There was a period at the beginning there when there was a new editor on SUPERGIRL every other issue. When Mike McAvennie settled in, I kept expecting him to disappear within a month or so. Happily, I was wrong; unhappily, not forever.
I was extremely unhappy to learn of Mike’s departure from DC Comics yesterday. When I was first looking at Leonard Kirk’s pencils and saying, “Gee, I’m not sure,” Mike was the one saying, “Trust me, he’ll work out great,” and he was absolutely right. He was always watching out for the good of the book.
People are asking me what this bodes for SUPERGIRL. I couldn’t say. I am reasonably sure that sales are not what I’d hoped for with the new storyline and the “return of Kara.” I’m seeing lots of fans who state they never read the book or dropped it now saying they fully intend to start buying it with #75. Unfortunately my guess is that they haven’t bothered to tell their retailers, who in turn aren’t bothering to increase their orders. If every single retailer had increased his order by one copy–one–that’d be a rise of several thousand right there. Hasn’t happened so far. Funny that retailers and fans complain about the CAPTAIN MARVEL circus, with the air of publicity stunts and the multiple covers. But sales tripled. Tripled. SUPERGIRL was simply publicized with a much-asked-for storyline and terrific Ed Benes art. Emphasis on substance over style. Best guess? Haven’t even cracked the top 100 yet.
I’m asked what sort of message DC is sending by firing Mike McAvennie. Answer: Not a good one. Now here’s my question: What sort of message is being sent to DC when an editor launches a popular storyline with great art and the book still can’t get the time of day?
PAD
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PAD,
I am not the least bit happy at this. It does not seem to bode well for the series. I have truly enjoyed your work on Supergirl. I was not originally thrilled witht the EarthAngel storyline but it grew on me. I have continually pushed this book to my friends.
I hope this works out for you and for Mike.
Funny that retailers and fans complain about the CAPTAIN MARVEL circus, with the air of publicity stunts and the multiple covers. But sales tripled. Tripled. SUPERGIRL was simply publicized with a much-asked-for storyline and terrific Ed Benes art. Emphasis on substance over style. Best guess? Haven’t even cracked the top 100 yet.
I was just thinking this. DC needs to read Guerilla Marketing, hmm?
Speaking as a retailer, I did not increase my orders for Supergirl #75, but that’s only because I’ve always made sure to have ample supplies of every issue of Supergirl. In my store, she sells every bit as well as any issue of Superman, and occasionally better. My ordering goal each month is to have exactly one copy left over of the previous month’s issue of any title I carry. It’s impossible to be exact, and I often have to adjust my standing draws, but I usually have copies of every title in stock all month long.
At the very least, retailers ought to take advantage of DC’s advance re-orders. If you contact Diamond before the end of Sept. 25th, you can still add copies of Supergirl #75 (anywhere from 1 copy to as many as you can imagine) and they will arrive on the same day as your original order!
Oh, one more thing… as I looked up the above information, I found I did increase my initial order for #75.
I’m very sorry to hear this Peter, it’s easily one of my favorite books, I would hate to see it go.
I dámņ near doubled the order for issue #75, and I have been pushing it to several customers in the store. It constantly outsells all of the Superman books.
I wish you the best man. Good luck.
It my comic store, I’m like THE person that reads Supergirl. While I enjoy the book and will keep reading it as long as Mr David keeps writing it, I doubt my comic store will ever order more than just the one copy. Their feeling seems to be that comics with female leads don’t sell so there is no point of even placing a single extra copy on the shelf.
Peter, I hope you can answer this, does Ed Benes sell his art through a dealer, if so who? I’d love to get some of his pages from Supergirl.
re: Rob’s comment
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…comics with female leads don’t sell so there is no point of even placing a single extra copy on the shelf.
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That saddens me. As a female comics fan who likes reading comics with strong female leads, it’s a slap in the face to be so frequently and continuously discounted. And the blame is always placed on “Them” (publishers, girls, etc.). What outreach has your store done to bring us in?
