Your 2019 Predictions, Part Three: Cyborg.
The coverage of all your 2019 comics industry predictions from last year continues (and in case you missed it, here’s part one and part two). Who was right? Who was wrong? Who was just screwin’ around but I respond to their predictions anyway? LET’S FIND OUT TOGETHER (but don’t forget to leave your 2020 predictions!):
Evan Waters splashes me with the following
“1. Lancelot Link gets a revival comic with people seriously (well semi-seriously) exploring the dramatic and comic possibilities of a chimp-dominated Cold War.”
I feel like we may have missed that Lancelot Link nostalgia window, but I don’t think this is a bad idea. Someone tell Grant Morrison we’ve got his WE3 prequel premise.
“2. One or more indie publishers will announce a long-term development deal with one of the major studios that isn’t Disney or WB.”
I’m sure there are more, but this is the one probably nobody expected…Atlas Comics, AKA the Seaboard/Atlas comics of the 1970s, getting some development deal with Paramount. I do love the Atlas Comics, but this still seems a little strange, aside from studios trying to glom onto anything to make some of that Marvel/Disney super-money. …Okay, this doesn’t really count as a current indie company, I guess, but still, you have to admit, that’s somethin’.
“3. New Spider-Ham comic.”
DING DING DING! Just under the wire, too…was out Christmas week!
ExistentialMan willfully determines my development with
“1. Comic books will continue to be a source of unlimited creativity, artistry, and fun for millions of readers (just as they always have been).”
You forgot “highly investible for huge profits.”
“2. Trade paperback and hardcovers sales will increase (slightly) through the book store market while sales will decline (again slightly) for direct market stores.”
Apparently spot on, depending on how you define “slightly.” Up in bookstores 16%, while graphic novel sales, at least through Diamond, were down 2%. Taking into account graphic novel purchases through other vendors, like I know I did throughout the year, that 2% figure may be even smaller.
“3) Mike will retire Sluggo Saturdays for good in 2019. He will replace it with a weekly post in which he shares drawings of capybaras from his youth.”
Oof, okay, fair enough, my last Sluggo Saturday was September 2018. I wasn’t trying to end the feature, I just…forgot to do more, I guess. Don’t worry, folks, much like Batman and Robin, SLUGGO WILL NEVER DIE. I’ll try to come up with another one soon.
Alas, there is only one extant capybara drawing from my childhood…unless you count six years ago as “my youth.”
Thelonious_Nick slightly cuts me with
“1) After the success of the superb ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ movie Marvel gives the green light for the same treatment to Squirrel Girl!”
No “Into the Squirrel-Verse,” sadly enough. But man, if any character deserves to be better known in the real world than even Iron Man or Captain America, it’s Squirrel Girl.
“2) Ongoing Spider-Verse series, with stories rotating among Spider-Man Noir, Sad Middle Aged Spider-Man, Spider-Ham, Spider-Punk, etc.”
Well, we got a mini-series that’s still running…maybe it’ll lead into an ongoing if it sells well enough.
“3) Cullen Bunn starts 52 new horror series in 2019, one every week!”
That sound you hear is Mr. Bunn collapsing from shock at the very idea.
William Burns scorches the earth with
“1. The rise of electronic comics will really start to bite as Amazon/Comixology explicitly move to a policy of destroying paper single issues and retail comics shops. Many stores will close.”
Don’t feel like Amazon was doing anything special to destroy retail shops beyond what they usual do this year.
“2. Sterling Silver Comics will not be among them.”
I haven’t noticed too many people using my store as a catalog for what they were going to order off Amazon this year…maybe they’re better at hiding it now.
“3. Magdalene Visaggio will be hired to write a high-profile big two title.”
Well, she wrote a Magnificent Ms. Marvel annual, so there’s that. But she certainly seems like she’s been busy (including getting one of her comics turned into a TV show) so she seems to be doing just fine!
Colin A McKenzie takes off with
“At least one new superhero movie will flop big time, leading to panic at the Marvel/Warner Bros studios that the genre is over.”
Seems like this is going to happen sooner or later…it made Disney gunshy about Star Wars spin-off films after Solo underperformced, for example. But this hasn’t really happened with superhero movies yet. Even Justice League not doing as well as folks had hoped didn’t stop Warners from cranking out more superhero movies. There seems to be life in the genre even still, so we’re probably stuck with Avengers sequels for a while.
“DC streaming service will collapse, and all its series will be picked up on Netflix.”
Honestly, to my surprise, it’s still around. Now, should that new Warners general interest streaming service (which, by the way, will include new DC Comics programming) really takes off, I suspect DC Universe as its own service will not be long for this world. Right now, however, it’s hanging in there. It better hang in there, I just reupped for another year.
“Mike Sterling will develop ocular super powers.”
BEHOLD, IT IS I, BLURRY AND SLIGHTLY DOUBLE-VISIONED MAN! I’M HERE TO WRITE THINGS CROOKEDLY AND NOT MAKE OUT THAT TINY TEXT THAT’S BEEN ON THE FIRST PAGES FOR ACTION COMICS OVER THE LAST YEAR”
John almost got a toilet joke in this little intro here but I thought that would be rude, anyway, he says
“Having teased him in Season 4, Swamp Thing will appear in an episode of Legends of Tomorrow entitled, “There’s Swamp Thing About Mary…” However, getting Mike Sterling and all his friends to watch does not save the show from cancellation and the fifth season is the last.”
Well, Season 5 is underway this year, but it’s too soon to tell if it’ll be the last season. However, apparently there is a Swamp Thing something-or-other in the Legends of Tomorrow chapter of “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” so you kinda hit on something there, John!
That’s a good stopping point for today, mostly because the next question’s gonna take some research, and frankly I’m too tired to do research right now. SO YOU’RE JUST GONNA HAVE TO WAIT, TURAN. As always, thanks for reading and I’ll be back Wednesday…no, honest, I really mean it this time, I hope.
Good news! “There’s Swamp Thing About Mary” won’t be the swan song of Legends of Tomorrow that John predicts… the show’s already been renewed! (As have all the other CW comic-based shows, aside from the soon-to-end Arrow, and the yet-to-debut Katy Keene.)
Finally got the subtitles. Isaac Asimov’s Robot City books.
Mike, I don’t see ExistentialMan saying that you’d be sharing your drawings of capybara from your youth. Plenty of people drew capybara in the 1930s-40s, I’m sure.
Bruce – come closer so I can hit you with my comically-large ear trumpet.