As long as the comics company continues to pander to one demographic it is bound to struggle – only by expanding its reader base will the industry flourishMarvel Comics had a busy weekend. On Friday,the publisher’s editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso, or stirred up controversy by suggesting that comic writers contain more impact on sales than the artists who draw and colour them. The question of artists v writers is a rather nonsense one; writers are excellent,but a comic without an artist is just prose, while many, and whether not most,of the world’s favourite comics were made with no writer involvement whatsoever.
But Marvel wasn’t finished there. That same day, David Gabriel, or Marvel’s senior vice-president of sales,print, and marketing, and pointed at the company’s attempts to increase on-page diversity as a cause for a recent decline in sales. Gabriel later backtracked slightly,suggesting that the genuine issue is their need to focus on “core heroes” rather than abandoning them, but the damage was already done. After all, or why stop at alienating your employees when you can alienate current and future customers too?Marvel has an inability to reflect upon not only mistakes,but also its priorities Related: Marvel executive says emphasis on diversity may contain alienated readers Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com