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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Do Spoilers Spoil A Comic?


Here is the basic question:

Do spoilers spoil a comic for you?

My thoughts:

If it is a book I was on the fence about buying, it very much "spoils" things -- as far as me being motivated to buy it.

Sometimes, the only attraction certain books have for me is the "big reveal."

Case in point: Countdown. Despite some of its flaws, Countdown has contained some important -- or at least shocking -- events in the DCU. If I had no way but to call my friends to find out the spoilers, I might have just bought it every week. Just to see what crazy s**t popped up next.

But, if you have scans and full spoilers posted online by 12:00 on a Wednesday -- where is my motivation? All the "good parts" have been posted for me to read - literally, panel-by-panel. And if I'm really adventurous, I can track down the full illegal scan of the book, along with a good portion of everything else that came out that day.

But with comics with a proven track record, having the "big reveal" spoiled for me is annoying, but I can still enjoy the book. So I doubt Captain America readers will drop the book after finding out a key Cap spoiler.

Anyway, this is why I think keeping these things under wraps is so important to comic companies. I think they lose a lot of "casual reader" business when their books are extensively spoiled. It is, in a sense, their "business secrets" being given away.

While speculating about the spoilers for the event-of-the-month can be enjoyable -- I read regularly Lying In the Gutters, and think Rich presents these things in a fun way -- when it comes to direct play-by-play spoiling of a company's key book, I kind of take exception. What was sort of fun speculation starts to seem like hostility.

I am looking at things from the inside-out perspective of working within the industry. If the sales of the company's biggest books get hit because of extensive spoilage, and the overall financial performance of the publisher suffers, these are the people who suffer:
  • The writer
  • The artists
  • The editorial staff
  • The production staff
  • Everybody else on staff
To a jaded "fan" who resents not being inside that "clique" anyway, this is hardly a reason for concern. Indeed, the ruining of a company's event might be (and often is) justified as "payback" for not listening to the fan or fans (or including them in the perceived "clique").

(and the retailers suffer too, don't they?)

The Internet makes it extremely easy to disseminate leaked information. How do publishers deal with this inevitability, then?

For that, I turn to the example of Hulu.com.

The people who post TV and movie clips (as well as the entire program) on sites like YouTube are considered, in a way, minor folk heroes. Though they add very little of their own ideas to the table (the exception being video "mashups"), they are "branded" to the product in some way. Some include personal logos before the clips or features.

But Hulu takes that notoriety away. It also provides free movies and clips. Even clips you can embed on your blog -- just like YouTube. NBC/Universal took control of their product. The South Park creators are doing the same thing -- offering every episode for free on their website.

The comic publishers need to similarly take control of their intellectual property and "spoilers."

Why should Marvel let other sites benefit through increased traffic over their own spoilers?

They should be hosting these spoilers on their own sites -- and at least control the flow of publicity and collect the ad revenues.

They should create a "spoiler day" before the books come out, driving traffic to their official sites. Or integrate spoilers into some sort of mystery or contest. The key is to give fans what they want and will get anyway, but at the same time having some degree of profit and control of the situation -- as opposed to having none.

But also, it is important for any comic to not heavily depend on the "reveals" and shocking material in order to get readers. The story should be able to stand on its own even if spoiled.

Finally, there is the question of genuinely wanting to enjoy your comic and let the story unfold on its own.

To be honest, I used to always turn to the last page of the comics I read first. But, then someone told me why that was a shitty way to approach things, and I stopped. Because the real person I was cheating was myself.

17 comments:

  1. You know, LOST releases "Sneak Peaks" on their website, which then disseminate amongst youtube and other sites.

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  2. When every news outlet in the country blabbed the death of Superman in 1992, months before the comic could be bought, I was furious. They wouldn't have told America that (CAUTION: Spoiler ahead) Rosebud was a sled, or the black woman in Crying Game had a dick. Why were comic book readers treated with less respect? Also, his death wasn't the point of the story -- it was what came after.

    IMO, people who like to reveal spoilers ahead of time are people who think they have to prove how inside they are. I am no longer impressed.

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  3. I've recently become addicted to Hulu and South Park Studios and thought both were a brilliant move on the studios' part to circumvent the file sharing and stealing of their content.

    Extending that idea further to the comic industry makes sense. Why steal it when it's being posted for free?

