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Responding to last year’s predictions. Asking for 2013 predictions. LET’S CONTINUE:
MrJM predicts
“In 2012, I will once again spend more money on hard liquor than on comic books.”
Oddly enough, once we opened the speakeasy in the back of the shop, so did we!
• • •
CW stated
“I predict Nickelodeon will debut an animated series based on the ‘Crossed’ comic books from Avatar Press.”
I can’t help but suspect that prediction was less than sincere. But I bet if someone ever does do a Crossed media adaptation, one of the comic’s fans will complain about how the movie/TV show/whatever isn’t nearly violent/gross enough.
• • •
Bear bared
“1. Bendis’ departure from the Avengers titles will result in a relaunch featuring the ‘classic’ line-up. This team will add new members swiftly, become a bloated mess, spawn many tie-ins and generally be met with a feeling of ‘Wow, never thought I’d miss Bendis.’ The titles will be relaunched again.”
Well, there certainly are a lot of Avengers titles. With a movie that made a billion and a half dollars, Marvel’s sure is gonna hitch a whole lot of four-color wagons to that star. In the meantime, it seems to be more or less continuing from where everything left off, just with the old issue numbers filed off and “#1″ stenciled in. I haven’t read them, but it’s Hickman on scripts and he ain’t bad from what I’ve read on other comics, so who knows. The main Avengers title is still the “here are the characters you’ve loved in movies, including Spider-Man and Wolverine” one, it looks like. It’s not quite a bloated mess yes, but give it time.
“2. The New 52 will continue. New titles will be added, old titles will be cancelled, and blogs will still be filled with commenters swearing the whole thing was a mistake and the old universe will return any day now.”
All true. Hell, in this comments section alone people are predicting the Old DCU’s return.
• • •
Bret jumps in with
“All political disputes will be decided by THUNDERDOME.”
This is the world I want to live in. Why the last election wasn’t Obama and Romney in heated battle with Tina Turner presiding, I have no idea.
“Comics will continue to shrink in market share and rise in price. Night of the Owls will not be very good.”
It looks like the comics market is more or less holding steady. Prices are very slowly creeping upwards, though. “Night of the Owls,” from all accounts, is highly regarded, but I haven’t had time to read it and judge myself, so maybe you’re right there, too!
“Avengers and the Dark Night Rises will unexpectedly cross over in the middle. No-one will know why.”
BANE: “You thing this gives you power over me?”
THOR: “No…I think this does!” (hits Bane with Mjolnir)
• • •
DavidG reveals
“Someone will do a massive crossover event in which the hook is the world is going to end in December 2012. The world will not actually end. The event will be lame, and all the new characters and reboots that come out of it will suck.”
I am really, honestly surprised this did not happen. I know December 2012 stuff was a plot point here and there in older comics, but I didn’t see anything dealing with it in, you know, real time.
• • •
Cole had a funny comment that I’m just going to link to
here.
• • •
My old friend-in-real-life Batfatty contributes
“DC will stage a multi-universe, apocalyptic story all to retcon the editorial disaster of doing away with Batman’s outer underwear.”
Man, all I am picturing now is “CRISIS OF INFINITE UNDERPANTS” and Superman is wearing Batman’s black shorts and Batman is in Supes’ red shorts and it’s all very embarrassing.
• • •
Mike Zeidler reminds me
“Mike Sterling will finally get around to reviewing the ultra-special edition super-long director’s omnibus cut of the Watchmen movie.”
Er…no, not in 2012 I’m very sorry
• • •
Dwayne the canoe guy rows by with
“In All-Star Western we will see a story where Jonah Hex sires a bastard child for Harvey Dent’s ancestor, a storyline that was declined for Jonah Hex V2.”
I don’t think that happened, after some brief Googling (since I don’t follow the title), but maybe someone who knows can fill me in.
“Sluggo will be challenged to a deathmatch by Tubby. During the battle they will be struck by lightning as they fall into the lake and will emerge as the moss encrusted mockery of merged small boys known as Swamp Slubby. Little Lulu and Nancy will join forces and enlist the aid of Gyro Gearloose to help stop Swamp Slubby from killing Unca Scrooge, for whatever knows greed burns at Swamp Slubby’s TOUCH!”
This all absolutely happened, in House of Dell Comics #92.
“Also, the lost 192 minutes of the Jonah Hex film will be found and the movie will be recut and released by the Cohen Bros. The film will be a commercial and critical success and Megan Fox will appear for only ten seconds where she opens the door and Hex shoots her dead while saying ‘Yuh trade easy, woman.’ Crowds will cheer.”
Oh sweet jumping Judas on a pogo stick, 192 minutes is, like, what, eight, ten times the length of the actual film? Would it have killed them to shoot another, say, half-hour with Hex in a post-apocalyptic future? Were they afraid that would make it a bad movie?
• • •
Longtime customer of mine Rob foresees
“Doom & gloom variety: I predict that yet another title I really enjoy will be cancelled. Because that’s how I affect the comics industry. In the worst case version, it would be Sweet Tooth, which is one of my favorite books.”
Well, hate to tell you this, but, um, yeah.
“Hope & change variety: My one man crusade to get people to read more odd comics (usually from Fantagraphics) continues to pick up steam, helping Mike sell maybe 4 or 5 more volumes over the course of the year. Fine, in truth, they’ll probably all be bought by me.”
Oh, I’ll get your money.
• • •
Dave daves
“1) Image comics will rise in prominence and market share, led by Millar and Quitely’s Jupiter’s Children (the first issue of which will be in the Diamond Top 20) and supported by a number of high-quality under-the-radar comics that will finally start to catch on. Oh, and Walking Dead collections, which will continue to sell in huge numbers.”
Alas, that comic didn’t come out last year. Maybe this year! And while Image has certainly cranked out a lot of stuff, not a whole lot of it has really caught on. But Walking Dead certainly still is selling like gangbusters. (Though, come to think of it, how did Gang Busters sell?)
“2) DC will lower the standard price on their digital comics backlist (older than 1-year) to 99¢. Other publishers will follow, except (stubbornly) Marvel. Day-and-date digital comics will continue to be priced at cover price.”
I know one digital company regularly offers 99-cent sales on backlist comics, but that’s not a consistent thing. Day-and-dates, still at cover, I believe.
“My pie-in-the-sky prediction: Fantagraphics announces a Matt Howarth’s Complete Bugtown project, with chronological collections of Howarth’s Bugtown stuff in several huge (300-400 page) volumes.”
Not yet!
• • •
That
Augie guy tries to muscle into my own website (hey, you got your own column!) with
“Oh, what the hell? This might be fun:”
It started out as fun, but I will never be free of these prediction posts. NEVER.
“Marvel or DC will go direct-digital with a comic that was unprofitable in print and had to be canceled, just to burn off the completed inventory and justify a collected edition. They’ll mess it all up completely, though, by charging digital buyers the full $2.99 or $3.99 cover price. It won’t sell, but the collected edition will still see print.”
…Not that I know about, but I expect this is an option the publishers are keeping in mind.
“The ‘Hawk and Dove’ TPB will include the 7th and 8th issues. (It’s due out in August, so there’s plenty of time to change its contents yet.)”
A HIT! It does indeed contain those two issues.
“A lower-priced iPad will be seen as a great boon to digital comics and sales will rise, though not exponentially. We’ll never know, though, since the publishers don’t divulge that information.”
Maybe not iPads, but there are quite a few lower-priced tablets competing with them…perhaps they are driving more comic sales, but like you say, who knows?
“Diamond won’t go bankrupt, though at least two major Steve Geppi-related Financial Difficulty stories this year will start raising that question again.”
Diamond’s still around…I haven’t heard any rumors along these lines recently, but maybe I just haven’t had my ear to the ground enough.
“Diamond Digital will flop and be canceled as a cost-cutting move, though Diamond will deny that reason.”
Diamond Digital is still hanging in there!
“DC and Marvel will cut costs by signing fewer exclusives and letting many of them lapse. A new rush of ‘mainstream’ creators will start creator-owned works at Image as a result. By this time next year, an entire wing of Image Comics will look like Marvel/DC 2010. Kirkman will grab at least three of those big names for Skybound.”
I haven’t heard much news on the exclusives front…at least, they don’t seem to be making as big a deal about them anymore. And there doesn’t seem to be a huge influx of Marvel/DC guys yet…at least, not enough to note it as a trend.
“I will write another 52 Pipeline columns.”
WRONG! You wrote 54! …Well, okay, technically, you did write 52…plus two extra. I guess I’ll let you have that one.
“The lack of diversity in superhero comics will continue to show itself, with no diabetic characters introduced in 2012.”
Not that we know of, at any rate. (Though I would bet money…well, someone else’s money…that it’s been done for some kind of educational comics, somewhere!)
“With the Avengers and Batman movies coming out this year, the Superman movie will be forgotten until it suddenly shows up one Friday night when nobody is looking. Only the nerds will skip ‘Brides Maids II’ or ‘Hangover III’ to see it.”
They wisely pushed it back a bit, so there’s a chance it won’t get lost in the hype for the other films. We can all enjoy shortsless Superman without being reminded we saw better movies just recently.
• • •
Adam Farrar reveals
“After Avengers vs. X-Men: Loeb will write a new on-going, probably Cable. The Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning cosmic stories (last seen as the two Annihilators mini-series which ended the last week of 2011) will not continue but be replaced with a new Nova series.”
There is a new Cable series, but not by Loeb. And there certainly is a new Nova ongoing, which I never would have predicted. That’s by Loeb.
“Some softball pitches to coordinate with the Avengers movie: Hawkeye will get an on-going title. Loki will get a mini-series that has nothing to do with the Journey to Mystery title.”
Well done on Hawkeye, no new Loki mini yet but it’s only a matter of time.
“DC will do an Amethyst title that will hopefully be all-ages and self-contained.”
Well…you were half-right.
“The relaunch of the Extreme titles will mean Alan Moore’s ‘Supreme: Story of the Year’ will finally be back in print.”
Would love to have Moore’s Supreme back in print. Sadly, it didn’t happen.
“The new Watchmen comics will be a huge financial success.”
More a so-so success, probably not worth the grief DC got over it.
“DC’s recruitment of Marvel’s creators from the 1990s will continue with new work from Danny Fingeroth, Terry Kavanagh”
Sadly, no…Danny’s doing his own thing, teaching comics writing and such, and Terry is apparently one of the folks behind this online game site.
• • •
Pal Andres sez, he sez
“DC’s $2.99 line will crack no later than mid-year.”
A couple of titles went from $2.99 to $3.99, and a few new titles started at the $3.99 price point, so the slow creep continues! …Andres also made a whole bunch of Doctor Who predictions that I’m pretty sure all came true.
• • •
Richard J. Marcej unveils
“DC will continue producing 52 separate monthly titles, canceling titles but quickly replacing them with new books that keep the total at 52.”
This is indeed what’s happening.
“In December DC will announce that starting in 2014 they’ll no longer be printing monthly comics but will instead produce 52 separate 80 page books (done in the same format as ‘Love & Rockets’) retailing each at $14.99. So the 52 different monthly titles will now be 52 weekly (one book a week) 80 page TPB.”
Not announced, but I can see this as a direction the publishers can go to get around the rising costs of monthly books. Assuming, of course, they don’t abandon print entirely and go straight to digital.
• • •
Señor Editor (AKA Professor Booty) edited
“Ghost Rider will be relaunched, with Johnny Blaze as the book’s protagonist.”
I’m very surprised we’ve gone this long without a Ghost Rider book. Give it more time.
“A new, rebooted and more realistic Wolverine movie will be in the works. Hugh Jackman won’t be starring as Wolverine this time, though.”
