Recently I came across with
MARK'S REMARKS mentioned by Roger Wilbanks. I found many interesting and very usefull points in the letters. I thought they should be read by anyone who is interested in Comics creation.
I post one letter by Mark for an example...Here's a question for you: Why are certain comic books more popular than others?
The measure of a book's popularity is sales, of course, and if you look at the publisher's statements that we print on our letters pages once a year, you have a fair idea of what most books sell in comparison to one another. Let me list some of the factors that I can determine affect popularity, and let's see where that gets us.
1. Recognition factor. If a character has name recognition value to the general public, say, from being on television like Spider-Man and the Hulk, you'd think those characters would sell better. For the most part, that's true. But I can think of a character published by one of our competitors who has had several movies and a TV show about him, and that still doesn't help sales. Recognition value can't account for everything.
2. Popular creative teams. This would only be a boon in the fan market, though-- in the general public-- I doubt there's any name recognition of most comics creators (except maybe for Stan Lee).
3. Good, clear stories about well-defined characters. I sure hope this is a factor, because it's the editor's main job to get the creative teams to do just that. If you can put any old thing between two covers and it sells the same as anything else, we editors are all out of jobs! On the other hand, I know of a few very well-written, well-plotted, well-drawn series that didn't sell, and a few badly-written, badly-plotted, badly-drawn series that did! I guess there'll always be flukes.
4. Good covers. I'm certain that a real grabber of a cover will compel an occasional buyer to plunk down his quarters just to see what the story's all about. But there have been great covers on certain low-sellers, so this isn't a sure-fire rule.
5. High concepts. Certain Big Ideas tend to generate extra sales, namely, Death, Marriage, and Costume Changes. Crossovers are also popular concepts. (Is it any wonder that a book like SECRET WARS, featuring the biggest cross-over of all time, should sell four or five times better than the average Marvel book?)
That's all the ones that occur to me off the top of my head. It still doesn't explain a few things to me, such as the huge popularity of the mutant books. I mean, how much difference is there between a super hero who is born with his/her powers and one who acquires them later in life, hmm? Sure, all of the mutant books are well-written, but then again, so are lots of other books that don't sell nearly as well. So how about it, readers? How about you cluing in this greying editor on what factors you think make a comic book better-selling than another. I'll print your best guesses in this space.
--Mark Gruenwald
___________________________________ Mark E. Gruenwald (June 18, 1953-August 12, 1996) was an American comic book writer, editor, and occasional penciler. Gruenwald got his start in comics fandom, publishing his own fanzine, Omniverse, which explored the concept of continuity. In 1978 he was hired by Marvel Comics, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Death and legacy
In 1996, Gruenwald succumbed to a
heart attack, the result of an unsuspected
congenital heart defect. Gruenwald was a well-known practical joker, and due to his young age, many of his friends and co-workers initially believed the reports of his death to be just another joke. Just days prior, he had done one of his trademark cartwheels down the halls of the Bullpen. In accordance with his request, he was
cremated, and his ashes were mixed with the ink used to print the first
trade paperback compilation of
Squadron Supreme.
[3] The Amalgam Comics book The Exciting X-Patrol #1 is dedicated to his memory. In the years since his death, many other projects have been dedicated to his memory, especially those involving complicated continuity that would have delighted him: the JLA/Avengers crossover or the Earth X trilogy, to name two). In the DC Universe, a building in Gotham City was named the Von Gruenwald Tower, and in the novel Captain America: Liberty's Torch (written by Tony Isabella and Bob Ingersoll), the lawyer kidnapped to defend the similarly kidnapped Captain in a mock trial before a militia is named Mark Gruenwald, and is described with the same general physical attributes and personality as the real Gruenwald. The lawyer acts heroically throughout the story.
In the pages of Fantastic Four, writer/artist Walt Simonson created the Time Variance Authority, a cosmic bureaucracy that regulates the Marvel multiverse. Simonson paid homage to Gruenwald by having the TVA's staff all be clones of Gruenwald; no one could keep track of everything but him.
In 2006, Gruenwald was officially named the "Patron Saint of Marveldom" in the new "Bullpen Bulletins" pages.[4]
