Future of Comics

I read an interesting article at Ain't It Cool News on DCs new promotion (gag, stunt) coming out in September where they will publish 52 new number one issues. All other publications will cease and for all intents and purposes the DC world will be restarted at #1. In addition to this they will also release all issues in electronic format on the same day. The article debates the revamp and the pros and cons of what it all means. During and after the article it made me think about my own comic book reading habits and whether I would change (?).

First off a little history (with some opinions of the State of Comics):

My comic book adventures started in 1985 when I was a freshman in high school (although I do remember getting a few odds and ends as a younger child, Star Wars mostly, in the grocery store). During my freshman year my school had split sessions and since I competed in athletics I had to wait for practice so that led to wandering the grocery store and looking at the magazine rack. Next to the rack (hmmm pun somewhere in there...) was that metal turning thingamajig containing a mess of comics. I am sure anyone who tries to finds comics in a non comic book store can relate to this (and as an aside even comic book stores can be confusing...remember the movie Lost Boys when the kid walks in and complains about the issues being out of order on the shelf, complaining about superman?). Yup well the comic that hooked me at first was GI Joe #50. A double sized issue! It was gritty, it was fun, it was colorful, it had pictures and I loved the code names, the characters, and the specialities. It was good stuff. For the next few months (realize at this time I had no idea there were specialty comic book shops!) I would make my way to the grocery store and try to find the next issue. Six months later I then ventured into the uncharted territory of Marvels Merry Mutants (boy was that opening Pandora's Box). Kind of funny at the time I didn't want to be on the X-men bandwagon so I forsook that team for X-Factor (#9 was the first), which at the time was Marvel attempt to reboot the X-men's Original Five. At some point later did I finally jump onto the X-men bandwagon (issue #217, Art Adams Cover!)

During those early years I kept a pretty small pulllist. Even at 75 cents a book, I was fairly choosy with what I read. Back then I think the comic mantra of writing every book as it was someones first helped a lot (sure as an established reader I got tired reading taglines such as "Wolverine - He is the best at what he does..."). Back then I felt the books were pretty tight. Storylines weren't rambling, stories were character driven, there were plots and lead ins. The books were true serials. Perhaps because I was in my formative years the books were exciting. I cared for the characters, the art added to the script (I will get to this later), and I don't think anyone who wrote or drew mistook what they were doing as something deserving a Nobel prize for literature. And this is not to say they don't deserve kudos or be vilified because they write for comics. It is a great medium for storytelling but I don't think you should take yourself too serious about it, that's all. Although Moore and Miller and Gaiman did take the medium to places that deserve to be called literature. The next summer I ended up spending two weeks at a cousins who happened to be gone and I fell upon a vast back catalog of early X-men books. It was like finding the mother lode. At this time Marvel really didn't collect individual books and republish them in a deluxe trade paper back so the only real chance was to read back issues which generally cost more. Reading these back stories and finally seeing the history of the characters only further ingrained in me the love for the characters.

Starting the next year I finally found the first comic book store. Located in an old down trodden strip mall in a back away corner I discovered the joys of the musty comic book smell, backboards and plastic, pull lists, long boxes, and adult comic book lovers (am I creepy today?). When I finally got my own car (oohh) every Wednesday after practice I would make my comic book run. Collecting quarters throughout the week to get at least the issues I cared about. Anything extra and I would pick up the occasional Avenger book. Always stuck to Iron Man, West Coast Avengers (even the Great Lake Avengers!), and Fantastic Four. At the time I never got into DC. Sure I might read a Batman or Superman but it never made much of an impression. Even today I don't bother too much with DC. I think part of it is that the characters are like Gods, there is no fallacy with them. Although Dark Knight Returns is on my Top 5 list of stories ever told (maybe these characters work better with one shots rather than continuity?) Anyway back to the story and at about this time was when I first started buying comics for guys I went to school with. Suddenly I had someone to discuss the finer points of Cyclops actions!

Men like to talk about silly things. We can go on about movies, sports, books, women...generally meaningless things...but sit around and talk about Wolverine's action like we are in a Tarantino monologue is just priceless. Debating about who should make up the X-men, whether Dazzler is really an X-men, which iteration of Jean Grey is the best, and so forth. All in all it says something very basic to what comics can do and that is bring together a group of people to discuss a story and characters. That in a nutshell is what comics or any medium should destine to be.

