Social Media The Marvel Comics Way!
25 Comments | Posted: January 27th, 2009 | Filed under: Thinking about Comics Marketing | Tags: dc, marvel, twitterA lot of people are touting social media and how it’s changed how fans interact with brands, claiming that it allows for transparency and a level of engagement that goes above and beyond websites and blogs. Jennifer Van Grove at Mashable wrote a great blog entry about the best Twitter brands and the people behind them. While it’s interesting to see how companies and their customers interact publicly, it’s also important to note how professional these exchanges are.
And when you think of professionalism, Marvel Comics immediately springs to mind. Let’s look at the following exchange between a fan of the publishing concern and the company’s official Twitter account.
To review: a fan mentions that they read ten Marvel comics this weekend, and got rid of 20 weeks’ worth of DC’s weekly Trinity, written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. They are told, by a Marvel representative, that they’re amazed that someone could/would read 20 issues of this comic. (The original Marvel tweet has since been deleted, but someone smarter than me screencapped it and sent it my way.)
Kurt Busiek is currently writing a sequel to his Marvels series for the publisher. Marvels was a crown jewel in the publisher’s line through the 90s and continues to sell well for them because it’s actually very good. Mark Bagley was a mainstay of the Spider-Man titles through the 90s and drew over 100 consecutive issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, a title that helped the company’s publishing division ride the success of the cinematic version of the character to financial solvency.
In other words, to get a cheap shot at their perceived “competition,” a Marvel representative threw two of their most respected creators under the bus. This “competition,” by the way, has been blown vastly out of proportion over the years mostly by Marvel and its fans. While I can appreciate the tongue-in-cheek tone they’ve embraced (“Not Brand Ecch” and “Distinguished Competition” being two of my favorite bits they’ve used,) there’s a distinct difference between winking at the readers and outright badmouthing of another publisher’s product. Despite the inflamed passions of fans on both ends of the spectrum, it’s not like either DC or Marvel’s comic book divisions are making cars – they’re putting out $3-$4 doses of serial entertainment. The closest thing to comics and how they’re purchased is America’s movie habit and while Fox and Paramount certainly compete for weekend dollars across America, you never see either studio trashing the other for the quality of product. (Most likely because they know that neither of them has a leg to stand on in that department.)
There’s room for more than one major company putting out comic books. That sort of dismissive, we’ll-finance-anyone used-car-salesman bullshit cheapens Marvel in multiple ways and while there’s plenty to say about DC’s inability to grasp Twitter and the like, I think it’d be better to not have said anything at all than indulge in cheap snark at the expense of your brand’s respectability.
As much as I am a fan of the way Marvel’s been using the web, I was a little shocked that it came from the branded Marvel account. If I saw the same comment on a Marvel employee’s personal account, I don’t think I’d have cared. At least they were prompt about deleting it, but I’d much prefer it was never said in the first place.
Ripping good analysis, old bean. The internet doesn’t deserve you.
NO WAY!!! i disagree, i think it’s funny.
Agreed. Marvel and their die-hard fans are pretty bad when it comes to any sense of open-mindedness.
I was with you right up until here:
… indulge in cheap snark at the expense of your brand’s respectability.
The Marvel brand has many things going for it, but “respectability” is not really one of them. It did at one time, or at least I tend to think so, but somewhere in the last decade or so they decided that being the WWE of comics publishers was the way to go.
I mean, Marvel’s always had a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to DC. It was understandable when they were the young punk on the block and DC was the stodgy old guard, but that ended sometime around 1975. Marvel’s been “top dog” in the superhero comics game for over 30 years at this point. Nowadays when they trash talk DC they seem more like a bully than anything else.
Now, Kevin, you’re acting like you expect people who work in the comics industry to act like grown-ups and treat their industry like a real business.
Note that the account belongs to “Marvel Entertainment,” not “Marvel Comics.” Marvel Entertainment does have a lot of brand respect and I’ve actually seen people walk into a comic shop and say “Do you have any Marvel Comics?” because that’s literally the only brand they knew of. Between Iron Man and a quite-good Hulk movie, they’ve got a lot of fans out there that may be following them on Twitter or in other social media circles but not reading comics.
I’m disappointed that this thread goes straight to Marvel bashing without a single word said about the quality of Trinity. I’m sorry, but isn’t this the title that people are calling worse than Countdown? Maybe my sample is bad, but the reviews I’ve read have been horrid. Busiek and Bagley deserve high praise for Marvels, but seriously people, even the Babe struck out.
And now we’re scolding the entirety of Marvel for a tweet. This isn’t acid-tested professional PR. This is the kind of work you throw the intern. Maintaining presence is important, but there’s no revenue stream in Twittering. It’s afterthought and marginal priority. Someone low on the totem pole got snarky and then management quashed it when they found out.
This is stupid.
I’m disappointed that you apparently can’t read for content and see that the issue is not the the quality of any given comic, but how one company treats the professionals they’ve hired as well as the competition.
Maybe it shouldn’t be “the kind of work you throw the intern.” That’s what this post is pointing out. Marvel currently makes 5,132 impressions with every tweet, and that number is only going to go up. There’s no revenue stream directly in twittering, no, but there is brand-building, and I’m firmly of the belief that brand-building does not necessarily mean tearing down other companies.
I’m sorry you feel that way. Might I recommend that you go elsewhere, then?
(Also, Mark Bagley had nothing to do with Marvels, but again, that’d involve you reading for content.)
