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for me its the 3.99 price tag. I love comics..i have boxes stacked on end full of them...but when the price started getting so high..i had to cut back drastically. now i only go to a comic store every couple months..instead of every weds.
Greetings, Maniacs, and welcome to the first No-Fly Zone of 2010! It’s a new decade and—oh wait, actually it’s not. The new decade doesn’t begin until 2011, but no one ever pays attention to that. We here at the NFZ stand as a lone voice crying in the wilderness, as usual. We did our 2009 retrospective last week. We could do one for the past 10 years, but every comic site on the planet does that. We’d rather look to the future of the comics medium, because there are potentially a lot of changes for the medium coming in the next decade (whenever it may begin). Obviously, we don’t like to make huge predictions because there are so many factors we’ll never see coming. But, here are a few issues we’d like to see resolved and some questions that need answering in the next ten years. Screw it. We’ll pretend it’s a new decade along with the rest of the web.
Comics haven’t experienced an all-out format war along the lines of HD-DVD and Blu-ray. But, something similar has hung in the air for a few years now. Everyone predicts that the delivered-on-Wednesday comics will die in a few years, but everyone has said that for years. It seems that fans like the medium enough to keep supporting it. However, it’s also understood that the floppies don’t sell well and they don’t attract outside readers. The same crowd has been buying on a weekly basis since the inception of the direct market in the 1970s, with most new readers going to the bookstore or the web for comics. As weekly buyers age, there may not be another generation waiting to support the format. Comics produced and sold on the direct market have a lot of disadvantages. They tend to play it safe with tried-and-true characters and stories for their target audience. Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson said it best in an interview with Comic Book Resources—the same comics that were popular in shops in the early 1980s are the same ones that are popular now. It’s Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Batman, Teen Titans, and the like. Some fans may love that, but it doesn’t do the medium any favors by attracting new and diverse readers. Hence, the direct market and weekly comics are hanging on, but there’s definitely cause for concern. The other formats in play are, of course, trade paperbacks and the web. Plenty of people think we’ll all read comics on our iPhones one day, but web-based content comes with a lot of obstacles on the way to making money. A lot of users expect web content for free and will simply pirate rather than pay for it. Giving away Freakangels for free online and selling the trade might work for Warren Ellis and Avatar, but that’s one comic. Imagine if a publisher distributed all of their content that way. That might be a viable model one day, but it’s not right now. Too many people think the web is an all-you-can-steal buffet of music, movies, comics, and software. Weekly comics may not sell fantastically, but at least they sell. A total switchover to the web would prove disastrous right now. And yet, it seems like a logical outcome in the next few years. But, it won’t be viable until the industry can convince readers to pay for web comics. We here at the NFZ don’t claim to have an answer for this, because only time will tell. But, recognizing the shortcomings on the direct market and the weekly comics format, there are a couple of other ideas.
Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t need to go to a quarterly graphic novel format. Neither does Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead or anything longer than 12 issues. But, does the upcoming Doctor Voodoo miniseries by Rick Remender really need to be a miniseries? It seems like anything told concisely in four to six issues could just be a book. There’s a place for serialization (provided the format holds out, as discussed above), but it really works best for truly compelling long-form stories. Every issue of Walking Dead leaves you hanging and ready for more. It’s one of the few series where, if it weren’t serialized, we’d probably want it to be. Give it to us as often and as fast as you can (you dirty, dirty Kirkman with your awesome beard). But, most comics don’t work like that. Even the ongoing series group the stories into trade-friendly arcs. But, miniseries are the worst offender. If someone really wants to read New Avengers on a monthly basis, that’s sort of understandable. In theory, it’s a story without a foreseeable end. But, a standalone mini with a few issues seems like a waste of energy. It’s not like it’s going to be cancelled halfway through (unless it’s Daredevil: Target). And, if the publishers could get the price down a bit—which is a separate column altogether—it might prove to be a viable option.
