re: Marvel Zombies
 

I'm not sure which is more depressing; that Marvel is jumping on the zombie comics badwagon, or that yet again they can't work out a way to do it without superheroes. :icon_conf

Though, I'm actually looking forward to reading it.

Oh yeah, there's a good creative team attached, but it's just so depressingly non-innovative. :icon_conf

It might be great, but the lack of innovation is just sad. You're right in pointing out that most stuff nowadays is variations on previous themes, but my point is that there's no real variation here. It's a zombie comic written by a bloke who's famous for writing a zombie comic for another company, with the "added" twist that this has superheroes in it. Adding the superheroes in isn't a significant variation; it's Marvel's pathological fear of branching out into other genres. The same fear that's crippled their recent attempts to grab the manga audience. It's a backward-looking variation rather than a forward-looking one, and that just depresses me. They can't think of anything better to do with a zombie comic than put superheroes in? That's just sad.

Well, I understand what you're saying, but again I'd like to see what gets done before writing it off as sad. It is possible they do something truly outstanding with this concept, though perhaps unlikely.

And one other thing that keeps popping into my small skull is that Marvel really is a "superhero" comic company. They're good at it (well, at least they're successful with it). Why would they be looking to branch out until the market rewards them for doing that?

Oh definitely. It's got a good creative team, so the chances are that it'll be quite a good read. But what's sad about it to me is not the finished product, but the lack of imagination involved. That's all.

By the same token, how can they expect the market to reward them for branching out if they won't do it properly?

I'll admit that in the case of a zombie comic, that the audience is likely smaller than that of the average superhero comic, and as such Marvel are hedging their bets. That said, I wonder how many superhero fans are going to turn off because of the zombie element, and how many zombie fans are going to turn off because of the superhero element? It'll be interesting to compare sales of this with The Walking Dead.

All that said, there are audiences out there who'll pick up and read these attempts at branching out, if only Marvel could do it properly, but they're too locked into this dwindling superhero fanbase to see beyond them.

The upcoming Mary Jane comic would be a huge seller if Marvel would only get it to the audience that wants it; but that audience isn't going to go into a comic shop to get it, if they even know the book is available, given that Marvel aren't advertising it outside of the comics press.

Marvel are a superhero publisher, you're right. But that will ultimately kill them. They need to branch out, and they need to take risks and do it properly. It's not the audience that are at fault, it's Marvel because they're not going after the right audience.

Again, this isn't much of a problem in the case of Marvel Zombies, but the weird half-hearted approach they've taken with the project is just a symptom of this larger problem. I doubt the zombie book will suffer particularly from this crossover approach, but their occasional forays into manga and girls' comic do.

And at the end of the day, they've got themselves locked into this bizarre mindset wherein only superhero comics will sell, so their manga books are about manga superheroes, and their girls' comics are about the girlfriends of superheroes, and their zombie books are about zombie superheroes. It frustrates me, and depresses me, because there's absolutely no reason they have to be so creatively stunted. They do it to themselves.

Well, what's "properly"? Isn't it that sort of thinking that has you concerned in the first place? After all, Marvel tells story traditionally, or some people would say properly.

See above. It's the half-hearted approach that gets me. It's not a "proper" zombie comic if it's full of superheroes is it?

Don't get me wrong; I like superheroes, but if Marvel are going to publish a zombie comic, or manga or whatever, then it would just be nice if they could publish them without superheroes intruding. I read superheroes when I want to read superheroes. I don't read zombie comics when I want to read superheroes.