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Final Frontier 9 (Disk 2 of 3).adf
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Marvel_Madness.pp
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Marvel_Madness
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Text File
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1995-11-11
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6KB
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113 lines
TF01
3,Marvel Madness
4,by Simon Plumbe
In America, the comic industry is dominated by the two main giants of
the comics world - DC and Marvel. While there is a growing number of
independent publishers, many producing popular titles, it is highly
unlikely that any of them will ever come close to the market presence
of either of the two big guns.
However, recent changes that have been happening in the States with
Marvel are starting to have an impact on Star Trek fans worldwide.
You may be asking why, especially when Marvel do not publish any Trek
titles. However, that isn't exactly the case...
In the last year or so, there has been an increasing trend for Marvel
to buy and takeover other companies, and a number of these are
producers of Star Trek merchandise. The first "casualty" in this was
Skybox, who are known to Trekkers throughout the world for their
consistently high quality Star Trek trading cards. One thing I have
noticed already since the buyout is that there seem to be far more
Star Trek sets scheduled than there were when Skybox was an
independent card manufacturer.
This could lead to an unhealthy deluge of cards onto the market, in
turn meaning that the average Trek fan won't be able to afford to
keep up with everything. A perfect example is with the forthcoming
30th Anniversary set. This is going to be a series of sets, each set
covering a different aspect of the thirty years of Star Trek. I would
estimate that between now and the end of 1996, this series will
probably run to around 10 sets, not forgetting the ongoing TNG
episode cards, the Voyager cards and the inevitable series for the
next movie.
Surprisingly, this isn't the main problem with Skybox. Marvel have
now taken steps to try to restrict the sale of Skybox cards outside
of the US and Canada. Why they are doing this is unclear, although it
can only harm both their own sales and the customers. From a fans
point of view, it will lead to a greater scarcity of cards in Europe,
meaning that dealers will try to increase prices. Some of the cards
were expensive when readily available, but if everything goes
according to Marvel's plans, don't be surprised to see some dealers
selling standard cards at around £2 a pack, and widevision cards at
about £3 each... and that's only the beginning.
Following this, earlier this year marvel purchased the relatively new
comic publisher, Malibu, best known for their DS9 comic series. What
most people don't know is the reason. Instead of wanting to buy a
publisher because they were producing good titles, because they had
good writers and artists, or because they had specific characters or
licenses that Marvel were interested in, it is believed that Marvel
purchased Malibu simply because of the colouring and printing
techniques they use in their comics, which Marvel wanted to start
using in their own titles!
This seemed to be the case with DS9 as, only a few months after
Marvel stepped in, the quality of the paper stock used for the comics
seemed to be far lower than it had ever been. Instead of being of
glossy, thick paper, the quality of DS9 seemed to be around the same
standard as most "normal" comics. While this isn't necessarily a bad
thing, there was no accompanying price drop to reflect the cheaper
production costs, and the artwork has suffered as a result. When a
comic makes use of the computer colour techniques used at Malibu, it
really needs glossy paper to show it off!
As well as this, a question has been raised over the future of
Malibu's Star Trek: Voyager title. This was originally supposed to be
released as an ongoing series back in January and we are still
waiting. Whether it has been put on hold by Paramount until the
ratings improve, whether the licence was withdrawn when Marvel took
over, or whether Marvel simply couldn't be bothered to release
another Trek title is uncertain. One thing I will say is that going
by Marvel's track record with licensed sci-fi comics (their first run
of Star Trek, Star Wars, V, Tek World), I wouldn't be surprised if
they just couldn't be bothered to produce it - they haven't seemed to
be too concerned in the past (with the exception of Tek World) with
the quality of their licensed titles .
The next step Marvel have taken, that affects all of their comic
range, was to alter their distribution system. A couple of months
ago, Marvel decided to stop all distributors from having Marvel
comics, instead choosing to set up their own distribution network. If
this worked well, there would be no complaints, but there have
already been a number of incidents where Marvel titles have either
shipped late, shipped in short supplies, or in some cases, just not
shipped at all to certain dealers. As a regular comics buyer, I have
already experienced problems like these first hand with titles just
not arriving. There was an example where I ended up having to travel
to Sheffield to find a particular comic, as supplies had failed to
reach Nu Earth (where I order most of my comics from), and any of the
comic dealers in Birmingham.
The latest, and possible most distressing thing that Marvel are
doing, is to limit distribution on certain titles to just with the
USA and Canada. Initially, none of the titles they were restricting
were mainstream comics, and they certainly didn't feature any of the
titles I purchase, so I wasn't too worried... until now. Marvel have
now decided, in their infinite wisdom, to restrict the distribution
of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to their home market. Naturally, this
is going to anger a great deal of Star Trek fans everywhere and there
appears to be no reason behind this move. Again it looks likely that
we will be faced with higher prices as we will have to find dealers
that are willing to import titles from US dealers, which could see
prices doubling overnight.
The only possible end to this madness is if Marvel are trying -
without telling anyone - to establish a strong European distribution
network, allowing all of their releases to be sold and made available
quickly after release. If this doesn't happen, we could see the
disappearance of Skybox cards and DS9 comics altogether from these
shores, and that will be a sad day for Trekkers indeed.