Your 2019 Predictions, Part One: Odyssey.

§ January 13th, 2020 § Filed under predictions § 5 Comments

Get on board the prediction train, as it’s finally passing through the Progressive Ruin city limits! We’re looking back at your comic industry predictions for 2019 and seeing how y’all did. (And don’t forget to give me your guesses for 2020 and we can do all this again next year!)

Away we go:

BK Munn dazes me with the following

“1. Less people than ever will read the comics blogs.”

Well, overall, I suspect that’s probably true, though I don’t have the stats to really prove it beyond my own site’s. My site is…hanging in there, with not much change from last year traffic-wise (though I’m not 100% convinced my hoster’s built-in traffic reader is all that connected to reality). I do know that I don’t get nearly as many comments as I used to Back In The Day. Pretty sure everyone’s moved on to Instagram or similar for the sort of content that blogs used to provide. I imagine it’s a lot less wordy and easier to digest, versus someone’s dumb ol’ blog like mine where said blogger doesn’t know when to shut up.

“2. There will be more interesting cartoonists making comics in North America outside of the Diamond system than ever before, and it will be impossible for one person or blog or comics news-site to read or even mention half of them during the course of 2019.”

Well, with Tom gone, yeah, seems unlikely there’s anyone capable of keeping up with everything. I’ve not even been able to keep up wtih the comics I want to read, much less do any kind of news coverage of them. But I totally agree there’s a lot of comics work out there, not all of it going through America’s one distributor, and there are plenty of alternative options to show, publicize, and distribute work thanks to this whole “internet” thing that seems to be catching on. Good, the more ways folks can express themselves and share that expression, the better.

“3. Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham will prove the most popular non-Miles character from the new Spider movie and will get his own movie or tv show before Spider-Gwen.”

Spider-Gwen (or “Ghost Spider”) was in that “Marvel Rising” animated thingie…wasn’t just her show, but I think that still counts as beating out Mr. Porker. Unless Spider-Ham had a cameo in some other Marvel cartoon I don’t know about. Wouldn’t put that past anybody.

• • •

Thom H. hollas at me with

“1. A new Legion of Super-heroes book is announced. Written by Tom King. The 9-panel grid returns!”

Announced and released…but not written by Tom King, though. HALF POINT FOR GRYFFINDOR.

“2. The next chapter of Injection is (finally) completed. Sales are abysmal due to the hiatus.”

Last year, comic shops, unlike my eyeballs, remained Injection-less.

“3. Miracleman: Silver Age is still not published. Some new excuse is given for its absence.”

We did get more Miracleman comics this year…one page in Marvel Comics #1000. Hey, it ain’t nuthin’. And Neil spoke about the status of the series this summer and says work is progressing. It sounds like he’s saying there were some contractual deals that had to be taken care of before getting MM underway again, or something? I don’t know. I’m just hoping to see the story finish before my descendants have to read it to me at my gravesite. …Hey, I made it through all of Mage in real time, there’s still hope.

• • •

Bret Sector splits up the following

“1. Marvel will finally get permission to do mash-ups with Disney animated characters like DC is doing with Hanna-Barbera characters…BUT, only the C- and D-list characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Roy Disney.”

I keep waiting for something like this to happen (or some kind of overt Star Wars/Marvel superhero intermingling) but they’ve kept it all fairly separated so far. However, we did get this one-per-store-more-or-less variant for Marvel Comics #1000:


Whose room is that? Is that Mickey’s?

“2. In the tradition of last year’s Walking Dead Wine, Marvel and DC will license their characters for Wine offerings. Batman Pinot Noir, Scarlet Spider Red, Rose and Thorn Blush, Champions Champagne (1970’s team, not the current youngsters), and of course Malcolm Merlyn Merlot.”

