The State of the Comic Book Industry, Part 1

[robwright]

The comic book industry has enjoyed a powerful resurgence over the last few years, thanks in large part to big-ticket limited series like DC Comics' "Infinite Crisis" and Marvel's "Civil War." But are the special event series helping the comic industry raise its game or simply re-hashing old storylines and hurting monthly sales of regular titles?

 

[MrrarA]

I believe this is an incorrect analysis of the comic industry, particularly in regards to DC...

I'm of the opinion, and there are others, that DC is going a terrible direction. You claim that the industry is growing, however the numbers illustrate anything but. Naturally there are claims that comic sales have skyrocketted, and so forth, for DC, but this is only true while looking at numbers over an irrelevent non-trend length of time. In the last 6 months and the last 12 months, the vast majority of their titles have gone -down- in total sales. Not only that, their month to month sales have lowered dramatically (take Robin for an example, which went from 50k+ at OYL beginning, to now sub-pre-OYL levels).

All the current Chief Editor of DC has done is -hurt- the company, as well as its long term plot viability. Here are relative number comparisons you can examine:
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/01/02/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-november-2006/

The actual numbers (which are complex and based off of the "Batman Standard") can be found at Newsarama (and may be cited in what I cited here).

I feel that Marvel Comics is going a positive direction, but it's doing so by not compromising the values of their characters with soap opera esque story lines (that is, in which the characters act in dramatic ways that are unlikely or impossible given their background).

DC, on the other hand, seems to be embracing shock value for the sake of shock value, having some characters simply act in ways inconsistent with themselves, and moreover, with comics in general. In full disclosure, I did start Save Cass as a netroots attempt to get out this message with relatively limited success.

I feel that DC is largely succeeding in portraying an image of success by inflating numbers by way of cross-title story arcs, or mega-arcs such as 52 (as you point out, of course). This truly just hurts the comic industry in the end.

I spoke briefly with Joe Quesada at Wizard World Chicago (I'm no one important, but wanted to offer my appreciation for the Marvel Ultimate line which I find to be the bar setter for story quality and unity of story/art), and he said something to the effect of...

I learned that you just need to have good writers, and then everything falls in place.

I was a loyal DC fan, and preferred them far over Marvel comics, felt the characters more mythological and thus easier to get used to when first encountering. They llack, in part, much of the convoluted garbage that Marvel recognized and eliminated when creating Ultimate... However, I've not bought a comic since the convention, largely due to an inability to feel an investment in any of the stories or characters because, it seems to me, they are merely pawns, or shades of color utilized in telling not a story of characters, but a story of events that use characters to make those events happen. I hope the difference between is clear, but if not, I'll clarify later. I very vaguely spoke of this to him, and in response he said (paraphrasing)

Look, what's bad for any company is bad for the comic industry, and what's good for any company is good for the industry.


I think implicit in this is that the industry needs to respect itself, and those who control the industry.. Didio and Quesada... need to respect the industry as well. The industry, is the fans. So long as an editor in chief and his team are convinced that this event, or that event, or this story, or that story, is the greatest thing.. and they are willing to sacrifice characters, or merely use characters as props in those stories.. the industry will suffer. Why?

Because while initially one might think that comics have always been about the story, I would suggest that if it was true, it stopped being true with the publishing of The Watchmen, Year One, Dark Knight Returns, so forth...

Comic books, mythology, are about the characters. These stories needs to be constructed not despite the characters, but -for- them. Having an idea "Wouldn't it be cool if we had one of bob's friend's betray him!?" is awful, and, more or less, how DC currently operates. It's their paradigm, to used the pseudointellectual catch phrase (that I find rather useful). Marvel, however, recognized through our own world, that a tragic event could -cause- a variety of characters to split, to act in the agency of a Civil War..

It was about -their- stories, not -The- story.

That's what, I believe, is hurting DC so much right now. The readers come iinto a comic hoping to find a familiar character or mythological archetype.. and instead, all they find is a convoluted, twisted, story.

By the by, in that analysis posted earlier, there is a marvel version, and their sales, aggregate, seem to have risen dramatically, or at worst, broken even. Aggregate, remember.

So. There you are.

Shalom

 

[tmeacham]

These numbers are generated using the Batman standard, so they are accurate. The fact is that more people are buying comics across the board, which is what accounts for the growth in the industry. Comic sales as a whole are up.

I know what you mean about DC, though. I still read a few books, but anymore I prefer the Ultimate line over everything else. I think the quality of those titles is better than most everything else out there.

Although, I do like Matt Fraction's Punisher War Journal. Who knew the Punisher was funny?