THE POWER OF ONE: THE DAYS, ISSUES, & DOLLARS OF AN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

The major players, the  triple-A Big Two characters that top each publisher's  'A-Lists' of characters, are impossible to control completely, even by the companies that own them.  Fan-films like Batman: City of Scars clearly illustrate this point: some superheroes -- Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Captain America, and Spider-Man, for example -- have 'lives' of their own, their destinies often beyond the reach of the editors, writers, and artists whose job it is to forge them.  From both a  creative and a business standpoint, then, it's interesting to observe the machinations of Marvel's and DC's respective A-List business units and watch them exert the control they do have.

Marvel Comics' Spider-Man group under the direction of Executive Editor Tom Brevoort and Editor Stephen Wacker may be one's best bet to observe the editorial in action process. Wacker, who made an abrupt departure from DC Comics as editor of the experimental weekly comics title 52,  in September 2006 to join Marvel and fell in with the Spider-office soon after, is the guy in charge of Spidey's day to day and as such, he deserves much of the credit for reigning in - even salvaging - Marvel's flagship wall-crawler.  But How Wacker pulled that feat off must wait until we explore the one big Why. 

 THE TERRIBLE TREE

As a creative property, Spider-Man is unique among his fellow A-Listers as the only character not to have the privilege of being killed and inevitably resurrected.  A-list superhero deaths, from Superman to Green Lantern, and Wolverine to Captain America, may have served to make  a statement now and again, but in nearly every case, their main function has been to reign in a property that's spun completely out of editorial control.  In dramatic storytelling, readers' interests are raised  (as are sales) anytime a writer pushes the protagonist higher up the metaphorical tree and sometimes, there's no way to get them back down other than putting them six-feet under. 

Marvel and writer Mark Millar sent Spider-Man up into that tree in 2006-2007, when the hero publicly revealed his Peter Parker secret identity during the company's Civil War mega-event.  Spider-Man's unmasking achieved its goal of gaining major exposure and drove Civil War's sales -and those of the three Spider-Man titles being published at the time - even higher. But it also sent Spider-Man higher into the terrible tree, the same tree that would claim the fictional life of Marvel's Captain America just mere months later.  

NOT DEAD...YET

To necessarily undo the genre-disabling damage that Millar's Spider-Man unmasking caused, Marvel's 'brain trust' took, upon editorial mandate, a more novel if not completely dissimilar approach to recreating their character: they - or Spider-Man - made a deal (literally and figuratively, it seems) with the Devil, the longtime Marvel character and demon, Mephisto.  In the 2007 storyline One More Day, Mephisto agrees to undo all the harm Spider-Man's unmasking caused (including Aunt May being mortally wounded as a result) by making everyone forget whose face was under the Spider mask. The caveat was he'd  only do so in exchange not for Peter's soul, but for his marriage to Mary Jane Watson.  Peter Parker made his secret ID known to Mary Jane and married her in 'The Wedding' - a seminal comics event (and one of the most important in Peter Parker's life) that occurred in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 in 1987.

Spider-Man's - and perhaps Marvel's - deal with the Devil set Peter Parker's life - and the stability of his fictional world - back to normal, though in true tragic Spider-Man form,  Peter alone would remember what he sacrificed. Beyond the comic book pages, however, the story was different. Then head Spider-Man scribe and screenwriter Michael J. Straczynski, who wrote the events of One More Day, dismissed the editorial directive as "infuriating and downright disrespectful to anyone who has come to love Spider-Man comics over the years " and resigned as a result. His sentiments were shared by, we'd daresay, the majority of Spider-Man's fan followers, perhaps one of the most loyal - if not the most loyal - fan base in all of comics.

For a great many Spider-Man loyalists, the character they'd grown up with had died; for Marvel, the publisher had found the one way to rejuvenate Spider-Man and Peter Parker, which according to Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, was necessary for the longevity of the Spider-Man franchise.   While one single, all-important, life-changing decision by a character is the basis of all great drama, Spider-Man's pact with Mephisto was more than many readers could handle, and the unenviable duty of damage control has belonged to Stephen Wacker's group ever since. 

