Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel |
| Creator: | Colin Spacetwinks |
| Date(s): | April 2017 |
| Medium: | Meta; Online |
| Fandom: | Marvel Comics |
| Topic: | Diversity in comics; marketing; Marvel's reception to fan culture |
| External Links: | On itch.io |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel is an essay on Marvel's lagging comic sales, despite the overwhelming popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The essay is just short of 30k words and specifically focuses on disproving the accusation that the push for diversity in comics is to blame.[1]
The essay is available to download for free or on a choose your price basis.
Author's About
"Marvel Comics has recently been in a rough spot, with flagging sales, and interrogated some on the matter in a meeting with retailers, who let out their own grievances in the difficulty lately in selling some of Marvel's books. One possible culprit among others got attention: Diversity in their titles, and readers turning up their nose at them.This did not sit well with others, the idea that retailers and Marvel would blame these books for low sales - and it didn't sit well with me, either. So I've hunkered down and put in the hours researching sales data reaching back over a decade in Marvel, and looked for what could possibly be the true culprit in their sales problems.
"Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel" is a nearly 30k long essay, a spiritual sequel to The Problems With Comics, a deep dive into the true issues with Marvel's economics and business - and how an obsession with short term profit, the constant renumbering and relaunches and events, all compounded by a complete inability to understand basic marketing techniques or outside audiences, has absolutely destroyed the sales stability of many of their former best selling books, all as they condescend to those who criticize them on their stories, or on how they try to sell comics."[1]
Reception
As of August 2020, the essay is rated five out of five stars on the host's site, based off of 21 reviews.
Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel was briefly discussed on the /r/GamerGhazi subreddit, a community where "Diversity and geek culture collide."[2]
[u/PaladinofFarore]
"Really dissapointed by this. Marvel has some great stuff. Ms Marvel, Moon Girl and Black Panther are all stellar. They're also largely divorced from the big event bullshit that ruins everything else. The tie in story Ms Marvel had to Civil War II was better than the event itself in how it explored the central theme."[2]
[u/cloudtales]
"Just finished the article. Loved it. The way Marvel fucks up is spot on. I can't keep track of the number of times Marvels mess has put me right off committing to a series. Nowadays I often just go to a wiki page to get the background and other info relevant to a comic series I'm actually following. Much cheaper than looking for and/or splashing out good, hard earned money for profiteering extras of questionable quality"[2]
References
- ^ a b Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel (pre-download page), Archived version
- ^ a b c Shut The Fuck Up, Marvel by spacetwinks (30k long essay) - post on r/GamerGhazi, Archived version (Accessed August 4, 2020)