Today: Why Number Ones Are FINE, Actually

Perfectly fine.

At the end of last week, I reproduced an article written nearly ten years ago about how the single issue industry’s love of relaunches was a good thing for retailers. For those looking for a bit of a tl;dr synopsis, my thesis at the time was that the practice of renumbering helped retailers pinpoint pressure points that publishers wanted to communicate as succinctly as possible. Today, I have a similar take, but the shape of it has evolved.

I think the use of new numbers ones is fine, with the word “fine” being used as my own specific pressure point.

Anyone with an acute sense of empathy recognizes the word fine as an oxymoron. Its use generally means that something is not, in fact, fine, but we’ll all pretend like it is if all parties are in agreement. Either used casually or with intent, fine is a word that needs to be dealt with at some point, or else things will be anything but. This, is a specific choice.

Now, I still believe that having new number ones gracing the single issue shelves is still a very effective and important tool in the toolkit. It was, and remains the most effective way of communicating something important to all levels of the direct market, from publishers, to retailers, to collectors, and readers. That being said, I believe that this tool is far too often used poorly, which lends to the appearance of shoddy workmanship.

The effectiveness of having a new number one is both a blessing and a curse. It’s effect is inarguable. Across the board, if a title is relaunched, those numbers come in at a higher sales point than the previous issue. This inevitability often means the practice is abused to a point where the tool can, and has been damaged. It has a crutch that fixes a problem that exists today, without accounting for what is to come tomorrow.

The recent trouble has come from all of these relaunches effectively meaning nothing in a short span of time. There are many reasons for this (which will inevitably fill a full article over at The Beat in the coming months), but the main reason is something I come back to again and again when it comes to selling comics.

A relaunch means absolutely nothing, if the reasoning lacks a compelling answer to why.

Why is a question that I want everyone to ask themselves when they are in the process of creating a comic - especially when it comes to the production of superhero comics. The answer to why will generally dictate how well or poorly a relaunch will do past the gates. For instance, the latest relaunch of Fantastic Four has been a wild success in our store.

We first opened in the final days of Fantastic Four’s forever run - the book never taking time off the production slate since the team’s debut. The book’s return under Dan Slott was met with a lot of excitement from folks who were excited to see the team return… however, things had gotten muddled during the publication’s time off. Ben went off to be a Guardian of the Galaxy, Johnny was showing up in the Inhumans line, and the pair briefly sought to bring the team back together, but to no avail. And then, a few short months after this moment, the return was announced.

What had essentially happened, was a storyline heralding the potential return of the team, with art from Jim Cheung, who is incredibly great, but a person you essentially pick your moments with due to his lack of monthly comic production ability, amounted to nothing. People were charged up, but there was no climax. So while the launch did nab many who had been long awaiting the team’s return, it was fighting against a return promised by marquee talent that didn’t pan out. This made the main why of the book (the team returns as Dan Slott tells classic style FF stories). The book did incredibly well, because people had still been waiting, but interest dropped off precipitously, and quickly, despite a lengthy absence.

This is to say nothing about Dan Slott’s talents. There is almost no one better at cranking out tales that pull on the classic heartstrings while living comfortably in today’s times in such a seamless manner. That said, I believe the why of his Fantastic Four launch was compromised by the lead up. While I will never be sad to have experienced the outstanding stories by Chip Zdarsky (with the aforementioned Cheung art) in Marvel Two-in-One, that series ended up truncating what I feel could have been with a why that promised a lot, but editorial (I believe) didn’t have the clearance to deliver.

Flash forward to now, and there’s a new Fantastic Four on the shelves, with Ryan North and Iban Coello at the helm. These are two incredibly solid creators, who are by no means marquee names, but who have concocted a perfect why for this title. I say this not because the first issue of their run necessarily hit the highs of the Dan Slott helmed return, but because this title has retained and built on the audience it nabbed from us a mere three issues into the run.

In the back of his first issue on the title, North ran a portion of his pitch for the series, and it is perfection for the Fantastic Four.

It is a why that is close to that of the Slott run, but one that wasn’t kneecapped on the way in. Slott ended his very epic style run with the culmination of a story he had been seeding in his various titles for (I kid you not) nearly two decades. So North’s why became simplicity. A focus on the characters and single issue storytelling that would build to bigger things. That, plus being part of the reason Squirrel Girl had a remarkable run and continues to be a favourite featured part of many Marvel video games and whatnot gave him a level of following and trust that blew this book up for us. That has built a trusting fanbase that was willing to walk into this book alongside long time, die hard fans. And it is all working.

That all said, the why is still just a part of it. Having a compelling why is (I believe) the biggest part of it, but execution is everything. In between the end of Slott’s run and the start of this, there was a brief fill-in period. This created a pocket of breathing room in between the two takes that allowed a “gap” to sink in. While I realize that superhero comics wait for no one (usually due to the demands of the quarterly fiscal cycle), having a second for the audience to ask what’s next is invaluable to keeping people excited.

My partner in comics retail commentary Brian Hibbs will often go on about how an outfit like Scholastic would do well to produce a monthly Dog Man offering, but the company used to produce monthly content like Animorphs and Goosebumps on the regular back in my youth. You want to know why it stopped? The alternative method made more money. And while I understand the book market and the direct market are different models, there’s a lot to be said about how a pause can help a new launch. I know that can probably be hard when the office needs to put out a certain amount of books per month, but truly, I think taking on two issues of new creators telling a small story after a previous creator’s run can give all the breathing room needed to launch the next thing in a way that sticks. It works better than popping in a mini-series in the interim (partly due to sales inertia being one hell of a thing), and gives someone fresh a crack at some big ideas while a new run simmers quietly, ready to shock and awe with a fresh why.

Anyway. There’s a lot more to talk about here in terms of the pros and cons of relaunching, but there are also many more days ahead of us.

This Wednesday, I’ll be talking about the new Fantastic Four run specifically in how it has run, and how to pitch it.

And tomorrow, I return to The Beat to talk about how staying small is the path forward for anyone trying to navigate running a comic shop in 2023.

Talk with you soon,

-B.