marvel

Still going through old boxes of comic book promotional material of decades past, and one item I found was a Marvel Comics retailer letter with suggestions on how shops could market a particular comic book to its customer base. The comic in question: The ‘Nam #41 (February 1990):

This of course is the issue of the ongoing mostly real world-ish Vietnam War comic that guest-starred Marvel super-heroes. Now, it’s not as egregious as it may sound…the premise is that a U.S. soldier in Vietnam imagines how conflict would go if Iron Man and pals were around, and, you know, a guy imagining what that would be like is at least within the realm of possibility. It’s not like, say, the Punisher showed up or anything. So the premise doesn’t really break the main conceit of the book, that it’s a dramatized “realistic” retelling of the war, from the points of view of the men on the ground.

Of course, in execution, it likely plays out differently. In context of “this is all in a fella’s imagination” it may be, but it’s still pictures of superheroes fighting in the Vietnam War in a comic that had eschewed that sort of imagery.

Anyway, whatever, that’s fine. If they needed the occasional story like this to goose sales a bit (and I’m assuming sales might have needed bit of a boost) so they could keep telling the superhero-free stories they wanted to tell…I mean, sure, knock yourselves out. But what I wanted to mention briefly were the sales tips in the above scan. I’d posted this pic initially on the Twitterers the other day, and as Bully, the Little Shelving Bull, pointed out, “Put it near What If? so nobody can find it!” appears to be one of the suggestions. Frankly, that sort of racking strategy would probably create more confusion for sales…”Hey, why is The ‘Nam in the Ws?”

The suggestion that bothers me the most, however, is the idea that retailers should tell customers “hey, that Sgt. Fury comic with Captain America is worth a lot now, wink wink, nudge nudge,” implying that surely this comic will be a highly sought-after expensive collectible in short order as well! (Recent sales on eBay: one copy at 99 cents.) If you’re trying to convince customers to buy a comic for its possible investment opportunity…well, I never ever ever do that. Partially because I want people to read and enjoy their comics, but mostly because I don’t want someone to buy three dozen copies of something on my investibility precognitive knowhow, only to have said items turn out to be a bust and suddenly the buyer’s back in my shop with, like, one of these.

Also, that Sgt. Fury comic is from the mid-1960s, and features an early Silver Age appearance of Captain America. Not quite the same as a boom-period comic with reworked Romita Sr. drawings, when it comes to demand.

So I came across a copy of the Marvel Comics Previews promo catalog “for new publications scheduled to ship in 1992” –

…and I’d somehow totally blanked on the fact that the Marvel 2099 imprint was going to be called “Marvel 2093” at one point:

In the “marketing” section, it describes this particular marketing initiative thusly:

“These titles literally are ‘Marvel: the Next Generation’ and if you remember the popularity of other popular series with that designation you’ll be able to imagine how well these books will do.”

Well, sure, I loved Match Game: The Next Generation, AKA Match Game ’73, and sure enough, the 2099 line (as it would later be called, when cooler heads prevailed and decided “2099” was exactly six years’ worth of awesome better than that piddling “2093”) did indeed do very well. At least until the entire comics market tanked shortly thereafter, but, you know, whaddaya gonna do?

Anyway, back to the catalog: each title had its own entry, with a logo and a rough sketch of what the character may or may not look like when the comic was finally beaten into shape:

And just look at those creative teams!

Okay, to be fair, at least one writer was on board at print time:

The text pieces for all the books describe them in the most general of terms, usually along the lines of “like the modern day Marvel heroes, only more future-y,” without any specifics like character names, settings, how exactly the characters are going to be different, etc. Well, the entry for Doom 2093 pushes the “is this really the Doom from the present-day Marvel Universe?” angle, so that hook at least was present this early in the development process.

This catalog is an interesting look back at Marvel’s marketing strategies during comics’ last big sales hurrah, and I suspect, as I dig deeper through its pages, I’m going to wax nostalgic over those salad days when you could sell a comic such as Punisher 2093 like this:

“It will also be a natural must buy for all the fans who picked up the Punisher Armory title this year. People have always associated the Punisher with the latest in hi-tech ordnance and this series takes the association to the ultimate degree. Just remember the success of Terminator 2 or Die Hard to envision the vast potential for this series.”

Probably the first and last time the sales success of the amazing Punisher Armory was used as a marketing tool for another book.