It’s pretty well understood that over the last forty years, the sales of comic books in America have shifted inexorably from “floppy” pamphlets to graphic novel collections.

To understand this shift, one must first know that it follows a thirty-year decline of comic book sales at newsstands as the medium became one of the last lingering vestiges of the pulp magazine market that had dominated fiction sales from the mid-19^th century until being wiped out in the mid-20^th century by television and paperback novels. With their distribution system collapsing, comic books only survived the 1970s because of the creation of the direct market.

The direct market not only allowed Marvel and DC to survive with much smaller sales than they’d enjoyed in their heyday, it let small publishers and solo creators effectively distribute their creations. The result was a renaissance in North American comic book storytelling which carried the medium to new creative heights.

The history of the direct market is a saga in its own right, including Marvel failing to monopolize it in the ‘90s and instead blowing up the entire industry through exclusivity deals with fallout which continues to impact not only the comics industry, but neighboring hobby industries, unto this day. (You can draw an almost direct line from there to Paizo’s current financial woes, for example.) But the most important effect of the direct market was to ghettoize comic books: New readers could no longer discover comics in the mainstream stores they were shopping at; they instead needed to seek out specialty shops.

Comic book pamphlets have never really emerged from that ghetto.

Graphic novel collections sold in book form, on the other hand, could and did. Unlike pamphlets, they could be stocked in bookstores alongside other books, where they could be discovered by the general public.

Marvel and DC, however, have not been able to translate their complete domination of the pamphlet market into a similar domination of the book market. Instead, they combine for less than 10% of the market, while Scholastic Books dominates with 40% of the market.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

A key turning point in the history of comics came when Scholastic Books licensed Jeff Smith’s Bone (previously self-published through the direct market). Its success caused Scholastic to expand and publish more comics, which leads pretty directly to Raina Telgemeier being the bestselling comics creator in North America.

Now, let’s say that you’ve never heard of Bone before, but your friend recommends it or you see a copy on the shelf at your local bookstore and you think it looks cool. What should you read first?

Well, that’s pretty easy: You read Volume 1. Then Volume 2. Then Volume 3, and so on until you reach the end of the story in Volume 9. This is easy. It’s intuitive. It’s obvious just from looking at the books on the shelf which one you should read next.

The same will be true for virtually any manga series. One Piece might have more than a hundred volumes and countless spin-offs, but there’s no question where you should start: Volume 1.

Let’s compare this to someone hearing about Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern: Blackest Night. They look around and they spot the Blackest Night Saga, collecting Blackest Night #0-8. This must be it!

Except… no. That collection does include the full Blackest Night mini-series, but the story was originally written to weave between multiple titles. So we’ll have to take a step back and consider:

Blackest Night Saga
Blackest Night: Green Lantern
Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps – Vol. 1
Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps – Vol. 2
Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps
Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps

Which of these should we read? Well, that depends on how essential you consider Peter J. Tomasi’s contributions to the story to be, but let’s assume we can ignore those and just pick up the comics written by Geoff Johns, so we grab Blackest Night Saga, Blackest Night: Green Lantern, and Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps.

Now… what order do we read these in? Well… that’s the trick, isn’t it? The original pamphlets included helpful blurbs that said, “The story continues in blah, blah, blah!” and you could just follow those from one issue to the next, but these have been removed from these collections. Your only real solution here is to search online for a reading order, and then skip back and forth between the collections trying to find the matching issues.

Okay, screw that. Can we just bypass this whole morass by grabbing the Blackest Night 10^th Anniversary Omnibus? Sort of. This collection is 1700 pages, costs $150, and includes not only the Blackest Night story, but every single crossover comic.

It turns out that what you probably want to buy is none of these, but actually Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Omnibus – Volume 2. That includes a bunch of other Green Lantern stories by Geoff Johns, but seems to include the complete Blackest Night story. I think. It looks like this might still be missing some stuff, but at this point I’ve spent over an hour researching this in the hopes of getting an authoritative answer, and I don’t care anymore.

And this isn’t an isolated problem. If you make an effort to read Marvel and DC books — and it’s definitely an effort — you’ll repeatedly find yourself forced to look up reading lists, desperately hoping you can avoid spoilers, just to figure out what seemingly random assortment of books and/or issues you need to follow just to read the thing you already want to read.

There are a number of reasons why Marvel and DC struggle with this.

First, they both have a vast library of legacy continuity. While there are many advantages to having this huge back catalog (including many of the most notable stories of the 20^th century), it also means that the answer to, “I like Batman, where should I start reading?” can’t be as simple, “Start with Volume 1!” Not only would it be impossible to publish the stories like that, but you don’t actually want people to have to struggle through decades of mediocre Batman comics before they can read Frank Miller’s Year One or Snyder’s Court of Owls or Grant Morrison’s iconic run.

Second, many of their stories — both old and new — are written to sell pamphlets. Crossover events, as we’ve seen, make sense when your goal is to make a kid bike back to the newsstand and buy another comic, but they can become labyrinthine puzzles that make the story impenetrable. On the flip side, these mega-crossover events also mean you’ll be happily reading a story and then — KABOOM! — it’s blown up by a completely different story that you likely don’t care about.

And it’s not just crossover events: Way back in 1968, for example, Stan Lee, Gene Colan, and Jack Kirby cooked up a story in which Doctor Doom would take control of Daredevil’s body in an attempt to ambush the Fantastic Four. The story started in Daredevil #37, continued through Daredevil #38, and wrapped up in Fantastic Four #73.

Although Fantastic Four #73 has been reprinted in at least six different Fantastic Four collections, the Daredevil issues have never been included. Out of five different Daredevil collections including the first two parts of the story, only one of them included the finale.

Finally, this isn’t just a problem caused by legacy issues. Marvel and DC still actively suck at this.

