Honestly, I’ve always interpreted it as a lack of faith in the wider appeal of their product, particularly in Marvel’s case. And, you know, a general lack of marketing savvy.

Advertising in broad mainstream publications like those mentioned is very expensive, and with the laser focus on ROI by most marketers these days, it’s simply not cost-effective for anything other than their guaranteed big sellers that the DM is going to overwhelmingly support anyway, either by choice or by force, via retailer strong-arming“incentives”. It’s part of the chicken-egg / self-fulfilling prophecy side effect of the direct market system.

1) Comics should sell themselves in more places than just bookstores and comic stores. It is not his fault that two decades’ worth of his predecessors voluntarily choked off the distribution of their own product, and I don’t think it’s something he can single-handedly reverse (certainly not while on the Colbert Report.) It’s going to have to be a long-term goal of the company, not a short-term one.

2) That said, if you want to keep the industry afloat until then, just saying, “1-888-COMIC-BOOK to find the store nearest you” every single time you’re promoting any comic anywhere will help, and takes less than five seconds.

3) As nice as it is to hear someone talking about comics somewhere outside of comics stores and Internet sites like this one, let’s not kid ourselves that a few mentions in the daily paper and an interview on a basic-cable talk show is “great marketing”. If this is more marketing than someone’s seen in the last six years, that’s a sign of how fundamentally awful a job they’ve been doing over the last six years.

Marvel should be advertising in publications like ‘Rolling Stone’, ‘Entertainment Weekly’, with taglines like, “In 2004, we destroyed the Avengers. In 2005, we decimated the X-Men. This summer, the Marvel Universe will be torn apart. Civil War. Summer 2006. Call 1-888-COMIC-BOOK to find the store nearest you.” And a picture of Cap fighting Iron Man. Simple, effective, and appealing to people who haven’t read comics in decades. (As opposed to their current marketing plan, which is to advertise in Wizard and Previews and to distribute posters to comics stores…places where anyone who walks into them will almost certainly notice the comics anyway.)

Marvel should also be doing more with its movie tie-ins. Instead of doing a ‘Free Comic Book Day’ at the local comic store, they should give away free comics on the opening weekend of ‘Spider-Man 3′, with that ubiquitous ad again, “Call 1-888-COMIC-BOOK to find the store nearest you.” (As opposed to giving free comics to people already walking into a comics store, which is nice, but hardly solves your basic problem of nobody knowing comics stores still exist.)

Honestly, it’s the most fundamentally obvious thing in the world: If your product is only distributed to comics stores, then your advertising budget should be 90% trying to get people into comics stores, and 10% trying to get them to buy specific comics. As it is, Marvel (and DC, don’t think I’m singling out either company) still has the basic marketing strategy of waiting for people to walk into a store demanding their product, then selling it to them.

That’s pretty accurate. Although in that segment at the end of the Daily Show, Colbert usually outshines Stewart. Unfortunately, he usually isn’t that good in his own show (even though I still like it).

Seems like you’re having trouble getting past the bias.”

I could argue tha it’s only liberals who find the Daily Show and Colbert funny because it panders to their viewpoint. Like Guy says, he misses a lot more than he hits. It’s a one-note joke…a really sarcastic parody of Bill O’Reilly. It’s a SNL sketch stretched out over 5 nights a week.

And I can appreciate a parody of conservatives when it’s GOOD. Check out this blog for example, it skewers conservatives but it’s actually funny a lot of the time.

Paddy: The “Stephen Coblert” on the Show is a “right wing” caricature. Stephen himself is not.

While Quesada wasn’t as smooth as he could have been — playing it a little too straight when he should have tried to match Colbert’s irreverance, and kissed much less ass — the fact that comics have reached a point where he’d be on the show at all is notable. As for his not talking about other comics, that’s just silly. It was a 5-minute appearance specifically to promote Civil War.

PS to Apodaca: I’m a “liberal”, more or less, who doesn’t find Colbert terribly funny most times. It’s not who or what he’s mocking, it’s just that he misses more often than he hits. Jon Stewart was similarly uneven in the early days of the Daily Show. Bill O’Reilly, OTOH, is always funny!

You’d be surprised. The day before San Diego Comic-Con I watched, mouth agape, as a local San Diego news story reported that (colored, stapled) comics are no longer available, but you can buy ‘em in trade paperbacks and bookstores.

I will bet there is a sizeable percentage of Americans…including some who watched The Colbert Report…who don’t know of the existence of comic book stores, or the concept that serial stories continue across issues. Heck, I’d bet a number of them don’t know comics exist anymore. It’s a strong bet they don’t know that Civil War is a serialized story less than halfway finished.

I bet a number of bookstores across America have people walking into today looking for “that Civil War thing with Spider-Man” and getting blank looks because the trade not only isn’t available yet, it isn’t even solicited. (If there was a trade solicited at this point we could tell from the Amazon ranking numbers, but alas.)

I applaud marketing (or, publicizing) a comics event to a larger audience than just us fanboys. But at a certain point you do have to come out and say “It’s a serialized comic in seven chapters, and parts one through three are available at your local comic book store right now. Part four will be available next month.”

I’ll give Joe Q. the benefit of the doubt–it was a short interview and just saying that takes up valuable time. He may have wanted to or actually have said it and there wasn’t time.

Actually, yes. When I was a kid that’s where I got comics. Kids can’t drive to comic shops and they’re bound by where their parents go. That’s actually how I got hooked on comics, as there was little else to do there.

Unfortunately, that era has passed us by. I do think you have a good point though – if someone wants to buy comics, people know Comic Shops and Bookstores exist.

And Apodaca, I’m a “conservative folk” who happens to find the Colbert Report hilarious (although it does go over the top sometimes, especially about religion, even though I like to think God has a sense of humor).

Is it just me, or is it always conservative folks who call The Daily Show and Colbert unfunny?

Seems like you’re having trouble getting past the bias.

Regarding bookstores, is really necessary for him to be that explicit about where people can find Civil War comics? I imagine that most people would be able to locate a bookstore or a comic shop without prompting from Joe Quesada. I mean, where else would they go? The grocery store?

Public speaking isn’t easy, especially not when you have a pseudo-antagonistic talk show host dredging up vintage 1950s arguments on the vices of your industry. I thought Quesada acquitted himself well. I think we’ve all seen more scholarly authors choke while in the same situation.

You wound me, T.

Um….yeah. He is in fact pointing out how absurd the rightwing is by PARODYING them. It’s a fake rightwing pundit show just like the Daily Show is a fake news show.

It may not be everyone’s cup o’tea, but at least understand the joke behind it.