Getting back to Mike Richardson’s comment, superheroes have dominated the direct market for years. In theory, the direct market should make it easier for readers to obtain material from different genres. You can order whatever the hell you want out of Previews. But, hardcore fandom has put a stranglehold on the medium by supporting nothing but the same set of characters that have been popular for the last several decades. Read what you want by all means, but it makes it more of a challenge for anyone to break into the medium when the market will only support the same old stuff. And, it makes it less attractive for potential new readers who see nothing but the same set of characters populating the shelf. That just reinforces the notion that comics are just Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman. Ultimately, readers are to blame. The market provides what they demand. But, it should seem obvious to anyone that reads a particular character or series for more than a few years that, regardless of how good an individual run might be, everything ends up back at square one. True character development is incremental and often temporary. Marvel and DC will never just kill their main characters in any real sense, until they stop being profitable. But, those very characters have held the medium back and kept it from reaching beyond the bread-and-butter fans at comics shops. It’s only where the medium has escaped on to the web and into bookstores that it’s found new readers. And, it’s done that largely with either comics of other genres, or revisionist takes on superheroes (yes, like Watchmen). The direct market didn’t accomplish that. But people might be more compelled to support the direct market if monthly comics weren’t a haven for the same old tights-and-fights stuff. The medium—and monthly comics, especially—cannot and will not reach the masses until readers largely quit looking for childhood nostalgia and try to find something new and interesting.
Yes, we mean you. We mean the guy who really likes comics and has always dreamed of creating them. We mean the guy with an idea he shuts down every time he thinks about his mortgage, his day job, his kids, and his other responsibilities. Kody Chamberlain (artist on Punks and 30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales) once told me that he gets e-mail from people asking how to break in to the field. He tells them that they have to pretty much put comics before any other pursuits. Then they reply with excuses about credit card debt, family obligations, and the car that needs a new whatever. We all have those problems. They’re not insignificant, but if you don’t make time to bring a creative vision to life, then it’s one more dead idea. Turn off the damn television and start scribbling down ideas. Someone once asked Neil Gaiman where he gets his ideas from (not that every writer doesn’t get that question), and he pointed out that we all have stories in our heads. Most of us just discard them and get back in line at the bank. And, frankly, you should chuck most of them. Most ideas and the stories they produce are dreck. If that wasn’t the case, every work of art would stand as a classic. But, every single one of us that loves stories—be they in comics, movies, video games, or whatever—has had a gem of an idea that wouldn’t leave. But, we rarely do anything about it. Those really brilliant ideas could become great comics one day. Pursue it. It can be expensive and time consuming, but almost anything worth doing is. And, there are ways to do it dirt cheap, if you’re patient. Get a team together willing to take a back-end deal, if you must. If you don’t feel like dealing with printing costs and all that, just put it out on the web. The medium needs fresh voices, instead of the same 20 superstar writers that have dominated the industry for the past decade. You might be the next one, but you won’t know until you give it a shot.
There’s an old Onion article titled "Study: Majority of Americans Out of Touch with Mainstream." You can read it, but the gist is that no matter how popular something gets on Mtv or in the movie theaters, it flies below the radar of the average American. Lady Gaga is really popular right now, but you know what the most popular music genres in the United States are, statistically? Classic rock is first, and country is second. Football is mainstream. Going to church is mainstream, and so is American Idol. Comics are accepted by the country’s literati and plenty of people pay to see Marvel characters on screen, but most people don’t read them. But, comics won’t have broken through that great glass ceiling until, say, your grandparents read them. That may not sound enticing to you, but it would bode well for the industry. More acceptance means more money. We live in a country that runs on cash, not good intentions. The more revenue publishers—both established and emerging—can depend upon, the greater chances they can take with the medium. Vertigo gets away with murder because Warner owns DC, and isn’t necessarily dependent on Hellblazer to pay the light bill. If everyone saw comic as one more storytelling medium—alongside books, television, and movies—publishers could produce more and better comics targeted at everyone. That might dilute our beloved fandom, but you know what? A sense of community doesn’t mean the revenue most businesses need to operate. There’s a reason why so many science fiction shows go off the air after two seasons. Fans freak out and sign petitions (and write awful fan-fiction). Sometimes they save them, but if the shows don’t garner ratings, the networks won’t give them airtime. It’s very simple. Comics limp along because we love them, but they don’t make a ton of money. That could change, but it means that creators, publishers, and fans have to step up and start expanding their horizons past the boundaries of the comic shop. Hell, these days the three groups are all fans on some levels, so it’s safe to say that it’s up to all of us now.
Let’s make this a great decade for comics. You are now exiting The No-Fly Zone.
Kurt Amacker is the writer of The No-Fly Zone, Mania’s weekly alternative comics column. He is also the author of the comic miniseries Dead Souls, published by Seraphemera Books. Dead Souls is available from the Seraphemera Books website, Amazon.com, and at comic shops everywhere. He can be reached at kurt_amacker@seraphemera.org.
for me its the 3.99 price tag. I love comics..i have boxes stacked on end full of them...but when the price started getting so high..i had to cut back drastically. now i only go to a comic store every couple months..instead of every weds.