For example, arguably Marvel’s best superhero comic right now is Ryan North’s Fantastic Four. I simply can’t heap enough praise on the work North is doing — not only do I love it, but these are the comics that got my daughter excited about superheroes. In pamphlet form, this run has been published as:

• Fantastic Four 7 (2022) — #1-33
• One World Under Doom — #1-9
• Fantastic Four 8 (2025) — #1 thru ongoing

Even here, of course, we see the pain point of trying to track continuity across the ceaseless numbering reboots designed to sell pamphlets to collectors. But let’s go ahead and check out the reading order of the paperbacks:

• Fantastic Four – Vol. 1
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 2
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 3
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 4
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 6, pg. 113-136 (Giant-Size #1)
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 5
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 1
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 6, pg. 1-26 (also, there are no printed page numbers)
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 2
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 6, pg. 27-47
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 3
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 6, pg. 48-68
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 4
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 6, pg. 69-89
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 5
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 6, p. 90-112
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 1, p. 1-50
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 6
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 7
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 1, p. 51-72
• One World Under Doom – Chapter 8
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 1, p. 73 thru end of the book
• Fantastic Four – Vol. 2

Now, to be fair, I think one can quibble about whether or not Giant-Size Fantastic Four #1 needs to be read in its original publication order by jumping forward two volumes. But even if we ignore that, this is clearly batshit on multiple levels.

I particularly want to call your attention, though, to the decision to publish Volumes 1-6 of Ryan North’s Fantastic Four and then follow that up with a different Volume 1 of Ryan North’s Fantastic Four.

Didi: Hey, I’ve heard there are some really cool Fantastic Four comics I should read. Where should I start?

Gogo: Fantastic Four — Volume 1. But not Fantastic Four – Volume 1. Or Fantastic Four – Volume 1. Or Fantastic Four – Volume 1. Or Fantastic Four – Volume 1. Or Fantastic Four – Volume 1. Or Fantastic Four – Volume 1. Or Fantastic Four – Volume 1.

Didi: Ah. I see. I want Ultimate Fantastic Four – Volume 1.

Gogo: Don’t be silly. That’s completely different.

Didi: Uh… which Fantastic Four – Volume 1 do I want, then?

Gogo: Fantastic Four – Volume 1 by Ryan North.

Didi: Great!

Gogo: But not Fantastic Four – Volume 1 by Ryan North. You want Fantastic Four – Volume 1 by Ryan North.

Didi: For fuck’s sake.

This confusion doesn’t just affect readers. It also affects the retailers and distributors who are ostensibly trying to keep these products in stock and on the shelves. For example, the current listing for Fantastic Four – Vol. 1 (2023) at Amazon has been updated to show the cover for Fantastic Four – Vol. 1 (2026).

Which means, of course, if you do a search for “Ryan North Fantastic Four Vol 1,” what you’ll see are two listings for Fantastic Four – Volume 1 by Ryan North with, seemingly, the exact same cover. (I also wonder how many stocking errors are being made, resulting in the wrong book being shipped out even if a new reader does order the right one.)

It gets even sillier, though: If you grab Fantastiv Four Vol. 1 (no, not that one, the other one) and open it to the inside front cover, you’ll find This Guide Will Show You Were to Begin to Follow the Adventures of the Fantastic Four!, accompanied by pictures of the graphic novels you need to follow the series! This is incredibly useful! Exactly what…

… hang on. This is actually a completely different set of Fantastic Four graphic novels (including a different Fantastic Four Vol. 1) that has nothing to do with the reading order of the Fantastic Four graphic novel you’re currently holding in your hands.

These problems, of course, don’t just afflict bookstores. Digital comics are of rising importance, currently making up a fifth of all comic book revenue in North America, but navigating this morass through Marvel’s and DC’s digital platforms is arguably even more complicated.

A SOLUTION

Ultimately, to solve this problem, Marvel and DC will have to stop creating content primarily for pamphlets. This doesn’t mean they should stop publishing the pamphlets, but it does mean understanding that their primary goal is producing the books that — instead of being sold for a single month — can be potentially sold for years or decades to come.

The first and most important thing will be creating unique arc titles. Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One would not be as well-known today if it had been instead sold as Batman – Volume 1 among a slurry of a dozen other Batman – Volume 1’s. Yes, it can be difficult to title a serialized work before you’ve written it, but Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, and Rumiko Takahashi were able to pull it off, so I’m sure you can figure it out.

Optionally, I would recommend embracing this title on the pamphlets, too. So when someone launches Fantastic Four: Family Matters, it’ll be Fantastic Four: Family Matters #1 on the cover. Create a legacy numbering badge and use it consistently to get the best of both worlds.

When collecting crossovers, you need to include the full story in every collection that includes part of the crossover. For mega-event crossovers, this won’t be possible, but you need to figure out (a) a consistent way of collecting them (most likely a core narrative collection and a every-single-crossover omnibus) that (b) includes come clear method for referencing the individual parts, so that you can (c) clearly tell people reading other collections where to go if they want to follow the event.

Importantly, you should retroactively create titles for your backlog. Collections like Fantastic Four by John Byrne, Green Lantern by Geoff Johns, and Batman by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo have been a step in the right direction, but can be difficult to apply broadly across a medium where creative teams have often shifted rapidly. They also sound pretty dry and academic.

Collaborate with original creators to find these titles where appropriate, but I’m absolutely saying that it would be better for the earliest issues of Amazing Spider-Man (whether that’s thirty-eight issues, ninety-nine issues, or one hundred and twenty-two issues) to be published as Spider-Man: Origins than as anonymous volumes lost in the midst of generic archive collections labeled masterworks or showcases or epics.

You can absolutely keep an archival line for completionists, but that’s exactly what it should be: Archival.

