AF #12 solicit + Cancellation notice

[Barnacle13]

Surprised? Who could be? This still sucks!!!!!!!!! Marvel has done little, other than ask the loyal readers to peddle their wares, to keep this title afloat. When talk first started on the old Alpha Waves group, folks speculated about the team's makeup. I can't remember any of the lists offering up only one core AF member. Invariably they all included Mac, Heather, or both to lead. I can't remember too many lists that didn't include Sasquatch for muscle. Guess they got that one right. There were a lot of Puck fans out there too. Kinda got that. Not! After that there was a lot of division over the twins, Snowbird, Shaman, Talisman, etc. There were arguments to add a couple Vol.2 characters like Flex, Radius, Ghost Girl, but certainly not Murmur. We didn't get any of them. Alienated all of the Vol 2 fans right out the gate. Hell they didn't even get a trip to outerspace. Instead we get all new, all different. Not much there for the die hards (yep I'm one of those, too). So team makeup was definitely a bad start.

Then, let's not market our product at all. Would Coke have won the cola wars or McDonald's the burger wars if they didn't advertise? I think not! They'd be asking "Where's the beef?" Marvel never gave this or any of their fringe relaunches a chance. I've seen readers complain they can't regularly get AF in their town and when they do get to a store it's sold out. Sounds to me like more issues could have been sold if they were available at the comic shops. Even more could have been sold had they offered subscriptions. I get at least 6 magazines at the house every month, but it was impossible to get AF delivered to my doorstep without a heafty shipping and handling charge. And then when I do go to the comic shop I see Spider-man, Avengers, Daredevil, and Fantastic Four comics for $0.25, $0.99, $0.25, and $0.12 respectively. I bet that boosted their sells that month! Probably also got some pick it up and try it readers as well. You'd think this would be a ploy they'd try on a new series, to generate some interest, but instead they use it for some tried and true titles. I picked them all up and guess what....Cap was in the Avengers, Spider-man swung through his pages, and the Fantastic Four had all four originals. How ODD! Follow this up with the fact that I leaf through my daughter's copy of Mary Jane and find a deep discount for subscriptions to X-titles and Spidey titles. Again I'm sure that helped keep their sales numbers up despite the crappy stories. AF could've used this kind of help to get started. Plus once you're signed up for a year, you've already bought those books. Would've taken us all right up to cancellation! Marvel knows they have sold that many copies and can work on increasing the numbers, rather than watching them dwindle away.

I guess it'll be another 5 years before I buy another Marvel comic.

Ben, make sure you let me know when/if they put Alpha back on the stands!

Tom

[Ottawa Renegade]

I have to say Mac(Guardian I) is not one of my favorite Alphans, but you CAN'T cut him from the book completely...some folks will disagree with me here, but it wouldn't be truly AF without Mac and Heather around in some fashion(they founded the team, for pete's sake....they belong in the book....somewhere). I feel the same way about the twins, Shaman, Snowbird(if she's alive at the time...this also goes for MAC...GGGRRRRRR! They really need to stop that)...and even to an extent, Puck. IF the characters are alive(and are good characters)....use them. Marvel needs to stop force-feeding us an all new(or 85-99% new) cast with each series and expecting older readers to just lump it, if they don't like it.

Dana

Well, Mac IS my favourite and even so I'd be happy with a "consultant" type of role, or moral support, something like that.

Puck, meanwhile, I consider to be the glue or conscience of this team. I liked his characterization in V2. I hated the character when I was first introduced to Alpha Flight but have grown to consider him a necessary part of the team. In fact, I think he should lead.

[Ottawa Renegade]

I don't think Marvel have ever taken AF seriously. I couldn't see them allowing Lobdell to write a funny book involving the X.

I agree. On a previous visit here I was trying to recall if anything liek this had been attempted witht he X-Men in the past. I couldn't come up with anything but because I don't follow them I thought maybe I just wasn't aware of it.

[Ottawa Renegade]

Okay, hands in the air, how many here thought that when Alpha got the new series that it would get into double figures.

A year is about what I expected. Maybe 15 issues.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Write to:

Alpha Flight c/o Marvel Comics
10 East 40th st.
New York, Ny
10016

Email: officex@marvel.com

Ben

Thanks Ben.

Dana

[Le Messor]

Where would we expect Marvel to advertise that'd pick up all those people who don't walk into comic shops any more?

- Le Messor
"Don't fear the reaper."
- Blue Oyster Cult

[Ben]

Where would we expect Marvel to advertise that'd pick up all those people who don't walk into comic shops any more?

It could be something as simple as a catchy poster to stick in a shop window. Online advertising, or in related publications like Wizard. I'm not saying they go out and get TV ads, but it wouldn't kill them to add a 30 second plug at the beginning of one of their movies for an lesser known book.

