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Post by lordyam on Sept 22, 2016 20:37:06 GMT -5
When Conan first came out it had more than 51,000 copies sold. Now it's at 9,500. What happened?
Possible causes: Brian Wood and Road of Kings. While Road of Kings wasn't bad the art was off and the story did't quite match what had come before. Brian Wood's series was just terrible; dodgy art, a story that had flashes of greatness but ignored even what other series had done.
Bad Art: Avenger got off to a seemingly good start, with 11,565 issues sold. However, the art was downright terrible and art IS a pretty big sticking point in comics. Even though the writing was good people were turned off by the bad art. By issue #2 there was 9,946 issues. This was a 14% attrition rate between the two issues. Than we had 9486, a 500 issue drop. By issue #25 there were 6988 issues sold, leading to a 40% drop.
Bad publicity: I think as the main series flagged people were less willing to try the miniseries. There were more miniseries when it was doing well. King Conan did well during Road of Kings and Black Coast. Even in Avenger it was doing above 8k (which is not great but respectable). During the tail end of Avenger it was doing badly.
Overall, I think that Slayer will probably decline at a lower rate. It has better art than Avenger, so more people are wiling to purchase either hard copies or digital. If stuff like Conan exiles does well (or a new movie is made) it might breath life to the franchise.
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Post by robp on Sept 23, 2016 4:15:29 GMT -5
Yep I thought Road of Kings marked a dip in quality, but I still bought it. However the Wood series was just awful and that's where I stopped buying. I just started again, bought "Xuthal" yesterday. The Vilanova art is a big improvement, but still not up to the standard of the old SSOC. The Ching art I'm less keen on and the second half story/plot pales next to the REH original.
The main difference for me is that the old Barry Smith / Buscema / Conrad etc comics are ones that I go back to again and again. Similar for the first books in the Dark Horse series. But these newer versions I tend to read just once and that's it - so not a big incentive to shell out £20 or so on
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Post by lordyam on Sept 23, 2016 13:58:46 GMT -5
Writing wise van lente's been great. Janissa was far more likeable and blood oasis is overall a great story. With better art it could have been more successful.
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Post by Jason Aiken on Sept 23, 2016 19:34:32 GMT -5
I think the comic book industry is just in the toilet over all. Sales industry wide are down unless you're the Walking Dead.
The market is not nearly as healthy as it was when DH first obtained the license.
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Post by deuce on Oct 13, 2016 19:01:09 GMT -5
I think the comic book industry is just in the toilet over all. Sales industry wide are down unless you're the Walking Dead. The market is not nearly as healthy as it was when DH first obtained the license. Right on. Nobody is doing as well as they were in 2000. However, the Wood run forced away a lot of people. Since then, there just hasn't been anything truly good enough (in the regular series) to pull fans back. You can't bank on consistency as a fan. For instance, I'm waiting for the new series to be collected before I (maybe) buy it. It looks pretty good, but I'm just tired of getting yanked around on bad writing or bad art or both.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 20:06:17 GMT -5
The Wood run definitely forced away a lot of fans. That series was a perfect sample of very bad Conan stories. Remember Lolos? Conan returning home? Just outrageous.
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Post by lordyam on Oct 14, 2016 11:56:10 GMT -5
Avenger was an odd ball. Writing was top notch but the art was iffy. The first two runs had good stories and good art; return of kings was okay queen had bad art a few elements that didn't suck but were overall awful avengers had good writing but bad art. Slayer seems to have found a balance that works
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