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By Jason Bourgeois
After poor sales, the Collector Times editors have come to the decision that this column is going to be cancelled, and restarted next month as "New Great X-Pectations"! We'll still have the same creative team, and cover the same topics, but we're going to have the word 'new' at the start of it, and it'll be a number one, so it must be good!
No, not really. But this is what Marvel would like you to think, with every title getting cancelled and restarted, or just brought back from years ago, with the word "new" slapped on the front of it. They call it a marketing strategy, but with recent events, it has gone beyond that, and is now entering the territory of self-parody. So before it goes that far, I decided to parody it myself.
So far this decade - I'll be ignoring the original New Mutants, since that was 20 plus years ago - we have seen New X-Men, a new New Mutants series which then became New X-Men when New X-Men went back to being just X-Men, New Invaders, New Avengers, New Thunderbolts, Captain America receives an honorable mention for being New Captain America on his trade paperback collections, as does New X-Men: Hellions, and then there's the icing on the cake, New Excalibur.
But wait, isn't there already an Excalibur title? Why yes, yes there is. And it just got canned with issue 14. And this fall, it comes back as...New Excalibur! This is a cheap sales gimmick, as it's returning with the same writer, after a bit of a hiatus and a new first issue. Hopefully it will be more than that, but this just seems wasteful either way. If it's a new book with ideas and characters not previously around, then it is just recycling a title to get recognition, and if it's a continuation of the old title, then it's just plain silly to go away for a few months to come back with more of the same and call it new. You may as well call Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's X-Title when it returns from their several-month hiatus New Astonishing X-Men.
I've never been a fan of renumbering titles, unless it's a major break for the title, such as creative teams, and storylines, and such. New Avengers almost fits the bill, but that book just isn't very good, in my opinion, so gets blasted for other transgressions.
If you're going to call something "New" Anything, then damn well mean it. Make the book actually new, in some way. Or more importantly, make the book good, so you're not relying on cheap tricks to get people to care every other month. And stop cancelling books at the drop of a hat, give them time to find an audience.
Speaking of using cheap gimmicks to get more sales, Rob Liefeld has signed on to draw two issues of Teen Titans, spreading his foul taint back over to DC after a long run of pissing off Marvel fans.
I would make cracks about pitying the Teen Titans readers at this juncture, but I'm sadly one of them. Fortunately, I've long established that Rob has issues with holding a pencil, so will not be buying these two issues, refusing to help perpetuate the trend that comic companies have noticed with him bringing sales into titles he does for a few months. They're only coming around for the trainwreck effect, and I personally don't need it anymore. I know he sucks. I have ample evidence to help back me up with this, it is no longer conjecture or opinion.
On top of that, Teen Titans is one of DC's best selling titles, regularly only outsold by their latest event, such as Identity Crisis, Green Lantern: Rebirth, or whatever Jim Lee is drawing. The book hardly needs this gimmick, it already has the two most effective gimmicks in the industry. Good stories, with good artwork.
Comics don't need new number ones every few months, they don't need snazzy, different names, they don't need crap artists who are little more than a joke to anyone with functioning eyeballs, they only need what any storytelling medium needs. Good, quality art and writing. And a marketing campaign doesn't hurt. Sales will suck on a title if no one knows it exists. I'm looking at you, Marvel. Stop releasing books with unknown characters, and creators, with no mention of their existence, anywhere outside of a press release on websites. This is why sales on titles tank so quickly and you have to cancel a book. No one knows about it!
I miss Bullpen Bits, and DC's Meanwhile... pages. They at least served the purpose of spreading the word about projects somewhat. Word of mouth can't do the word alone. The comic companies need to give a little to get a little back.
Enough with the gimmicks, and just gives us good comics. That's all we want.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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