 BACK TO WACKER

It would be incorrect to assume Marvel's plans to ret-con Spider-Man were reactionary in the least; indeed, Stephen Wacker's move to Marvel from DC Comics weekly 52 project is just one indication that Marvel editorial had been planning to un-marry Peter Parker for quite some time. Immediately following the conclusion of One More Day, both Sensational Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man were canceled, and Wacker became the editor of the one remaining title and the franchise's flagship, Amazing Spider-Man.  The move was a consolidation of control and a concentration of creativity. It was also a gamble; along with its price point increasing by one dollar - from $2.99 to $3.99 an issue --  Amazing Spider-Man would now be published three times a month instead of just one.  

To find the tomorrow after One More Day, Spider-Man would make yet another ambitious move into his future.

Boy, It's Vintage! Wonder Bread BOY WONDER...Among Others

The seventies were the last decade to have just one 'Boy Wonder', the original Robin, Dick Grayson.  Dick was definitely a busy little beaver in those days; no wonder that DC Comics saw fit to introduce successors and replacements for him, beginning in 1983 when Jason Todd assumed his duties as Batman's brightly-clad sidekick. But who knows? Maybe Dick should never have agreed to that Wonder Bread gig back in 1974. In all fairness, no teenage boy we've ever known would turn down a sweet opportunity like that, either.  And when role-models like Superman or upstanding Gotham businessmen like The Penguin (ahem) agree to bare it all on trading card, you can't really blame the kid.

Then again, maybe Robin didn't have much of a choice. Wonder Bread's the best selling bread in America, and probably was in 1974, too.  Dick must have gotten some major exposure, but so would have DC Comics and their parent company - Warner Bros - that just happens to share the same initials as the bread bakery in question. Coincidence? Perhaps. Unless you  know that Wonder Bread's owned by Hostess, whose relationship with the comics industry back in the day was tighter than a pair of the Boy Wonder's briefs. We'll let you draw your own conclusion.

Robin [via]

The Penguin & Superman [via]

iPad Goes On Sale March 26th; e-Readers Headed For e-Nnihilation

Lingering rumors to the contrary, our resident fortune teller insists that the next technological revolution from Apple - the iPad - is literally just around the corner. We'd tend not to believe her, but we've learned that she's not alone. Both the MacRumors website and the Examiner have (also) reported that the Apple iPad without 3G will be on sale at 6:00 pm on Friday 26th March.

Analysts have predicted that Apple will ship 10.5 million iPads this year alone. According to Apple's website, the company will begin pricing their newest tech at $499, with the top-priced model going for a cool $829; 3G enabled models will set you back another $130. Like the recent and rather dramatic rise in the popularity of netbooks to satisfy the computing needs of many users who no longer require the capabilities of a desktop computing system, the iPad-lead 'Tablet Revolution' will undoubtedly change the Personal Computing landscape.  And, like a bigger, stronger if not older brother, Apple's iPad will not only follow in the footsteps of the iPhone, the device credited with overlapping the PC and mobile phone industries, it and its kind will very likely - and quickly- surpass its smaller sibling.

Like a technological Tunguska, the coming iPad / Tablet event will dramatically change the ecosystems of the PC and mobile phone worlds. Suffice it to say, they won't be the only ones.  Apple Insider reported earlier that iPad's commercial campaign is expected to begin March 15th, with the emphasis being on the iPad's e-book capabilities.  E-readers, such as  market-leader Amazon.com's Kindle, Sony's digital Reader, and the Barnes & Noble Nook, have been hot commodities as recently as last Christmas; however, even as the e-Reader industry announced just yesterday that color capabilities, among many other improvements and 40 new models to come this year,  Kindle and co. seem woefully outmoded - and far less sexy - than vastly superior iPad tablet.  abbracadabbling has developed a mathematical equation to quantify and qualify exactly why iPad will dominate and quite possibly destroy the e-Reader marketplace:

Although the situation for Kindle and kin doesn't look good at this juncture, we didn't want to jump to any hasty conclusions, either. Three of us independently checked our formula (using our respective Mac Pro's, we should add), yet the answers yielded bore remarkable similarity. We sum up our conclusion like so:

For a more in-depth comparison of iPad and Kindle, hop on over to Computer World HERE.

For such a new technology, e-Readers have gone from being last Christmas' new hotness to today's old has-been in less than the blink of an eye.  (If you're wondering exactly how fast the blink of an eye actually is, there's an app for that.)  Although Sony introduced a very early digital reading device in 2004, e-Reader tech didn't really get going or get noticed until Amazon.com's Kindle hit in 2007. Three years later, very unexpectedly, it's nearly outmoded.  What other technologies and industries will also be effected, altered, otherwise drastically changed, revolutionized, or at worst, completely outmoded by the advent of Tablet?

