Are Major Publishers DONE With Comics?

Marvel Comics is moving its publishing division from New York to Disney’s Burbank headquarters, ending roughly ninety years of the company being based on the East Coast. Everybody has an opinion on what this means, so I wanted to weigh in from a perspective most commentators don’t have. As someone who actually runs a publishing company and has had conversations with people in powerful positions across this industry.

The reason everyone keeps tabs on moves like this is simple. The American comic market is dominated by a handful of companies, and the big two hold the overwhelming majority of the market share. Whether people like it or not, the rest of the industry moves to their beat. When something impacts them and they adjust, everyone else feels the pressure to adjust too.

For years there’s been speculation that one or both of the major publishers would eventually phase out their publication divisions and lean into licensing. Not that the comics would stop existing, but that other companies would produce them while the characters get treated as a farm for IP. I’m not here to speculate on whether that’s happening. What I can tell you is what I’ve picked up being on this side of the business. The licensing market has grown enormously, and the shot callers at these companies are increasingly looking at readers as something other than the main revenue driver.

There’s far more money outside of comics than in them, and the focus has shifted toward capturing audiences in film, television, video games, and other mediums where younger generations actually spend their time.
When your profitability on the actual books is razor thin and mega corporations and billion dollar studios are interested in your characters, you can understand why they approach it this way. That doesn’t make it good news if you’re a comic reader. The harsh truth is that for some of these companies, you are far less of a focus than you used to be, because they’re looking at the greater market. A shakeup of some kind is inevitable. What it looks like is yet to be determined.