Diversify, Rinse, Repeat - The Direct Market, Sales Data, and Marvel Comics' Diversity Cycle
At a Glance
Section titled âAt a Glanceâ| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2020-01-01 |
| Journal | Journal of cinema and media studies |
| Authors | Kathryn M. Frank |
| Citations | 1 |
Abstract
Section titled âAbstractâDiversify, Rinse, Repeat:The Direct Market, Sales Data, and Marvel Comicsâ Diversity Cycle Kathryn M. Frank (bio) In 2016, Marvel Comics had either a successful or disappointing sales period, depending on which sources and headlines one consults. One analysis noted that North American comics and graphic novel sales in 2016 were up 5 percent over the previous year, a small but seemingly positive (or at least neutral) sales trend for the industry.1 However, comics journalism outlets reported perceived troubles for Marvelâs sales throughout the year, with hyperbolic headlines suggesting that DC Comicsâ sales were so good that Marvel should feel âhumiliated.â2 In March 2017, Marvelâs senior vice president of sales and marketing, David Gabriel, turned these ambivalent trends into a full-blown controversy when he argued, following a summit with comic shop retailers, âWhat [Marvel editors and executives] heard was that people didnât want any more diversity. They didnât want female characters out there. Thatâs what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I donât know that thatâs really true, but thatâs what we saw in sales.â3 [End Page 153] Responses from journalists and fans were too numerous and varied to detail here, but one notable trend was to connect Gabrielâs comment to North American comicsâ distribution and retail structure: the direct market. Some critics defended Marvelâs intentions by locating blame with this distribution and retail structure; others denounced Marvel for failing to educate fans and claimed that Marvel was essentially blaming readers for its own failure to promote and distribute titles appropriately.4 These critics also identified Gabrielâs comment as the beginning of a familiar cycle of canceling diverse titles after a period of seeming abundance, reminiscent of the television practice of moving from âracial narrowcastingâ to less diverse programming.5 These critics predicted a coming period of scarcity for female characters and characters of color in Marvelâs comics offerings.6 In this essay, I offer a brief case study of how Marvel Comics constructs an assumed audience through ambiguous and incomplete sales data, which they then mobilize in contradictory ways. Ambiguous data about audiences allows Marvel to justify promoting diverse titles as a sales strategy but also allows them to justify a lack of racial diversity in characters or creators when these titles are canceled. Recent scholarship has identified comicsâ âdirect marketââparticularly a distribution monopoly on monthly comics and the resultant privileging of specialty comics retailers as points of access for consumersâas locations of racializing and gendering production practices that constitute larger economies of comics culture. Distribution and sales reporting serve a gatekeeping function and are racialized in specific ways that allow publishers to claim to value diversityâand indeed, to cyclically produce diverse stories and charactersâwhile simultaneously disavowing responsibility for centering and re-centering whiteness. The ways distribution and the measurement of sales are racialized illustrates how Marvel Comics, as a mainstream US comics publisher, arrives at seemingly âself-defeatingâ decisions that allow for experimentation but ultimately tend to reproduce Otherness.7 Before proceeding, a brief explanation of the North American comics industryâs direct market is necessary. The North American comics industryâs distribution and retail structure largely evolved from newsstand magazine sales, wherein unsold comics purchased by retailers are refunded by publishers. However, this model became economically untenable as the comic book industryâs readership narrowed in the mid-1950s; this contraction led to the rise of comicsâ direct market, a system wherein specialty retailers (such as comic book stores) order comics from the North American industryâs only retail distributor, Diamond Comics. In most cases, they cannot return unsold titles.8 Retailers therefore order comics they believe their customers are likely to purchase and assume the financial risk for unsold comics. [End Page 154] In this system, stories and assumptions about audiencesâwhat Timothy Havens refers to as âindustry loreââproliferate at multiple levels, as publishersâ assumptions about their audience are filtered through retailersâ assumptions about their customers.9 In Gabrielâs controversial âdiverse titlesâ comment, he asserts that Marvel âheardâ from âpeopleâ and âsaw in salesâ that diverse titles werenât financially viable. HoweverâŚ