    I think the problem is one of economics. Hulu and SPS embed ads in their video streams and from the advertisers I've seen, it seems like companies are more than willing to pay up. Would Marvel and DC be able to attract similar caliber advertisers willing to pay for spots on a funny book site? I hope so. I wouldn't mind skipping through a bunch of ads to read comics fer free.

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  4. It depends on the story -- and how deep into the story the spoiler occurs. I'm okay with knowing "X and Y show up" but I really don't want to know who's a skrull and who's not.

    More often then not, I'll avoid spoilers for anything I intend to read, and read spoilers for anything I've decided against.

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  5. Anonymous5:05 PM

    I was thinking that much of Marvel's recent existence has been placed on shocking plot points, which don't necessitate me reading the specific stories in which they take place.

    Then I remembered The Death of Captain America, how much I love Brubaker's work on that series, and how terribly disappointed I was when I couldn't get my hands on #25 that Wednesday. I knew exactly how Captain America was killed, every shocking reveal -- but damn, did I want to read that story!

    It can be done. Some of the best writers use shocking reveals as a tourettic habit, but their stories keep me reading anyway (Brian K. Vaughan, much of Bendis' better work).

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  6. It's almost as if one measure of how good a comic is, is if it survives being "spoiled."

    I will give the example, though, of a movie that is supposed to be good -- The Others -- that I just wasn't motivated to watch after having the spoiler delivered to me in (of all places) a MAD TV sketch.

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  7. bah almost every naruto /one piece fan knows what`ll happen in the next 200 chapters thanks to internet raws and still the shonen jump sells a lot

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  8. sometimes it just compels me more, like when i ehard the kingdom come version of superman was showing up in JSA or soemthing like that, but thats a big story if you get my meaning. if it was a smaller, more stand alone book like invincible or the walking dead i wouldnt really look for it.

    and if someone ruiined a hellboy story arc for me id go postalm but thats my favourite series so i guess that would go for everyone ,albiet catered to there own tastes.

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  9. For me, one of the hardest parts of keeping a surprise in a mainstream comic is the three and a half month gap between when some covers are released in previews and which comics are currently on the stands.

    In Ye Olde Days-- you just didn't know WHAT was coming up and each cover was a complete surprise.

    Imagine how AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #121 would have read, if you'd already seen the cover for ASM #122 two months earlier-- with Spider-Man cradling Gwen Stacy's dead body on top of the G.W. Bridge.

    You'd pick up #121, read the cover copy: "Someone close to me is about to DIE! Someone I cannot save! But who? WHO?" And you'd say, "Gwen, that's who." :(

    When it was time to come up with the covers for the A:TI "KILLED IN ACTION" arc, we purposely left KIA off the covers until #11. That was so his first appearance on the last page splash of #8 would come as a shock... But I forgot that A:TI was shipping later in the month... So people saw the #11 cover anyway! :(

    Whatcha gonna do?

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  10. If a comic is truly ruined by spoilers, then it's not a good comic.

    That's why I usually like spoilers, especially for massively-hyped comics... helps me find out whether they're actually telling a story, or if the only reason to buy them is yet another shocking development.

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  11. I'd like to make a counter argument to this. I think spoilers make me WANT to read the comic. I won't lie that I occasionally spy through websites just hoping to find a clue as to the much awaited result of a building arc. Yet nothing, NOTHING, can truly deliver the impact of the reveal like reading it. In fact a spoiler presented to me makes me want to hold it and view that glorious moment even more so. Sure I know whats coming, I know the possible pulls of my heart strings, but you know what...it's not the same. Granted a better book may be able to hold up under the pressure of spoilers being released but not for everyone.

    And another personal twist. Movie spoilers for me are a bit different entity. I'm not as invested in the story and the plot of a comic book arc. For example, I have never seen The Sixth Sense because the ending was ruined for me. But I did read the spoilers for Cap 25 because I was invested in the characters. I was familiar with their stories and regardless of knowing the outcome I was already attached.

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  12. They call them spoilers for a reason. That being said, I only mind being spoiled on stuff I don't really care about- I'll happily devour Scans_Daily Countdown updates, but my fiance and I cover our ears, close our eyes and sing "lalalala" whenever TV ads for Lost come on.

    Speaking of LiTG, I'm kicking myself for reading that spoiler this week...

    As for an official spoiler site: I'd much rather have them presented as a mystery and a tongue-in-cheek thing than a straight 'spoil.' An Alternate Reality Game of helping someone sort out possible fake-Avenger Skrull sightings on their fictitious in-universe blog or whatever would be so much more interesting than a scan of a page of the reveal. I expect my offical company promotion to at least *pretend* that the reason to buy the books is more than "OMG What have they done to my favourite childhood hero now!"