For the comics industry, a business built upon the foundation of the monthly published pamphlet-style comic book magazine, that is the One Billion Dollar Question. As the era of motion comics, digital comics, and web comics has already dawned, and as the consumer base of the monthly comic book remains small preventing negligible sales growth, the  possibility of e-Comics supplanting traditional comic books is a very real possibility.  Some have already predicted that the Tablet is also the harbinger for the end of the traditional comics industry distribution and sales model, the Direct Market.

abbracadabbling will be taking an in-depth look at the possible changes coming to comics because of emerging technologies like the iPad over the next few weeks.  We'll also be taking a better look at how the internet and digital technologies - from digital comics in general to  devices such as the Longbox Digital comics platform - have already affected comics present  -- and future. Keep it here, dabblers!

Find Apple's official iPad website - here.

Barometers Of The Comics Community: Strength In Numbers

Nationwide, comic book readers, collectors, and fans of all things Super have forged a unique and formidable community.  Not only does the Comics Community represent a sizable population,  its a population with considerable spending power and growing economic influence.  

Our earlier blog of next year's Coming Attractions  is but one indicator of influence comics fans wield; with twenty-three or more films on their way catering to America's comics and sci-fi hungry populace, films from these kind  out-number those of  many other genre, including comedy, romance,  and horror.  Of course, several of the films we listed, such as Twilight: Eclipse, Legion, and the remake of Red Dawn could fall into  standard categorizations   like horror or action  as well as our broader context as 'Comic Book Movies'.  DC Comics' western hero Jonah Hex is first a comic book movie, although it fits as a square second into the western genre.  Regardless the extent of this cross-pollination, there can be little doubt that film makers are relying on their movies' appeal to the broader comics fanbase to make box office bank.  One needs look no further than Christopher Nolan's Inception to prove this point.

A closer examination of our trust list reveals that eight (8) of the 23 movies we listed are specifically based on original comic book or animation properties. And our list isn't yet complete; films like Solomon Kane, an upcoming supernatural thriller, is a comics-realm character based on the pulp-era fiction of writer Robert E. Howard. (Howard, you might recall, also created the bare-chested hero that put Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map --  Conan The Barbarian.)  Solomon Kane has already premiered in France, and is scheduled for 2010 release here in the United States, although no specific date has been given.  Similarly, comic book writer Warren Ellis' graphic novel Red is currently moving into production, and is expected to premiere in October or November 2010.  

So take heart, dabblers - especially those of you newbies venturing into the comics scene for perhaps the first time. We know many of our frequent dabblers are pretty new to comics, and we know that whether you're in a big city or a far smaller community like our Springfield,  it does sometimes feel like you're the only person out there who enjoys reading comics.  A review of next year's films is just first step towards knowing that you're not alone.

An even better second step is taking just a quick peek at  our nation's largest comic book conventions.  Abbracadabbling will explore these conventions in greater depth down the comicsblog road; for now, our focus briefly falls to just three of the most popular annual comics gatherings and the sheer number of fans these conventions represent.

Far and away the biggest of all comics conventions is the San Diego Comic-Con International, held annually each  July.  From its relative obscurity years ago, Comic-Con has become today's  mecca for not just comics, but the entertainment community, gaming community, and the broad collectors' market as well.  The event maintains an active online presence, and has even begun publishing quarterly magazines with news and features about the summertime event.  While both of those actions are contribute greatly to building the Comics Community, nothing is as telling as Comic-Con's attendance. The convention sells out completely each year, and 2009's attendance topped-out at a whopping 125,000 comics loyalists. [To read Comic-Con Magazine's Fall 2009 issue, you can go HERE to download it as a Free PDF!!] 

If you're getting a better feel for the Comics Community, then we're doing our job pretty well. We're also not done by a long shot. The comics convention closest to our heart is Wonder Con, also sponsored by the same folks responsible for San Diego's aforementioned show.  Wonder Con belongs to San Francisco, however, and for The Dabbler, there couldn't be a better show to network, shop, and meet fellow fans and comic creators alike. Wonder Con's attendance is considerably smaller than its parent Comic-Con, but it's nothing to sneeze at, either. Last year's figures exceeded 34,000 - and filled San Francisco's Moscone Center to the hilt.  The 2010 convention will happen this coming April 2nd through the 4th, and more information can be found HERE.

