Redartz: For a "Short Cuts" question, today's offering is a pretty big subject. In your opinion, is comics fandom growing and reaching new converts? Is it just 'treading water', or is it dwindling towards extinction? My recent visit to the C2E2 convention gave me some sense that there are newer fans, younger fans, and more diverse fans, than some might think. Buuut, I could be wrong. What do you think? If the hobby is healthy, why? How might it grow even further? And if it isn't doing well, what would you suggest to remedy it? Share your thoughts and suggestions, you just might help keep comics around for the next century!
Oh, for anyone interested in some further reading: from Comicsbeat.com comes this article I stumbled across. Writer Brian Hibbs makes some interesting points about comics today. A little lengthy but well worth a look...
http://www.comicsbeat.com/titling-at-windmillls-259-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-marvel-comics-anyway/
16 comments:
The success of comic book characters in film has utterly changed the pop culture understanding of the hobby. Once upon a time we were a cult of special folks who grokked the coolness of comics and shared that secret lore with other of our ilk. The hobby was strengthened and reinforced by the us-against-the-world attitude held by many of the "nerds" who pursued the alternate universes presented by comics. It was a chance to live vicariously within the stories of great heroes and by dint of fandom to bring that thrill into the humdrum of daily life just a bit by sharing it. These days I think so many folks are onto the superhero thing that it's lost its cultist aspect and become so mainstream that knowing comics is no longer an unusual thing, at least not in the way it was once upon a time. Being overly involved with a "kid's hobby" suggested gross immaturity to most adults, but these days I get the sense so many have touchstones that it's not nearly as dreary to be a comic book reader.
That all said, the movement to the internet does suggest a whole new apprehend not only comics, but comics fandom and allow for it to spread with even more efficiency. I keep a blog now and visit sites like this now, where as once upon a time I was part of an APA (Amateur Press Association) dedicated to comics and for a time published at great expense of time and some money (with the help of my beloved wife...God bless her) a newsletter. It's the same thing, but with the power of the internet at my fingertips it's all so much easier to create and distribute. What once took days in spare moments to create with mimeographs and offset printers and collected money for postage, now just happens when I push "publish".
Comics fandom is easier now, but with that ease the special nature does run the risk of being eroded, or at least from my vintage perspective that seems to be the case. I'll love to read what others have to say on this.
Rip off
I believe paper comics are going the way of newspapers. The newer fans love the movies, dressing up and funco pop dolls. They do read new books, but mostly digital. There are many "flippers" out there too. I see them at shows with their backpacks and tattered lists, searching for variant covers to sell on eBay. It sadly reminds me of the early 90's and the collapse. That time, comics got pulled into the sports card black hole. Many card dealers got into selling comics and even more "collectors" bought multiple copies of the same books thinking they would be worth what the comic price guides listed them at. However, the first time they tried to sell them no one wanted them because they had 10 copies of their own. Today eBay creates a bit of a wrinkle in that there are even more speculators this time and an even bigger bubble. The movies are good because they are condensed versions of 70+ years of story. I think comics will survive, just maybe not how we are used to seeing them. I actually enjoyed the Red Skull run in Uncanny Avengers. (I did read it digitally on an iPad) I see it as a positive for us though, it makes what we enjoyed somehow more valuable.
While I don't have the hard data to actually prove anything, I would say that the market is dwindling with prospects of growth. I read a survey of typical buyers of the main lines, and it skewed heavily to my demographic (white male, mid-40's) largely due to longtime purchasing habits and the amount of disposable income. There is, however, a much larger group of books out there now which are specifically geared to kids who are the age when I started collecting, say around ten years old. So there is the basis being laid for a sustainable group of customers in terms of a readership which purchase comics on a regular basis as opposed to occasionally with the usual hiatuses for major life events (college, starting a family, etc ...). In the article, I noticed that he made no note of these efforts, but rather tackled the marketing of the main titles. And I believe from my own experience and anecdotally that the line books and the frequent crossovers are diluting the market mostly for the reasons he cites. I dropped Guardians of the Galaxy altogether when it spawned off into five mags. I thought it was a crass move tied to the upcoming movie, but more importantly the content of the books was not just not up to the level that I wanted to be a part of it any longer.
