Dynamite: DC/Marvel Niche

[alton]

This is an offshoot of another thread regarding the survival of the big two's Niche and whether it would be feasible to move them through licensing to companies like Dynamite.Good idea or bad? What do you think?

[positronic]

Despite Dynamite's having co-produced some Marvel titles like Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness, Avengers/Invaders, Human Torch, and Invaders Now!, I can't see Marvel or DC ever licensing their less-popular characters to other comic book companies to publish. Marvel or DC will either decide to publish these characters or not. If they licensed them to other companies, and the titles turned out to be successful, they are in effect creating competition for themselves. And then what, when successful, they take back the characters and publish them themselves? It's just not good business sense.

[comixfan1980]

Once in a while a lesser known character experiences a boom of sorts and Marvel and DC get to reap the benefits of that, this happened a lot with Luke Cage and Iron Fist when the New Avengers came out back in 2005 or so and it's happened with characters like Blue Beetle through DC as of late. I don't think the "big 2" would license out their lesser known characters in fear that they may experience a boom while published under a different company/brand, they want to keep everything in house.

[alton]

Despite Dynamite's having co-produced some Marvel titles like Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness, Avengers/Invaders, Human Torch, and Invaders Now!, I can't see Marvel or DC ever licensing their less-popular characters to other comic book companies to publish. Marvel or DC will either decide to publish these characters or not. If they licensed them to other companies, and the titles turned out to be successful, they are in effect creating competition for themselves. And then what, when successful, they take back the characters and publish them themselves? It's just not good business sense.


Once in a while a lesser known character experiences a boom of sorts and Marvel and DC get to reap the benefits of that, this happened a lot with Luke Cage and Iron Fist when the New Avengers came out back in 2005 or so and it's happened with characters like Blue Beetle through DC as of late. I don't think the "big 2" would license out their lesser known characters in fear that they may experience a boom while published under a different company/brand, they want to keep everything in house.

Thanks for the input and you both have good points here.My thought is that both companies are having a harder time getting anything to beat cancellation other than flagship titles.If they continue to operate with such high overhead (editorial salaries) and end up covering that with layoffs (Marvel so far, DC who knows when?) it would benefit them to license out, save production expenses,and still make money.I saw something on the Marvel website that may have been a glitch but it appeared that, as in some of the production end duties,writers names are being replaced with what appear to be writer agency handles.Maybe I read it incorrectly.If it's come to this then, if the licensing fees were reasonable of course, then I would rather see a creative team like Dynamite/Idw/Boom/Dark Horse take over these classic niche titles first.The hardcore DC/Marvel fans are not supporting these niche titles but the independent comics reader seem to be embracing a wide range of them.What the real sales numbers are per book ,however, I have no idea.