I like Trinity okay. It ain’t Shakespeare, or even 52, but it’s decent enough, and better than Countdown by far, I’d say.
I think it’s weird any time either company badmouths the other, since they share the exact same creative talent pool—creators who have done a lot of work for one company and no work for the other are pretty rare, aren’t they? It’s not like Busiek and Bagley suddenly lost all their talent when they signed up with DC, or that Mark Millar or Ed Brubaker or Dan Slott suddenly got 1,000 times better when they left DC to join Marvel. And what of creators like Garth Ennis or Warren Ellis or Mark Waid or Peter David that have gone back and forth between the two? Or Jeff Parker, who currently has books published by both companies simultaneously?
Anybody who says that is a goddamned idiot. Trinity isn’t really my cup of tea, but it’s not a bad comic; it had a bit of a rough start but has gotten into the story it wants to tell with a reasonable amount of success. In comparison, Countdown was an abortion of a comic book.
It is unprofessional, but I will admit, I laughed when I read it.
I don’t think they threw Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley under the bus. They threw Trinity under the bus.
Just because Busiek and Bagley smooched with Marvel and DC, doesn’t mean any of their work is sacred. Trinity is not that good of a book. Not a really bad book, but not that good either. Certainly not good enough to last 20+ issues, but not bad enough to line the birdcage with. Mediocre at very best.
Whomever posted the No-Prize comment was right on. It was a response to a comment about selling off 20 %&*@ Trinity issues.
I see nothing wrong in Marvel ripping on the work in a very light hearted way. They are, in fact, the ones who pay Busiek and Bagley. If the work stinks, it stinks. And it should be called out. The comment wasn’t mean. It wasn’t disrespectful. It wasn’t unprofessional. They are 2 rival companies. Rivals regardless of the fact they share a talent pool.
You made a mountain out of a molehill.
So, I guess if your employer said you did a shitty job on a freelance project in public, that wouldn’t bother you?
The Marvel account, Ben, is maintained by one of the Marvel.com editors and while interns do use it sometimes, the editor in question did cop to posting the tweet. The “an intern did it” thing also doesn’t fly because a literal shit-ton of Marvel employees and creators are using the service with varying degrees of activity and engagement.
Oh no not a joke! ANYTHING BUT A JOKE!!
I just gotta ask… So what?
Oh, the scathing wit and searing insight of the Newsarama reader.
I couldn’t agree more, Kevin. It was juvenile.
I agree that it was unprofessional, IT was also undignified. but reading the text it was also deleted. I don’t know how long it was up there and it shouldn’t have ever been up there but from the reading of the text, it was taken down once someone noticed. Also it was keeping in the spirit of Marvel Twitters but for once directed at DC. I signed up and was reading there twitters and there is a lot of cross mocking (in a lighthearted manner) between the Marvel creators. This message seems to be sent in the same way but from an idiot who, to me, seems Naive and has probably had a good talking to about his behavior.
It was stupid and it was a mistake but they deleted it. And now thanks to you and I assume a few others it will be commented upon and talked about for awhile.
I have been following your blog for about 7 months and I enjoy it. keep up the good work
Jonathan
Way to make Lying In The Gutters with this item!
Holy sh!t the bulk of these comments are pathetic. Why not try worrying about something that actually matters? This was nothing. At the very possible worst it was a matter of some guy saying something semi-stupid. Not that Trinity was garbage…it is garbage. It looks ugly and it reads badly. Being better than Countdown is the quite possibly the saddest compliment I’ve ever heard. No, the semi-stupid part was saying it in a public forum. But it’s still just not a big deal.
You’re talking about people who publish superhero comics (an inherently juvenile medium) as their livelihood and then act shocked that one of these guys who live in a juvenile environment made a joke focused on one of their competitor’s books. A joke that wasn’t even foul or vicious by kindergarten standards. ZOMFG! Call in Delta Force!
And then you extrapolate from that that Marvel is some shitty company that doesn’t take anything or anyone as seriously as they should.
The fact that your lives are so free of real problems that you can afford to get worked up over this non-issue is stunning. Please, don’t worry about devoting some time to the increasing ranks of the homeless and jobless because there are REAL problems to worry about in the superhero comics world!
Seek therapy, Buddhism, a sense of humor and some perspective immediately.
This is such an over-reaction, the Marvel tweet was pretty inoffensive.
Your point about the Hollywood studios is also completely wrong. Read Nikki Finke sometime- the studios are constantly slagging each others product. Its a natural consequence of a healthy competitive field. Lets not be precious.
Christian, please refer to this comment and the sidebar, where I specifically mention that I think and talk about marketing before taking your own advice before posting hyperbolic 200+ word comments on a blog entry when you yourself could be doing the home-building and job-creating you seem to think that I should be responsible for.
Through their PR mechanisms? Directly to their audience? No. And yes, I read Finke.
It’d be easy to bash DC’s latest weekly comics “experiment” – but at least they’re trying something different. Even though DC has had varying degrees of success with weekly comics ( including ACTION COMICS weekly from a few years back ) – they’ve always attached “name” talent to the books. Marvel on the other hand, when they try their hands at anthologies – pack it for the most part with back-up material sent in by people for submissions. This week’s latest attempt – ASTONISHING TALES – which will be LONG GONE by this time next year.
That all being said, what should be said – is that Marvel had the person pull the post almost immediately after realizing what was posted. Obviously they feel some measure of professionalism should be in place amongst competitors.