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  13. Martha Thomases -
    Like generations of viewers I've had "Citizen Kane" spoiled by a certain, much-reprinted "Peanuts" strip, but I still enjoyed the film and saw it a couple of times. Also, many heard about the big reveal in "The Crying Game" through a "Simpsons" episode and quite a few films were "spoiled" for me by MAD parodies, which in many parts of the world become available before the parodied films are released. So maybe the advance hoopla over the death of Superman was payback for comics disrespecting cinephiles.

    In the most recent case that affected me, I would have wished someone had spoiled "One More Day" for me (although the surprise here really was "I cannot believe they're actually going through with a storyline that is so predictable and so bad"). It would have enabled me to cancel my subscription to Amazing Spider-Man in time, and now I not only wasted good money on the four over-priced issues of OMD, but also on the first six issues of Bland New Day (because the cancellation of my subscription at my comic dealer only came into effect later.)

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  14. I’ve read too much, studied too much, and written too much for a spoiled plot twist to disrupt my enjoyment of a story. “I didn’t see it coming, but it works perfectly,” is not the only way to enjoy a story – which is good, or I’d enjoy even fewer works than I do now.

    Should the big comic companies put stuff on the internet and profit from ads and collections and swag? Yes. Can they make a profit on it? Yes. Penny-Arcade supports a staff of 3 or 4 – and they don’t have Spider-Man or Superman in their pocket. They are not the only webcomic putting food on the table, either.

    Will having web content up at the same time as having floppies affect sales? Yes. However, the total effect is unclear. Image not only prints the trade collections of the webcomic PVP, they also release a monthly issue that is mostly reprints of the webcomic – and it’s up to issue #39. 39! Are you kidding me? PVP creator Scott Kurtz is on record as saying that the audiences for the floppy and the webcomic seem to be different people. Which makes sense – in prose fiction, the people who buy hardbacks are not the people who buy trade paperbacks are not the people who buy pocket paperbacks. Why would sequential art be any different with different audiences enjoying the same materials through different delivery systems? Now, the matter of how to manage the release of the materials to maximize profit is still up in the air, but if PVP’s backward approach to the floppies works, it seems likely that simultaneously release on the web is probably viable, especially for those works whose only real strength is the big reveal.

    *continues to rant about the economics of comics on the web. Devolves into muttering about the timidity of his favorite artform’s big companies*

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  15. Slott said:
    For me, one of the hardest parts of keeping a surprise in a mainstream comic is the three and a half month gap between when some covers are released in previews and which comics are currently on the stands.

    I consider the entire solicit/Previews thing one big spoiler pit, and try as hard as I can to avoid reading them. Which flies in the face of how I'm supposed to plan my purchases three months in advance, but, there you go.

    The most annoying thing for me, personally, as a non-American reader, is the week wait between when issues come out in the States and when they do here. I take a great risk everytime I come on them internets. ^_^

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  16. i read LOST spoilers cause even with them I still get surprised, even stuff I know creates HOLY SHIT moments cause thats how good it is.

    i avoid but also look for spoilers. its like i dont want to know but i do at the same time.

    except y the last man. ive avoided spoilers cause i read it in trade.

    luckily only a month or 2 left.

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  17. I have no problem with spoilers, so long as I can choose when (and when not) to read them. Giant headlines in major newspapers announcing the death of Captain America (and subsequent announcements on shows like Colbert Report) remove that element of choice.

    I've recently switched over to trades, which basically means everything gets spoiled. (I'm still waiting for the first paperback of The Death of Captain America. Aside from the obvious spoiler that is in the title, I've also had to endure several "Captain America is still dead" headlines on Newsarama. I don't think there will be any major surprises there.) But I prefer reading when all the buzz has died down anyway, when the really vocal (and angry) portion of fandom has moved on to other things. It's been said before, but a story ought to be good enough so that you can be satisfied despite spoilers.

    Maybe the reason I can be so blah about spoilers is because I've gotten used to it. I already knew who Luke's father really was. I already knew what Rosebud was. It's just the nature of the beast. If you choose not to be the first in the first in line (or have the misfortune of being born ten years too late), chances are you'll know everything by the time you reach the front. Unless some newspaper headline ruins it before the book or film is even released.

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