May 4, 2002, which grew into an annual event and one of the most successful coordinated outreach efforts benefiting local comic book shops. So if nothing else, maybe what McFarlane suggested and what we’re all looking for is some form of a coordinated response or even just a small movement towards one.
Again, if nothing else, if this got a couple of ‘rival’ executives and editors and a few lawyers on a Zoom call to hash out the details, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Readers and retailers might take some comfort even in the idea the publishers were trying to address this together and maybe that would be the real upside here with potential for the future.
We can all use as much upside and potential as we can get right now.