gailsimone:

And I would like to be able to respond to some of the points made, so I am reposting this, please feel free to repost your response if you like.

“

I can’t help but be curious: surely, you must have seen the displeased comments on Tumblr about the direction that DC is taking. Have you reported any of this back to the DC headquarters?

Anonymous”

Every time I cover this, I feel bad, like I’m kicking a puppy but…

…well, it’s the truth. Message boards and Tumblr just don’t reflect the actual comics buying readership.

Believe me, I wish they did. But they don’t. The evidence is all over the place, we see it time and again and again and again.

Every message board and social media has its own culture. Tumblr’s tends towards a negative viewpoint of most current stuff, with an idealization of recent things past, sort of a short term nostalgia. Other message boards might be more oriented towards other eras in comics. Some are more pro-Marvel, some more pro-indie, or anti-mainstream.

I don’t know why that is, don’t have a clue.

But what we see endlessly is that the stuff people complain about the most on Tumblr and message boards is the stuff that sells the best.  And the stuff Tumblr and message boards LOVE, like, say, Secret Six, Stephanie Brown, and X-23, that stuff all sells terrible and gets canceled.

I am not happy about any of this, it makes me downright sad. But it’s true. The stuff the message boards and Tumblr say they support almost uniformly sells very poorly.

So what does this mean?

Some people think it means that message boarders and Tumblrs disproportionately get their comics without paying for them. I don’t believe that at ALL.

I think what it means is, the people who frequent message boards and Tumblrs about comics are an ‘elite’ class of readers, and I mean that in the best possible way. They have elevated taste, they are very passionate, they don’t like some top ten stuff for the same reason they might not like Taco Bell. They have different taste than the mainstream.

So, I think in a way, the publishers know that even if a message board says they hate a book, it is not a direct reflection, necessarily, of the larger audience. And they have to look at the larger audience.

I’m not saying I agree with any of this, but if you follow comics mostly on Tumblr or message boards, you do get a very isolated view of what the comics readership in GENERAL actually wants.

I don’t say this to be dismissive. In general, I, too prefer the stuff that is a little more quirky and individualistic. But Tumblr represents a small part of the readership overall, and ‘support’ and ‘displeased comments’ there, are probably taken with a grain of salt by this time.

I hate to be so blunt. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, just that it’s a true thing.