We’re still getting a Wolverine flick at some point, but Jackman remains the star. Good, I like him as Wolverine. It might be a bit weird if he’s still doing it when he’s, like, eighty.
“Much like in that one Brad Pitt movie, Mike Sterling will continue looking younger and younger and nobody will find it odd at all.”
Absolutely true.
“The Avengers books without Bendis won’t sell nearly as well.”
All the Avengers titles pretty much tanked in the final lead-up to the ends of the series in the face of Marvel Now, so it wouldn’t take much for them to sell better. And, by and large, they’re selling okay for now.
• • •
Rob S. had this to say:
“DC will announce the expansion of the Earth 2 books in the new 52 (currently Earth 2 and World’s Finest) to include a separate book set in the past, with superheroes fighting Nazis. It might or might not be called “All-Star Squadron.’”
I’d read that. Didn’t happen, but I’d read it.
“DC will slowly add more back-ups to its books (and raising the price to $3.99), including Green Lantern, Flash, and Justice League International.”
Like I said above, we’re getting the slow creep (Batman got the $3.99 w/backup treatment). Justice League International, alas, never had a chance to do so.
“More Milestone and Wildstorm properties are given a shot at a title. We’ll see Icon, Shadow Cabinet, and Zealot.”
…I’d love to see a new Icon series. But we did get Team 7, and Ravagers includes a Wildstorm character or two.
“Steph Brown and Cass Cain fans will continue to be disappointed and vocal. Heckler fans will continue to be disappointed and quiet.”
Fans are always disappointed. Except Heckler fans, who are just crazy.
“We’ll see a Wally West, Kyle Rayner, Connor Hawke team-up. Alternate Earth or DC Comics Presents reprint?”
Neither, I’m afraid!
• • •
Boosterific boosts
“Bah, I’m already over 2012! I’m skipping ahead to 2013: Progressive Ruin will run a fortnight’s worth of blog posts recapping the reviews for 2012 in a disorganized, rambling manner that will be equal parts un-illuminating and hilarious.”
Well, slightly less than a fortnight, anyway. And I’d like to think I’m a little illuminating, even if I’m not very bright.
• • •
Valdemiro gives us
“In 2012 Brian Michael Bendis finally collaborates with Kevin Maguire on the Avengers. They then create a headshot panel so beautiful it makes mere mortals weep.”
I’d like to see a Kevin Maguire Avengers series. Unfortunately, they’d just start yet another brand new Avengers series rather than put him on an already-going Avengers title.
• • •
Glitchy glitches
“DC will suddenly discover the pre-teen girl ‘princess’ market (possibly thanks to the Super Best Friends and Amethyst shorts). Because of this, editorial mandate revamps Starfire back to something closer to her animated Teen Titans persona.”
Hasn’t happened yet, but it really, really should.
“This also leads to a My Little Pony/DC cross over that just defied all forms of logic, but was very pastel.”
C’mon: “Comet the Superhorse meets My Little Pony!” It’s a natural!
• • •
Kid Kyoto isn’t kidding with
“DC will try a black and white manga-style phone book anthology with several 100 pages each month. The best series from that will then be colored and reprinted in TPBs.”
Another viable option for when the monthly 32-pagers go south. Hasn’t happened…yet.
“Real publishers like Scholastic Books will continue to make OGNs that outsell anything by DC or Marvel, mainstream comic fans will continue to ignore them.”
Yeah, probably.
“The EXTREME! Studios relaunch (Youngblood etc) will barely put out 3 issues before sinking quietly into the darkness.”
They’re all still hanging around, but just barely (despite critical acclaim for Prophet).
“The Superman film will bomb.”
Maybe next year.
“Superman will be back in his traditional suit about 15 minutes after the film closes.”
I expect that, too.
“New rumors of a Wonder Woman film which go no where.”
We can probably run with this prediction every year.
“The Avengers film will actually be quite good.”
I thought it was a lot of fun! I think a few others thought so as well.
• • •
Ben unleashes
“DC will announce that Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics will end in early 2013, the same month as Batman Incorporated v2 #12 ships. Morrison will simultaneously announce his retirement from writing comic books.”
We’re still a few months away from Batman Inc. #12, but Morrison is ending his runs on both titles this year (with Action imminent). I think he’s sticking around in comics, though…just not necessarily the superhero books.
“The Avengers movie will be mildly entertaining but strangely empty of any engaging emotional content, just like all of Marvel’s movies since Iron Man. The announcement of their post-Avengers movie slate is met by bewilderment (by comic fans) and blank stares (by the general public) as ‘big guns’ like Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy are rolled out.”
That certainly is a consistent criticism of the Marvel films…like I said, I did enjoy the Avengers film, but it’s definitely about as deep as a sidewalk puddle after a spring shower. And I think folks are probably okay with the new slate of Marvel films, though they really haven’t been trying to sell them to the public just yet. We’ll see when the films get a little closer to release.
“The Dark Knight Returns animated movie(s) will, like almost all of DC’s DVD movie fare, be entirely unsuitable for kids to watch. But…”
Yeah, that’s probably best with teens and older. But kids will love it just fine, I think!
“…DC will unexpectedly find a long-dormant property that hits big time with the (actual) kids, probably via the DC Nation slot on Cartoon Network. What the hell, lets just say Amethyst. My daughter would *love* that show.”
I think DC Nation has generally been well received, but I don’t know that anything’s really taken off as a “hit.” But that there’s even such a thing as an Amethyst animated short is a victory of some kind.
“China Mieville’s Dial H for Hero revival will be excellent and universally liked by the comics blogosphere, but commercially it will fail dismally and be canceled by issue 8.”
It’s not selling great, but it’s holding on, and people do seem to like it quite a bit.
“Dan Slott will replace Brian Michael Bendis on the Avengers books, as Bendis takes over Amazing Spider-Man. Marvel will continue to pimp the hell out of Matt Fraction despite the fact that (Casanova aside, though that doesn’t even really count) he has never written a good comic book for them.”
OUCH. I think Fraction’s been doing good work over there, at least on the titles of his I read (Fantastic Four, FF, and the very well-received Hawkeye). And there has been plenty of swapping around of writers on the Marvel books, but Slott is still riding that Spider-Man train…um, there’s probably a better way I could have put that.
“The Ultimate Comics ‘free download’ thing is a dismal failure (though we never hear about it) and the whole line is shuttered either in late 2012 or announced to in early 2013.”
I’m not even sure I know about the free download thing. But the Ultimate line is still around, somehow.
“Vertigo will announce that Hellblazer will end with #300 and the death of John Constantine.”
Yes, indeed. I don’t know if it’ll be Constantine’s death, but I think it’s likely…a kind of a final “screw you” to the character’s transfer to the DCU.
“And finally, Sony will release a ‘skin’ for DC Online that make it both bearable to look at and as though it was all drawn by Carmine Infantino. More a wish than a prediction really…”
Man, an Infantino-styled video game. That would be both awesome and strangely terrifying.
• • •
Neil brought forth
“Tony Daniel will be taken off Detective Comics, as they will have found someone even worse.”
DOUBLE-OUCH. He was off Detective with the #0/#12 issues, but I’ll have to let you decide if the new guy is worse. Daniel will be back as the new artist on Action after Morrison leaves.
• • •
random surfer goofyfooted
“Late Dec/early Jan: Mike Sterling will ask people for preditions for 2013. He will comment on the predictions made for 2012. He will say this one is stupid and/or pointless.”
Nope, I’d say you’re 100% on target.
• • •
OH THANK GOD I’m done, which I’m sure you’re all thinking, too. Tune in next year when I do it again, reacting to
these 2013 predictions, because I’m stupid.
Thanks for contributing, everyone, and, especially, thanks for putting up with these endless posts. I appreciate the readership.
Hello, my five remaining readers! We are on to part three of our predictions overview, where I discuss your 2012 predictions from last year, tallying the hits, noting the misses, and totally prevaricating when I’m not sure if it’s a hit or a miss. And, perhaps unwisely, I am still seeking your comics industry predictions for 2013, so get ‘em in there and watch your pal Mike lose his mind next year, too.
Jeff R. gazes across the veil and sees
“We won’t know anything more about the Woman in Purple at the end of 2012 than we know right now.”
We got a few more hints about about Pandora here and there, like in the New 52 Free Comic Book Day thing last year, right? I imagine there’ll be an eventual payoff to this character soon. Plus, she’s popped up in one of this week’s comics, so we’re getting a tiny bit more about her there, anyway.
“Ultimate comics will come to an end, and they’ll probably actually blow up the entire planet/universe as it goes. (Possibly some refugees end up on 616, possibly not.)”
I’m still sort of surprised the Ultimate line is still a thing, but it has its fans, though the line has certainly outlived its initial purpose of “here’s something for people who like our movies but don’t want to be mired in continuity.” Now they all feel like ongoing “What If…?” series, just lacking the Watcher explaining to the reader at the beginning of each issue how this world is subtly different from the Marvel Universe they know.
“X-factor will be cancelled/end. Peter David will end up writing a book in the Avengers franchise.”
X-Factor stuck around, though I can see it going on a hiatus now while David recovers from his recent health issues. David did write an Avengers book this year…Avengers: Season One, a graphic novel available exclusively (at first) through Wal-Mart, of all places, but just offered to comic retailers last month.
“Hellblazer #300 will be the final numbered issue; after that the vertigo version of the character will be in miniseries. There may be a new #1 featuring the DCnu version of the character around the same time.”
SCARY ACCURATE.
“Mage III will be announced.”
Not that I heard…but I desperately wish I had.
“Scott McCloud will release a fourth XXXXXX comics book.”
Took me a second to parse that…ah, you mean like Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics. Sadly, no, but there’s only one book that can follow those first three: DESTROYING COMICS.
• • •
Gareth wished
“All of the TV shows based on comics characters will be cancelled after less than 13 episodes.”
Sadly, no.
• • •
Jerry Smith presented
DC will announce a return to pre-New 52 continuity, featuring the tag-line “The New Old 52.” The new/old line will rerelaunch in January 2013 with all new #1s. Most importantly, Batman and Superman will get their underwear back.
None of the above, unfortunately, but honestly, if they just gaves Supes his hotpants back, that’s all I’d really want.
“IDW, running out of licenses for TV shows, will announce a ‘San Pedro Beach Bums’ comic.”
Surprisingly, no.
“All comics from Marvel and DC will be 32 pages or fewer at $3.99 by December.”
Not for lack of Marvel’s trying, anyway.
“The Vision will be the new break-out character at Marvel, and the Creeper will be the new break-out character at DC. Sorry, that was just wishful thinking.”
Creeper may be a bit too out there to catch on, but I can see the Vision getting that whole “Lt. Data” thing down in a future Avengers film, and getting a following in the funnybooks after that. Alas, it was not his year this year.
“Bendis will publish one issue of Scarlet and one issue of Powers. If that.”
Last issue of Scarlet was #5 in March 2011, with #6 ordered in April 2011 and with the current shipping date of early next month. So, no issues of Scarlet in 2012.
And Powers had four issues in 2012. Hey, that’s basically a quarterly!
“There will be a month where Matt Fraction will write every book published by Marvel that month.”
I’d be down with that if it ever did happen…particularly if each book is written like his Twitter feed.
• • •
Casey whipped out
“DC will go back on the their new continuity in some fundamental way. Hawkman’s continuity will, ironically, be more consistent than any other characters’.”