Ben

[Le Messor]

The online might work, (but where would you put it?) and a movie spot has a HUGE chance of reaching the target audience - but an ad in a shop window, unless it's a well-placed shop (which comic shops rarely are) and something in Wizard are both highly unlikely to reach non-comics readers. Even ex-comic readers.

- Le Messor
'Once again, the Hellmouth puts the special in special occasion.'
- Oz

[Ben]

The online might work, (but where would you put it?) and a movie spot has a HUGE chance of reaching the target audience - but an ad in a shop window, unless it's a well-placed shop (which comic shops rarely are) and something in Wizard are both highly unlikely to reach non-comics readers. Even ex-comic readers.

As for where to put it online, that would be a matter of figuring out your demographic, finding other common interests of older comic readers...I assume that that kind of data and research is what Marvel's advertising department would be paid to figure out I have thought that using all the comic movies would be such a great way to get new readers in general to the comics, and draw back former readers. Wizard may be a stretch, I was that even when I don't buy comics much, I'll often grab a copie of wizard. Posters, again I was thinking of what I know, which are shops on PEI and in Halifax, many of which are on busy streets that people often walk by.

Ben

[Defunct]

Well damn.

That hit me like a tonne of bricks. Took me long enough to find out, too. . . . Damn. I don't think I've ever been actually upset over a book getting canceled. That's just. . . . Damn.

[Le Messor]

I'll often grab a copie of wizard. Posters, again I was thinking of what I know, which are shops on PEI and in Halifax, many of which are on busy streets that people often walk by.

Good points all.

I've never grabbed Wizard, even in my Halcyon days. Actually, I just like -saying- Halcyon days. But, if you do, even when you're not reading comics, I figure others must as well.

None of the comic shops around here are on busy streets, and I figured they were too much of a niche market to afford a good location anywhere. Well, you blew that theory.
(Of course, one of mine used to be part of the best music store in town, so that would've worked anyway; go in for the CDs, notice the comics.)

- Le Messor
"Sometimes, I imagine two women casting a spell together, and I go cast a spell by myself."
- Xander

[cmdrkoenig67]

Hey everybody, Rich Johnston who does his weekly "Lying In The Gutters" column over at comicbookresources has the e-mail Scott Lobdell sent to Ben today.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=13

MM

Whoa! Are we famous now? Glad I combed my hair and that I'm wearing nearly clean underwear...

The Mark Millar section has a really incorrect statement....stating that millar created the world's first gay superheroes....WRONG!

Dana

[cmdrkoenig67]

I discussed the possibity of forgoing my payment --
and creating a six issue arc that takes place in
NEMESIS and CENTENIAL's shared past so that it could
justifiably be printed in black and white (which means
it would be cheaper to produce in terms of costs, sans
writing and coloring)...but alas, the only reaction I
got was "We do not publish black and white comics at
this time." Umm. You COULD publish black and white
comics if you WANT to...no one is showing up at the
printers with three hundred gallons of colored ink
pouring it onto the presses. Sigh.)

Um....Marvel IS publishing B&W comics right now.....(Why would Scott and/or Marvel say that?)....Bram Stoker's Dracula!...And aren't the Essential comic trades B&W also? Very weird.

Dana

[Cliff]

Stroker's is in the Essential line, but still...those are B/W books.

[kozzi24]

Delbubs wrote:
Personally I didn't see it getting as far as it did. Now either Marvel try and figure out why second string books don't become first string or give up on the idea and just publish Silver age characters with periodic major changes that in the long run revert to the norm.

2nd string do become first string from time to time. I can remember the example of something so second string it was a REPRINT book until new creative team was brought on to write what was something of an editorial mandate of creating an international team that would appeal as exotic to Americans and garner better foreign sales for the foreign (Irish, Russian, African, Canadian and German heroes) market.

The differences: there was marketing input on the book. The stories in that "new series" were good comics that respected what had been done in the title before.

Clayton Henry's art was a boost for this title. Hopefully he will be a superstar someday. I like Scott Lobdell, and he has done some mighty fine work over the years, but Scott's stories really killed this book. (IMO) The first arc was too long for the content. Readers today don't have the patience to wait to see what a character's powers are. I think the sales would have been even lower in the long run if Scott had not been manipulating the core AF fans with teasers of the originals, both in the first arc and the Flashback four parter.

A bad-girl character could have boosted sales with her titllating costume and cheek kicking. Did we see her first fight? No, we were given a brief glimpse of Sasquatch's compliments of something the reader didn't see.

With Alpha members fighting each other being such a theme in AF history, the scramble-the-plodex eggs or save-them fight should have been an issue unto itself, not a cutesy dog pile on Sasquatch.

Was a character like the manipmator supposed to fraw new readers? Here, Scott had the opportunity to draw some interest with the "guest appearances" but when the villain turns out to be a lame joke, that opportunity is also lost.

Scott had some really great ideas thrown in this title, but if the cream is lumpy and sour when it floats to the top, you don't drink that cup of coffee, do you?