What is the standard age of a comic-book reader these days, and how much has it changed since comics were first introduced?
Sorry for what would seem a rather minimalist OP, but I’m curious about the comic-book industry and the way its changing, aging audience has (or hasn’t) affected the actual content. Any thoughts on this would be good too
Comics ain’t what they used to be. The demographic has RADICALLY shifted – comics just can’t hold kids’ attention any more. There’s too much competition. What eight-year-old would go out and plunk down two-fifty for the latest issue of Superman when he can sit down and play a video game in his living room for free?
Furthermore, there is the matter of where he’s going to GET his comics these days. Most grocery stores and general merchandise outlets don’t carry them. Some bookstores do. Nowadays, though, the only places I’ve seen any real selection of comics is in the larger bookstores, and comic shops. Nowadays, a kid who wants comics and can afford them is going to have to con the folks into taking him someplace he can buy them.
…and the market’s shifted. The average comics reader these days is in his mid to late teens, or older, and overwhelmingly male.
I have rather liked the fact that the Big Two, Marvel and DC, have both been re-releasing old material in graphic novel format at reasonable prices, though. Nice little nostalgia kick there.
I got the impression from that History Channel comics special that the industry was in bad shape these days.
That’s too bad, for about 3 years during my ‘tweener’ years, I was a Marvel freak.
Mmmm… depends on what you mean by “bad shape.”
Certainly it ain’t what it was. Kids don’t read comics any more. Used to be, I’d dump my allowance, pick up five for a buck. NEW comics, five for a buck. Nowadays, to get five comics, a kid is going to spend, on average, thirteen to fifteen bucks, and perhaps as much as $20. Economics has put it to comics, hard.
On the other hand, it’s still a tremendous source of merchandisable material. Every kid still knows who Batman and Spider-Man are…
I really don’t know, but I would think not much. Every time I go into the local comic shop, the kids seem to be all about the collectible card games. The comics buyers are predominately older and, yes, predominately male.
There are several factors to the lack of new child readers.
Probably first off is the lack of ready availability. Like has been mentioned, the supermarket market is dead. I don’t even see comics being sold in grocery stores now, besides the Archie digests which will never die. Now the mainstream comic companies go the direct market route, only dedicated comic stores.
Suicide. First off, mainstream comic companies mostly release superhero comics, a market aimed at teenagers and die-hards. This creates several problems. One, most children readers will not be exposed to comics while they are kids. When they reach their teens, the age the availability of comics becomes an option, they will most likely be thinking that comics are lame and for kids and not worth picking up. Two, this leaves comic companies trying to appeal to the older demographic with more “mature” storylines, which responsible but uninformed parents will try to keep their children away from.
So most comic companies have excluded new readers. But for some reason they have decided to stay stuck in the superhero route, which is almost exclusively adolescent wish fulfillment. Sure some amazing stories have been told with the superhero backdrop (WATCHMEN), and mature stories have told (ASTRO CITY) but most of it is still teenage pandering. But the teenagers they are pandering to are usually 20 at the youngest.
And don’t think the recent spate of superhero comic book movies is gaining the industry many new readers. They are very close to merchandising, having nothing to do with the original comic format.
Not part of the OP, but while I’m ranting, truly intelligent and mature comics are considered alternative in the comic industry and are usually pretty hard to find. So the industry cuts off it’s adult readers, unless they are the adolescent die-hards, just like it cuts off it’s new readership. This is the third problem in my rant. Say an adult wants to get into reading comics. Finding something that will appeal to them in the overwhelming glut of your average comic book store is no small task. How many would be motivated enough to stick through and find the good stuff?
With a marketing strategty like that why would the industry be in trouble?
Of course, the picture is not as bleak as all that. There are very good comics aimed at all age groups. These include intelligent children’s and all ages comics (BONE), superhero comics (Morrison’s X-MEN) and adult comics (STRAY BULLETS). As a never say die fan of the medium, I will attest to that. It’s just that the marketing of material has put the industry into a niche corner it has no idea to get out, nor does it seem to want to.
So for the OP, I still have no idea, but I hope that quick summary helps give you an overview of the present situation.
A few weeks ago, I was in one of the comic shops I frequent, and I was literally shocked when I saw two kids in there. It was like I had stepped into an alternate universe or something. It took me a second to figure out what was so strange with the picture before I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a kid in a comic shop.
And to be honest, I don’t blame them. Comics are expensive now, you almost never get a whole story in a single issue, and you’re at the mercy of specialty shops when it comes to actually buying them.
I think the last big wave of kids to read comics were those that were buying stuff like Jim Lee on X-Men and early Image stuff. Namely, people around my age (19). I honestly don’t know anyone significantly younger than me who reads comics, and I think the market will continue to shrink as the readership gets older and older.
Speculators ruined the market. Speculators buy up issues that they think will appreciate in value, and keep them in mint condition, and never read them. So the good comics run out early.
Also, comics have always appealed primarily to men. Women buy romance novels instead of comics. It’s all trash, just slightly different kinds.
