I'm a huge comic book fan. I prefer the superhero genre but have dipped my toe into other genres that comic books support. I have collected comics for about 40 years and have an embarrassing number of them bagged, boarded, and boxed in my basement. And I've read them all. I even worked in a comic book store for almost 3 years as well as practically working at two of the comic book stores I used to frequent (so much so that I was allowed to watch the store and check out customers when the staff needed a bio break).
Price and Value
While the art, paper, and printing processes have all improved a great deal from the 1970s when I first started reading comics, the stories haven't really changed much. Yes, they have waxed and waned between being more or less adult in their storytelling, more or less explicit in the art, but the core storytelling is the same; it is a soap opera featuring people with extraordinary powers reacting and interacting with the rest of the world.I have comics that were purchased for 10 cents. Many were bought for 75 cents, where the price stayed for about a decade or so. Then comics prices edged up to $1.00 followed very quickly by another boost to $1.25 and then $1.50. As I mentioned above, now comics are pretty set around the $3.99 range, give or take. But, here's the thing: you aren't getting much more story at that price than you were 30 years ago. Matter of fact, the Big Two publishers (DC Comics and Marvel) seem to be re-imagining, re-creating, or otherwise re-booting the same stories from the 1980s and 1990s that were their biggest successes and hoping long-time fans don't notice and they draw newer fans. But they are even failing with that, because the original (better) stories are available in many formats, including the original comics themselves, trade paperbacks, cartoons, and even movie versions. We've seen it all and done it all.
So, the audience, in a time where real wages have declined almost 10 percent in the last decade due to inflation and stagnant pay increases, has to ask themselves, Is it worth it to pay $4 for 22-28 pages of an episodic medium when I can get an entire live-action comic-book story told to me via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, on TV, or in the movies for the same or only slightly more money? I would argue the answer is No.
The -Isms
Recently, a thing called "Comics-gate" cropped up wherein a bunch of "fans" (I use the term loosely) of the medium jumped on publisher's throats because they were replacing existing, long-time characters with newer versions that reflected a non-white, non-male perspective. Peter Parker was replaced with Miles Morales. Bruce Banner was killed off and a new, younger genius, Amadeus Cho took his place as The Hulk. She-Hulk was given a higher profile. A new Ms. Marvel who was Muslim and of Middle-Eastern descent replaced the older, white character. Some characters were suddenly gay. You get the picture; the industry was trying to get more readers by going after untapped markets.Needless to say, a small section of the predominantly white, male, straight audience went apeshit. They saw any hiring of a female writer or artist as being "SJW"-ing at its worst. They claimed that female writers and artists were producing inferior work. They claimed that the new characters or changed versions of existing characters were somehow worse than the original. Basically, they got seriously butt-hurt because, somehow, everything they knew and were the gatekeepers for, was trying to broaden and expand its appeal.
An argument can be made that the companies made many of these changes in a ... haphazard manner. Maybe more thought could have gone into it. I mean, there were successes; Miles Morales (half-Black, half-Latino) caught on because, at first, he didn't replace the original Peter Parker Spider-Man. Miles was introduced first in an alternate universe. Readers could choose to continue reading about Peter Parker or they could start reading about this new guy over in this other world where that world's Peter Parker had died fighting crime. He became a hit.
Ms. Marvel actually became a hit, too, and I think some of it had to do with the fact that the original character was still around. Some of the other changes happened too quickly, or without enough build up to or interest in the new character. I don't know anyone who was looking for a replacement Bruce Banner or The Hulk... they just decided to kill off the character and replace him with a young Asian fellow. And the book's sales suffered. Same too with the introduction of RiRi Williams -- there wasn't enough of a build up or connection to Tony Stark to have this genius Black girl suddenly taking over his role in the Marvel Universe.
The point is, the industry, seeing falling sales, looked at their demographics and saw mostly 20-50-year-old white males and said, I wonder if we can get more people to read our books. Whether you agree or disagree with how they handled it, they decided to go for more female readers and to see if they could maybe pull in some minority readers with characters of different ethnicities and sexuality. They even decided to look within their ranks and realize they were an industry dominated by the same demographic and decided to make an effort to bring more diversity to their writing, art, and other aspects of the business. They were sometimes hamfisted in how they made this transition and didn't always give their existing readership time to ease into the transitions being made, and there was a lot of backlash. But, if the number one axiom of writing is "write what you know," then the industry was going to continue to be niche unless they broadened their available pool of knowledge.
Media
In 1978, Warner Bros made you believe a man could fly. In 1989, audiences were treated to the first decent age of comic books in movies with Michael Keaton's uttering of, "I'm Batman." In 2000, the second great age of comic book movies began with X-Men and was followed by a steady stream of increasingly good movies leading up to the creation of the MCU (Marve Cinematic Universe), which became the high-water mark.