For the general public, you want them to be able to clearly and uniquely identify and recommend different stories. This will never be as clear as One Piece or Spy x Family or Bone, where there’s a single story guided by a single creative vision that you can read from beginning to end. And that’s okay. The fact that there are so many different Spider-Man stories about so many different versions of Spider-Man or Batman or Superman can be a huge advantage… but only if you stop doing the equivalent of wrapping them in brown paper and randomly shuffling them around.

At the moment, for example, DC Comics is enjoying a huge amount of success with their Absolute titles. There are a lot of reasons for this — including, importantly, the high quality of the comics themselves — but I think a significant part of it is that, if I hear about how great Absolute Superman is, I know exactly what I need to do: I pick up Absolute Superman Vol. 1, read it, and then continue onto Absolute Superman Vol. 2.

By contrast, I picked up Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 — not to be confused, of course, with Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1, Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1, Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol. 1, or Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 — and started reading from one volume to the next… only to discover that for the story to make sense there’s a point where I just have to arbitrarily know that I need to stop reading Ultimate Spider-Man collections, go read something else, and then come back to Ultimate Spider-Man.

This is, fundamentally, a bad user experience. And it doesn’t have to be this way.

A manga that really didn’t manage to distinguish itself in my eyes.

Review Originally Published February 5th, 2002

WHAT IT IS

Bastard!! is a series of manga created by Kazushi Hagiwara and first published in Japan in 1988 in the pages of Shonen Jump. New episodes are still being published today, and over the years (as the success would imply) it has garnered a fervent fan base and continues to enjoy a high level of popularity.

In 2000, in Japan, Hagiwara began releasing the Bastard!! Complete Edition: This was a re-release of the original 1988 manga. Like the Special Edition of the Star Wars movies, this Complete Edition was retouched, redrawn, and variously improved. Viz Comics is now releasing this Complete Edition in an English translation (oddly credited as being translated by Kaori Kawakubo with an “English adaptation” by Fred Burke – I don’t know what that means).

The comic is subtitled (at least in English) as “Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy”. Based on this first issue, it’s a little difficult to see where either of those terms would apply: The general tone is more comical than dark; and Hagiwara’s Heavy Metal influence doesn’t seem to really enter the series until later based on what I’ve seen.

Basically, here’s the concept of the series: The legendary evil sorcerer Dark Schneider was imprisoned several years ago by the high priest of the kingdom of Metallicana. Dark Schneider’s personality was sealed away and his body transformed into that of a young boy named Lucien. The good priest then “adopted” Lucien, raising him as the younger brother of his own daughter, Tia Noto Yoko. Dark Schneider can only be released by a spell which requires, as catalyst, the kiss of virgin innocent. The high priest taught this spell to his daughter. It is known to no one else.

In the first issue, Metallicana is beset by an army led by an evil sorcerer. To save them from their peril, they are forced to call upon Dark Schneider. Dark Schneider, of course, is not only evil, he is also breathtakingly gorgeous – and Tia Noto Yoko is instantly attracted to him, despite the fact that’s he Pure Evil(TM). Of course, to add a little spice to the mix, every time she kisses him he transforms.

Much comedy ensues.

WHERE IT’S GOOD

Hagiwara is justly commended for the high quality of his artwork. Even in the more primitive forms and compositions present at this early stage of his career, it is easy to make out the seed of an immense talent. In addition to being simply gorgeous at many times, Hagiwara is also capable of simplifying his style and compositions when it serves the story and characters.

The other high point of Bastard!! for me was the humor. The tone is nicely set on page four, when the soldiers of Metallicana, standing before the oncoming horde, say: “Dammit! They’ve attacked when the king, imperial forces, and the priest are gone!”

What are the odds, right? That type of tongue-in-cheek satire is designed to warm the cockles of a fantasy fan’s heart. Hagiwara also gets some decent mileage out of the somewhat strange, mystically tainted love triangle of Tia, Lucien, and Dark Schneider.

WHERE IT’S NOT

Although one can make out the seed of Hagiwara’s talent, these early issues of Bastard!! still need a lot of work. The pacing is dizzying and inconsistent. Many of the compositions are too crowded. Some panels appear to have been simply rushed. In several instances Hagiwara simply drops the ball when it comes to telling the story he’s apparently trying to tell.

Nor is Hagiwara helped much by what I consider to be a sub-par translation. (Or, at least, I’m going to choose to blame it on the translator, rather than on Hagiwara.) All of the characters talk with the exact same voice. Most of the dialogue makes you simply want to wince. Worst of all, many things which you can see are meant to be jokes are translated so badly that the humor is lost. For example:

Tia Noto Yoko: I swear … you little ant! Don’t you have any feelings of frustration – of being pissed off, or of wanting to pulverize someone?! How can you be totally VOID of those kinds of emotions?

Lucien: Y-you’ve got more than enough for BOTH of us!

You can see the potential humor in those lines, but it’s lost because the translation of Tia’s dialogue doesn’t ring true. It’s like watching one of those bad sitcoms where you can tell the joke is being set up because all the characters have suddenly become mouthpieces of the writers.

Similarly, you have instances where the dialogue fails to rise to the dramatic quality of the action. Thus, not only do all the characters sound like each other, they sound the same regardless of whether they are having a quiet chat over breakfast or annihilating giants with mighty magicks.

A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS

Having read Bastards!! from cover to cover, here’s my assessment: Slayers is better at RPG parody. Record of the Lodoss War is better at the RPG-inspired plot. Rumiko Takahashi is better at the bizarre love triangles complicated by strange magic.

Nor can I even say, based on this first issue, that Bastard!! earns the distinction of combining the three to any great effect. It doesn’t. Instead, Bastard!! simply seems to create an uninspiring mishmash.