Can't argue with anything above...
In the long run, would kids who have no exposure to the original paper comics, or e-comics, financially sustain these characters in hard copy comic form, or e-comics, or movie form? I doubt it.
Who / what's to blame seems pretty straight forward: the advances in electronics, telecommunications, and ultimately the development of the internet taking their time, changing reading habits...
P.S. My two reference points for this discussion are often Captain Marvel and Dick Tracy.
Cpt. Marvel and Fawcett dominated comics through the early 50s, selling a million issues a week. Poor guy is all but forgotten by even avid comic readers.
Dick Tracy was in over 1000 (?) newspapers and is now just in 40. No kids read newspaper comics now, and his 1990 movie with Beatty and Madonna was 27 years ago. Read / seen any Dick Tracy lately, in any form? RIP Dick Tracy.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
All I can say is that I can't see how the comics being produced today could possibly be drawing in too many new young readers. Which is what is needed to keep the industry alive and growing.
I base this on the fact that if I was a kid today I would not be interested in reading any of the mainstream comics as they are currently being produced. As a 10 or 11 or 12 year old, I would have found books like Batman or even Spider-Man these days to be quite boring. Most modern comics are too wordy and "adult" oriented to have kept my interest as a kid. The artwork is too dense and the color pallet too dark, and the stories are slower paced and not as much fun as they used to be.
Personally I don't think the minds of children could have really changed all that much since we were kids. So, if I would have been bored by todays comics, then I have to think that younger kids today would feel the same. However, I could be wrong. (It's happened once or twice before). ;)
I think comic books as we know them will not last our lifetimes. I think e-comics and TPBs will be around for a while, I know a lot of people have already switched to reading comics online. Since I review reprint collections, I've gotten more selective about print versions I buy.
On the other hand, I think superheroes are more popular than ever. When I was in college, if you saw someone wearing a shirt with an image of a superhero on it, they tended to be social awkward dudes like me. Now you see people from all walks of life wearing superhero shirts. I hope this means that big media outlets will stop referring to superhero and sci-fi properties as "geek" culture. When everyone is a "geek," no one is a geek. Except the guy at the carnival who eats nails, of course.
I also agree with much of what has been said.
A thought on today's youth in regard to comics: When I engage in a conversation with my high school students about comics, it is as if we're not talking about the same things. Their reference points are the films and new comics, video games too. My reference points are the comics of the 60s-80s and then the films. I understand that there are Easter eggs in the films -- the kids find those are parts of the film they don't understand.
Just today, in advance of the release of Guardians, vol. 2 (which I am going to see tomorrow at 2:10 if all goes as planned), I was discussing the MCU with a kid. I asked him if he'd ever read the Infinity Gauntlet (nope) and was explaining the expanding roster of the Elders of the Universe in the MCU (Collector, Grandmaster, Ego, etc.). Blank stare. No idea of the history behind these cinematic stories. When I was discussing Ego I mentioned Jack Kirby's original designs. Blank stare.
But hey -- we have our memories, and can be thankful we live in the golden age of reprints.
Doug
Hi Doug, oh yes! I've never read the Infinity Gauntlet, but my LCS is having a sale for FCBD this Saturday and I was planning to pick it up then. In the spirit of this topic, Free Comic Book Day is a wonderful occasion to see the current state of comics fandom (and in my case, pick up some cool back reading). I hope you all have plans to stop in somewhere. Bronze Age represent!
Excellent comments all around, folks. A few quick thoughts:
Rip and J.A.- your comments regarding the popularity of comic characters today seem spot on. They have grown and expanded well beyond their newsprint origins. Characters such as Ant Man and Martian Manhunter are now recognized by many. Who'da thunk it...
Luther, William and Doug- I agree with many of your thoughts on comics and young people. I would add, though, that in my periodic excursions to the LCS, I do note a really nice assemblage of kid/family oriented comics. Some of such interest as to tempt me, for example: "Scooby Doo Team-Up". Pairing the eternal mutt with the likes of Batman, Joker and Harley - brilliant. I'd have eaten that up as a youth. And there is much more. The problem is getting them into the hands of kids.
