>Scott Snyder is the writer behind Absolute Batman, DC’s best-selling title in years. The book was pulling close to 200,000 orders per issue at its peak, and it was the only thing in the market that was working. He is also one of the DC Next Level advisors shaping the publisher’s creative direction for the next 18 months. When he says the market is in trouble, it is not an outsider’s complaint. It is a diagnosis from the person whose book is currently holding the ceiling up.>He said it in his Best Jacket Press Substack newsletter, talking about his role advising incoming DC Next Level writers:>“I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of streaming or if it’s an era of comics that’s gone. Like eight or nine years ago, when there was really more of a predilection for these long, long runs where a story in a plot would go for a very, very long time.”>The thing keeping him up at night as an advisor is pacing. Readers are not investing in long stories the way they used to. Arc lengths are compressing. Writers pitching slow-burn narratives are being told the endings need to land earlier. Snyder is the one delivering that message because the sales data is making him.>He addressed the market’s broader condition directly in his January 2026 year-in-review newsletter: “This market is scary, but it’s thrilling.” His advice to creators: “You’ve got to look at the market and be like, ‘What’s my biggest swing right now? What’s my biggest tent book? What is the thing that I can do that says this hasn’t been done? It has to exist. It’s dangerous. It’s urgent.’”>That is not a man describing a healthy market, as much as DC Comics and the media have been saying comics are in great shape in the recent couple of years.
Kill yourself SHITnimefag.
>>153702397>His prescription for survival is urgency: stories that feel like they have to be told right now, in comics, and nowhere else. “The key to finding modern sales success, whether it’s a DC pitch, whether it’s a creator-owned book, is that you’ve got to meet the market where it is. That awareness of the market is key going into this year for aspiring freighters.”>The industry’s official position does not match this. Publisher statements, trade press coverage, and PR cycles around major launches consistently describe a market in growth. The talking points emphasize new readership, expanded diversity of titles, manga crossover appeal, and the Absolute line’s sales performance as proof that comics are thriving. Snyder himself participates in this framing when the occasion calls for it, noting “a lot of things are overperforming and there’s a lot of new readership and a lot of excitement.”>What he is also saying, in the same breath, is that the conditions that produced decade-long creator runs are gone. That readers are not buying into slow builds. That the ending needs to be stronger because the creator can no longer count on the audience staying through the middle.>The data underneath the optimism tells the same story his private advice is telling. Fandom Pulse has covered the Marvel market share collapse across this year: from 39% in 2024 to 29.4% in Q1 2026. DC’s Absolute line is outperforming Marvel, but it is doing so in a market where the floor beneath it keeps dropping. Robert Kirkman notes that Absolute Batman is bringing new readers into comic shops and those readers leave with Image titles too. The halo effect is real. But the halo is hovering over an industry where titles outside the top sellers are getting cancelled faster than any point in recent memory.
>>153702431The early cancellation pattern is visible in solicitation data. Books that would have run 24 issues eight years ago are being solicited for 12. Runs announced with ambitious multi-year visions are wrapping at issue six. Writers pitching to Snyder’s DC Next Level program are being told to write the ending earlier because reader attrition is faster. The compression is not editorial preference. It is market response.Snyder is calling it scary and thrilling simultaneously. Those two words are not contradictory. They describe a market where the safe middle is gone, the top is performing, and everything below it is fighting for survival.Is Scott Snyder’s honest assessment of the comics market something publishers should be saying publicly, or does the industry need the optimistic narrative to survive?https://www.fandompulse.com/p/scott-snyder-says-the-comics-market
>>153702417FPBP.
Yeah its a real mystery whats killing the comic industry
no shit, you worthless hack
>>153702397>Comics are dying Anytime now I'm sure this year they will die
>>153702417Go back to your containment thread
>>153702397Comics are being made for a rapidly aging and dying(thanks vaxxx) group of degenerate fans. Theyve fucked themselves out of being a staple in the lives of people during the heigjt of the superhero craze. Now they are stuck with a well poisoned by politics minded nep hires and blackrock. Their only chance is a campaign starting frim the ground up. Anthology books in stores for a magazine price. Get comics in the hands of kids in media and cartoons and creators who still know how to sell to normies putting out media gor them.Once comics are a hobby and thing they will spend money on then it can start growing the idea of comics as a medium and pull dogboy bone sandman etc etc into this.
>>153702417Based.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOJen_yi3iMI think it's obvious not many people want to pay 5 dollars for a comic with ads compared to a 10 dollar book that has a whole story.With a weaker economy, people look at value more and more.The solution is to make comics out of weaker paper so it's cheaper, make the compact books more of their own thing so new stories are sold through them, or do what this guy says with making monthly magazines with multiple comics in it to save cost.
>>153702556Nope
>>153702397>>153702431Wife beater thread
>fandompulseReminder that this is some garbarge culture war content farm blog that tries to pass itself off as comics journalism. Every article is a mix of twitter comments and the author's brainrotted speculation filtered through chatgpt. The fatass who churns out this junk generates these based on whatever he sees trending on twitter.
>>153702397>>153702431>>153702453Crazy that none of the readers no longer being willing to invest in "longer" runs is the industries fault. That none of the shitty endings or basically almost immediate return to status quo after investing 2 years into a story for it to be horridly disappointing, or pointing out the story is horridly disappointing long before the halfway point and instead of course correcting, they shit on fans, telling them they don't know what they want, and that the industry "knows better".>Arc lengths are compressing.So that they can have the same shit writing but then move on to something new, quickly after it fails then repeat the process rather than improving the quality of storytelling.I simultaneously can't believe and am not at all surprised that the writer of Absolute Batman can't tell that comicbook fans are just no longer feel like dumping their money into shit for years at a time.
>>153702417fippy bippy
Fuck off Wifepuncher.
>>153702397>eight or nine years ago where there was a predilection for long, long runsWhat crack pipe is he smoking?
>>153703669yeah, I think his timing is off.but he probably means slott spidey, aaron thor, king batman, and johns glright?
>>153702397Well I guess this means it's curtains for the Comic Industry Oh well it was fun while it lasted.
>>153702397>Readers are not investing in long stories the way they used to.Good.Decompression was annoying as hell and ruined comics.We don’t need five comics to tell a single story.
>>153702397>It's 1954 comics are dying due to government intervention>It's 1966 comics are dying due to TV>It's 1974 comics are dying due to price hike>It's 1986 comics are dying due to marketing to adults>It's 1996 comics are dying due to the collector's market>It's 2006 comics are dying due to video games>It's 2014 comics are dying due to woke>It's 2026 comics are dying due to manga
>>153702397These threads brighten my day and give me hope.Only great J/a/pan can create art.>>153702417Hahaha/co/pe & dilateFucking /co/ckroachmotherfucka
>>153704482
>>153702397They died in the 90s, it's just been a walking corpse ever since and no one has any idea on how to bring it back
>>153702397>Readers are not investing in long stories the way they used toThen why is manga winning? Maybe instead of blaming long arcs as a format, you should examine how you're writing long arcs. As in, all the bullshit comics are known for like annoying crossover events interrupting/breaking the arcs or abrupt run cancellations. Maybe readers would read your long arcs if they could trust them to land and not have to read something else to keep up.
>>153704482They actually did die due to the collectors market though. They kinda died in the 70s too but they brought it back with the direct market. Now that's the thing that killed them again. Ironic.
