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The State of the Comics
Tom Spurgeon looks at a business analysis of the comics industry in an article at his Comics Reporter web site and comes to the following conclusion: Despite areas of growth in the overall marketplaces for comics in the last ten years to include viable performances from top arts books, strip books, and non-adventure manga, the American comic book shop in general is just as narrowly focused as it ever was. He then asks for additional opinions and offers his email address: I'd love for someone smarter with more time to come to a different conclusion and share that here. Tom has a way with his readers and knows how keep them engaged. I clicked on the link and sent him the following: I don't believe there's a much smarter analysis than what you've given, Tom, and a lot of time doesn't always guarantee a better conclusion. You asked so nice, however, that I can't resist adding a few words. There seems to be a problem with the comics community not really believing they have the interest of a market outside of the closed community itself. It's a psychological issue of our perception of the medium and it can be changed. The biggest problem, it appears, is dealing with the bulldozer merchandising and marketing arms of the big publishers. In the end, they set the tone for what shapes the industry and their considerations appear to hinge on a continued narrow perception of what comics are, could be or should be. The considerations are strictly economic ones and purport to have an understanding of how to sell comics, yet it's these considerations which continue to paralyze the growth of the industry. I remember that average sales of Superman and Batman comics in the mid 70's were between 150-200 thousand issues in newsstands and drug stores. These numbers seem nowhere to be found today, yet the big publishers continue to flaunt their sellouts of special projects as if some real expansion in the market was actually happening. The genuine breakthroughs in sales at the major publishers during the last several decades came on the heals of creators breaking the barriers which the publishers placed on them and producing comics which exuded some relevance to the wider popular market which didn't have a habit of buying comic books. This phenomenon sky rocketed with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns but the publishers never really nourished it. They only tried to emulate it later and never succeeded in truly repeating it. In considering what it was about these books that generated such a wide appeal, it appears that the relevance they held to the average person's life and world, or rather, the state of the world as perceived by the average person, was the major factor which drove to their increased sales figures. All this, long before the marketing gimmicks which artificially inflated sales figures in the direct market at the turn of the 80's-90s decades. The publishers just won't get it until the creators take the ball and begin rolling with it again. The publishers have no real idea of how to expand the market. It'll be up to the creators to innovate again. To produce comics and tell stories relevant to the state our world is in. The big socio-economic picture and the political developments must come back into exposition in the comics in order for the medium to become relevant to a wider market which will surely embrace it when it comes. There's a lot of power brewing under the surface in the creator's community today. Several decades and generations of comics writers and artists with much pent up spirit and a lot to say that the world would like to read about and see films made of. A powder keg waiting for some madman to come and light a match to it.
Permalink Posted: 9:24 PM EST
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