The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Marvel Two-Step

I see that Marvel has made a move to get its comics back into 7-11 convenience stores, and another deal with Barnes & Noble to get them into some 300 additional locations. Both of these are potentially good moves for comics as an industry, increasing exposure as they will and so increasing the likelihood of someone trying something out for the first time or taking a nostalgic, impulse-buy dip into the current waters of old, favorite characters. With the average Marvel "impulse" running $2.99, it remains to be seen how casual that impulse will prove to be, but by and large this is a positive move for Marvel and perhaps comics in general. Comics shops really can't realistically view this as competition, but simply as a potential gateway for new customers. Anyone who finds himself (re-)hooked on the the characters will soon enough find out that there are specialty shops capable of more fully serving their needs.

On the other hand, demonstrating that there's always someone who doesn't know when to stop, part of the press release mentions how Marvel Adventures will be a backbone of this renewed effort.

Staying away from most of the daily feed of comics info - so much of the press being poorly written and too much information given away in advance (we're paying enough for the comics as it is, so I'd like to save some bang to justify the buck) - I hadn't heard of the Marvel Adventures line. Now I have.

I'm compelled to pause to mention how much I dislike this style of artwork. The scene's supposed to ooze warmth, but instead has me wondering what mutagens are in the tap water in Queens. The group hug in the middle looks as if their flesh is sliding off their skeletons, and is reminding me of nothing so much the end of an SF/horror story by Wally Wood in one of the Warren magazines (in Creepy #38) from years back called "The Cosmic All," where that's exactly what happened to the characters.

Marvel Adventures: Spider-man (apparently in shops yesterday), I'm presuming is typical of the line's thrust. These are "modern adaptations" of "classics", along with "untold stories." As if that wasn't bad enough (ie Do we really need yet another line of almost inevitably contradictory stories running alongside the mainstream?) we can see that this series is being done by "Acclaimed children's book author Kitty Fross." So, now we need to bring in children's book authors? A quick check shows that Ms. Fross' "acclaim" is from Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer items, which has me wondering who decided to tap this particular... resource?

Yes, I know that it's supposed to provide a new access point for readers, but I believe they're overcomplicating matters, and in the process of trying to talk down to a prospective audience are going to end up confusing them.

Sure, I know that these are supposed to be less expensive ($2.25), "iconic" (ie "We've stripped it all down to a name and a one or two sentence blip-bio, declaring everything else inconsequential and open for revision by the writer du jour") entry points for non-fans, but I still have to question what's wrong with trying to sell the actual, mainstream comics themselves? When I was a kid I didn't want some watered-down, kid-directed version, and I tend to believe that's the same with the average kid today. It's already going to be confusing enough for them between the mainstream Marvel versions and the Ulitimate ones, why complicate it farther?