I would suspect that I would enjoy this comic more if the translation were better at capturing character and conveying the humor. (There’s nothing more annoying to me than to read something and say to myself: “Wow, that would have been really funny if you’d just delivered the punch line correctly.) I also suspect I would enjoy Bastard!! more a year or two down the line – when Hagahashi’s talent has had a chance to mature.

Those of you who are big fans of Slayers, Record of the Lodoss War, or Rumiko Takahashi’s works might want to give this a shot, though: It would definitely be up you alley, and might appeal to you more than it did to me. I’ll probably be stopping back at this well from time to time myself to see if things have improved.

Style: 4
Substance: 2

Authors: Kazushi Hagiwara (Translated by Kaori Kawakubo; Adapted by Fred Burke)
Company: Viz Comics
Line: Viz Comics
Price: $3.95
Pages: 72

I received Bastard #1 as a review copy. I have absolutely no memory of how or why that happened. While I had some channels for receiving RPG review copies in 2002, I hadn’t done any work with comic books. (It’s possible this was somehow related to a letter I wrote that got published in a Punisher comic book several years earlier. My address had been published with the letter and several smaller companies sent me new comic books hoping that I would write back with letters they could use to fill their letters pages. I seemed to linger on some mailing lists for a while, but although I don’t remember the actual events, I don’t think that’s actually why I received Bastard.)

In any case, receiving a review copy it’s the only reason this review exists: This was still during the time when receiving review copies was such a novel experience for me that I felt honor-bound to review everything I received. For better or for worse, that’s not an ideal I can live up to any more: I’m simply too inundated with requests for reviews. When people ask if they can send me review copies, I tell them that the odds of getting an actual review from me are quite small. Even after getting the copy, the book has to intrigue me enough to read it cover-to-cover. Then, particularly if it’s a new game, it generally needs to be good enough to convince me to actually play it. And even then, it may still not get a review if I don’t have anything interesting to say about it.

The existence of review copies creates a surprising amount of distress for some people, which, to be perfectly frank, is mostly just amusing to professional reviewers, who know it’s  standard industry practice and always has been. “But you won’t review something honestly because then you won’t get more free stuff!” is a pretty common refrain, and there are some reviewers who think that way. But those reviewers don’t have integrity to begin with, so it doesn’t matter. The reality, particularly for professional reviewers, is — as I said — being inundated with more review copies than we know what to do with.

I do think it’s important to disclose when you’ve received a review copy. It’s an important facet in what brought you to the product. Something I try to be aware of is that receiving a book for free can have an impact on perceived value. This is also true of birthday presents, of course, but you subconsciously expect less from something that you got for free than you do for something you paid for.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Ultimate Spider-Man is really fun and delightful. I just finished reading Volume 1. You should check it out!

…

Let us now consider, for just a moment, a list of Ultimate Spider-Man collections that, with two exceptions (marked with an asterisk), are, as far as I can tell, currently in print:

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1*
Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man Collection*
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1

Oh dear.

AN EXPLANATION

Let me see if I can explain this list.

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: This softcover collects the beginning of Brian Michael Bendis’ prodigious run on the book, collecting Vol. 1, Issues #1-7. All of the collections listed below are also written by Bendis (with one exception, which will be noted).

This softcover series continues with numbered volumes to Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 22: Ultimatum (which, in some editions, is unnumbered). To continue the story you will then need to pop over to Ultimatum: Requiem.

Utimate Comics Spider-Man – Volume 1: This is the 23^rd volume. It collects the first issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 2, which was relaunched with a new #1 (but would later revert to the original numbering).

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: This is the 28^th volume. It collects Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (which relaunched with a new #1 starring Miles Morales).

Yes, the collection called Ultimate Comics Spider-Man collects Ultimate Spider-Man, while the collection called Ultimate Spider-Man collects Ultimate Comics Spider-Man.

No, I’m not making this up.

If you follow this set of collections to its end, however, you’ll have a complete set of Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man comics.

However, this list does not include…

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: A hardcover edition of the original run, but it collects #1-13 instead of #1-7.

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1*: A hardcover edition of the original run, but it collects #1-7.

Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection – Volume 1: A softcover edition of the original run, collecting #1-13.

Ultimate Spider-Man Collection*: An exclusive hardcover sold by Barnes & Noble, collecting #1-39.

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: An omnibus edition collecting #1-39.

Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: This collects Vol. 3 #1-6, a new series by Jonathan Hickman with a completely different version of the character. (This is the one I was recommending above, although Bendis’ series is also excellent and well worth reading if you haven’t.)

A REFLECTION

Every so often, while digging through yet another Marvel/DC reading list to unravel the arcane lore of which book I need to read next and frantically cross-referencing ISBN numbers in a futile effort to make sure I’m not getting the wrong Wonder Woman (Volume 3), I imagine what it would be like if other series did this.

C.S. Lewis, writing the sixth Narnia book circa 1955 and thinking to himself, “This book also involves a lion, a witch, and the origin of the wardrobe. So let’s just call it The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe again!”

And, of course, who can forget J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary The Hobbit, which is the sequel to The Hobbit and also Volume 1 of The Lord of the Rings? (I don’t even know why you’re complaining about this! A real fan would obviously recognize that it’s about a completely different hobbit!)

Andy Weir is pleased to announce The Martian, the new book in the award-winning trilogy which began with The Martian and will conclude with The Martian.

Of course, I say this, but it’s not just Marvel and DC, right? They’re just the most cancerous examples. We’ve begun seeing this creep into other media, too: Tomb Raider. God of War. Halloween. Scream. Weezer albums titled Weezer.

It seems to be creeping into everything, doesn’t it? And is it a coincidence that so much of this is corporate-owned IP? Is it meant to baffle and confuse us? To reduce creation to consumption? To anonymize creators into a mass of undifferentiated product?

