Article 10: Cash In The Attic

Strip-mining the back-catalogue and reinventing old characters is a staple strategy for the major publishers. The creative rewards seem few, so does it make any sense from a business point of view?
17 March 2003

Suppose you're running a major comics publisher. You've decided to launch some new titles. What will be in them? Will it be fresh, new ideas? Or will it be an exciting new spin on some character or other who's been around for twenty years? Let's leave aside questions of artistic merit for the moment, and focus solely on raking in the cash. What's better?

Judging from the output of both Marvel and DC, the answer is perceived to be "relaunch an old character". Marvel's Tsunami launch, for example, includes NAMOR (1940s), HUMAN TORCH, INHUMANS (both 1960s), MYSTIQUE (1970s), NEW MUTANTS, VENOM (both 1980s), THE CREW (starring an Iron Man supporting character dating to 1983) and SENTINEL (a concept originating in the 1960s). RUNAWAYS seems to have the distinction of being the only totally new concept in the Tsunami launch.

The Max imprint has also been all too happy to dust off old trademarks. MASTER OF KUNG FU was axed in 1983. RAWHIDE KID was cancelled in 1979. Oh, and coming soon, 15 LOVE, in which Millie the Model is reinvented as a tennis player.

At DC, it's much the same. For May, they offer a relaunch of THE AUTHORITY, and a miniseries promoting the upcoming revival of OUTSIDERS and TEEN TITANS. Vertigo has been doing bizarre revivals of old characters as a staple product for years - BEWARE THE CREEPER relocated to Paris is just the latest example. And DC has always had a certain group of second tier characters who are doomed to keep getting cancelled only to be brought back within two years. There is something hardwired into the DC mindset that has left them unshakeably convinced that the world simply must be brought comics about Hourman and the Martian Manhunter, whether it wants them or not.

Every month seems to bring at least one revival of a concept that wasn't all that popular to start with. Some boggle the mind. SPACEKNIGHTS. DIAL H FOR HERO. And some turn out to be good comics, to be sure. But let's leave that aside - let's look at the money.

This is the bit that confuses me.

Now, the reasoning presumably goes something like this: We, Big Publisher X, have a really massive back catalogue of old characters. Look, it says so right there in our accounts. This is one of our biggest assets. We should do something with it.

So far so good. Can't really argue with that. But what should you be doing with it? It used to be fashionable to describe work-for-hire as "servicing trademarks". But does the Martian Manhunter actually need to be serviced? What's he being serviced for?

Marvel, of course, publishes its accounts. I, being lazy, will refer you to Dirk Deppey's commentary on the most recent set. The actual publishing accounts for roughly 22% of its income - although in fairness, its revenue from publishing was still up a third on last year. But it's the movies and licensing deals that are bringing in real money. One would imagine DC is in a similar position. Movies bring in the cash, in a way that monthly comics publishing does not.

So, what are the comics actually for? Yes, it's a core publishing business which can make some money in its own right, but from a business perspective the real model seems to be to generate concepts and then license them out to Hollywood or to TV. The value of the business lies, surely, in its intellectual property - its characters and stories, and the money it can get from renting them out to other media.

And do you need any actual comics for that?

Well... it helps if they existed at one point. Beyond that, they're pretty much optional. Once you've published a comic and nailed the idea down, you can sell it. You don't need to keep publishing it. The idea is created, the value is there. Comics audiences are far too small for anyone to bother about making a film or a TV show just for them. What matters is whether the concept is marketable.

BLADE: two successful films. Hasn't sustained a comic in years, despite several tries to cash in on the films themselves. ROAD TO PERDITION: sold as a film in its own right, and marketed with virtually no reference to the underlying comic. FROM HELL: again, sold primarily as a film rather than a comics adaptation. MEN IN BLACK: two films that did very well, based on a comic that sold bugger all and wasn't even particularly like the film. PRIME: a Malibu Ultraverse title out of print for some five years, but that hasn't stopped Marvel shifting the film rights. SILVER SURFER: similarly in limbo, but also sold off. WEREWOLF BY NIGHT: hasn't sustained a comic since 1977, but again, they managed to sell him.

Does it matter that none of these comics exist any more? No, not in the slightest. What matters is that they once existed, and they contain an idea which somebody thought was worth buying to turn into a film. Incidentally, if anyone knows the name of the bozo who spent money on WEREWOLF BY NIGHT instead of just inventing his own damn werewolf, please let me know, because I've got a bridge I'd like to sell him.

Okay, but what about the more prominent adaptations? SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN, BATMAN, SUPERMAN, THE HULK? Yes, these are properties that the public associates with comics - but that doesn't actually mean that the present comics are all that important to them. For the most part, these are characters who achieved crossover "icon" status ages ago and never lost it. It's a measure of the strength of the original concepts, in many cases. Peter David spent years writing intelligent Hulks, grey Hulks, whatever. Impact on mainstream public perception of the Hulk: nil. Why? Because the mainstream audience isn't reading the comic.

Similarly, the general public associates Batman more with Adam West and/or Tim Burton than with anything that appeared in an actual comic. Ask most people about Wonder Woman, and they think of Linda Carter doing pirouettes. Ask them about Superman and they're more likely to remember the 1980s films or the recent TV shows. Christopher Reeve is still more powerfully associated with Superman in the public mind than anyone who's worked on the comic in at least twenty years. The X-Men have a nice successful cartoon series which no doubt has an audience many times that of the comic, and their film was based largely on the classic Chris Claremont take on the concept from some fifteen years ago. DAREDEVIL was based on a 1980s Frank Miller story.

From the perspective of selling old characters to Hollywood, does it matter what's in the comics today? Does it even matter whether the characters are in print at all? As a general rule, the answer seems to be no. If anything, a bizarre modern take can be a disadvantage - if, for example, you believe the rumours that a Nick Fury movie deal was soured when the studio laid eyes on the Garth Ennis FURY miniseries.

So, what exactly is the point of bringing back all these old characters for new series? Does it generate value for the company? Is it the best use of resources? The evidence would suggest that it isn't. Of course, there will be the occasional exception where somebody comes along with a spectacularly good take on a pre-existing concept that shows up a potential that nobody had seen before, and makes it newly marketable. (Again, Ennis' black comedy approach to PUNISHER apparently went down rather well with Hollywood.) But it seems hard to believe that these can justify all of the relaunches that take place.

Surely it makes more sense to spend finite resources on publishing new concepts, thereby creating new ideas that can be sold, rather than recycling old ideas that are already as valuable as they're ever likely to get? Wouldn't it make more sense to produce a ton of new ideas? Even if they mostly bombed as comics, there's still a fair chance that one of them will rake in the money when the movie rights are sold.

The catch, of course, is that smart creators have also realised this. Why take your bright idea to a major publisher and give them ownership of it, when you can bang out four issues through a small publisher (or, if you're lucky, Image), keep the rights for yourself, and sell the film rights for yourself? Even if you can't negotiate as good a deal as Marvel or DC might get, your personal take might well be better.

And that brings us back to the long-running issue of creator participation. An issue that publishers need to resolve, because they can't rely on the back catalogue forever.

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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