1) Cutting Corners
Marvel is a business, so they obviously need and want to make money. However, between jacking up the prices of most of their comics to $3.99 and $4.99 – even $5.99 in some instances – and decreasing the quality of the paper stock they use (covers are now made from the same paper as the interiors and are practically see through), it’s hard not to feel ripped off.
That’s especially the case when those pricey comics have no more pages than their $2.99 ones. That’s annoying, but so too is their habit of enlisting a big name artist for the first arc of a new series – and there are a lot of those thanks to their constant stream of never ending relaunches – only to then drop them for someone inferior who’s also obviously much cheaper.
In fact, a lot of books have a revolving door of artists, something which never fails to make a series feel disjointed and significantly less enjoyable to read. While Marvel certainly has a lot of very talented writers and artists working for them, looking at how many of those have departed the company in recent years is very telling. While there were no doubt creative reasons for why they went elsewhere (Marvel seem to specialize in upsetting those who work for them), chances are that the fact they weren’t being paid what they deserved for writing big selling books was also a factor.
Tell us, how do you think Marvel should go about fixing these issues? And do you agree with us on all of them? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.