Dabblers on the East Coast have no reason to even think they're among the few and the proud; they're among a proud legion of comics fans, if the relatively new New York Comic Con has anything to say about it.  Not more than five years old, the NYCC has always been an early Spring event as well, although next year's convention will take place over the weekend of October 8- 10th. The 2009 NYCC boasted an attendance in excess of 77,000, up 15% from 2008.  Chances are, someone you knew was there, and the chances that they - and you - will be in attendance come October is even better. If you want more NYCC info, check it HERE. 

Of course, not everybody who reads, borrows, collects, or creates comic books can attend a comic book convention. They're not cheap, and the crowds are be considerable.  Thus,  even the Convention scene and its astronomical attendance don't give us abbracadabblers the best idea of just how large our Comics Community really is. 

Abbracadabbling, being the intrepid comicsblog that we are, did a little digging closer to home. And by 'home' we don't mean Springfield; nope, we mean the world wide web, because the busiest places on the planet these days happen to exist in a virtual world. 

On the internet, comics fans find as well as build community in a variety of places, including: online bulletin boards, chat rooms and forums; fan-driven blogs like abbracadabbling as well as blogs run by comics creators and industry insiders; the home pages of publishers large and small; and, at the top of the list, comics industry news sites, many of which feature their own array of blogs to boot.  It's from these latter sites that the size of the Comics Community comes even clearer.  (Granted, while the 2003 census reported that sixty-two million households - or 55% of American homes - had internet access, 45% still weren't online at that time. Given the historic increases in those numbers, though, today's numbers are likely closer to 75% or 80%. And as the demographics closely match those of the comic book reading public, we believe these internet figures  provide us the best and most accurate snapshot available.)

With the research assistance of fellow comic book blogger Kevin Huxford and his blog Schwapp Online, abbracadabbling chose 17 of the top or  most-recognizable comics-related news providers on the internet and ranked them below according to the number of visitors each site received for the month of November 2009.  (Links to all of the websites below can be found on our blog's Pull List.)

CBR - or Comic Book Resources - leads the bunch, with 303,000 November visitors. The number two site, Newsarama, is right behind them with  nearly 270,000 comic book clickers dropping by. While this is just November '09 data, we should note that historical data trends reveal that  Newsarama and CBR generally alternate the top position almost monthly. Both web sites also feature their own blogging community; Newsarama's collectively known as Blog@Newsarama and CBR's as Robot 6.  Blog-wise, Newsarama draws nearly 30,000 more readers per month than Robot 6, but when added to their parent sites totals, both websites show impressive readership. 

We were a little surprised that MTV's comics-centered Splash Page didn't rank a little higher than it does, coming in on our ruler at 12th overall.  They're a great source of information, and often grab their own exclusives.  Splash Page is just one part of the overall MTV site, however, and its possible this has affected their visitor count. It's also possible that MTV, and other sites with impressive content like Bleeding Cool are also relatively new on the comics scene, with readership numbers yet to reach a plateau.  

Whatever the case, our intention isn't to speculate on the performance of the fantastic comics news providers above; our focus is simply to show that they perform - and perform big.  Together with the thousands of people who attend comic book conventions each year, belong to the untold number of internet comics forums, collect action figures, show up for the latest superhero movie at the corner ten-plex, tune-in weekly to shows like NBC's Heroes or Marvel's Super Hero Squad on Saturday mornings, and regularly pay visits to their local comics shops, the truth is out there: comic book fans are everywhere.

And we're Super -- in every way that counts.

Grant Morrison's 'Joe The Barbarian' Is An Invisible Man

A most unusual kind of crime took place yesterday in the world of mainstream comics, and it appears to have gone unnoticed.

To make matters worse, the heavy hitters fandom relies upon to report and solve such an injustice also happen to be this case's primary suspects.

If my steady diet of no less than six hours of C.S.I. a day has taught me anything, it's that an examination of the evidence may yield the clues necessary to solve the crime. I'm no Marg Helgenberger, but I can tell you what we know:

Fact: Word of any new Grant Morrison project rockets through the comics industry - and often far beyond - like a honeybee on speed.