Of course, it feels like reboots, remakes, and re-adaptations aren’t the same thing, but it’s also true that when I say The Maltese Falcon, the film you’re thinking of almost certainly isn’t the original film adaptation.

And then there’s Shakespeare’s King Lear, the multiple editions of which I won’t be able to explain without multiple flowcharts and a 90-minute presentation.

But, honestly, I just want to read The Ultimate Spider-Man. (No, not that one. The other one.) And it just feels like it shouldn’t be this hard.

If you’re a geek older than forty, one of the tough/weird adjustments you’ve had to make in your life is that there was a point where you could reasonably expect to at least sample every significant geek media release…

… and then you couldn’t.

In the ‘90s, for example, I could reasonably expect to watch every science fiction TV show and play every geeky board game.

Today you could dedicate every waking moment of your life and you still wouldn’t be able to do either of those things.

And this extends to movies, roleplaying games, video games… All of it.

At first you think, “I’m just getting old. If I was still young, I could stay on top of all this.”

But that ain’t it.

I lived through the transitions from “there are three channels on your dial” to cable television to the modern fire hydrant of content. Having a local channel become a Fox affiliate — a fourth network! whoa! — was a significant event in my life.

We talk about the “last Renaissance man” — the point at which it was no longer possible for a single person to meaningfully master all fields of human study. In the last forty years, we’ve passed a similar threshold in media.

Looking back across that watershed, an important thing to understand is that, because it was possible, there was a cultural pressure to actually do it. To be part of the geek scene, you needed to know — wanted to know! — the shibboleths.

Pre-1970ish, SF fans could read every major SF novel.

Pre-2005ish, SF fans could watch every major SF TV series.

But, like the proverbial lobster, we have been imperceptibly transitioned into a reality where that’s NOT possible. And, just like the lobster, this creates a lot of stress.

Some of it is self-imposed.

Some of it is external.

“You haven’t watched [insert show here]? I guess you’re not a real fan!”

The scene then fractures.

I can’t learn all of those shibboleths, so I’m going to focus on one specific slice of geek media and learn THOSE shibboleths: So anime becomes its own, increasingly separate fandom. And then there’s so much anime that it, too, fractures into sub-fandoms.

When this fracturing takes the form of excluding rather than focusing, it can turn toxic. This is usually draped in conspiracy rhetoric and/or bigotry: Women or black people or story gamers are trying to steal our fandom!

Now we’re starting to see the emergence of mega-franchises producing so much content that it’s not just a matter of not having time to read every science fiction novel; it’s that you only really have time to engage with this ONE, all-consuming media tentpole. (And maybe squeeze a few other things in around the edges.)

This creates a bizarre paradox: We have a prolificacy of media vast beyond the bounds of comprehension; a cornucopia that would stagger the imagination of, say, an SF fan in the ‘50s.

But, simultaneously, the consumption of any single individual person is increasingly homogenous.

In the late 2010’s, how many people had 50% or 80% or 100% of their trips to the cinema be exclusively MCU films?

There are antecedents to this. From 1990-ish, for example, Star Trek and Star Wars both produced enough tie-in fiction that if you fully engaged with it you would probably read little or nothing else. There was a time when you could casually read every Marvel comic… and then you couldn’t.

It’s just becoming more common.

And this creates an interesting challenge for the megacorps driving these mega-franchises. You can push more and more of the all-in-one, all-consuming fandom… but only up to a certain point.

Once you exceed a fan’s capacity to consume everything — to learn every shibboleth — then the fandom will either radically schism (possibly toxically so) or, worse yet (for the megacorp, anyway), abandon the franchise entirely.

Dungeons & Dragons is an interesting case study here.

Pre-1984, or thereabouts, you could buy and read every single official release for the game. Starting in 1984, the number of modules being published each year was becoming onerous, but pre-1989 even a moderately devoted fan could still easily engage the major releases.

After 1989, on the other hand, AD&D 2^nd Edition’s release schedule became a firehose of content. (Even ignoring the 300+ tie-in novels and video games and comic books.) No one could keep up with it, so the fanbase schismed along natural fault lines (“I’m only going to buy Dark Sun books!”) or dropped out.

D&D 3^rd Edition and 4^th Edition tried to maintain a more sustainable pace of releases so that fans could at least afford to purchase the books, but the TYPE of material they primarily released (PC options) couldn’t be brought to the table fast enough, so fans would, once again, become saturated and then drop out. (This is the fatal flaw to using a supplement treadmill to support an RPG line.)

D&D 5^th Edition, on the other hand, initially dialed back the pace of releases and focused more heavily on adventure material (which is more consumable; you play the adventure and then you need a new adventure). The result is that even casual fans didn’t feel disconnected from the shibboleths or incapable of consuming the content: “Strahd” and “Dragon Heist” and “Auril” and “Baldur’s Gate” were all recognizable references to the vast majority of the fandom.

In the last couple of years, however, the pace of D&D 5^th Edition releases has increased, the shibboleths are beginning to slip, and there are clear signs that the fanbase is fracturing. (Which is probably not great news going into a new edition.)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is having a similar problem: Yes, the slip in quality (precipitated by a brain drain of all the major creators) is a contributing factor, but the more fundamental systemic problem is that the amount of material being released increased to a point where even people who wanted to keep up with it all couldn’t. The result? Fans, particularly casual fans, started checking out.

And, as the MCU demonstrates, the more you create the impression that “everything is important” and that a fan needs to “watch everything” in order to keep up, the more dramatic your crash will be the instant you pass the threshold at which fans can no longer do that: They won’t just dramatically scale back their engagement. They’ll drop out completely.

So if you’re running a mega-franchise, what’s the solution?

