What the Marvel Universe Teaches Indie Creators
Hello creatives,
Today we’re gonna be talking about what the Marvel Universe teaches independent creatives. Now when I say the Marvel Universe, I’m talking more than just the movies. I’m talking about the video games, the comic books, the movies and the TV shows all wrapped up into this immersive world that has been built up over multiple decades. The brain child of Stan Lee has become a behemoth in the creative fields of publishing, filmmaking, and video games.
You may be surprised to know that the Marvel Cinematic universe is only the ninth most profitable franchise in the world with the first being Pokémon. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is worth more than $38 billion since the first movie was made in 2008. If you want to include everything else related to Marvel Entertainment, it comes out to $53 billion.
The Marvel Universe Had a Long Journey to Become What it Is Now
Now, it’s interesting to know is that the earlier days of the Marvel franchise was filled with up and downs. Therein lies our first lesson for indie creators. It takes time to build success in a world where we’re constantly inundated with get rich quick schemes and the concept of becoming an overnight success. Sometimes, we need to take a step back and realize that some of the most successful players in the field took the better part of a lifetime to become the cultural icons that they are now.
The first marvel comics was published in October 1939 and there was some initial success selling nearly 900,000 copies. The next two decades were marked by acquisitions and various business deals that expanded the distribution of Marvel comics. By the ‘70s, Marvel had enough brand recognition to organize their own convention which they named MarvelCon. This shows that once a following has been built around your work, you should really try to engage with in-person events in some capacity whether it’s going to conventions, hosting your own screenings or book signings. Do what you can to build a true connection with the people who support your work. Don’t Stretch Yourself Too Thin as a Creative Professional
In the 1990s, Marvel was doing a lot. Too much all at once possibly. Marvel was able to have multiple Marvel Cons, which helped to bolster excitement and enthusiasm for the Marvel Universe. To further create a sense of community building around the Marvel Universe, they began publishing trading cards. They had also licensed a video game through a division called Marvel software. They even tried to get themselves on the New York Stock Exchange. They were making a lot of business moves and acquisitions. Because of this, by 1996, Marvel had to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
I think the important lesson here is that if you expand too quickly, you run the risk of failing . It is possible to do too much all at once and when that happens, you’re not able to accomplish all of your goals. Today you’ll run into any number of multi-passionate creative people who dabble in a lot of different industries like publishing, filmmaking, video games and more. It’s tempting to try to do things all at once, but there is something to be said about strategically and sequential working on projects that build on one another rather than spreading yourself out too thin with your creative pursuits. You don’t want to burn out and you don’t want to destroy yourself in the process.
Building Mutually Beneficial Partnerships
The only way that Marvel was able to avoid bankruptcy was by consolidating some projects. They broke themselves out into four different divisions: what eventually became Marvel Studios, their toy business, publishing and licensing. This move structured them into the behemoth they are today by focusing solely on creating toys, publishing comic books, financing movies, and licensing everything else to other parties. They were able to change the course of the company.
And I think the key thing was focusing on the licensing piece because what licensing your intellectual property does is it helps you retain the rights to a thing while basically renting the concept out to other people. This is how you’re able to get Marvel themed clothing, Marvel themed office decor, and whatever else. It’s a very common tactic for large brands to do in order to make consistent money without having to do all the legwork required to accomplishing that project. This is because rather than doing it themselves, they’re letting an expert do all the work but slap the Marvel name on it for a fee.
So something that independent creatives can learn here is the value of collaboration and the value of licensing. Once you’ve reached a point where you have a decent following, you can set yourself up to create licensing deals based on your intellectual property and on the story in the world that you’ve built. You don’t have to do it all, but you can partner with people who can do the things you’re interested in doing and broker a deal.
Be Careful of the Contracts You Sign
Where this gets messy, however is that after the bankruptcy and restructuring of Marvel in 1998, Stan Lee had spun off his own company which fell into bankruptcy by 2001. He began to realize that he lost control over the Marvel characters. To try to regain some monetary losses, a long list of lawsuits with various claims of trademark infringement and copyright theft ensued for the much of the 2000s. All to settle the dispute over whether Stan Lee still had the rights to the characters he built his life on.
The whole saga is a grave warning for creative professionals in publishing, filmmaking, video games and other fields about how important it is to really safeguard your intellectual property and trademarks. Your creative work can be an economic boom for you, but if you aren’t careful, a sly contract can rip that away.
That’s all I have to say for now. Hopefully this provides you some food for thought. Let me know what your thoughts on this are and if you have any questions you’d like me to address in future posts!
Until next time,
Rochele Rosa