Lots of folks wanting DC to go back to their previous state, it seems. I’d like that, too, in a way, as I think they could have had excellent comics not beholden to crippling amounts of insular continuity while not outright ignoring it to keep the lifer-fans happy. But, as I think I mentioned before, this initiative feels like DC Comics’ “last shot before being pieced out to licensing departments.” Going back to the way things were would probably be an admission of failure, and (cue dramatic music) The Final Days of DC Comics.
• • •
Rob H has a few predictions that I already see I’m going to have trouble responding to
“The digital exclusivity deals like Amazon/DC and Marvel/BN will end and both comics companies will release pretty much the same content on both devices”
I really don’t know much about that these deals, since I don’t deal with digital at all…a cursory scans shows that a number of the same books are available on both sites, regardless of publisher…Amazon has those volumes of Fables online, and Barnes & Noble does not, at least as far as I can see. Maybe if someone could explain what exactly is being made exclusive.
“Digital comics won’t break out this year, though.”
But they certainly remain a viable option.
“Marvel will release an insane number (like 500+) of digital GNs, while DC keeps their digital GN output relatively low.”
Don’t think so, maybe, but 500 digital graphic novels seems like would be something that someone would have noted. Unless they’re pumping up their library with older material, which is likely. I honestly don’t know.
“Superman Inc.”
I’d buy it, if it existed. Well, that Return of Superman story line with the multiple Supermen…that was pretty much “Superman Inc” in its own way.
“American Vampire, or some new Scott Snyder property, will be optioned and possibly film a pilot.”
Not that I’ve heard, but only a matter of time, I think.
“Walking Dead (the show) gets canceled”
Oh Lordy no. Quite the opposite. It’s the Show That Can’t Be Stopped right now. The showrunners sure don’t last long, though.
“Powers does not get picked up by FX”
According to that great authority on everything, Wikipedia, network heads are still claiming the show is not dead yet. But, still not picked up, so a hit for you, pal!
“Having dropped all Avengers writing, Bendis writes four ongoing X-men titles.”
Just one so far, I think. But it feels like four, what with a new issue coming out every five minutes.
“Having no female-starring titles, Marvel will instead have every team book led by a woman at least once. This means Black Widow will be Captain America for one issue.”
Don’t tell me I missed that.
• • •
Steve laments
“Much like the 2nd Suicide Squad TPB, Resurrection Man will have a 2nd TPB solicited but never actually come out. Thanks DC!”
That sort of thing is happening a lot lately…trades and hardcovers will just quietly slip off the radar and are never heard from again. I don’t recall any Resurrection Man trades, but that new edition of Impulse Volume One just got poopcanned, so those cancellations are still happening.
• • •
Michael G sez
“1. A number of long-time comics bloggers will ‘retire’ from daily or even regular posting as real life pressures and social media interference combine to reduce the significance of keeping a regular blog.”
Ahem.
“2. Fantagraphics will break into digital comics with some version of either Hate or Love & Rockets.”
Well, we’ve got Love and Rockets so far, but no Hate just yet.
“3. ok, I peeked at Jay V’s comment up at the top. Not only will Wonder Girl marry Power Girl, there will be a limited variant edition with them making out on the cover.”
It’ll happen if that’ll happen.
• • •
Dan Wars declared
“Superman gets his regular costume back, Aragones starts doing a new Groo book, Marvel finishes, or at least comes closer to finishing their mini series The Twelve.”
Nope. Almost. And Yup.
• • •
Stephen E. McDonald unleashes
“Superman: The Man Of Steel tanks in its opening weekend, with a domestic return of < $15 million."
Jumping the gun a bit, there! It should tank sometime this year.
“The Avengers opens well, but doesn’t break $100 million in its domestic opening. This throws doubt on future big-budget Marvel movies.”
Had to go check, and holy crow, $207 million opening weekend. Well, you were only off by $100 million.
“Marvel’s production arm starts making plans to do second-string properties at much lower budgets. Ant-Man finally gets a start date, Iron Fist is brought back to life without Ray Park, and someone finally makes a decision on who’s playing Luke Cage. On the TV side, The Hulk and Alias Jessica Jones both die quiet deaths. The Marvel block on Disney XD, however, does very well.”
Ant-Man got a release date, at any rate. There’s still talk about an Iron Fist movie, but a Luke Cage movie seems to be mostly theoretical (and mostly discussed in the context of “Quentin Tarantino wanted to make one”). Hulk and Alias didn’t happen, and the Disney XD seems to be doing okay, I guess, with more shows coming.
“The DC Universe block on Cartoon Network starts out well, but falls off fast.”
It disappeared for a while, if I understand correctly, but it seems to have returned to some fan acclaim. No idea how the actual ratings are.
“By the end of the year 26 of the New 52 will have been canceled following continued writer/artist changes.”
We did lose a few along the way, but not quite that many. There certainly are a lot of creative team jumblings going on, however.
“The Earth-2 Justice Society will finally debut early in the year.”
We did get Earth 2 this year, so I’ll count that as a hit!
“DC will quietly do some resetting of the Nu52 timeline because the five year thing is driving everyone nuts.”
They’re still sticking to the five year thing, more or less (even though it totally doesn’t work with Batman, at the very least). They could have gone, I don’t know…eight years. I could have lived with eight years.
“By the end of the year expect Hal Jordan to be the one true Earth Green Lantern.”
It’s like it’s impossible for this to happen for any length of time.
“Marvel will get the film rights to Fantastic Four back…and not be able to do anything with them.”
Not that I’m aware of. I think the current license holders are still trying to do another FF movie to keep the rights under wraps.
“Squirrel Girl’s profile will continue to rise during the year. By the end of the year she’ll have her own ongoing, a TV pilot, and a porn parody will be in production.”
She was around in New Avengers ’til the end of that run, I guess. Alas, no TV series…and if you think I’m going to Google “squirrel girl porn” to see if that’s happening, guess again. (I leave that to the comic industry’s lead comics-porn reporter, Chris Sims.)
“At MorrisonCon, Grant Morrison will out himself as a three foot tall and remarkably hirsute alien who’s been traveling around wearing a flesh suit for all these years. She will have no explanation as to why the voice translator has a Scottish accent.”
ALL DOCUMENTED, ALL TRUE.
“Marvel will start another Avengers book — featuring Agent Coulson.”
Apparently he’ll be in the new Secret Avengers series…only off by a few months! Nice call.
• • •
Good gravy, that’s enough for today. Come back next time and see how much of Mike’s hair is left.
…on Wednesday, instead of Thursday, like I said. Turned out I had a little more free time to write this post than I was expecting. …Well, this is more like Part 1 1/2 because I’m gonna do a short one today, covering just a few more of your 2012 predictions from last year. And remember, I’m still looking for your comic industry predictions for 2013!
Googum googumed
“I don’t think Marvel will cave and do a 52-style relaunch, nor do I think DC’s Vertigo relaunch will take off. (I’d like to be proved wrong on the latter.)”
As noted already yesterday, and as I’m sure some of you have noticed, Marvel did follow DC’s lead in restarting a bunch of their books, only 1) not doing them all at once, and 2) not being a complete reboot, as it was in some cases with the DC titles. …As for Vertigo, if anything, it’s kinda/sorta barely hanging in there, and with the loss of several of its ongoing titles, it’s now pretty much a Fables imprint. Well, okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but c’mon.
“A smaller publisher–IDW, perhaps–will decide to go big on digital, with huge discounts even on day-and-date. There will be a lot of hurt feelings and name-calling, but it’ll probably be successful. The majors will use digital as a try-out for new talent (the way they used to be given annuals or fill-ins) to generate cheap content.”
I don’t know if any indie print publishers went the cheaper-on-day-and-date route (though Stewart has a few things to say about digital discounts, particularly compared to international exchange rates, here)…but I know a lot of publishers are doing plenty of digital-first releases. A handful of DC’s titles are basically just reprints of previously-available digital comics. And just to show you how much I generally pay attention to that sort of thing, I hadn’t realized DC even had that many digital-only comics.
“Whether it’s done for penny-pinching reasons, or to find a scapegoat; Marvel will do some housecleaning this year. Some big names will be politely but firmly shown the door; but their replacements will all be conservative choices.”
Not yet, I don’t think. There certainly are a few names I don’t recognize on some of the bigger titles, but, like, Bendis and Hickman and Waid and Fraction as others are all still doing major work for Marvel.
• • •
Chris K had the following beautiful vision:
“In light of Marvel’s cost-cutting measures and their related unwillingness to keep a strong backlist in print, they will outsource their collected editions department. Due to their strong track record with classy archival editions and, more recently, with Disney properties, Fantagraphics gets the gig. Reality implodes.”
Oh, damn, imagine a Fantagraphics Complete Millie the Model series. Fully recolored. Nice glossy paper. …A tear comes to one’s eye.
• • •
Frowny frowned
“1) Multiversity will fail to appear, and at some point Grant Morrison will get sick of getting jerked around by corporate. (If I remember the pitch correctly, it’s been made impossible by the Crises having never happened anyway.)”
Multiversity still hasn’t popped up, no, but I suspect DC will still publish it anyway, regardless of it not matching up to current New 52 continuity. That would probably be a feature, not a bug.
“2) Alan Moore will say something (possibly sensible, possibly off the deep end, depending on whether or not someone asks about Watchmen) that pisses many people off. The usual suspects will go through the ‘Man, what happened to you, Alan Moore? You used to be cool.’ schtick. Alan Moore will continue to not care.”
I’m not even going to check; I’ll just give you a “hit” on that and move on.
“3) I will hate myself while buying the conclusion to his Supreme as drawn by (ack!) Erik Larsen.”
Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself! I’ve plugged Supreme on this site a couple of times…I think it’s a hoot!
• • •
Philip begat
“The ‘big two’ will start to cross the $4 barrier on regular monthly titles.”
Well, there’s a bit of a slow creep, so it’s happening…Batman jumped to $3.99, for example.
“8 of DC’s ‘New 52′ titles will be cancelled.”
Close! I think it was more like 10: Men of War Mister Terrific, O.M.A.C., Hawk and Dove, Blackhawks, Static Shock, Voodoo, Captain Atom, Resurrection Man, and Justice League International. And a few more were announced but still have an issue or two left, I think (Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. and Blue Beetle). I’m sure I’m forgetting some.
“Somebody will finally get to the bottom of digital comics sales and we will learn that they are just so-so. The novelty will wear off for most people and the numbers of regular/repeat digital comics buyers (for new comics) will be minimal.”
I haven’t seen much talk about actual numbers, but then I haven’t been following the digital comics news, as you might imagine. I am curious about the amount of overlap between print buyers and digital readers.
“Superman gets his old costume back.”
Hold on…we’ll clearly have to wait for the near-universal negative reaction to the shortsless costume in the new Man of Steel movie before this will happen.
• • •
Former Employee Aaron cruises for some bruises with
“1.Snapper Carr will be the main villain in the next big DC event comic book.”
I assume he’s the power behind the evil throne in any major DC event, snapping behind the scenes.
“2.Cable will come back in some big way. Maybe some secret Michael Turner cover will be revealed.”
Cable came back, but it remains to be see how big a way. Cable and the X-Force sales have not impressed yet so far.
“3.Hellboy will rock your socks!”
Hellboy has not rocked my socks, but he certainly jazzed my cravat.
“4.That Magnet you found at that gas station with the 2012
warning hurriedly scrawled with sharpie? Totally accurate! ;)”
I thought I’d posted a scan of that magnet here, but I guess not. So, I have pulled it off my fridge, where it’s been for the last three years or so, tossed it on the scanner, and here you go…DON’T LOOK DIRECTLY AT IT:
This represents exactly what happened at my house last December 21st, by the way.