It basically boils down to releasing material at a pace that your audience can consume it.

That sounds simple, but it’s shockingly easier to succumb to temptation, ramp up your release schedule, and break the whole thing. Partly because modern capitalism / greed demands perpetual growth. Partly because your loudest and most hardcore fans will happily consume FAR MORE than the majority of your audience, and if you heed their call they’ll be all that’s left in the burnt out husk of a once vibrant community. And partly because creating stuff is fun, and as your resources grow the allure of creating even more stuff — stuff you couldn’t have dreamed of creating just a few years ago! — can prove overwhelming. There’s also likely more and more people involved in the mega-franchise as it grows, and it will become increasingly difficult for that not to fuel an exponential pattern of growth.

Now, let’s flip it around: You’re a fan of a mega-franchise and it’s growing past your capacity to “keep up.” What can you do?

Broadly speaking, you’ll either need to let the franchise go or you’ll have to figure out how to change the way you engage with the franchise so that the “consume all” credo of collectorism doesn’t rob your joy.

That might be identifying some subset of the franchise (creators, characters, specific settings, etc.) that you’re most interested in. (Although be warned that the worst mega-franchises will make this difficult by constantly disrupting every segment of the fandom with “events.”) It might be withdrawing from new releases and just enjoying the stuff you love. (Were you really enjoying everything the mega-franchise was offering? Or were you buying some of that stuff just out of a sense of obligation?) Or it might be finding some new way of engaging with your fandom, perhaps by creating fan art or fan-fiction or Youtube videos, in a way that makes you more than just a passive consumer and gives you greater power to make your fandom what you want it to be.

And, of course, the best time to start figuring this out is BEFORE the franchise has become all-consuming in your life and knocked out all of your other interests and hobbies.

Go to Part 1

Scott McCloud is better known these days for Understanding Comics, one of the greatest books ever written about art and the creative process; a towering achievement which laid bare the heart of the comic book medium.

(You may have seen me previously discuss Understanding Comics here, here, here, or here.)

Before he created Understanding Comics, however, McCloud created Zot!, one of the greatest superhero comics ever written. The first ten issues of Zot! – the so-called “color issues”, because the rest of the series transitioned into twenty-six black-and-white issues – are a must-read superhero / science fiction epic. And it’s here that we find our third scenario structure challenge.

At the heart of Zot! is the Key:

Not quite a McGuffin according to my stuffy, traditionalist definition of the term, although largely indistinguishable from such for the first six or seven issues of the story, and close enough for our purposes in any case. The Key is a holy relic held sacred by the people of Sirius IV and said to be capable of opening the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe.

The Key has also been stolen.

As the series begins, Zot chases the Key (or, more accurately, the trail of people looking for the Key) through an interdimensional portal to our Earth. There he meets Jenny, and through a series of hijinks they end up forming a small team of unlikely heroes who are pursuing the Key.

But they aren’t alone. In addition to the original owners and the thief, now that the Key is out in the open a whole bunch of factions have become interested in acquiring it. The first few issues of Zot! each have a procedural heart to them, in fact, with Zot needing to deal with some different crazy foe who wants the Key for themselves.

This includes Dekko, a Machiavellian machine who believes that the Doorway – a product of technology which predates all technology – is the “final ascendancy of Man’s perfect art and the end of Man’s greatest flaw: Himself.”

There are also the De-Evolutionaries, who believe that humanity would be better off if it went “back to the trees” (and use de-evolutionary guns to turn people into chimps to make that literally happen). They want the Key because passing through the Doorway will legitimize their crazed religion.

Where the story becomes truly special, however, is when these different factions begin collapsing back into themselves; interacting with each other, forming and breaking alliances with each other, and developing complicated and rich relationships with each other (and with the object of their desire).

McGUFFIN KEEP-AWAY

This scenario shares a lot in common with the Race to the Prize that we analyzed last week: A target object of value with multiple factions competing for its ultimate possession. The key difference (pun intended) is that rather than being the ultimate goal of the scenario, in Zot! the McGuffin is in play and actively shifting possession over and over again.

In the case of Zot! the initial scenario hook is that the item has been stolen. But you can just as easily have the McGuffin secured and instead have the initial scenario hook be the need to steal the item, which then initiates the McGuffin Keep-Away. To some extent the distinction is merely one of perception, however, since the structure ultimately boils down to “X currently has the item, who can take it from them?” The “original owner” of the item is just the one currently in possession of it.

This keep-away dynamic makes the scenario more difficult to design and run. Without the clue trail of the treasure hunt, creating a through-line for the scenario becomes more complex. It also becomes trickier to clearly set up rivalries and the competition between teams, because in the default mode there’s no sequence of events that needs to be achieved before snatching the prize. And as soon as somebody (whether it’s the PCs or somebody else) snatches the prize, they’ll be in the wind.

Okay, so what makes this scenario work?

1. Create X number of factions seeking the McGuffin, in a process that will be fairly similar to that used for Race to the Prize.

Zot! features a couple of interesting variants here. First, there are a number of proxies who end up shifting their alliances (or, at least, which faction they are currently working with) several times throughout the narrative. Second, there are entire secret factions which are using other factions as a front for their own activities. The character of Prince Drufus, for example, notably ends up as both. In fact, he frequently ends up working with the PCs (Zot, Jenny, and their friends) – sometimes because their goals are in accord; sometimes unaware that they are not; and sometimes despite the fact that he knows they are not.

In this, Zot! also highlights the value of giving the factions distinct ideologies which nevertheless overlap with each other. Let’s call these Venn diagram alliances: It’s a powerful technique because the points of commonality will drive the factions to work together, while the points of difference will create conflicts within those alliances which will eventually rip them apart. Remember that this includes the PCs! And, furthermore, remember that you, as the GM, don’t need to determine what the PCs’ agenda will be. These types of ideologically complex environments are great specifically because they force the players to make tough, meaningful choices.

