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Facelift: Superman
By Christopher Butcher.
Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Superman!
 Strange
Visitor from another planet. And all that. We all know who Superman
is. He is perhaps the single most recognizable comic book character
ever. Around the world, people know what that big red "S" means
when they see it. He is our modern myth. Assuming that the current
ludicrous practice of extending copyrights is eventually overturned,
hundreds of years from now people will be watching hour-long Superman
TV serials, much in the way Kevin Sorbo's HERCULES is on the air
now (Err, in reruns at least…).
DC Comics, the people who produce the Superman comic, have a
heavy weight on their shoulders. They've got to write the monthly
(weekly…) adventures of Superman, whom the rest of the world loves
and admires. Sometimes, they succeed admirably. Events like the
marriage of Superman to Lois Lane, the new "Blueperman" costume,
and the much-attentioned "Death of Superman" draw the focus of
people around the world to the comic book adventures of Superman.
Millions of copies of these comics are sold, and not just to regular
comics readers but to "civilians", as I've recently heard them
described. Superman is pushed onto the front page of most of the
newspapers in North America, if not the world, and at times like
these it's clear just how much this character, this symbol, is
admired. But what about those in-between times? When Superman
isn't dying, being reborn, married off or changing costumes, how's
he doing?
Poorly. Very poorly.
The four monthly Superman books (staggered, so that there's a
Superman book on the shelves every week) sell exceptionally poorly,
when you consider how popular this character is world-wide. The
books rarely break into the top 30 on the Top100 list of comics
sold, and average maybe 130,000 total copies sold (including newsstand
and direct market distribution). We all know the comic industry
is in rough shape, but even considering that fact, these numbers
are dissappointing. Superman is soundly (and constantly) beaten
in sales by relative newcomers Spider-man, Wolverine, Spawn, and
the voluptuous Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.
Why? Well, aside from the ever-popular X-Man Wolverine, not many
of the more popular heroes today wear their underwear on the outside
anymore. None of them have capes either (Spawn being the exception,
although that character wears his as more of a brooding cloak
than a cape). It might just be that Superman isn't what the "kids"
want to read anymore. A good guy who does the right thing no matter
what the cost isn't as popular as a psychotic, clawed mutant.
To borrow an outdated phrase from my grandfather, hogwash.
The recent Superman cartoon was extremely popular on the Kids
WB, and is still shown daily along with the adventures of another
caped, underwear-on-the-outside hero, Batman. Superman action
figures and licensed products still sell briskly, and I have to
say the Superman roller-coaster at Six Flags is just about the
best thing I've ever been on.
So again, why is the Superman comic selling so poorly?
Well, look at who the comic is currently being marketed to. Superman
sells exceptionally poorly when they try and market it to the
people who like Wolverine, Spawn, and Tomb Raider. And it sells
well (when they do big "event" stories) to the civilians, the
non-comics reading general populace. So, who should DC Comics
be marketing these books to? It seems obvious, doesn't it?
(If you and I can put this 2 and 2 together to make 4, you've
got to wonder why the people at DC can't, right? Well, chances
are they can, and have. So we're just going to have to work on
the assumptions that we want to increase the sales, notoriety,
and distribution of Superman Comics, and that we want to improve
the readability of these comics.)
If we want to reach the civilians who don't dare set foot in
a comic shop, we're going to have to reach out to where the people
actually want to read about Superman are; magazine racks and book
stores.
Comic books on the newsstand just don't sell all that great.
Their low per-unit price of $2, and smaller physical size makes
them a pain in the butt for most magazine retailers, and so consequently
they don't carry them. Luckily, DC Comics is owned by international
megacorp AOL-TimeWarner, who own a little piece of everything
(including a healthy magazine publishing division). It seems simple
enough, doesn't it? "Superman Magazine". 300 pages of magazine,
and following the traditional content to advertising ratio, half
of those 300 pages would be advertising. That would leave 150
pages of "editorial" content, in which we'd put about 100 pages
of Superman comics. The important thing here is that we wouldn't
just re-print a random assortment of Superman stuff from the past
few years. The current crop of comics are not geared towards civilians.
If you're looking for stories that are geared towards young and
casual readers, you're going to have to go back to the early 80's
at the latest. So, we split the content thusly. 2 issues of year-old
Superman stuff, the corner-box-numbered weekly continuing adventures.
These stories will continue every month giving readers a reason
to pick up every issue. Then, 2 stand-alone "classic" Superman
stories from the archives, including 1 good Lois Lane story. It'll
be "Ginchy" and "Retro" or whatever, but that's part of the charm
of the series. Then, 1 stand alone "Adventures" Superman cartoon
story, for the younger readers. That's our content. Price the
whole package at $3.95 or so, and market it as the next cool/hip/bomb/etc.
thing for the under 18, and 18-25 market demographic. It strengthens
Superman brand identity, popularizes the comic-story medium to
"civilians", which in turn makes it possible to sell the high-end
Superman book store products. Like…
Graphic Albums. In European book stores (particularly France),
you can buy comics. Tons, and tons of comics on tons of subjects,
marketed to all demographics. Except, they aren't what you envision
as comic books at all. They're large, oversized books. They're
printed in colour on glossy brite paper, 30-40 pages to a book,
and bound with a hardcover. And they sell tons. Everything from
children's stories like ASTERIX and DONALD DUCK to more mature
titles can be found. In North America, you can't even buy Donald
Duck comic books anymore, let alone find them in book stores.
Why? Because they're not marketed to book stores. Using the popularity
and exposure generated by our magazine, we put together similar
graphic albums for the North American market. These would be like
the European models (although perhaps slightly thicker, 48-64
pages), oversized and hardbound. These would collect important
stand-alone stories in one attractive package. Projects like Alex
Ross's PEACE ON EARTH, Dean Motter & Michael Lark's SUPERMAN:
WAR OF THE WORLDS, or Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's SUPERMAN FOR ALL
SEASONS for example. General-interest, stand along works with
solid stories and interesting interpretations of Superman as a
character. More importantly, these are great-looking packages
that will draw in even the most skeptical buyer. (Oh, and I envision
all of the colours being hand-painted as opposed to computer-generated,
because I think that would fit the package better, but that's
just me…). Priced at $30 a piece, these books would fly off shelves,
not to mention making great gifts.
You'll note I haven't gotten down to the nuts-and-bolts of the
types of stories being told here, but that's mainly because the
stuff coming out of the Superman camp these days is so uneven.
You'll get a great stand alone or special product, only to have
it dashed by the regular series, or a horrid pandering stand alone
story or special product. So, I think that I've glorified very
nicely the types of stories I think they should be printing, while
silently condemning the stories they shouldn't. You can draw your
own conclusions from there…
And that's about all I have to say on the matter. I envision
a time when I'll be able to buy comic books anywhere, as opposed
to having to special-order them 3 months before they hit the racks.
And I envision a time when Superman, who is the pre-eminent symbol
of the comic book industry is treated with the same awe and respect
world-wide that the leaders from the industries of film, animation,
television, music, and art are. I hope that someone at DC envisions
that time as well.
Christopher Butcher is Columns Editor for PopImage.
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