Peter, I’m sorry to hear about McAvennie’s departure. I hope he lands on his feet safely, and I hope for your continued success on Supergirl.
Well, I told my retailer to increase his order by at least one. I hate to see Kirk go, but I haven’t been buying Supergirl because I’m not into all the supernatural stuff. I hope Benes is better than the cover art I’ve seen–frankly, it’s awful. But I’ll buy the title as long as I can.
Well, I hope Supergirl isn’t cancelled anytime soon. I’ve loved the book since the beginning.
I’m looking forward to Ed Benes art in the next issue. Any chance we could get a preview on the site somewhere?
-Markisan
This is bad, not only this news but the fact that DC is disconituing its letters columns(I love those things!).
I admit, I have not always read Supergirl, mainly because as much as I love her as a character, my budget causes me to make choices. Recently I finally learned of Mary Marvel’s appearances and I love her too, so I was planning on starting to get Supergirl.
One of the problems, I have heard from people as regards Supergirl, is that often people have the misconception that it is tightly woven with the Superman titles and frankly, the constant crossovers and continuing stories from one title to another, prevents a lot of us from buying Big Blues books. I love Supes but I can’t afford 4 books a month and my others. So I think if DC made some good pushes to let fans know its not connected to Superman as much, it might help.
Just a thought.
Col
For those who’ve been asking about Ed Benes’ artwork on SUPERGIRL, here’s a link to a sneak preview of what’s coming up:
http://www.sg-earthangel.com/ed1.html
And Col’s comment about the misconception over an interlocking storyline is a valid one. There simply hasn’t been enough promotion which illumates SUPERGIRL’s singular quality from the rest of the Super-pack, although I’d expand on that by claiming that the book’s almost always being ignored by marketing. It often seems like SUPERGIRL is treated like the ‘black sheep’ of the entire DC Universe line.
KET
The problem is that SUPERGIRL’s relative independence from the rest of the “Super” titles also serves as a liability, because the devoted Superman fans figure they can skip the title because it’s not tied in to the month-to-month story.
So we’ve got the fans who don’t buy it because they don’t know it can be read separately from the books, and the fans who don’t buy it because they don’t need it to follow the other “Super” titles.
PAD
I like Supergirl tremendously, especially since issue #51. Perhaps I’m the only one who likes that version better, so I figured I’d say so. I don’t buy any other Super-titles (unless there are very good reviews). I also liked the previous Supergirl, and I know you (PAD) will probably write a good Supergirl regardless of which version you use.
Seems like there is difficulty getting a consensus on which Supergirl fans like. Many people wouldn’t read the earth-angel SG at all, simply because of the religious overtones, or because it wasn’t Kara. Some won’t read the recent SG because it isn’t the earth-angel or Kara, and they “don’t like the look.” Some don’t want to read about Kara because they think it cheapens the Crisis death or is an unwelcome violation of the Superman mythos.
It seems we all like Supergirl so much that we can’t bear to read her series.
My store increased orders for this issue by an additional 50%.
Would have gone higher, but the reporoduction of the cover art provided with the order catalogue was a complete turn-off, and I fear the actual cover will have the same effect on at least some potential customers (with over 300 titles on the shelf, few folks have the time to page through them all to look at interior art).
After 20 years in this business, one thing I have learned is that if it is a choice between going with the hype or with my gut — always choose the latter. Certainly not 100 per cent accurate nor effective, but is much moreso than going with the former.
Now, if DC could be convinced to release a promo poster consisting of a full-sized or larger reproduction of an interior page….
Thanks Ket. Ed’s artwork is incredible. Supergirl has never looked better.
-Markisan
PAD: “The problem is that SUPERGIRL’s relative independence from the rest of the “Super” titles also serves as a liability, because the devoted Superman fans figure they can skip the title because it’s not tied in to the month-to-month story.”
And yet, all I ever hear are complaints about how many crossovers occur in the Super books. I don’t know, I tend to think that people view Supergirl as character a lame copy of Superman, so they don’t give the book a chance. Too bad.
