The Name Is The Brand Joshua Pantalleresco
The most successful companies usually have brand names you recognize. Names like Coca Cola and Starbucks count among things we as consumers recognize. We know what to expect and we base our purchases on the expectations names bring to the table.
Comics are no different. Much like an album cover, every Wednesday you see dozens of comics on the rack title with names like The Grim Ghost or Action Comics or Sonic The Hedgehog competing for your attention. Names and brands are perhaps the biggest reasons why books are picked up.
I remember my first comic. It was Starman #13 written way back in the late eighties by Roger Stern and illustrated by Tom Lyle. What drew me to that comic at first, was Superman. He was there and captured my attention. I suddenly saw Superman and I was hooked. Even at eight years old I had a series of built in expectations that prompted me to buy this book.
This is because companies have tried to be synominous with their characters. People think Superman, Batman, Green Lantern when you hear DC Comics. Spider-Man, The X-Men, Captain America and The Hulk are what we think of when we talk about Marvel. Instantly we have ideas of what we’re getting ourselves into.
For the last few decades, the comic industry has gone past that, not only trying to get you to invest in a character, but also the creators attached to them. Once they have established themselves as mainstays in the industry, we the audience come to expect certain things out of creators. For example, what kinds of comics do you think about when you think Geoff Johns? You think of classic heroes reimagined for a modern era, whether you read Green Lantern or Aquaman. You know you’re going to get solid superhero comics from Geoff Johns.
Grant Morrison is the epitome of big ideas in superheros. Whether you read Justice League, The Invisibles, Batman or Action Comics, you know you are going to get big ideas imagined in ways you’d never expect to see. On the other extreme, you have someone like Garth Ennis, who writes war stories like Battlefields, or he is known for books that mock superheroes with a dark and biting edge it like The Boys or Jennifer Blood. You know what you are going to expect reading either one of them.
Simply put, names are brands. This isn’t just true in comics but in all forms of entertainment. Smart companies tend to try and educate the audience that these names exist and are the best at what they do.
I could mention other names Mike Mignola, Nick Spencer, Jonathan Hickman or Brian Michael Bendis and chances are some, if not everyone reading this will know one of those names. I think it’s a good thing to see this kind of promotion for creators in comics. For one thing in every other form of media this is the standard form of advertisement. Go to a bookstore and you will find authors listed alphabetically, whether it would be someone like John Grisham or Brad Meltzer or George RR Martin. People buy books because of the authors on them. Music is bought because people recognize bands like Metallica, Nine Inch Nails or The Beatles.
People are simply more comfortable if they have an idea of what kind of experience they are going to get purchasing something. Branding a name is a smart business move by any comic company. It is creators, after all, that create the golden gooses that comic companies live and die from.
No one pays money for the editing and publishing skills of the people behind the scenes of the publishing industry putting these books together – people pay for the experience of getting their itch for weekly periodicals put together by creative people. As a company, you should advertise them, as they make you who you are.