• • •
Gordon beheld
“Rumors will begin to swell mid-summer of a DC crossover between the ‘new 52′ universe and the pre-reboot universe, claiming that when Flash ‘combined the timelines’, that spun off a completely separate earth.”
I don’t know if any such rumors spread, but I would have been surprised if any such crossover would have happened this quickly, while they’re still trying to get the New 52 thing off the ground. …I think unless the New 52 starts flopping horribly (and despite what folks might think, it hasn’t reached that point yet) I don’t think DC will start trying to call back alienated fans that desperately. And if they do, I think we can consider that the death knell of DC, given the “this is our last chance” vibe the whole New 52 initiative gives off.
“In addition, DC will focus on the next great franchise: Swamp Thing, choosing to focus on developing movies, toys, and other media. They claim, ‘We should have listened to Mike Sterling sooner – our bad’”
So many people have realized they should have listened to me before it was too late. So many.
• • •
Okay, that’s enough of that. More prediction commentary in the next day or so. Yes, I know you can’t believe how lucky you are.
So for those of you waiting to tune out my website when I started looking at everyone’s predictions from last year, now’s the time, because I’m about to spend a week doing just that. Also, don’t forget that I’m still looking for your 2013 predictions so that next year you all can stop reading my site for a week in January 2014.
Anyway, just hang in there, and it’ll all be over shortly:
Roger Green predicted
“Despite mediocre reviews, the Avengers movie will win its opening weekend box office. But it won’t have legs. I’ll be bored all summer reading about how the movie makers screwed up.”
It certainly won its opening weekend, but it did hang in there and keep on making money like a thing that makes a lot of money, so there you go. However, I didn’t see a whole lot of people going out of their way to criticize the film…I mean, they were out there, of course, but I didn’t get the impression that there were waves upon waves of people itching to tell everyone how terrible the Avengers movie was, unlike, say, Prometheus. (Probably because, after seeing how some fans reacted to someone’s extremely mild critique, nobody wanted to engage with those lunatics.)
I should note that after running my commentary on the film with its deliberately baiting title, I started seeing lots of search engine referrals in my site logs for people looking for “avengers sucked” or “why did captain america suck in the avengers” and that sort of thing, so clearly there’s some kind of stealth Avengers-hating movement out there.
• • •
ExistentialMan foresaw
“1. Marvel will not relaunch its entire line in 2012.”
Well, yeah, technically the whole line didn’t relaunch. But, you know, not for lack of trying. I’m pretty sure Daredevil is keeping its current numbering.
“2. Watchmen 2 will top the sales charts but have little staying power over the long-term beyond the initial trade sales.”
I think the very first issues were ordered in high numbers, but at least for us, they’ve settled down to solid mid-rangers. I am curious to see how trade (or, let’s face it, hardcover) sales will do, though I’m reasonably certain the answer is “not a patch on actual Watchmen sales.”
“3. Mike Sterling’s hair will get even better.”
The pompadour is coming along quite nicely, thank you.
“4. Comics in general (from all publishers) will continue to be awesome all year long.”
I’d certainly like to think so! There’s a lot of good stuff out there. I mean, we’ve got two ongoing Popeye comics! That’s more beauty than we deserve.
• • •
Jay V doth sayeth
“DC’s big event will be a 12 issue mini series called ’12 Funerals and a wedding’. Every issue will feature a different character suffering a grisly fate, and a previously deceased character will be brought back with a new costume. At the end, Wonder Woman and Power Girl get married.”
Marvel’s recent Death of Spider-Man (or…is it?) hijinks did inspire in me the following Tweeterings, which I suppose in retrospect may owe something to this prediction:
I actually like Jay V’s idea more, as it combines the whole death/return thing into one epic series. I suppose it’s only a matter of time.
• • •
Alex worries
“Paolo Rivera drops off of the ongoing Dardevil title; a new artist comes in, and my interest in the title plummets. Mark Waid still writes it solid, but it no longer remains Marvel’s flagship book.”
Rivera’s still on as cover artist, but we’ve had Chris Samnee most of, if not all, of 2012, and he’s not too shabby. Still a good-looking book. Don’t know if it ever really achieved “flagship” status, but it, like Hawkeye, are critically acclaimed, if not top-sellers.
• • •
Michael-Sensei sensed
“I predict that I won’t read any new comics in 2012 but I will still continue to be enthralled and amused by Progressive Ruin.”
I don’t know if he did read any new comics, but surely Progressive Ruin enthralled him, as it enthralls everyone, young and old!
• • •
William Gatevackes soothsays
1. Marvel will retake the market share and Diamond Top 10 from DC.
A quick glance at the last few months’ worth of data from Diamond shows things pretty much neck and neck, with Marvel and DC alternating at the top. There aren’t any year-end numbers yet, nor numbers for December, but I’ll try to make a note of them when Diamond finally releases them.
2. DC will cancel low performing titles and replace them with concepts that didn’t come in the first wave and but people were asking for (Captain Marvel, JSA) and some they might not have (Challengers of the Unknown, Adam Strange)
DC certainly did cancel some of their New 52 relaunches, and one of them replacements was Earth Two, essentially a Justice Society title.
3. Bob Harras will hire more creators from his tenure at Marvel. Most outlandish prediction? Peter David being hired at some point to write Supergirl. Expect J.M. DeMatteis to get work as well.
DeMatteis did work at DC for a while there recently, on Booster Gold around 2009/2010 or so. I don’t think either he or David did anything in 2012 at DC, though I could be wrong. Whether Harras hired anyone else from his Marvel days, I’m not sure…maybe Scott Lobdell?
4. The Dark Knight Rises will earn less money and be less well received critically than The Dark Knight. It will still do great business and be a great movie, but since it didn’t surpass The Dark Knight in grosses and praise, it will be deemed a failure and experience media and Internet backlash.
Domestically, Rises didn’t do well as its predecessor, but overall, including international receipts, it did surpass the second film in ticket sales. At least, according to Box Office Mojo, and they’ve never lied to me before.
And, according to Rotten Tomatoes, Dark Knight is sitting pretty at 94% Fresh, while Rises is at a slightly less pretty 87%. I don’t think anyone considered the third film an outright failure, but it did feel like people were a little more quick to mock elements of this film (like, oh, say, Bane’s voice) than anything from the second film.
5. That being said, Warners will want to lock in plans for the post-Nolan future of the franchise, and will announce a reboot while DKR is still in theaters. A name director such as Sam Raimi or Guy Ritchie will be given the task of rebooting the franchise.
Haven’t heard anything yet, but I would absolutely bet they’re cooking something up behind the scenes right now. We probably won’t hear about it ’til the current sales cycle on the Nolan trilogy is a little closer to being done.
6. It will be announced that the two Marvel films Disney has scheduled for 2014 will not be Guardians of the Galaxy and Inhumans as is rumored. There is a chance neither film will get a spot. The two spots most likely will be taken up by some combination of these three films: A sequel to the Avengers, a sequel to the Incredible Hulk, and/or another reboot of the Punisher franchise.
I hadn’t heard about Inhumans, but if it includes Lockjaw, I’m all for it. It does seem like Guardians is a go, though, so it seems unlikely anything’s going to bounce it at this point.
I suspect a new Hulk film is probably in the offing even though it’s probably best just to save him for another Avengers movie, though again, I haven’t heard anything. I also think we’re pretty much done with Punisher movies for the time being. Why there isn’t a Punisher series on AMC or something, I have no idea.
7. Warners will push another long in the works DC property in to active development. Either Flash, Captain Marvel or Swamp Thing.
Word is going around again that Guillermo Del Toro still wants to do something with DC’s creepy characters, including our pal Swamp Thing. And I thought they were toying with the idea of a Captain Marvel movie…I thought one of the reasons for the name change to “Shazam” was to improve marketing/licensing issues and avoid conflict with Marvel Comics. …I’m not sure I’d want to see a Captain Marvel movie where he isn’t called “Captain Marvel” anyway. Yeah, I’m a reactionary fanboy like that.
8. Every article written about digital comics will mention somewhere that the death of paper comics is imminent. But paper comics will survive the year. There will be more of a focus on digital-only content that is vital to continuity, however, to try and convince more readers to migrate there.
Paper comics: still here! I haven’t seen any attempt to force readers into the digital realm, though Marvel is still doing that “Augmented Reality” stuff and I have no idea who that’s doing.
9. The film world will have a quieter presence at SDCC this year, a sign of an inevitable shift of focus from Hollywood back to comics.
Going by my extremely vague and imprecise recollections, it did seem like there was less talk about the general media presence at Comic Con than before, though I don’t know if it was only slightly less, or if I just didn’t pay attention to SDCC news this year. I barely even noticed that it happened, frankly.
10. NYCC, however, will experience an upswing of movie companies peddling their wares, especially studios with big holiday releases.
Someone who was at that con will have to tell me what their perception was, I think. A quick Googling reveals plenty of comics content, and even the panels on TV shows that show up were those based on comics (aside from the Firefly thing). But my general impression is that there wasn’t too much out-of-place studio content there. …If you’re laughing out loud at that assumption, please correct me!
• • •
Steve adumbrated the following
“1) More than 90% of the comics released each week will be released the same day in digital and print.”
I don’t think we’re at the 90% mark yet, since a lot of the indies aren’t doing simultaneous digital releases, but the Big Two and a couple of the Not-So-Big larger indies are. So, I guess that day is coming.
“2) Marvel will not copy the New 52 in terms of either rebooting their continuity or relaunching their whole line.”
Well, Marvel kinda/sorta followed DC’s lead here, in restarting purt’near everything, but the old continuity, such as it is, is still in place.
“3) Marvel and/or DC will launch an ongoing book based in the continuity of one or more of their movies.”
There was a mini-series or two Marvel cranked out that took place in their movie continuity, but nothing really ongoing, as such. The first issue of Avengers Assemble, at least, did feature all the characters from the Avengers film, though still in the regular Marvel Universe, I think.
There are the usual comics based on the TV shows, however, like Smallville and Arrow and Ultimate Spider-Man and whatever that one is called based on the Avengers cartoon.
“4) A front-of-Previews publisher will experiment with digital prices lower than print. (I mean, aside from those cases where print is $3.50 and digital is $2.99 because iTunes only likes prices ending in 99 cents.)”
Doesn’t seem like it yet, from my brief research, but it could be I missed something. I know there are regular deep discount sales on digital comics from time to time, but that seems to be mostly older material, not the brand new releases. …Again, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
“5) A group of higher-profile Big Two writers and artists will publish creator-owned work through a new imprint at an existing publisher.”
It seems like a lot of high-profile talent is simply doing their own thing. If you meant, like, an Image-style exodus from the Big Two…not that I’ve seen, but it certainly feels like it could happen at any moment.
• • •
Birdman cawed
“A lot of the independent titles that have been making strong inroads into the market will be wooed by the Big 2.
D.C. will use those titles to launch another ‘Vertigo’ line to keep up the ‘New 52′ charade, but develop other titles not in continuity to keep fan base happy.”
I haven’t seen DC or Marvel going after specific indie titles, though it seems like they’re always keeping an eye out for any creators that may grab their interest. Also, I don’t think DC is in a position to launch another imprint, as Vertigo itself may be on the ropes. I do notice DC publishing several out-of-DCU-continuity books, licensed material or stuff like Lot 13, which simply have the DC logo on them and aren’t part of their own line.
• • •
Mike Nielsen prophesied:
“1) We still will not have a collection of the Miracleman stories that everybody wants.”
Nope, of course not. I haven’t heard any news on Marvel’s Marvelman front in, like, forever. Let’s get those hardcovers out, already.
