Just asking: Have you heard from anybody who’s genuinely excited for Marvel NOW!?I haven’t, and it’s got me to thinking.Some of the titles look incredibly promising and (unlike the New 52) there aren’t any announced yet that are self-evidently stinkers–but retailers I’ve spoken with simply don’t have the same kind of enthusiasm for the Marvel relaunch that they did for the DC reboot a year ago.In fact, I think it’s probably safe to say that the launch of The New 52, a sustained orgy of sell-outs and hype that lasted a month before it even relented and even then continued to dominate everything we talked about for two more months or so, is probably the last event of its kind we’ll see in what I like to call the “Direct Market Era” of the comics industry–this time we’re living in now where everything flows through comic stores and there’s effectively been no other leigimate distribution channel for mainstream comics for a number of years.And it’s not a Marvel-versus-DC thing, don’t get me wrong. DC’s Before Watchmen books have sold well, but nobody was throwing release parties for those things and there were no reports of massive sellouts that forced thousands of readers to try digital.
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