Fact: The speculative buzz on Morrison's next DC Comics titles - a post-Final Crisis exploration of The Multiversity and a repeat stint on Batman - began spreading late last year, yet both books aren't scheduled for release until summer 2010.

Fact: Batman and Robin, Morrison's only current project, received similar attention long before its June debut. With a hugely successful opening arc by penciler Frank Quitely and Cameron Stewart's taking over art duties in January, Batman and Robin has quickly become DC's strongest selling title and the flagship title of the new Bat-franchise. And despite being temporarily overshadowed by Geoff Johns' Blackest Night mega-event, the Batman and Robin buzz has yet to abate.

Fact: The Great Ten, a ten issue maxi-series featuring the Chinese super team Grant Morrison created in the pages of 52, has received much recent attention from several of the largest news and promo websites of mainstream comics, including a three-part feature on Newsarama.com

Fact: DC's Vertigo Comics imprint officially announced their January 2010 solicitations yesterday. One of Vertigo's newly premiering January titles is Joe The Barbarian. Featuring art by Sean Murphy, the new eight-issue Vertigo series is written by none other than Grant Morrison himself.

I've gone to great though perhaps somewhat unnecessary lengths to build my criminal case here, and while the facts speak for themselves, reaching a conclusion isn't all that easy. Grant Morrison, as every dabbler well knows by now, is my favorite. I don't miss his news or his interviews; hell, someone could fart underwater in Siberia and if the sound it made even came close to 'Grant Morrison', I'd have heard about it by now.

And I've gotta ask: Why? Could the ongoing Batman and Robin - Blackest Night ruckus justify the Joe oversight? If only DC Comic's marketing efforts were suspect here, I could almost buy that as an excuse. But so much of the company's creative currency is Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns that it's hard to believe DC would pass up any opportunity where either is concerned.

To me, the industry oversight here is even more curious. I'm a huge fan of Newsarama and its sister-site, Comic Book Resources. They're two of the largest -- if not the largest --and most influential providers of comics news on the internet. Both sites frequently run stories with Grant Morrison subject matter -- he sells, so they will. Yet a search of both revealed that Newsarama has yet to write word one of Joe The Barbarian; only the Robot 6 blog hosted on CBR.com made any mention of the series there when they ran a two-paragraph discussion of artist Sean Gordon Murphy's early pencil work back in June, 2009.

Interestingly, Murphy had posted Joe the pencil work referred to in the Robot 6 blurb on his Deviant Art page, and as recently as early September blogged on how that account essentially made his comics career. But when I checked Deviant Art for his account earlier today, Murphy's deviant art homepage had been removed. Murphy also made no mention of Joe The Barbarian on his personal website other than in his most recent blog entry,"Controversy." In it, Murphy asks: Is it okay for a DC exclusive artist to be so honest and sometimes critical of the entertainment industry? Murphy refers to an enormous amount of delays he apparently was subjected to at Vertigo Comics -- most of which, he writes, cannot be blamed on the editors. One can infer that some delays likely were the fault of Vertigo's editors, and that this was a source of conflict between Murphy and Vertigo/DC. Murphy's admissions are linked to what he writes next: As unfortunate (and understandable) as it is that I can't post more Joe The Barbarian pages... I'm not entirely sure what to make of "Controversy," but perhaps disagreements at Vertigo have had their effect on the bigger picture. Murphy made no mention of Morrison anywhere in his entry -- which I expected. I don't feel Murphy had any problems with his writer, and even if he did, I doubt he'd ever cross that line.

So. What's up with Joe The Barbarian? The book's obviously been on the table for the better part of this year, yet unlike any of Morrison's other creations -- even those with significant spoiler potential -- Joe's received cruel and unusual silent treatment.

Aside from the book being literal crap unworthy of any coverage -- which, if you'll excuse my French, it obviously could never be considering the author-- only one logical conclusion remains. Namely, that Morrison kept the book quite close to his chest, and the choice to keep the talkers quiet was deliberate. He's got the clout, respect, and saleability to determine his own PR, especially for one of his creator-owned books.

Yet for a writer and chaos magician like Morrison, intentions (like those) are mundane and logic is a flawed, one dimensional illusion. With Joe The Barbarian, we may already be under the meta-influence of one his spells, lost in a fictional elsewhere like characters within his Mystery Play graphic novel.

Whoever said breaking into comics was hard is an idiot.