And now onto the dark ages... In the lates 80s/early 90s (was it disposal income? a new generation of artist/writers?) comics started to be the "in" thing. Comic prices started to rise because of shiny cover gimmicks and multiple cover releases showed the Marvel/DC people that we were willing to shell out a lot more for just a "comic" book Additionally due to a "collector's" mentality, comic companies (and I think artist too) started to use shiny paper versus that old nasty newspaper print. Prices continued to rise, collectors were swooping in collecting books and filing them away never to be read (Action Comics #1 anyone?). And then something really changed with the "model" and that was a new crop of artist came into the picture. Obviously a comic book has art complementing a story. Early days I think it was the story that drove the book. As the medium grew so did the art (more so then the story) which eventually led to an era in which the art overshadowed the story. Artist became rock stars and started driving the industry. Some battles with writer's came about and even led to the artist becoming the writer in one book. Suddenly comic books weren't just a simple serial anymore, rather it became an investment, an artform, and battle ground between old and new school writers artists and publishers.

The roller coaster reached its apex with the desertion of Marvel's artist and the formation of Image Comics. Truly a comic meant solely for image and very little else. Books that came out were beautiful to look at but often came with little or no story, months behind (6 months between issues?), and yet people scrambled to buy them. An enormous sum of money went into something that now is essentially worthless. A lot of flash and bang but essentially empty. Because of this, the comic industry crashed and burned. Issue delays and poor stories finally led to the hangover that was the 90s for comic book lovers. Through this wreckage I still tried to keep up with the merry mutants. They want through a spectacular run from about issues 225 - 300 with Claremont at the helm. In time Marvel pushed him out and mutants have suffered ever since. There have been some bright spots here and there but for the most part it has been mostly unreadable.

Finally in the last half of '00s (or naughts?), a new generation of writers stepped in and started storytelling again. Art took a backseat (a little) and the industry started to be something again (especially with the success of movies!). The non-comic lovers started seeing that there were these awesome characters. Problem though is the comic book never got over itself. Comics couldn't return to the day of cheap newspaper, OK art, and good storytelling. Throw in that a typical issue is around $4 and if you read a couple series a month then you are paying around $30 - 40 a month? And for what exactly...22 pages of colored pictures?

For me the industry has forgotten its roots and readers. Started in the 1920s we had the serials (low end pulp entertainment meant to be trashy) and then the comics kind of filled the role but then in the 90s someone thought comics should become high brow literature/works of art? This is supposed to be fun and not too serious. We are talking about a man who flies around with a cape, a character with retractable claws, a blind guy, a guy bitten by a radioactive spider! Why are we thinking this is literature? What is the industry hoping to hang on to at this point? Its readership is bunch old guys. Next generation don't want to spend money on anything let alone some $4 piece of comic. I applaud what DC is doing about same day electronic distribution but having the same price point? Come on that will fail. Like it or not the price point for anything of value is currently .99 cents. .99 cents gets you a song and to my opinion that is what a comic book should get you. Is that sustainable? Probably not at only 10,000 copies sold but if the comic was worth anything don't you think more people would give a try? Think about it...someone is stuck at the airport needs something throw away to read...gee here is a Superman comic for 99 cents, I wonder what he is up to...I'll give it a shot for 99 cents! $4 no I don't think so.

I understand an industry as to feed its suppliers whether it is the writers, the editors, the artist but putting out a quality product will always find someone willing to spend money. For too long comic industry has put out crap, ridden character coat tails with awful tie ins, spewed out series with no rhyme or reason, and have totally lost it market. As suggested I'm an X-men fan but I can't honestly tell you how one is supposedly suppose to keep up with them now when there are 10 books. Who in their right mind can keep up with such a fractionation of a product. Compare this to Spider-man's latest run and we have one spidey book...want more stories...then bring it out weekly with good compact stories.

Enough ranting time for some conclusions. 1) Electronic distribution is the future, faster the companies get on board the better off they will be. 2) Price points...these are comics make them cheap and disposable and sale a lot of them 3) If you an artist and want to do literature then the trade paper back is for you...there is a niche market out there for you 4) Comic stores will become like record stores and simply disappear or become used bookstores. Any print media of any sort will just become museum pieces (sad day when books in paper won't be available... 5) Comic books are long running serials, stop with #1 gimmicks and just tell a good story because there is history in knowing that I am reading issue #483. 6) Remember to have fun with it.