“2) Showcase Presents Tomahawk will be announced.”
Not yet, those jerks.
“3) There will be a crackdown on internet piracy from Marvel and/or DC. And it won’t really change anything.”
Seeing as how scans of Amazing Spider-Man #700 were up on the filesharing sites a week ahead of its release (when stores got the issues shipped early due to the holidays, and were asked to hold them for the following week’s on-sale day), if there is a crackdown on Internet piracy going on, it’s not cracking hard enough.
• • •
Okay, come back…oh, probably Thursday for more of my enthralling responses. I’LL BE DONE SOON, I PROMISE.
So this week sometime I’m going to start going over your predictions for 2012 from last January, but first…let’s get your predictions for what’s coming for the comics industry in 2013! Please let me know what you see beyond the cloudy mists of time’s veil, or whatever, by dropping your predictions in the comments to this post.
As always, I have a rule or three I’d like people to stick to:
1. Don’t read the other predictions before entering your own.
2. Don’t criticize other people’s predictions.
3. Don’t predict any real person’s death.
We’ll see how y’all did next year, assuming I’ll still want to be talking about comics then and haven’t converted this site over to a deep sea fishing blog or something. Anyway, place your predictive bets and let’s see what happens.
image from Action Comics #276 (May 1961) by Jerry Siegel & Jim Mooney – reprinted in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 1
Okay, let’s just jump right and wrap it up…part the third of our look back at your 2011 predictions. Again, if I give an incorrect answer to any of these because there’s something I missed, please jump in and correct me in the comments.
- Hulk Finn (fantastic user name by the way…HULK FINN SMASH PUNY RAFT) predicts
Someone’s gonna die by the end of Fear Itself. I say Cyclops. He seems to be a prominent figure in the whole She bang.
A major character apparently did “die,” but not Cyclops. Look for that character to come back in the next big crossover event or, you know, whatever.
- Jeff R sez
Secret Six won’t last through more than half of 2011. However, we’ll get a new Suicide Squad monthly immediately after the cancellation.
Well…yeah, that pretty much did happen, didn’t it?
Hellblazer will get it’s final regular writer in 2011, starting a 15-20 issue arc that leads into the final issue, #300 in ’12. There will be a few more Constantine miniseries during the two years, moved out of the main book because there aren’t any numbers available for them.
We are getting some Constantine stories outside of Hellblazer right now, mostly because of New 52-type stuff. I hope DC doesn’t cancel the series with #300, but I can see the current creative team on the book through that issue, wrapping up current plots and other hoohar.
Miracleman will be republished, and, in the case of book 2, completely redrawn from Moore’s original scripts. Marvel and Gaiman will try to get Rick Veitch to do that art job, but probably won’t manage to talk him into it.
Alas, Miracleman still remains unreprinted. I can understand the impulse to want Chuck Austen’s (aka Beckum) art contributions redrawn to more closely fit the artwork throughout the rest of the series…but I kind of like Austen’s contribution.
Wednesday Comics II will start in the summer.
I’m sort of surprised we haven’t seen a new Wednesday Comics-type project yet, but I suppose DC was busy with the relaunch and couldn’t devote resources to this.
- MaxGRobinson believes
*Marvel’s going to bring back Doctor Strange in a big way. Whether it’s a new ongoing or a big role in something like Fear Itself I dunno.
Well, he’s back in The Defenders. Does that count?
*The last of DC’s Red Circle titles comes to an end. (unless that’s happened already?)
Yeah, that’s pretty much done.
New Aquaman on-going spins out of Brightest Day.
There is a new Aquaman series…I don’t know that it would count as having “spun off” from Brightest Day, but, you know, close enough.
New Power Man and Iron Fist mini sparks a new ongoing (wishful thinking on my part)
Not in 2011, but Marvel never seems to let go of the idea. Maybe someday!
- Andrew Leal notes that his local Toys ‘R’ Us was racking some comics, and predicted that some department stores like Target might do the same. …I haven’t noticed anything like that yet, but I don’t get to Target or similar stores too often. I haven’t even checked our local Toys ‘R’ Us to see if they have any comics, so I am underinformed about this particular topic. …Anyone been seeing comics for sale in odd (i.e. more mass market-y) places lately?
- Joe Schwind declares
50,000 year-old Religious Extremist/Free Expressionist Conflict doesn’t end.
Nope, totally ended. Did you miss it?
Collisions between aging comic book artists and economic reality continue.
Sadly, will likely always be true.
Comic fans acknowledge the environmental impact of books outsourced to China, publishers remain oblivious.
Publishers tend to remain oblivious to comic fans for the most part anyway…just out of self-preservation, because those fans are crazy.
- Ray says
The Tin-tin movie will not be a commercial hit. The Tin-tin movie videogame, however, will be great.
It didn’t do so hot in the States (about $68 million) but worldwide it did about $350 million, so I think nobody’s disappointed.
I had to check to see if there was a video game based on the movie, and sure enough there is…the reviews range from “middling” to, quoting from a quote at the link, “a frontrunner for Worst Game of 2011.” So, um, yeah.
- Mister Bile coughs up
Michael J. Strazinski is hired to “redefine” yet another main comics character. (Although the results won’t become clear until a year later, everyone agrees that the results “Aren’t all that bad, all things considered.”)
That’s “J. Michael Straczynski,” and…I don’t think he’s popped up in comics too much aside from that Superman Earth Onethis project is still in development at DC.
The Speed Force is revealed to be the true mastermind behind an industry-wide crossover event.
Well…the Flash was central to the Flashpoint series, which led into the New 52 relaunch, which shook up the comics industry…I suppose that’s close enough for horseshoes.
A lot of ex-Vertigo people end up at Marvel’s Icon line, looking dazed and confused.
Nah, they just normally look like that. Icon has pretty much remained “dudes already at Marvel,” however.
Hawkman is rebooted.
Yeah, they tried it again.
The next Spider-Man game will disappoint.
Superhero video games always disappoint somebody. I think Edge of Time was the most recent, and it got average reviews, it seems.
- MichaelFromJamaicaNY says, mon
I predict this Halloween will be extra freaky deaky, what with all the Thor family, and the grown women dressed as the 14 year old from True Grit, and the latex clad Trons, and the Black Swans, and the Tron Swans.
Freaky. Deaky.
I didn’t get out this Halloween, sadly, so I have no idea how nutty the costumes got this year. Though I would have paid One American Dollar to see a Tron Swan costume.
- Steven E. McDonald has some silly predictions, but then made a few I wanted to comment upon
Marvel finally caves in to the falling sales and ongoing hate and retcons the Spider-Marriage retcon
I really think that we’re stuck with the “no married Spidey” thing as long as Joe Quesada has a say in the matter. As soon as Disney gives the current editorial staff, um, “large severance packages,” we may see some movement toward restoring the wedded status quo. In a big event, of course. With lots of tie-ins. Reprinted in multiple hardcovers.
Swamp Thing will make his long-awaited return to the DCU. Shortly thereafter, whatever book he arrived in will be canceled.
Well, technically speaking, Brightest Day ended, it wasn’t cancelled!
We’ll see more original graphic novels, often set up like European albums. While DC will lead this trend in the Big Two, smaller publishers will expand upon the offerings they already have, with the result that Top Shelf will improve market share very nicely.
DC hasn’t followed up on their success with Earth One with any similar projects, though Marvel is. Various companies did put out original GNs, but it didn’t feel like it was that much of an increase over previous years.
- Darius Smith dares
All periodical comic books will cease publishing in 2011!
Totally happened. I SEEN IT
- londonKdS says
Prediction I’ve been privately making for several years now: there will be a major controversy over some female Marvel/DC creator being caught doing erotic fanfic/fanart as a private commission or under a secret fan identity. Sexist fanboys will leap on this as what they wrongly think is a demonstration of the hypocrisy of feminist fangirls who attack oversexualisation in official canon, while the publisher involved will initially take harsh action against the person until people critique their hypocrisy given the tolerance of well-known male creators quietly doing erotic commissioned art of corporate-owned characters.
Didn’t happen, as far as I know, but I’ll just reprint what I said the last time I discussed this prediction:
I’m not sure what to say about that, except “erotic” commissions from superhero comic book artists are never not hilarious. But I can probably see the potential of a controversy of this sort breaking out, though ideally a publisher, if it takes a stand on this issue, should be even-handed about its policy regardless of the gender of the artist in question. (If a controversy does occur re: erotic commissioned art, it’ll be panicked dudes who are okay with drawings of Wonder Woman and Black Canary making out, but will freak if it’s Aquaman and the Flash making out.) (I am totally not Googling any of this, by the way.)
- John Parker predicts
Johnny Storm will die and sometime in the future will become either the original Human Torch or Dormammu due to some time warping bedevilment.
Well, he died, sort of, but just plain came back as Johnny Storm. Ah well.
If Johnny Storm has a girlfriend or is married (sorry,I don’t follow the book) then there’s a baby on the way !
For some reason, I’m picturing Frankie Raye as Galactus’s herald Nova, flying around all preggers. (I don’t think there’s a flaming bun in the oven at this point…one melodramatic plotline at a time for this poor fella!)
Mike will post Swamp Thing pages in Portuguese.
Didn’t happen, but not for lack of wanting.
Doctor Who will be great, stetson or no, and everyone will say Gaiman’s episode is the best of the series even if it isn’t.
I posted on Twitter about the time that episode aired to the effect of how it must have been able to heal the sick and restore sight to the blind, the way people were talking it up. …It was a good episode, though.
- Bill says
After a falling out between Alan Moore and Top Shelf, Moore will announce that all his future comics projects will appear with Archie Comics.
“Hot Dog…you can talk?” “Oh yes, Forsythe, I can talk…and I can do so much more. LET ME SHOW YOU” “Oh GOD AAAKLGSJKLD”
Sad to say, this didn’t happen.
Another issue of All Star Batman and Robin will appear. Batman punches God.
Also didn’t happen. Pretty much the only place it can go at this point.
A new creator will take over Wonder Woman with great fanfare, and take the character in a new direction that will last for five issues, then be forgotten and never referred to again.
A new creative team did take over Wonder Woman and, despite my misgivings about it, people do seem to really like it. …I think we’re good for at least six issues, though.
A J. H. Williams drawn issue of Batwoman will appear late.
Not so far! Though he did get a bit of a head start.
- Jerry Smith forges ahead with
DC will actually hold to a mostly $2.99 price point, as they have vowed to do.
Yeah, pretty much. They just announced a couple more titles going to the $3.99 price point, but so far, so good.
Marvel will not.
Marvel does have quite a bit more $3.99 titles, but sometimes they surprise me with a comic that seems like it’d have $3.99 written all over it, but it’s still $2.99.
The Green Lantern movie will be a huge hit.
Well, a “crash” is kind of a hit.
Thor will not (but it will make its money back).
500 million on a $150 million budget…it’s not Titanic money, but, you know, I’d take it.
Marvel will just go for it and announce that all of their characters, supporting characters and the Pet Avengers are gay.
Not all. Just Ego the Living Planet. …And I’m not even quite sure how that works, exactly.
The Legion of Super-Heroes will be cancelled and relaunched with a new #1.
A safe bet in any year, though it certainly happened this year in a big way.
A new comics reading app will be created that will become the perfect way to read comics on a mobile device. It will soon fail and whatever Microsoft hacks out will replace it.
Haven’t heard anything about it, but as we’ve found out recently, I’m not the go-to guy about this sort of thing. My reading app is “my hands and eyes,” and my mobile device is “my feet.” (Typing that officially makes me The Oldest Person Ever.)
