For nearly a decade, comic book movies have been big business, with film franchises like Spider-Man and X-Men pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars per movie. Unfortunately for comics publishers, translating that big box office to comic book sales hasn’t been easy—at least when it comes to superheroes. But the recently released Marvel Studios film Iron Man has proved doubly successful; it’s not only earning of hundreds of millions in ticket sales, it’s also pulling off what most superhero movies never found a way to do: Sell a lot of comics.
The summer ahead seems primed to be a big one for superheroes in the movies, with Iron Man currently the highest grossing film of 2008, and the months ahead packed with The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, Hellboy II, and The Dark Knight on the big screen. But unfortunately for comics, where even the highest selling monthly book often tops out around 100,000 copies, millions of moviegoers don’t equal millions of readers in the comic shop.
The issue, say those in the industry, is not just getting moviegoers into stores, but making it less complicated for them to buy superhero comics once they get there. Whereas single volume graphic novels like DC’s V for Vendetta, or Dark Horse’s 300 were easy for consumers to pick up after seeing the films, popular superhero titles often have multiple ongoing books in addition to dozens, if not hundreds of trade paperback collections, a glut of content that can be daunting to new readers.
“Superhero movies don’t tend to influence the sales of superhero comics almost at all, mostly because there’s so rarely a stand-alone graphic novel that is considered the must-have book.” says Christopher Butcher, manager of The Beguiling Books & Art in Toronto, Canada.
“A good example would be Spider-Man,” says Mike Malve, owner of Atomic Comics in Phoenix, Arizona. Despite spectacular box office earnings that still top all other comic book movies so far (Iron Man included), the Spider-Man franchise wasn’t able to achieve a similar boom in the comic book shop.
“We had all these Spider-Man titles out there, and then Marvel would rush out a few miniseries [for the movie] that had no bearing to what was going in continuity and not a lot to do with the movie either,” says Malve. “It just didn’t have the broad appeal.”
It was advice that Marvel Comics seems to have kept in mind for the release of Iron Man, which is based on the metal-suited Marvel comic book character. The movie enjoyed a stunning $100 million opening weekend in May, the tenth biggest opening in history, and has currently made over $250 million in North America and over $485 million worldwide.
Rather than leaving readers to choose at random from the multiple ongoing Iron Man titles, Marvel launched both a new ongoing series called Invincible Iron Man, by writer Matt Fraction, and a miniseries by Iron Man movie director Jon Favreau, Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas.
Both books hit stands with #1 issues five days after the film’s release, and they appear to be taking full advantage of the film’s popularity. Invincible Iron Man #1 has already sold out of its over 100,000 copy print run, with a second printing on the way June 11th. The first issue of Favreau’s Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas miniseries has also sold out, according to Marvel Marketing Manager Jim McCann.
Having two new Iron Man books labeled “#1” made prospective readers feel a lot more confident about pulling them off the rack, adds Malve. “You see people coming in and they’re not as tentative, not as afraid to pick it up. Everything Iron Man is selling out right now, which I’ve never had happen in all these years of [comic book] movies.”
“I thought I ordered way, way too many, but that wasn’t even close to being the case. The sales of [those two books] have been phenomenal,” says Jud Meyers of Earth 2 Comics in California, who is out of Viva Las Vegas, and about to run out of Invincible Iron Man. “There’s no doubt it brought people into the store.”
Meyers says that the movie has brought in customers from new demographics as well. “The guys who are 28-40, they’re not my [only] bread and butter anymore. I need everybody. The best is when a young girl comes in now and says, ‘Do you have any Iron Man comics?’ I would never have imagined that sentence from a little girl. That means [the movie] had true wide appeal. The whole family went and the whole family liked it.”
Although Invincible Iron Man and Viva Las Vegas have sold the strongest, Meyers also says that the regular ongoing Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and kid-oriented Marvel Adventures: Iron Man titles have also seen a boost. “Marvel is very, very smart,” remarks Meyers. “Before the movie even came out, they really anticipated and had an Iron Man comic for everyone, every stage of the family dynamic.”
Meyers also attributes the broader interest in the comics to the movie’s connection with the rest of the Marvel world, as well as other Marvel movies. “They treated this movie like it was a comic book—part of an entire universe. It was about something bigger.” Crossover extras included a glimpse of Captain America’s shield in Iron Man’s workshop, and an appearance after the film credits from Marvel character Nick Fury, as well as the news that Iron Man will make an appearance in The Incredible Hulk movie later this summer.
Asked why comics publishers hadn’t launched new series to tie in with comics movies before, Malve says “I don’t know why. They don’t really look at the movie audience that’s going to come into the stores. But [Marvel] is doing everything right with this now. Invincible Iron Man #1 was perfect. They hit the nail on the head.”