One easy format for these ideologies are characters who desire the same outcome but disagree about how it should be accomplished. (And, inversely, those who desire different outcomes but currently agree on the necessity of a particular course of action.)

2. The keep-away. For each faction, you’ll want to know what tactics they use to steal the McGuffin (stealth, force, etc.) and, if they succeed in obtaining the item, what tactics they’ll use to secure it. Often this can be improvised during actual play, but if you’re unsure about improvising this sort of thing then prep exactly how each team will operate and what they will do (particularly when it comes to securing the item). And, of course, some of these elements will require prep for maximum effectiveness.

Dekko, for example, retreats to his fortress of Castle Dekko for defense. Another thief uses technological camouflage to hide in plain sight. Prince Drufus has a squad of attack robots at his command. The methods and resources you can design here – both mobile and static – are pretty much limitless, and you’ll want to try to vary things between factions. If everybody is just a squad of goons who then retreats to a fortified position, the scenario will become considerably less interesting.

3. The method to find the item. This is the dynamic that’s tricky to get right, but on which the whole scenario structure really depends. Because, as noted before, if somebody can grab the item and then just trivially disappear, the scenario just doesn’t work.

Zot! addresses this problem by giving the Key a unique radiation signature which can, with some expertise and knowledge, be used to track its general location. This includes tracking it to different planets and also into other dimensions, so there really is no way to escape and take the Key “off the board” (so to speak).

Eventually, however, someone figures out how to cloak this radiation signal. This forces the other factions interested in the Key to intuit what the current holder of the key will use it for (i.e., opening the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe), allowing them to once again zone in on it (i.e., put the Doorway under surveillance and security).

Relying on this kind of intuition can be a little risky when it comes to RPG scenario design (since you can’t control exactly what your players will think of or when they’ll think of it), so for a more robust scenario you’ll want to use the Three Clue Rule. Remember that your clues can include intelligence from other factions that have made the intuitive leap. (“It looks like Indiana Jones is heading for Moscow. He must know something we don’t, let’s follow him.”) The web of alliances between factions can also allow you to become proactive here by having other players approach the PCs with an offer to work together (or simply slip them information they feel will be to their advantage).

The more general realization to make here is that this method of discovery very easily collapses into a chokepoint, and like any chokepoint it becomes a potential weak spot at which the scenario can break. If, for example, you design the scenario so that the PCs need to make a test in order to detect the Key’s radiation and they fail that test, that can very easily turn into the PCs having no idea what to do next.

So you want to avoid that chokepoint. In many ways you can think of this as the default action of the scenario (if the PCs have no idea what to do next, they can attempt to find the current location of the item). You’ll either want to make that default action automatic (so that failure isn’t possible), make it meaningfully repeatable (so that there’s a cost to failure, but you can always try again; a partial success test is another way of accomplishing this); or multiply it (so that if one method fails, the PCs can try another method; this would be a variant of the Three Clue Rule).

4. An endgame, usually in the form of an ultimate goal to be achieved with the item – delivering it somewhere, using it for something, preventing others from using it for a certain amount of time, or maybe just figuring out how to definitively destroy it or hide it so that other factions can’t use it. (This last point, of course, flies in the face of #3, so it should require significant effort of some sort in order to achieve this, giving other factions plenty of time to interfere before the endgame is truly achieved.)

Without some form of definitive endgame, the scenario will never end: The McGuffin will just continue being endlessly passed around. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but what it usually means is a growing sense of frustration and futility as the scenario chews up its inherent interest but continues hanging around without any satisfactory resolution.

One variant to look at here is a PC-specific endgame: The great game surrounding the McGuffin continues, but the PCs have accomplished whatever their goal regarding the McGuffin is and are content to exit on their own terms.

SIMPLIFY THE STRUCTURE

Zot! is big and it’s complicated. The scope is multidimensional and multiplanetary, with time travel complicating things even further and the fates of entire worlds at stake. Rather than immediately tackling something of this scale, it might behoove us to take our scenario structure out for a test drive with something a little more modest.

Let’s try this: The Maltese Falcon has, at long last, been found. Its value is immense, but particularly so to the practitioners of the ancient rites of magick, who know its true purpose. It has been placed as a lot in highly exclusive, black market auction that takes place aboard a small, ultra-luxury cruise ship on the high seas.

This premise allows us to further control the scope of the scenario: Barring extraordinary efforts, the action will be confined to the ship until it comes back into port. Neither the PCs nor anybody else will be able to vanish as soon as they’ve stolen the Falcon.

In addition to deck plans for the ship (which you can probably find online), you’ll also want to prep:

1. The factions involved. This will include the current owner of the Falcon and the security team for Penumbral Holdings, the mysterious organization behind the black market auction. Let’s also toss in a couple of sorcerous sects plus a team of mundanes (who just want the Falcon for its jewels and are way out of their depth here).

2. For the keep-away, you’ll want to prep the initial auction-related security protecting the Falcon. Maybe the PCs are the first ones to steal it, maybe they’re not. Either way, you’ll want that initial condition.

3. For the next step, we need to take a step back and think about how we want to organize our prep for this boat. I’m going to argue that we can prep the week at sea as a big social event, using the party planning scenario structure. Parties are usually short affairs, but the structure can easily be expanded to multiple events over several days. Nick Bate and I did something similar for the second part of the Quantronic Heat mini-campaign for Infinity.