- Ragnell says
Steve Rogers back as Captain America, Bucky Barnes back in Winter Soldier gear before the movie comes out. That’s really the only thing I’m sure will happen.
Like I said in a previous entry, I’m pretty sure Cap was back in his action suit by the time the movie rolled around…or close enough, anyway. And Bucky will be back as Winter Soldier in a new series Any Day Now.
Well, that and there will be another incredibly sexist statement by an industry professional that will get a backlash.
And DC will do another stupid thing that minimizes their female and/or minority characters, and Sattler will be trotted out to say something stupid as a defense again.
Probably the same answer for these two, most recently involving the portrayal of female characters in some of the New 52 titles. I don’t know what Sattler had to say, but there was certainly some back and forth between the creative teams of said books and the fans.
- Oh, hey, Hulk Finn is back with
Racists will be in even more of an uproar when they learn that “Random Background Norse # 7″ will be played by an Asian.
Wow, I’d totally forgotten people were bent out of shape about Heimdall being played by a Black man in the Thor movie. Given that Heimdall was one of the better things about that film, seems even sillier in retrospect. …Wouldn’t surprise me if those folks did get upset about other aspects of the film. They usually can find things to complain about.
Okay, for better or worse, finally done. Thanks for putting up with this, folks, and let’s move on to new, non-prediction, stuff tomorrow. And I’m still taking predictions for 2012, but I’m going to hold off on commenting ’til next year. Just, you know, to avoid villagers with rakes and torches waiting outside my castle.
So I received a call very early Thursday morning telling me the store alarm is going off, and the police are there waiting for me to show up…and when I finally arrive, I see that our glass front door had been smashed. Some of you may remember that this has happened before…but unlike that instance, which just apparently vandalism, this was definitely burglary. All they got away with was a five-year-old laptop computer that didn’t have any vital information on it, but still…it’s a drag.
Thus we had a morning of sweeping up glass and calling around for replacement glass…and unlike last time, we should have the new glass within a day, instead of waiting for it forever.
This is my long-way-’round of explaining why my 2011 predictions post for today will be slightly truncated. I know, I know, I could probably let it slide a day and you’d all understand, but I need to distract myself, and hey, I got a blog, might as well use it.
Speaking of which: now, I know everyone just assumes I am the all-knowing master of all things comic book-related; flawless and magnificent. Alas, I am only a mere human, just like you…well, maybe a little better than you. However, I can make mistakes and forget things and just plain miss things outright, and my post yesterday was no exception. For example, I either hadn’t known or simply forgot that, unlike what I said yesterday, there were some digital-only releases as indicated by Randal and Dr. Polite Scott in the comments.
I have repeatedly admitted that I am not up on digital distribution stuff, beyond 1) it exists, and 2) Marvel and DC are directly marketing it in comics they’re sending to comic book stores, so I really don’t know a lot about preferred formats and such, so I appreciate it that Bruce and Kevin have attempted to clue me in a bit on all this.
Once again, taking the long-way-’round: if there are any more predictions that I don’t know enough about to comment upon, I may very well call upon one of you folks to chime in and help me out. I know the thing right now is to deride and eschew comments sections (ahem), but by and large, the readers who engage with me here in my comments sections have usually been helpful and funny and interesting. Yes, yes, in every pile of Star Wars figures there’s the occasional Ric Olie, but for the most part, I think my comment sections add to the experience rather than detract. Well, aside from the occasional death threat or crazy person. Or maybe because of.
Hmm. Almost left myself some time to actually go back over those predictions. Lemme get going on those. But first…don’t forget, I’m still taking your predictions for 2012!
- Bret writes
All government will be replaced by Thunderdome.
I suspect some of us would have preferred this.
Superman will decide to walk around the world after walking across America. He will spend the majority of his time mocking the less fortunate and spitting in their faces.
With that collar and armor he kinda looks like he’d be the kind of super “hero” who’d do this. But nah. Not yet.
There will be a public apology for the commercial failure of Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Whether it will be the public writing a letter to Edgar Wright, or Edgar Wright and Micheal Cera releasing one of those hostage videos at gunpoint apologizing to Universal for under-performing is unclear at this time.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I actually liked the Scott Pilgrim movie, even though the comic doesn’t really do anything for me. And I was a bit surprised that it failed that badly, given that you’d think a movie featuring Michael Cera repeatedly getting hit would be more popular. There were some comments from the head of Universal that were…okay, not an apology, but at least an acknowledgement that the film should have done better.
Also, the new Dr. Who will be good.
I thought it was pretty good. Your Who Mileage Will Vary, of course.
But really, most people will only notice the Thunderdome thing.
Can’t people just get beyond Thunderdome?
- Al Ewing is perhaps less than serious when he writes
Quick predictions – Steel is NOT going to die, but John Stewart is. There’ll be a funeral issue where the other Green Lanterns agree that he was the most soldierly, like a true soldier, and his past as an architect – wimp of the professions – will be erased once and for all. Probably he’ll be back as a Red Lantern within the year, blowing away some dudes with a sniper rifle.
I’m surprised this didn’t happen. Give it another year.
Some comics will be sold for $4.99, but only if they have really amazing pinups at the back.
We did get some $4.99 annuals, regardless of pin-ups. Did the Hellblazer annual have pin-ups? Man, I’d rather have another page or two of comics than more pin-ups.
Vertigo will die off. Archie Comics will do a series where Archie goes to Heaven and also Hell, in a format similar to the Betty/Veronica marriage. Reggie will be revealed as a Satan.
Vertigo’s still hanging in there, and while Archie didn’t do this story, I can’t think of any reason in the world why they shouldn’t.
A Drunken Bakers movie will be announced, directed by Lars Von Trier and starring Ken Stott and Paddy Considine.
I wasn’t familiar with the Drunken Bakers…until I looked it up and now I want this movie.
They’ll reprint all Hugga Bunch comics in a big absolute edition hardback costing $299.99 including free hug.
If someone gave me three c-notes for a Hugga Bunch collection, I’d definitely hug them.
- Demoncat had a lot to say, so let me break it up a bit
Marvel will have Mickey and co visit their universe.
Not yet…but I expect some kind of crossover at some point. I mean, don’t you?
Marvel will give the x-men a break with cross overs. right after they have jean grey come back from the dead as dark phoenix one more time and wreck havoc.
No break for the X-men yet. And Phoenix is still dead…but not for long, I’m sure. I mean, that’s pretty much her deal, yeah?
marvel will finaly bring scarlet witch back in the avengers fold sane.
Leading back towards that, probably, if I’m understanding that Wikipedia entry about her involvement in Avengers: Children’s Crusade properly, but perhaps someone more versed in this material can let us know.
dc not only will kick marvels butt sales wise digitaly but will have Oracle back walking around . the death of barbara a fake out to restore her walking.
I’m not sure how the two are connected, but…as I understand it, the publishers are still being cagey about exact numbers, unless something got out there that I didn’t see, so any butt-kicking is as yet unresolved. …Barbara Gordon is up and walking again, thanks more to New 52 Reboot than any faked-death plot. (Though we haven’t seen the explanation of her cure yet.)
dc will also have swamp thing return in his own title and Mattel will give him his own dc classic wave. wave 25
Yes on the new title, no on the wave of figures…but we got a new deluxe figure that as far as I was concerned was its own wave.
- Decker decks us with
Joaquin Phoenix will be hired to write a high-profile book, while ten genre-breaking, critically-acclaimed books will be canceled.
I get the point here, but I don’t think any Big Name Celebrity Comic came out and received an inordinate amount of attention to the detriment of better books. It sort of feels like that time has kind of passed for now.
Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern media blitz will receive a second wind in time for dvd sales when John Boehner is caught in a Sassy Larfleeze costume during a fundraiser.
Please tell me this didn’t happen and I missed it.
Somebody will create something moving that sends me back to the comic shop looking for another fix.
Well, only you can tell me if this happened, Decker. Let us know!
- I can’t help but sense a bit of irritation from Subzero when he predicts
Marvel will continue f – word – ing up Spider – Man by telling the story that was SUPPOSED to be told in BRAND NEW DAY. And, yes, this will make things even more confusing and contradict all stories before it. Deal with it. Additionally Marvel will go from one big mega – crossover to two every year. And the price for singel issues will go up to 4.99 now including 20 extra pages from the New York City phonebook – collect them all.
None of that happened…though in the case of the $4.99 Marvel book, I will add “yet.”
DC will kill of another big character then bring him back – before the end of the storyarc – only to kill him a second time. Now for real…yeah, right. At least they don´t f – word up the GREEN LANTERN movie. At least the original Batsymbol will stay awhile.
I think Flashpoint sort of pushed back any big “DEATH OF [DC HERO NAME HERE] stories for now. As for the Green Lantern movie…er, sorry, friend. And I’m pretty sure the Batsymbol won’t be going anywhere for the foreseeable future!
Savage Dragon will still be one of the best superhero comics and still be ignored by most comic readers. Who will keep buying the big two megacrossovers instead – while bitching about it. Same thing with Invincible and other good independent books.
…Pretty much a “hit” here. Savage Dragon is kind of an overlooked gem now, isn’t it? Erik Larson just keeps doin’ his thing, and it just keeps getting weirder and more amazing.
All the people who claimed none of the CrossGen books were any good after the company went bankrupt will be bitching that they aren´t as good now that Marvel does them. They will still buy them.
In my experience here at the shop, folks seemed to like the new CrossGen just fine. I didn’t pay attention to how the general worldwide reaction was.
- Bully the Little Stuffed Psychic Bull predicts
A comic book starring a water-skiing, flame-thrower wielding cat will becomes a surprise cult hit.
This only happened in a world I’m not fortunate enough to live in.
At least one comic book will be published on lunch meat. At least one.
“I thought I had a comic here to read while I enjoyed my honey ham sandwich, and now I can’t find it!” …COMIC MEAT TRAGEDY.
One major DC or Marvel superhero character will be changed into a woman. Not replaced by a female version. Changed into a woman.
…Not in any comic I read. Did this happen anywhere that I know about? I mean, aside from the more “adult-interest” titles?
The Captain America or Thor movie will provide an easter egg which suggests a Marvel heroic character not even hinted at previously in movies or casting news will be in “The Avengers.” And that character will be Rocket Raccoon.
There was an Easter egg in Captain America with the original robotic Human Torch…could it be…? …Nah.
- Mikey Wayne relates
In the next big cosmic event for DC, the Spectre will be taken down first.
I don’t think the Spectre was in Flashpoint, but then I only read the issue that had Swamp Thing in it. Spectre’s been pretty much a no-show for a while…maybe he’ll pop up in that new Earth 2 book.
- Michael Grabowski grabs at
I predict that Marvel will publish an entire Spider-Man comic story in a digital format only. No print version of that story will be announced or made available, at least not in 2011.
Given my track record regarding my knowledge about digital comics, I hesitate to answer…but I’m pretty sure I would have at least heard of this had it happened. And if it hasn’t happened yet…I’m sure it will soon.
- Adam Horovitz calls upon all his mystical energy to foretell
Personally, I’m holding out for the return of ‘Mazing Man in a new Seinfeld/Swamp Thing crossover comic…
It wasn’t in a Seinfeld/Swamp Thing crossover, but sure enough…frighteningly enough…’Mazing Man came back. That’s enough for me to point at Adam and call out in terrified tones “Sorcerer! Sorcerer!”
And that’s about that for now. I’ll wrap this up on Sunday, hopefully. Yeah, I know, it’s a three-parter. Sorry, gang!
Okay, I didn’t see any easy way through this except by just going through all the predictions, so…well, that’s what I’m a’gonna do. Let’s see if I can get through last year’s predictions in just a couple of posts so I don’t drive everyone crazy.
