Do you think Marvel and DC should try to promote some of their lesser known characters through Tv shows, movies and/or video games? For example, a friend of mine loved X-23 and Taskmaster in Marvel vs Capcom 3 and picked up Liu's X-23 book and Van Lente's

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This is a very tough question, because it makes an assumption that I have always found a little weird (sorry!). Whenever a great book that people love gets canceled, it is inevitable that readers on the net blame the companies, they blame 'marketing,' and 'promotion.'

And that's fine, but, well, it's kind of nonsense. 

When we're bummed about something, we want there to be villains. But DC and Marvel don't put out books hoping they will fail. They certainly don't want books to undersell and slowly slip in sales every month, which is what happens with even a lot of great books. The truth is, people put as much love, sweat, talent and care into those books as the top-sellers, including the company people that edit, oversee and promote those books.

But there are always very limited numbers of marketing dollars out there. And when they are spent, they need to show a return. And here's a harsh truth, I can't think of a single time in-house ads have seriously raised sales on a low-selling ongoing title. Not for any lasting way. Not once. So, if DC gives, say, Secret Six a full-page house ad, does it raise sales enough to pay for itself? Or do they give that page to a crossover that raises sales on LOTS of books for a while, or to a new number one issue to raise interest at the retail level?

There is only so much marketing and promotion can do and very little of it works when targeted on a single, low-selling title. I'm sorry, but it's true. The internet mythology about this is just completely wrong.

Now, there ARE ways to promote a low selling title. But it's not marketing and promotion so much…things like including them in crossovers, or adding hot artists, those things can make a difference. Believe me, editors and publishers do not enjoy cancelling good books. They hate it, I mean HATE it.

But their job is to watch a bottom line. Tv shows we like get canceled, movies we like bomb at the box office, it happens. The fault lies not in the stars, it lies in a readership that didn't feel compelled to by a book. And you can't blame people for not being interested, they have that right.

As for tv and movies and such, I have to say, that's no guarantee of sales in comics, either. Marvel has a Ghost Rider movie coming out soon and STILL canceled the GR book last month.  Movie and tv tie-ins that haven't sold as comics are legion, just an endless number.  Add to that fact that in most cases, the comics companies don't really just decide what characters will get a movie—that process involves a lot of people, very few of whom have anything to do with comics.

So it's a big, long process, very much more complex than people think, sadly.  It would be great to see X23 and Secret Six and those types of books get movies and tv series, but there's no guarantee it would translate to sales.

Popular characters become popular under one condition and one only…the readership. If the readership doesn't respond enthusiastically, if they don't want to see more of a character, then there's very little the companies can do. All you can do is hope the character gets THE perfect creative team that can make people excited.

I hope that helps, I know it's not fun stuff to hear, but it's all true.