With that knowledge in our pocket, we can now consider the method to find the Falcon. For the sake of argument, let’s say we’re running this scenario with Fantasy Flight’s Genesys system. In that case, we might look at something like this:

• You need to achieve X number of successes over any number of checks in order to figure out who currently has the Falcon. Primary checks would focus on social interactions with the other factions onboard. Investigating where the item was stolen from could also contribute additional successes. (Alternative methods might also include sorcerous divinations.)
• Advantages on these checks can be used to determine aspects of how the item is currently being secured (guards, security measures, etc.).
• Disadvantages or Despair might alert one or more of the other factions about the PCs and their intentions. Or attract the attention of Penumbral Holdings’ security team.

4. Our endgame here is simplified by the constrained premise we’ve used: When the ship makes landfall, whoever is currently holding the Falcon will most likely be able to vanish without a trace. The goal of the PCs is to be the one holding the Falcon when the clock runs out.

A possible wrinkle on our endgame is a simple question: Why would Penumbral Holdings put the ship into dock if the Falcon is still missing?

The primary explanation might be exigent circumstances: There may be people onboard that Penumbral Holdings can’t afford to piss off. Or the sorcerous wards preventing teleportation might expire at the end of the week no matter what. Or the true nature of members of Penumbral Holdings prevents them from remaining on the material plane of existence for more than a week.

Alternatively, this might become part of the action: Those holding the Falcon (including the PCs) may need to hijack the ship and bring it into port so that they can make good their escape. Or there’s a rendezvous craft that’s going to arrive at such-and-such a time.

RUNNING THE KEEP-AWAY

The spine of our Maltese Falcon scenario is the social event, advice for which can be found in the original Party Planning article. For the factions, you’ll probably want to prep progressions like those we discussed last week in Race for the Prize.

The social event spine is really a crutch of sorts, giving you a firmer structure to fall back on and build the McGuffin Keep-Away on top of. In its absence, you should be able to just keep spinning events forward through a combination of your faction progressions and responding to the PCs’ actions.

The first issue of Zot! for example, could be framed as the GM triggering the following progressions / faction features:

• THIEF: Attempts to use an interdimensional portal to hide the Key on Our Earth.
• SIRIUS IV: Successfully tracks the Key [locating it on Our Earth] and dispatches a robot kill squad to its location.
• [At this point, the PCs – who have been keeping an eye on the Sirius IV faction – track the robot kill squad to Our Earth and destroy it. They also find the Key and choose to turn it over to the proper authorities in the form of the CPZP.]
• THIEF: Checks his hiding place. [Finding the Key missing, he tracks it.]
• THIEF: Uses a stealthed robot to steal the Key.
• DE-EVOLUTIONARIES: Track the Key and brazenly attack [the CPZP council meeting].
• [The PCs fail to detect the Key being stolen and fight a big battle with the De-Evoluationaries.]

The linear nature of this, mirroring the structure of the original story, may be deceptive. So consider how the GM can trigger the exact same progressions but end up with a completely different result based on the actions of the PCs:

• THIEF: Attempts to use an interdimensional portal to hide the Key on Our Earth.
• SIRIUS IV: Successfully tracks the Key [locating it on Our Earth] and dispatches a robot kill squad to its location.
• [At this point, the PCs – who have been keeping an eye on the Sirius IV faction – track the robot kill squad to Our Earth. They fight, but lose. The robot kill squad captures the Key, but the PCs aren’t aware of this fact. The PCs regroup and pursue the robot kill squad.]
• THIEF: Checks his hiding place. [Finding the Key missing, he tracks it.]
• [PCs arrive back at the home base of the robot kill squad and continue their surveillance. The Sirius IV faction leaders, learning that the robot squad has secured the key, board a shuttle and begin flying towards the compound.]
• THIEF: Uses a stealthed robot to steal the Key.
• [PCs don’t spot the thief’s robot sneaking into the Sirius IV compound.]
• DE-EVOLUTIONARIES: Track the Key and brazenly attack [the Sirius IV robot compound].
• [The PCs notice the stealthed robot sneaking back out of the compound in the chaos. They attack that robot as the Sirius IV shuttle arrives onsite. The Sirius IV representatives spot the PCs, but are ambushed by De-Evolutionaries as they move to intercept. The PCs destroy the thief’s robot and take the key back. Taking the ruined remnants of the robot back to Zot’s Uncle Max, they use it to identify the thief.]

In actual play, what you’ll generally end up with is a cluster of raid (when the PCs go to steal the McGuffin) and siege (when the PCs have the item and need to protect it) scenarios. The more the factions interact with each other, the more crazed these scenarios will become.

BEYOND THE DOORWAY

Our use of the Maltese Falcon in our hypothetical scenario already points the way towards the Dashiell Hammet novel and John Ford movie as another example of this scenario structure in other media. As with Zot!, the scenario begins with the McGuffin already in keep-away mode. (You could also interpret that back story of The Maltese Falcon – with various treasure seekers attempting to trace the Falcon’s trail – as a Race to the Prize scenario, the conclusion of which then bounces directly into a McGuffin Keep-Away scenario).

Another Humphrey Bogart film to consider is Casablanca, in which the letters of transit function as the McGuffin. The thing to note here is that even though the McGuffin DOESN’T change hands repeatedly, the narrative remains interesting. So don’t feel as if you need to force the item to bounce around amongst your various factions: It’s perfectly okay if it settles into the hands of the PCs (or some other faction). As other factions come to barter with (or threaten) the controlling party, the drama will continue to flow.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an interesting example to break down. There are fewer factions, but a larger number of rogue agents pursuing independent goals within the arena defined by the McGuffin Keep-Away. Consider, too, that the McGuffin in this case – the Green Destiny sword –  has a specific utility which is useful for the keep-away itself. This not only creates an interesting transition of advantage as the McGuffin bounces around, but also encourages the faction currently controlling the item to use it, often creating large, clear paths for the other factions to follow.

Go to Challenge #4