And I’m still taking predictions for 2012…make your pal Mike work for his blogging dollar next January!
Let’s start with my predictions, because it’s my site, so there:
I think DC will hold the $2.99 price through the year, because not doing so would certainly look bad for them, wouldn’t it?
Well, yeah, they did, but this was probably a “gimme” given the promotional push they gave to the whole “holding the line at $2.99″ thing. A couple of books went to the $3.99 price point following the New 52 relaunch, but by and large, most of DC’s books are still at the lower price. And this year a couple more titles are going to the $3.99 format, but still, DC’s holding on to that $2.99 cover price across the majority of the line.
Sales will continue to suffer on redundant books (i.e. the thirteen or so Thor mini-series, for example) but no one will learn any lessons from this.
This was more me griping than really making a prediction, though I will say DC’s multiple Batman and Green Lantern titles seem to be doing okay. For now.
Someone will put out a complete edition of William Overgard’s Rudy. (Hey, let a boy dream.)
DENIED.
A new Swamp Thing series will be announced by the end of the year, firmly planted (heh) in the DC Universe. And it will turn out to be awesome.
Well, well, well…whaddaya know. I’m not sure I’m going to throw the word “awesome” at it quite yet, but we’ll see once we start getting some actually Big Green Swamp Machine action goin’ on in there.
The rerelease of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Flex Mentallo in a new collected edition will be met with confusion and fear from the usual suspects.
Um, well, this would require the book having come out. …Maybe this year!
And I think Wizard will end its print edition and move solely online…if it continues to exist at all.
Ayup. …Actually, I have no idea if the online version is still happening.
And now, on to what you guys had to say:
- Mike says:
not a prediction- but I would love a year where a powerful character or entity isn’t easily bamboozled and ‘taken over’– skrulls, black lanterns, chaos and other things become tiresome!
where’s me plots based on sexy mayors!?
Pretty sure we didn’t get a year without a character getting “taken over,” as that’s Standard Superhero Plot #17. Can’t think of any specific examples, but considering I just read a new comic this very week with that plot device, I’m pretty sure it must have happened at some point last year.
And we’ll probably have to wait on the Dark Knight Rises film before we get any “sexy mayor” plots with Nestor Carbonell as Gotham’s Mayor Garcia.
- The Sniffer – whom I think I somehow annoyed and drove away from the site…er, sorry! – predicted
Joe Quesada will end his reign as Editor in Chief at Marvel. He will be given another job within the Disney Company, higher up. He will be replaced by a Disney insider, not currently someone working for Marvel.
Half a hit, with Quesada definitely being replaced as Editor-in-Chief, but by another Marvel dude.
- Kurt says
Marvel and DC will be forced to merge, due to low sales, creating a new company called Marcy. The best-selling book will be their team up book, Brave & The Two-in-One.
Oh, you. …Actually, I wonder if there will ever be a circumstance where the two companies would merge? Maybe if Warner Bros. sells DC to Disney, and Disney shooshes ‘em all together into a big ol’ comics goulash. “WALT DISNEY AND STAN LEE PRESENT BATMAN AND THE JUSTICE AVENGERS IN ‘IF THIS BE THE KRYPTONIAN ETERNALS!’”
- Fellow Swamp Thing fan Rich suggested
Swamp Thing will return, but in the mainstream universe. His story will become far less cerebral as he regularly interacts with folks in Spandex.
A HIT, A VERY PALPABLE HIT. That Search for Swamp Thing mini certainly wasn’t very cerebral…in fact, it was pretty dumb…but the current series isn’t that bad, I think. Swampy was also certainly interacting with the superhero crowd in all that Brightest Day brouhaha and that Search mini…and there were a handful of cameos in the first New 52 issue, with Alec Holland talking directly to terribly-costumed Superman.
- TomO says
DC will lose patience waiting for everyone to flock to their titles now that they are all $2.99, and we’ll see a line-wide increase to $3.99 announced by October 2011.
A miss, thankfully, primarily because of the success of New 52 relaunch which I don’t think any of us really expected. (The relaunch, not the success, though I suppose it applies to both.)
There will be a lot of flailing about with the industry finding a digital platform and model embraced by the readership at large. Nothing major happens in 2011, as I still think we have another year before an iTunes model pops up that dominates industry wide.
I’m still not 100% “up” on the digital thing, as I have my hands full selling physical products, though I think DC and Marvel directly marketing comics with digital download codes through comic shops counts as pretty major.
Pogs come back in a big way!
Oh thank God this didn’t happen.
- Steve predicted
At least one independent publisher will go completely day-and-date with digital releases.
Dark Horse did, I believe, and I’m pretty sure Archie had already.
Marvel and DC won’t go fully day-and-date, but one of them will try it with an *ongoing* series (priced the same as the print version).
A hit, I think, with the previously-mentioned comics with prepacked download codes.
The Thor and Captain America movies will make a ton of money, but not quite as much as was hoped for, leading some to question whether the superhero movie is dead and whether Marvel’s strategy in that arena is sound, even though they make a ton of money.
Well, according to Box Office Mojo, Captain America made about $370,000,000 ($140,000,000 budget) and Thor took in $450,000,000 ($150,000,000 budget), so they turned a profit, I suppose, depending on what other promotional expenses and whatnot is involved there. So while some folks in comics fandom will continue to predict the superhero film genre is kaput, I think it’s still got some life in it.
Fear Itself will make a relative ton of money, but not quite as much as hoped for, leading some to question whether the event comic is dead and whether Marvel’s strategy in that arena is sound, even though it makes a relative ton of money.
I will note that the sales on the most recent Fear Itself series Fearless ain’t a patch on its parent series. I think the strategy of keeping certain events going on way past the initial rush of interest and excitement is the lesson to be learned here.
DC will launch another new ongoing Superman book.
Technically, I guess they did, even if they were just relaunches of previously existing titles. But I expect we’ll have to wait for the whole New 52 thing to shake out before any new ongoing Superman titles pop up. (Frankly, though, I hope they don’t…two is plenty.)
Dynamite and BOOM! move to the “front” of the Previews catalog.
Not yet! But they’re at the beginning of the alphabet, so they’re not too far away!
- aj had a numbered list, like so
1) Grant Morrison will be revealed for the acid tripping megalomaniac he truly is.
I know some people weren’t happy with some comments he make in his Supergods book, but I don’t know that was the result of megalomania.
2) corollary to the above, Morrison books will drop in value and regard when he flashes crowds at ComiCon panels, convinced that like Batman, he needs “world-wide exposure”
Don’t think any of that happened, but I’m reasonably certain that would have driven up sales on Morrison books!
3) Xmen comics will become a convoluted, confusing, self referencing mess that…well. um. nix that that one. thanks.
I think I’ll be nice and refrain from commenting on that one!
4) Although the ramp up to digital has begun, most companies still won’t be able to see past the iPad, and the expense of that device will prevent any meaningful adoption of digital/mobile comics distribution. In a misguided conception that the willingness to pay iPad prices extends to everything else, publishers will assume they can set any price they want. (relates only to digital distribution)
Gah, I really don’t know enough about this stuff, as my eyes just kind of glaze over whenever people start talking about “digital platforms” and such and hey, those little furry things running around my feet don’t have anything to do with me so I’ll just ignore them, said the dinosaur. I do know that nobody ever seems to like the price points of any digital releases from the big companies, so I suppose that last part of the prediction seems to ring true.
5) Price wars between publishers will calm down, settle at 2.99 and 3.99, and everyone will still complain about it. (justly so)
Prices still at about those levels! And nobody likes that $3.99 price point (unless it’s for a thicker comic…which most of the time it isn’t).
6) JLA will be cancelled, lacking editorial directives that can make a cohesive book.
Again, technically true. I’ll let you decide if the current Justice League book is cohesive or not.
7) BOOM Studios will have their reach exceed their grasp, licensing things that they can’t really support in the market. (this will be disappointing to me)
They seem to be doing okay so far. Hellraiser, Planet of the Apes, Elric all have modest but loyal followings, and Peanuts seems to be off to an okay start. Nothing earth-shaking or blockbusting, but they sell.
8) Walking Dead will have season two, and rabid fans will boycott it.
I haven’t heard any boycotts yet, but just from what I’ve gleaned from online reaction, people are reacting less well to the second season than the first one. Heck, people started disliking the series with episode two, as anything was bound to suffer in comparison to the premiere.
9) Robert Kirkman finally goes bat-sh#$ loco, buys out all the other Image partners, renames it Kirkman’s Image Comics, and ban any creator from working on any book anyone else has ever done before.
As amusing as this would have been, alas, it did not happen.
10) http://www.themeangeek.com will gain precisely 1 listener, raising comics awareness to three whole people.
I hope I helped at least at little in you achieving this goal!
- Thwacko noted
1)At least one major publisher (though not necessarilly one of the “big two”) will start digital only releases on some (or maybe all) titles.
2)One of the second or third tier publishers will go out of business or be bought out by a bigger publisher.
3)The return of licensed character titles to the big two.
Haven’t heard of any digital only releases, aside from maybe some back catalog material on previously-released print items. Maybe I missed something? And there are so many comic publishers I’m sure someone went out of business, though I haven’t heard of any acquisitions. But then, I wasn’t keeping track. …Some follow-up on your predictions this is turned out to be, huh?
As far as licensed properties go at Marvel and DC…when I discussed this last time, I mentioned all the Stephen King and Anita Blake and such that Marvel had, but I forgot about DC’s various video-game tie-in comics. I suppose those count. But DC pretty much gave up on The Spirit and Doc Savage, I guess.
- Thelonius Nick had this to say:
1) DC’s new pricing policy (and Marvel’s unwillingness to really match it) will put it within spitting distance of #1 company by volume.
Pretty sure they passed Marvel briefly, didn’t they? At any rate, they’re neck ‘n’ neck last time I checked.
2) Marvel’s Fear Itself event will generate interest at first but fizzle out when it doesn’t offer anything new and all tie-ins are $3.99 or $4.99.
The main Fear Itself series did okay, but the multiple minis were a bit too much, and didn’t do nearly as well. A lot of the tie-ins were $2.99, though, which was nice.
3) The Cap and Green Lantern movies will do well at the box office without translating into any significant sales bump for their respective comic franchises. Thor’s Asgardian setting won’t translate well to the big screen and will be critically shunned and poorly attended.
Swap “Green Lantern” for “Thor” and that’s pretty much what happened. Green Lantern‘s sales have remained strong, though not due to any movie bump. I didn’t notice any movie bump on any of these titles, actually.
4) Marvel will continue to dick around with Dr. Strange in the pages of the Avengers and fail for yet another year to give him his own ongoing title. Pissed off Strangefans will hex Marvel by the powers of the Vishanti and the company will end the year in flames, literally.
I don’t know if you would call Defenders his own ongoing title, but hey, it’s monthly and he’s in it. Fans are having some words about it, however.
- Buzz says
Sudden & dramatic collapse of brick & mortar stores, both mainstream & speciality shops (such as comic book shops). Existing stores that survive will do so by either offering services to readers (such as B&N allowing one to browse through any e-book they offer while in their store, thus encouraging people to buy a Nook & regularly visit the B&N coffee shop; or in the case of comic book/pop culture stores to offer gaming, etc.).
Stores are still hanging on so far, thankfully! Our store has offering gaming stuff for years, so a little diversification never hurt anyone. …Let’s see how things go this year, though. This is definitely an economic climate that is not friendly to small business.
- Ian @TRO says
More Omnibi.