-Markisan
PAD mentioned, “The problem is that SUPERGIRL’s relative independence from the rest of the “Super” titles also serves as a liability, because the devoted Superman fans figure they can skip the title because it’s not tied in to the month-to-month story.”
It only serves as a liability in the way that DC promotes SUPERGIRL, since the title is consistantly hidden underneath the Superman umbrella. To use a similarly-acclaimed title for comparison, I don’t remember STARMAN ever having a problem getting noticed, even when it became obvious that Robinson was letting his plotting get too unwieldy towards the end of the run. Much of SUPERGIRL’s initial fanbase came from readers who weren’t interested in traditional superhero fare such as Superman and Batman. If DC would have marketed the title more out of Superman’s shadow, the book would likely have prospered.
And actually, Mr. David, there’s still more to it than that. Many of today’s Superman fans still see the Supergirl character as “His competition”, even though she often follows a divergent heroic pathway from the Man of Steel.
Sexism in comics is still very alive and well-practiced.
KET
Peter, I don’t think that Supergirl’s being an independent read from the other Super-books harms in any way, be assured. It’s just like how the Flash’s being independent from most other books doesn’t harm it in any ways either.
Whatever, I’m sure hoping that the book’ll continue to do well. And if it’s okay to ask, you are doing your best to promote it and really give a good boost, aren’t you? We’ve all got to do our best to help many of our favorite books to survive, and I’m hoping that Supergirl will last for at least a decade, until, say, 2006.
Hey, by the way, if there were to be a book for Jesse Quick, another of my favorite chicks in the DCU, would you want to write it? 🙂
I’ve collected Supergirl since Issue #1 all those years ago. ok a few stories have been a bit boring – but up until after Supergirl lost the angel side of her i loved the book. since then it’s been ok but not fantstic. Learning more about Buzz was good, but i loved him when he was evil and not a devil with no powers.
im hoping the sales of supergirl go up and PAD doesnt leave the book for a good while yet (if ever if i hade my way). The thing that made Supergirl interesting to me at the beginning was the whole evolution of the character from matrix to Linda, then the Earth angel evolution. i think the introduction of new powers etc. make the story interesting and make people want to buy the book. a bit like the introduction of the Pantheon in the Hulk comics.
anyway, keep up the good work.
cheers Simon
Admittingly, I’ve never read Supergirl. I got #1 way back when, but it didn’t “catch” me in such a way that I wanted to keep buying it. And since then I’ve been a poor college student, barely able to afford any books, so that limited me from trying it again.
Now tho, I would very much enjoy trying it again. I plan on picking up the next issue if I can find it, however, I would enjoy starting from the beginning. Are there any TPBs out collecting some of the eariler runs? With all this tpb fever from DC and Marvel as of late, I would think there would be, but I dunno.
-dave
I have a theory of why the hype for the new direction didn’t translate into increased orders:
As we all know there is this segment of fandom who has a “if it’s not Kara it’s not the real Supergirl so I don’t care!” additude. I have many friends like this who will not pick up the title even though I’ve really been trying to get them to. This whole new direction seems squarely directed at this group.
The problem then: nobody seems to believe it’s *really* Kara coming back. To be honest, it does seem a bit unlikely (not that I care one way or the other-I like the new SG).
The Superman titles have recently “fooled” fans into thinking the Silver age Krypton was back and it turned out to be a lame “Supervillian of the month” story. With such a bad taste left behind, it takes us back to “If it’s not Kara…”
I started again with this arc. I left originally because the storylines in Leesburg felt too soapy for my tastes. I absolutely loved this arc and Mary Marvel (and paradoxically the human inter relations between the villains and heroes) This was a great story and a dramatic arc. I am confused a bit about who this character is and will eagerly tune in for more now. But I have to wonder why at a dramatic conclusion you led with a cover with a pun on it? How does that help? Sets the wrong tone and counters the drama. Foolish. Compare to The Great Darkness Saga Cover of that old LSH arc. THAT made people pick up the book. This cover reveals more about DCs disarray then the story inside. Still, enjoyed the book itself immensely!