Ten years ago I gave Pal Dorian a bottle of wine with a custom label featuring his favorite superhero Wildcat:

Here’s a better look at the label:


I suspect if there are going to be any “superhero wines,” it’s going to be folks like me getting custom labels like that, since I don’t see Marvel or DC wanting their characters on alcoholic beverages. That won’t stop folks from making their own wines inspired by superheroes, like what appears to have been going on here. …I don’t know, I don’t drink alcohol…let me know when they create a superhero-themed zero-calorie, sugar-free sports drink.

“3. I predict that prediction posts on comic blogs will become the new internet sensation making progressiveruin one of the hot sites of 2019!”

I’m already the hottest comic blog, baby! Got my house’s heater running even as I type this!

• • •

Myron M. (presumably not “Moose”) offers

“Marvel will stop publishing monthly (paper) comics entirely, moving to a graphic novel-only publication model.”

I feel like this is a thing that may happen eventually, but there’s still life in the ol’ periodical format yet. I know both Marvel and DC are doing “new to graphic novel” stories (even if it’s sometimes reprinting digital stuff), but those don’t seem like they’re going to take over the entire publishing line anytime soon. And even if the Big Two shift over to a primarily trade paperback line, there will likely be some periodical element to their releases. Like, I can see new comics basically being, say, a new Wonder Woman graphic novel every four months instead of a standard sized “floppy” every month (or biweekly).

• • •

Sean Belt whups me with

“TKO Studios new distribution model will do marginally well enough that the Big Two will begin offering some of their books in the same format: a ‘season’ (6-new-issues) in a single book or digitally every 6-8 months, rather than monthly installments.”

No, not yet, but I do like TKO‘s product line. The graphic novels are good-looking, and ordering stuff from them is a cinch. I haven’t carried much of their single-issue comics, but I did have a customer specifically request a set, and those were nicely done as well. Don’t know that he Big Two will offer simultaneous releases in book and single issue formats as a regular thing, since they’re heavily in the “magazine first, collection later” strategy, but it’s an interesting move to give customers that option.

• • •

Okay, that’s enough for now…tune in next time, next Ruin time, same Ruin channel, for more of these here 2019 predictions! And don’t forget to leave me your 2020 predictions!

5 Responses to “Your 2019 Predictions, Part One: Odyssey.”

  • Brian says:

    The metaphorical — and too often literal — death of the old comic blogosphere continues to sadden me. Having been just too young for the Usenet era, I’ve always seen blogs as the right format in my mind for internet discussion (the transition to social media just feels wrong, not withstanding that I’ve gotten off social media myself in recent years). Of course, I then stop and think back to how many of those bloggers I’ve been reading across sites for 15-20 years, and it doesn’t necessarily surprise me that the numbers have gone down so dramatically (whether by death, moving away from posting, or moving to new monetized venues or social streams). But it’s still always an odd sense of not so much an end of an era but an era that ended a while ago. All the more reason to love having The Mikester still doing his thing here!

  • Thom H. says:

    1. Couldn’t agree more with the sentiments expressed above. This blog and House to Astonish bring me great joy on a regular basis.

    2. I got half a point! Thanks for featuring my predictions. I forgot I even sent those in.

    3. As its final actual fan, I want to say that I miss Injection a lot. I’m so interested in seeing how it ends! Maybe in another couple of years?

  • Chris V says:

    As it’s a Warren Ellis series, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
    Think of all the fans who are still waiting to see what happens next in Desolation Jones.
    We’ve only had to wait 13 years for that next issue, so far!
    I’m sure issue #9 will be on the schedules sometime very soon, and surprise us all.

  • Voord 99 says:

    Also strongly pro-blog. Bah, kids today.

  • Thom H. says:

    @Chris V: Fair enough, although Desolation Jones has been confirmed dead while Ellis continues to insist that Injection is coming back once Shalvey is available. I choose to live in hope. :)

    There must be an alternate timeline where uncompleted comics projects were all finished. I would love to visit it someday and read Desolation Jones, Big Numbers, Miracleman, 1963…