Yeah, there were plenty of these. Even with the economy the way it is, we’re still getting plenty of high-end reprint projects from both Marvel and DC. Of course, no one’s buying these monsters at the suggested retail price (anywhere from $75 to $125), but still, these are some pricy items for this marketplace.
More Vertigo characters in DCU.
Thanks to the New 52 and Brightest Day, we’ve got…Shade the Changing Man, John Constantine, and that big green plant fella. At least.
Hopefully more than one Milestone character gets an ongoing (IE, in addition to Xombi mini)
Again, thanks to the New 52…just Static so far.
Marvel will have some events.
There was also some unrest in the Middle East, I understand.
- De delights in saying
I have a sneaky suspicion that Dark Horse, of all companies, will revolutionize the digital comics arena. The comiXology model will remain the same for DC, Marvel, Image, and the rest for now.
Dark Horse certainly stirred up some hoohar with their digital announcements, at any rate.
The summer superhero movies will perform well enough but not fantastically, causing studios to mine more past properties in hopes of making a quick buck (get ready for the Strawberry Shortcake movie in 2012!).
Most superhero movies did reasonably well, but studios mining past properties is probably just business as usual rather than a reaction to how the films did. More of a “what did well before? What else can we do that’s just like that?” situation.
Marvel and DC will stop producing direct-to-video films as the public grows tired of the superhero genre.
Not quite yet…I suspect that the superhero genre will play out eventually, but so long as there are still superhero films coming out that are relatively well done and entertaining, the occasional clunker of a film is just seen as “a clunker of a film” and not a death-knell for an entire genre.
The recently announced Carl Barks collections by Fantagraphics will receive public attention on the Today Show via Al Roker and become selections in Oprah’s Book Club. The widespread exposure of clever humor and commentary by 50-year old Donald Duck comics create a nationwide movement of crazy alternative-energy initiatives and treasure hunting.
In a good and just world, this is what would have happened.
- Googum contributes:
Honestly? I reckon 2011 is just going to trundle along, without any monumental success (a new direct market comic breaks a million in sales or downloads first week) or colossal failures (DM collapses, Marvel or DC cancel 75% of their line) and be mostly more of the same. The water isn’t quite hot enough to boil that frog, but he hasn’t hopped out, either.
In a way, DC did cancel about 75% of its line…and then replaced them with even more titles! The New 52 relaunch was probably the most notable success of the year, and one that I sure didn’t see coming.
Marvel will have a mild uptick in trade sales for Thor and Captain America; but they’d have to, after flooding the market. Green Lantern may have a harder climb for that: imagine a mythical ‘new reader’ bounding out of the GL movie and into, say, Blackest Night. No.
Marvel might have had some increase in trade sales, like you said. I did see an upswing in GL sales, mostly in Sinestro War and, yes, Blackest Night trades. And in reprints of the current (well, then-current) GL series.
And even though it’s become obvious Comic-Con applause doesn’t translate directly into box office numbers, no one changes their behavior in the slightest. Well, you don’t have to be Karnak for that one…
Weren’t there stories about some movie and TV companies slightly scaling back their Comic Con participation? I seem to recall that. But I bet you’re right, and people will still presume success based on fan reaction at events such as these.
- That Andres guy I put up with every week at the shop says
DC’s $2.99 price point won’t hold. People will start predicting digital comics are just a fad (this is after sales die down like they have been for digital magazines).
Well, it’s holding so far, despite, as mentioned before, having a couple of titles bumping up to the $3.99 level. We’ll see how things go over the next year or so. …And I’m sure folks are calling digital comics a “fad”…hell, comic books themselves are a fad from early last century that are still hanging on, somehow.
- Tom A foresaw
Jack of Hearts is brought back to life and takes his rightful place among Marvel’s heavy hitters (2 series by end of year) Now to push for Stingray in 2012.
Well, yeah, kinda. Not so much with the “heavy hitter” part.
- Matt Jeske sez
…The Green Lantern movie will be critically panned, but commercially successful.
You were half-right!
The Superman books will reintroduce elements from the new krypton storylines.
Blame the New 52 for getting in the way of this one.
The Beat blog will return to be as interesting to read as it used to be.
I’ll let you decide if this one is a “hit.”
- Frowny frowns
1) At some point Grant Morrison will be done with Batman and then there will be incredibly ham handed attempts to return the character to the status quo in time for the new film.
Morrison doesn’t appear to be quite done with Batman, but I’d say cancelling everything and doing a huge relaunch sort of counts as “hamhanded.”
2) For some stupid reason, Steve Rogers will be back in the Captain America costume in time for the new film.
I didn’t read it, so I don’t know how stupid the reasons were. But he’s back in costume now…right? Was it in time for the movie? I lost track.
- Former Employee Aaron drops this into my lap
Doom and gloom predictions! Right before Skynet is activated and we all die in a fiery jamboree the $2.99 price point will be eradicated and all comics will cost $3.99 and up. On the brighter side i foresee more original graphic novel releases this year! Also I’ve been wondering how many different Batmen will we have in the Dcu.
1. WRONG. 2. A FEW. 3. ONE. UNLESS YOU COUNT BATWING, THEN TWO. UNLESS BATMAN INC. STILL “COUNTS,” THEN LOTS.
- Wayne Allen Sallee writes in with
…I know next to nothing about digital comics, but my guess is that Dark Horse or possibly Dynamite will move to that arena. I also predict that, given the storyline of Superman: Earth-One, that specific world will be DC’s Earth-1990s. (Not being snarky, I honestly believe that each Earth-One GN will be terrible.)
Dark Horse certainly did. And…yeah, Superman: Earth One sure sold well, but boy did it get some negative reviews.
- ~P~ wrote some silly predictions, and then added
Mike Sterling will email me to tell me how much I owe him for the variant editions he obtained for me.
Right Mikester?
…Um, oops?
- My new best friend whom I totally met in person just a few weeks ago philip says
The gap between print and digital will continue to shrink, making more new books available sooner in digital format.
“Day and date” seems to get thrown around a lot, so I’m guessing it’s shrunk as much as it’s going to (until “day and date before” becomes the norm).
We’ll see the end of “events” for a while and a return to good, long-form storytelling (okay, that’s really a “hope” more than a prediction and though it is unlikely, please just let me have this).
Oh, silly philip. Even DC’s relaunced universe has got somethin’ in the works.
There will be just enough new work from Los Bros Hernandez to make me wish there was more new work from them.
This is never not true. I always want more work from the Bros.
DC will still not know what to do with Wonder Woman.
I made my opinion on the topic clear, but it’s selling and everyone likes it, so pay no attention to me.
- Ben predicted
DC will guerrilla market a one-shot via leaked uncolored pages, wherein Swamp Thing returns to the main DCU, but he is wearing tights and is traveling across America with his perky goth girlfriend Death. The comics intarwebs will collapse upon itself in an orgasm of hate.
Then it will turn out to written by Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis over a weekend trapped at an airport hotel. It will be the single most awesome thing all year, but will fail to cover the authors’ expenses on alcohol.
Wishing this were all true doesn’t make it so, alas. Except for the “collapsing in hate” part…I totally would have loved and supported this comic.
- Dan Wars blasted us with
By the end of 2011, the original Fantastic Four will be reunited. Duh!
Duh, indeed!
- Greg Merritt suggested
Gin Genie will make her long-awaited return to the Marvel Universe.
And then team up with Iron Man.
You are a cruel man. Iron Man did team up with some booze, though, so you’re close. But sadly, Gin Genie is still dead.
- Mr. A says
Without Dirk Deppey’s daily links roundup, traffic to TCJ.com will crash by at least 90%.
I’m sure that wasn’t the case, but I certainly miss Mr. Deppey’s Journalista, as do many online comic fans.
- Gordon unleashes
Smaller, more independent press comics focusing on non-superhero fare will begin to become more prevalent and receive more press, since superhero comics will be seen more as “movies-in-the-making”.
Haven’t really seen this happen yet, as superheroes are more flashy and get more attention and thus make for better “news” stories in the Real World (which I’m assuming you’re meaning by “press”). But indie graphic novels and comics still get some good critical assessment in places like the A.V. Club and such, so they’re not being ignored. You’re just not likely to see the Associated Press syndicate a story about, I don’t know, a new issue of Palookaville (and more’s the pity).
The trend towards “graphic novels” made specifically to be turned into other media (30 Days of Night, anyone?) will increase, with a plethora of celebrity-driven “vanity projects” arising (one example – Ron Jeremy’s CAPTAIN HEDGEHOG)
Gah. …Anyway, I haven’t seen too many celebrity-spawned projects some down the pike. There’s Heart but that’s hardly taking the world by storm at the moment.
The repeated use of ironic quotation marks, “…, anyone” and “meh” will gradually fade, as more articulate comics/pop culture aficionados emerge online, thereby causing nerd critical sites (and Mike Sterling’s Empire 4.0 tumbler thingie) to disappear.
Estate 4.1, thank you, and it didn’t disappear…it was, um…resting. And I wish “meh” would fade, because seriously, that makes me want to hit someone with my truck.
Next franchise for DC to exploit: Joel Schumaker’s SWAMP THING. (Sorry, Mike)
As I said before…A+ WOULD SEE AGAIN.
Dan DiDio and Brian Bendis will both wrestle a bear at a convention…and lose.
If this happened and nobody told me, I’m going to be pissed.
Finally, Mike Sterling will still be seen as the greatest comics blogger in the multiverse.
I probably had a chance at that, except for the fact that this look back at 2011 predictions is going on for another day, at least.
So I was working on my “let’s look at your predictions for 2011″ post and responding to every single prediction and it was going on forever and I’d already pretty much provided commentary on most of the predictions last year. (Click on that “predictions” tag at the top of this post to check it out, if you’d like.)
Instead, I think I’m just going to go over some of the “hits” you guys got, and keep it short ‘n’ sweet…but of course I decided this way late at night, and I need to get my beauty sleep. (To become even more beautiful, of course.) Thus, that’s what I’ll do with tomorrow’s post. Or at least start on it, because I expect, in true patience-trying Progressive Ruin fashion, I’ll go on way too long despite trying to keep it at a reasonable length.
In the meantime, here’s a scan from Walt Disney Showcase #46 (September 1978), a comic I’d never seen prior to last week, containing a Dan Spiegle-illustrated adaptation of the film The Cat from Outer Space:
That’s got nothing to do with anything, except I’ve always had a soft spot in my
head heart for
The Cat from Outer Space.
Anyway, please keep your predictions for 2012 coming…I think I learned my lesson and won’t be doing extensive commentary on your predictions ’til next year, when it’ll actually be appropriate.
It’s a new year, a time for a new beginning…and time again for
your predictions! Once more I am asking
you, the Progressive Ruin reader, to make your comic book industry predictions for 2012. Please
drop ‘em in the comments, while keeping these three requests in mind:
1. Don’t read the other predictions before entering your own.
2. Don’t criticize other people’s predictions.
3. Don’t predict any real person’s death.
And that’s about it. I might do a post discussing some of these 2012 predictions later on, but considering how the last time I did this said discussion went on for days and drove everyone crazy…I’ll probably keep it brief this time. But at least it’ll give all of us an opportunity to talk about what predictions seem likely and which seem…well, not so likely.
So please, if you have a prediction or three, just plunk ‘em down in the comments here and we’ll see how you did next year. Assuming, of course, Planet X doesn’t crash into Earth when the Mayan calendar ends in mid-December.
Tomorrow or the next day (depending on how my bloggin’ time is) I’ll start going over last year’s predictions and tally the hits and misses. (HINT: Just at a glance, we had a better average than most professional “psychics!”)
image from Nancy #159 (September 1958)
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