In an era where we can go to the films and see "real people" being superheroes on the big screen for $10 a couple of times per year, it becomes hard for a comic book fan to justify paying $4 a month for each title of each character he or she is interested in, not to mention all the addendum titles, specials, one-shots, and special events the comics industry throws at readers. I mean, if you want to follow Batman and not even counting all his "Bat-family" titles (like Catwoman, Batwoman, Batgirl, Nightwing), you're looking at Batman, Detective Comics, The Dark Knight, Batman and Robin, and probably Justice League. So, that's at least $20 a month, or $240 a year, not including special titles, annuals, one-shots, and other titles where he may guest-star. Now, as a viewer with limited funds, compare that to, say, 4-6 tent-pole, big, can't-miss superhero movies a year at $10 a ticket.
Now, let's look at TV and paid subscriptions. Just off the top of my head, you can currently watch: Arrow, Black Lightning, Flash, Supergirl, Legends, Legion, Daredevil, Punisher, Luke Cage, Gotham, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, iZombie, Walking Dead, Lucifer, The Gifted, The Runaways, The Tick, Preacher, and Agents of Shield. There are Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-Man cartoons from Marvel and Justice League and Young Justice from DC.
In other media, superheroes have had a strong showing in various video games, including fighting games, MMOs, and strategy games. I'm not even going to list all of those here, there are so many.
Again, it comes down to economics -- if you have limited entertainment dollars, are you going to spend $4/mo or $48 a year on a comic book that is often only part of the story (they are primarily episodic stories, remember) or are you going to take that same $50 and get an infinitely replayable video game, go to 4-5 movies, or watch the same type of stories on TV?
The Present
The people who write and draw comic books are very talented. An argument can be made that they create the content that is then transported over to other media where it is more successful. However, the counterargument is that most of the movies are using tried-and-true stories from the characters' pasts and not anything from the new era of comic books. We keep seeing the same origin stories, the same four X-Men stories, the same couple of Batman tales in the movies and on TV. Plus, there are 80+ years of good stories still to mine for other productions. Because of this, it's hard to see the comic book medium surviving in its present incarnation. The people who write comics today would just transition over to writing the same stories for TV and movies and video games. The same stories would be told, they just wouldn't be told in the comic book format going forward.
The Future
I do see ways for the comic book medium to survive, however. I wouldn't bring up this topic if I didn't see a silver lining. I think the following changes could benefit the industry:
- Issue Price: They have to get the price down. If you can sell comics for $2 or less per issue, I think you have a chance.
- Issue Quality: Lessen the quality of the paper and inks used.
- Issue Schedule: Many titles shouldn't be on a monthly cycle. Team books, in particular, should only come out 3-6 times a year. Characters who are "overpowered," like Superman, Thor, Hulk, etc., should be published per-story. I.e., Rather than having a monthly Superman title, you solicit story concepts for the character, pick the 1-2 best stories, and publish those as an omnibus edition once or twice a year. This way, the reader gets the best of the best stories and doesn't have to wade through months of filler or setup or transition writers.
- Publishing Style: Instead of publishing as a monthly magazine, take a page from Manga and make books. Work on the best 100-page story(ies) for Batman and publish it as a book for $25 instead of spreading that 100-page story out over a year of smaller comics. When you factor in weather delays, the grind of trying to publish X number of comics per month, printing issues, shipping delays, etc., you would actually be saving yourself, and your readers, a lot of headaches by publishing in a Manga book style.
- Online: Shift to a predominantly online-only market; no physical books. This will most likely destroy the direct market and means you will have few physical copies on bookshelves or in racks on a stand in a grocery market, but you do away with many of the issues listed in Style, above. This also ties into Price and Quality, as you can set up a process to make one "PDF" file of the comic in question and then everyone buys the rights to view or download that one copy. This should lower the cost and increase profits, over time. And no more of this selling an online copy for the same cover price -- we're too savvy for that. We know you are making one electronic copy of the item that we all then have access to; creating one master should NEVER be as expensive as all the paper, ink, printing, and shipping costs of each individual comic each month!
- Story: I shouldn't have to mention this, but with the plethora of re-boots, re-imaginings, and thinly-veiled sequels to previous work, I feel I have to: write good, original, new stories. Stop going to the Civil War well. Stop re-hashing Watchmen. Just stop. You have talented people who, I'm sure, have incredible stories they want to tell-- let them! I don't want to see Secret Wars 2, 3, or 13. I won't give you money for a more modern rewrite on Crisis on Infinite Earths. Just... stop. Please.
Comic books can survive as an industry. But the industry is quickly making itself redundant by being too expensive when compared to other, similar media that can provide the viewing audience with the same stories. Unless it is willing to make some changes, it will cease to exist as we know it now. Can it change to meet the demands of the fractured media landscape now and in the future? I'd like to think so. If there is one thing I have taken away from my decades of reading comic book stories it is to always have hope!
