Marvel Comics is famed for having a rich backlog of classic comics material, and more of it will be available than ever in the first half of 2005. Partly to mark the company's 65th anniversary, several reprint lines will have expanded schedules, while Marvel continues its successful reprints, Ultimate and digest lines. According to Marvel's sales and marketing manager, David Gabriel, reprints of classic material from the '60s, '70s and '80s, works that were virtually nonexistent a year ago, have been doing very well in comics specialty stores. There are three subdivisions of these reprints: Marvel Masterworks, Marvel Visionaries and Marvel Essentials. The Masterworks series reprints key Silver Age (roughly the 1940s to late 1970s) material in deluxe hardcover editions. One new volume will appear every month, with releases for the first half of '05 focusing on Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, Fantastic Four and Iron Man. These are the first new Masterworks volumes in three years, Gabriel said. "The new Masterworks are creating extreme excitement among fans."
The Visionaries series is another hardcover line, spotlighting important creators. New volumes will appear quarterly. Next up will be Stan Lee in February, with Steve Ditko due in April. Finally, the lower-priced black and white Essentials line will release one or two volumes a month. These thick paperbacks reprint more esoteric material from the '70s and '80s. New '05 releases include Essential Power Man and Essential Defenders, two quirky titles with a lot of nostalgia value. The Essential line has produced some surprise sellers. "Super-Villain Team Up is one of our best sellers," Gabriel continued. Meanwhile, the Ultimate line, which features updated versions of classic Marvel characters, continues to sell on the backlist as well as with new volumes. "Usually by the time you hit volume 10 or 11, interest is waning. But that is not the case with Ultimate X-Men or Ultimate Spider-Man," Gabriel explained. Further volumes of both titles are due, as well as Ultimate Elektra and Ultimate Fantastic Four to tie in with movie releases.
While the classic collections do well in comics specialty stores, the kid- and teen-friendly Marvel Age digest line continues to be the big success story in bookstores. Hitting the kids' market is a "huge" focus for Marvel in 2005. "We're trying to do one or two digests a month," Gabriel said, "but we want to make sure we have the right material." Books like Emma Frost have had strong reorder activity, and both Frost and Marvel Age Fantastic Four have been picked up by the Scholastic Book Club. Often the material that does the best in bookstores is the reverse of what is selling in comics shops. One of Marvel's topselling digests was a collection of Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus that was one of Marvel's lowest sellers when it appeared as a monthly periodical. New digest titles for '05 include Marvel Age Hulk, Marvel Age Spider-Man Team-Up, Marvel Age Fantastic Four and Arana, the Hispanic Spider-Girl who recently debuted in Amazing Fantasy.
