Reality Amuck™

Note: I originally wrote the first draft of this post on April 2, 2010 and forgot to post it. I was reminded of it when I read a similar post by Krishna Sadasivam in his blog at PC Weenies. Judging by the similar natures and contents of these posts, I feel better knowing I'm not alone in all of my thoughts on this issue.

Friday a couple people posted links to iPad previews and several of the previews included pictures or videos of the Marvel Comics app. I read a few comments that marveled at this new technology and grand statements of "this will save comics" or "this will revitalise comics".  But will it? I don't think so, at least not in the short term.

When I was a kid I loved getting comic books. I would read and re-read each one over and over. Some days I would go over to a friends house and take all of my latest acquisitions and we spend the afternoon reading the other's books. Many times during these reading sessions we'd add one of the other's comic choices to our own reading list.

So where do modern comics fall short and how will new technology alone fail to save comic books? I think there are a few places worth looking.

Price

I recently looked at the costs of comics. Some of the premium titles now run as much as $4.99! Five bucks for the same 22 pages of content that used to cost a lot less. Glen Engel-Cox did a brief blog post about The Rising Cost of Comics. In brief, adjusted for cost of living increases and inflation, you used to be able to get a comic book for the same price as a candy bar. Now a comic runs three times the price of a candy bar. I understand that many things factor into the price of a comic, but with all of the technological shifts and improvements over the years, how does the price not go down? With the advent of computers and digital creation tools you no long have the expense of teams of artists, letterers, and colorists working hours on end to get a book to press. So what gives?

I picked up a couple indie comics at the last Small Press Expo I attended in Bethesda, MD. They were all printed in the standard comic book style and used comparable materials as what the 'big boys' use. The cover price was $3.99 (a price point that has been around for a while in indie press). In the 'old days' when I went to cons and picked up an indie, self-published book I fully expected to pay more for it than I did for a Marvel or DC comic. Self-Publishers had no way to compete with the price of the 'pros' mainly due to the volume at which they printed. I'm sure if Indie Joe were able to make a print run of three or four thousand books he could have gotten his price point down closer to the pro's old price.

Why do modern comics cost so much? Do little kids have that kind of cash now? I must really be under-paying my kids in their allowances.

Content

In the 1950s when comic books seemed to be at the height of their popularity the average age of readers was about twelve. DC Comics ran a survey in the mid 1990s that showed the average comic book reader was twenty-five. Now the average reader is in his thirties. This is a disturbing trend. It seems to me that comics picked up a lot of young readers in the early 1980s and basically held on to them. Why?

I think part of what happened was the big push from education in the mid to late 1970s. In an effort to promote reading kids were encouraged to read comic books. The idea was that it didn't matter what they were reading so long as they were reading. Teachers were happy because little Billy was building his reading skills. Little Billy was happy because he was allowed to read comics and see Batman take down the Joker. This led to Generation X becoming one of the most loyal groups of comic book readers since the 1950s.

In an effort to keep this new, loyal, expendable cash wielding group of readers comic book producers made sure to mature the comic book story lines with  its readers. This became a self feeding cycle. As the Little Billys of the nation grew up, some of them became comic book producers and continued the trend. Now you had a generation of comic book writers and artists in their mid-twenties creating books for readers in their mid-twenties.

This contributes to, in my opinion, the biggest problem comic books are facing today. Where do new readers come from? With all of this stories being written for more mature audiences how do you introduce comics to the Little Billys and Sallys of the Twenty-First Century? Would you let your kids read the comics coming out now? Some of them, sure, but the market is overwhelmed by comics I would never let my kids read.

Style

This is more of pet peeve for me. Some people may like it, but I hate it. I'm talking about the trend in making the comics look more and more realistic. When I checked out the latest Iron Man comics I didn't make it past the first three pages before I put it down and moved on to other books. Why? Every panel looks like someone traced a picture of real people. There was no personal style or organic feel. It looked mechanical and too slick for me. This leads to my thoughts that computers have both revolutionized and destroyed comics. They have allowed positive changes and increased production and at the same time they (and the internet) allow artists to pull up images and trace. Granted they are very talented tracers, but geez, time was the only person you could remotely call a tracer was the Inker. If I want to look at pictures I'll buy National Geographic. If I'm paying four or five bucks then I'm looking for comics that have been drawn, characters that have been designed, and for there to be some kind of actual art involved in the process. But again, this one may just be me, I don't know.

Continuity

Another factor preventing new readers, young and old, are the tightly interwoven, extremely long story arcs that rely on you knowing what has happened for the past fifty issues in up to five different titles. I don't mind a cliffhanger and I don't mind the occasional cross-over story but it seems lately I have to read every DC title being published in order to know what's going on in Green Lantern. When I was a kid and first started reading comics it seemed like you could pick up any random comic and enjoy it by its self. There were story arcs but for the most part all you needed to know was the basic history of each character. Many times this basic history would be summarized in a narration box on page one next to the titles.

Krypton exploded, Kal-El was the only survivor. On Earth he has super powers and fights a never ending battle against evil.

Bitten by a radioactive spider, young Peter Parker now has super powers and fights crime.

Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed in front of him when he was a kid. Grew up and started wearing tights and hanging out with young boys.

Okay, that last one might be a little off, but you get the point. You could summarize everything a new reader needed to know in a couple sentences and even if there was a story arc, after two maybe three issues you were caught up and could fully enjoy the comic from that point. If you found a stash of your Uncle Lou's Superman comics from twenty years ago you could read and enjoy them.

DC tried to combat this continuity overload with "Crisis on Infinite Earths" but continuity quickly crept back in and now it seems like every other week there's a new Crisis of some kind threatening the known universe(s). It's as if the Crisis theme has become the broken thing it was supposed to repair.

Conclusion

Price, style, heavy continuity. I have no idea how to fix these things and even if I did I am obviously not in a position to fix them. But steps must be taken. Otherwise we are looking at a generation of kids that will never pick up a comic and that will lead to the end of comics in time. Then, horror of horrors, where will Hollywood find ideas?