You forgot 4 biggies.
1) Complete storylines. I know life occurs and delays happen but complete storylines before starting a new one. One of the heroes I like/enjoy is Superman. A little while ago in Action Comics Richard donner wrote a story line but because of delays and such the storyline was finally finished after a big gap between the second last part and the last part.
2) Comic Schedules. By this i mean if a character or a team has more then 3 different titles a month do not ship them all in one week. I know some people myself included collect more then one title thast belongs to a character or a team and sometimes I find it enjoyable knowing each week I have a chance to read a different title. Now I am not talking a comic that might have a guest starring, appearance or a cameo. To cite another example from myself Baatman, Detective, Batman & Robin and Red Robin.
3) Do away with this stupid promotion for dealers where they get a special book or comic book edition if they order a certain quanitiy of a title/issue. I read/collect for enjoyment and some of the smaller stores might find it hard economically to purchase 25 of a title that they might only sell 10 of and then because of the surplus 15 often are left with no option but to sell the special issue for a highly efflated price to make up for the extra issues they are stuck with.
4) Come up with a universal price for North America. I live in Canada where most stuff is printed. I know its vewry hard to price comics with reflective prices cause of the flutating exchange rates but they could give one price that a book will sell for unless that countries or the worlds currency crashes. Also if you look at one company you might see a US price of $ 2.99 and get a X Canadian price but look at another company which still have a $ 2.99 US price but Canadian price be more then a few cents different then the other company.
I'm a 20 year old comic reader and to be honest with you, I don't buy comics anymore because let's face it: it's a chore to go to the comic shop every freak'n week. Instead, I go to Barnes&Noble, though they're not the best at organizing nor carrying a big variety of graphic novels (all though cappucinos go very well with reading them). I agree that in the very near future most comics must become graphic novels, or atleast have the comic series end with the full collection in graphic novel format for the readers that only go out once a month. In terms of public acceptabiliy, I think for the most part if a person goes to a book store and walks up the register with three or four floppy and skinny comics people think of that person as immature, but when the person walks up to the register with a bulky black four-hundred page graphic novel they think of that person as just another reader. Also at book stores, I can sit down and read a graphic novel across from a person reading a King mystery with the same sort of passion and concentration.
I also agree that comics absolutely need to diversify. I mean Asterios Polyp alone isn't going to do it. I think most of modern day society believes and teaches that if you write a book it's then genius and sophisticated, but the second an illustration hits page beside the text that it's demeaning and too reminiscent of a kindergarten story that's read aloud infront of little kids. It's completely understandable that people like to read books and visualize and interpret the text by themselves, but I've read books with discriptions so precise the author pracitcally drew it for the audience.
And yes, I too agree that once something hits the web it's free. Take FreakAngels for instance, to me as the consumer why would I buy the trade paperback when I can simply right click the mouse and save every page to zip or folder? Granted I can't fit the files in a bag and take them where ever I go, but now with the new cellphone and tablet technology I might! Plus most pirated media on the internet is taken from their original source, like pictures. It's very hard to go out and physically sneak into a studio and steal a picture, but if it's uploaded to a website for sell by the publisher, it very well is. Also think about it this way, how hard is it to scan a comic book? Pretty damn hard considering the page gets scued and cut out because the pages bend in towards the binding, and removing the binding leaves the pages in disorder.
So overall, if see a void on the magazine rack where comics where, but an abundance in graphic novels on the shelf, then I think the comics industry, publishers, writers, artists and readers will prevail.
It's a question of attitude and expectations. My mother is 72. When she thinks of comics, she thinks ofthe comics she read as a child, Archie and Scrooge McDuck. I can show her graphic novels with adult content, take her to see The Dark Knight (she liked it) and talk to her till I'm blue in the face that the medium ISN'T the message and that "comic books" can be as adult and many layered as any other medium. She doesn't believe me. She might accept it intellectually, but deep in her heart, comics are still Archie and Scrooge McDuck.
My mother is never going to read a comic book.
So getting your grandparents to read comic books really isn't an option because they KNOW that comics are a low quality product for young children.
And they wouldn't support the medium anyway. What we needd is NEW blood.
Superheros are fine and there will always be a place for them in comics. Everybody loves Batman. I'm not sure that doing comics in other genres will really help. It's the comic bookness, not the superheros that drive people away.
Somebody who is interested in reading a romance, a western, a mystery, a scifi/fantasy or any other genre is more likely to pick up a novel than a graphic novel. Until the stigma of (bad) children's liturature is removed from comics they won't choose sequential art.