And incidentally, a recent article on CBR discussed plans for Archie comics to begin distributing Marvel stories along the lines of the digests you see at the supermarket. Sounds like a good way to start...
Doug - You make a good point about persons seeing these Marvel movies prior to having read the book. I have a feeling at some point there will be limits to the success of the Marvel movies and deeper plot / story line development.
I had family and friends who had trouble with the latest Cap and understanding the whole Bucky thing. Too much to digest fully to really comprehend and enjoy the movie. And, as much as my family and friends enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy I, they started getting confused with Ronin, Thanos, the gem, what the whole point was...
Is the Infinity Gauntlet worth a read, then? (I would get if from the library - sorry LCS.) I really don't know enough about it, 40 years later, to even recall if it involved Warlock or Cpt Marvel?
The Infinity Gauntlet, as I recall was OK. It was a "big event" - maybe one of the first in that now-tired marketing tactic? The art in the first several issues was by George Perez and if I recall Ron Lim finished it out. Lim's a fine artist, but he's no George Perez, so that was disappointing. Not as disappointing as losing Perez before the end of The Korvac Saga, but still.
Honestly, I cannot recall too much about IG. I have it on my shelf and will re-read it ahead of the next Avengers film. Borrowing from a library or reading it online would be the way to go.
Doug
I will say this about that:
"Nothing gold can stay".
I, like many of those here, have my "memories" of comics when I was young. I also had a few friends that read comics but only one or two that I could really discuss or trade comics with. It did make it seem as though they, comics, were some secret thing that only a choice few of us "got". What I think is interesting, especially now, as I'm going back and scanning my comics, so many of the ads from the late 60s and early 70s were aimed at young adults to either change jobs or get their GEDs. Older people wanting to retire early or pursuing a career in electronics through ICE! (I think they're still around).
I would think Marvel (and the other guys) knew their market. So why were my "kid books" selling to young adults? Cause I was the other end of the market. I was the "new reader", the "growing market".
Then, again, like most of us, I could not believe comics in the 90s. The soul, the essence, was gone. It was art driven, event driven, product driven. Yet, and this is a plug for Dean Compton's blog on the Unspoken Decade, this was his introduction to comics. You can't read his blog without his passion and enthusiasm showing through. I may think "really, for these comics"? But they were "his" like the 70s were mine.
Now, like Doug, when I talk to people who are fans of "Arrow" or "Flash" or "Supergirl" or the MCU, they're fans of the media, not the books. I've talked to my youngest about some of the films that are remakes of "my movies". I've asked her how she would feel taking her kids to see the "Twilight" remakes or "Princess Diaries" or, heck, the Narnia reboots...
In conclusion, I do think that "comics" as we knew them, are gone. Kaput. Finito. And the industry as we knew that produced them are gone. But then again, so was vinyl, and paper, and drive-ins.
I do think, looking back, especially as I scan, that the memories of my "comics" are constructs of my mind. My comic world that I lived in growing up, may not have been what was the reality of the industry.... IDK, tho.
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OK I believe that comics fandom is actually growing. The massive success of movies like the Avengers and TV shows like Supergirl shows that there is a huge appetite for characters from the comics. Comicbook readers were a small niche market many years ago but they are a mainstream business nowadays.
- Mike 'waits for a pilgrimage to Comicon' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Prowl- very intriguing point about the ads in those 60's/70's comics. How many 8-year-olds were considering tech school? Now Xray specs- that would have grabbed them.
Today's comics, of course, have far fewer ads, and most of those are house ads. Hard to make any demographic assessments from that...
Mike from T&T- Yes,there does seem to be a wide audience for the characters these days. To what extent that carries over to the comics themselves remains to be seen. I do believe that with some imagination and efforts at price reduction, the 'floppies' might see some resurgence. At any rate, the comic art form should continue, even if mainly in a digital format...
I stumbled upon comic sales statistics at
http://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html
And these suggest, that comic book sales have shrinked up to 2001 and then started tio grow again. That was about the time, the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie was released.
Chim- many thanks for that link. Quite interesting, and good to be able to compare not only the raw dollar sales but the number of actual copies sold. Totals seem to be higher than any time since 1997. Still well below the levels of the Silver and Bronze age, but increasing.
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