Most of the kids I see in comic book stores are there for the card games or for anime stuff. I don’t see many kids at comic cons, but I see more and more of them at anime cons. It’s kind of nice in a way, since American comics aren’t aimed at kids much anymore. Although I think a part of that is anime fans growing up, mating, and having children. There are more female anime fans than comic book fans too…
Well, if you want non-hero comics, there are an awful lot of them out there now. CrossGen’s comics line is mixed with Sci-Fi (Sigil, Negation), Fantasy (Sojourn, Scion), Mystery (Ruse), Horror (Route 666), and a mish mash of other stuff.
Dark Horse has booke like Hellboy and Sin City, andlong with the Star Wars and Buffy lines. Walk into any shop and you can find 10-20 non hero comics there on the walls.
My buddy was chatting with a comic store guy and relayed this info to me.
Back in the heydey of the mid 80’s it wasn’t unusual for a popular comic like Spider-man, Bat Man, FF4 etc to run off a million copies per issue.
He found a website with the top 20 comic sellers per month, now the top comic is only running around 120,000 copies! Nimber 20 is releasing 15,000 copies!
I was in awe. I used to buy comics as kid, but even as an adult I would find it pricey to collect. I see comics in Canada which are basically $5 each on the rack! If you’re collecting 6-10 series, that’s a lot of coin!
MtM
The comics companies themseves need to assume their share of the blame for helping to depress the market 10 years ago.
Marvel comics, followed by Image, DC, Valiant and others actively pandered to the speculator market in the early to mid-90s and drove up all sorts of unreasonable “value,” with all those different cover and packaging gimmicks, outré storylines and flooding the market in a foolish attempt to push other titles from other companies off the shelves. Some gimmicks still hadn’t gone away even a few years ago at the turn of the millennium. Remember “alternate interiors?”
The gimmicks worked for a few years until speculators realized they were getting burned and fickle comics enthusiasts took off for greener pastures.
I do my part as a kindergarten teacher to turn children on to comics early as they learn to read, but as new comics cost 2.50 apiece on average it takes an awful lot of hunting to get used comics in good enough condition to make them available for a classroom of kids.
Speaking of which, anybody know where I can buy a spinner rack cheap?
Kids don’t seem to care about comic heroes anymore. Those among my daughters’ friends who are the type who would have been into comics back in the '70s are getting their colourful sinplistic good vs evil fix from professional wrestling.
McDeaththeMad - AFAIK in the 80s there weren’t 7 or 8 Spider-Man titles. I don’t know how many there are now, at least 4 or 5 I’d guess, but I have to say it’s a lot easier to sell comics when there’s only one Spider-Man book out. These days, I don’t know how Peter Parker can keep up.
When I was 10 or 11, my brother and I would go into the comic shop just about every week and blow our allowances on new comics. It’s funny, I never thought I was part of a wave, much less the last one for a long time. Though I was surprised to see kids at the theater when Spider-Man came out.
I was turned on to comics by cartoons. The X-Men cartoon in the early 90s got me to buy them at the Stop and Go, and an obsession soon followed. I figure this still influences kids these days, but they watch Pokemon or some facsimile instead, and get hooked on that craze. Considering the new Spider-Man show (ugh, 3d) is on MTV, the Justice League is on at night on Cartoon Network, and cartoons these days are about catering to young adults, I don’t see much hope for connecting comics and kids again.
Askia – find a spinner rack yet? I’ve been dying to snag one that says “Hey Kids! Comics!” on top (for my classroom!), and have had no luck. I’ve even propositioned store owners…
As an opposing view to most of the posts here, I have a four year-old son that loves comics. Of course, as has been mentioned, I have to preread anything he gets as 95% of the comics out there are geared to adults these days. Still, he loves Batman, Justice League, Powerpuff Girls (had to draw the line when he wanted the pink Powerpuff shoes), Scooby-Doo, and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Fortunately, our local library carries all of the above titles, as I would never be able to afford all the ones he wants.
As an aside, kudos to DC for trying to stay in the children’s comic market. Marvel does a poor job of marketing it’s heroes to children these days. Spider-Man, Captain America, X-Men, Daredevil… those are all comics I grew up on, but my son can’t get into them because there are so few Marvel comics for kids. Once in a while, I have to pull out an old beat-up Daredevil from my own collection just to read with him.
digs – No – still looking. I can always fake the “Hey Kids – Comics!” sign on top if I could just get my hands on an authentic spinner rack – but getting a vintage sign would be way cool, too.
I’m told by a couple of comics shop guys that my best bet is to find an old-style drug store or 7-11 that’s being bought out by a larger chain and see if they’d be willing to part with it-- I think I’m too late in the Columbus market for that tactic, though.
I teach kindergarten in Ohio, btw – you?
Have you considered buying an Essentials or Masterworks book or two for him? Lots of kid friendly reprints of the classics.
Superhero comics are down down down but manga comics (Japanese imports translated into English) are UP, up, through the roof growing right now.
Especially sold collected in “book form” for ~$10 as by Tokyopop and Viz Communications.
At least that’s how it is in the book retail biz. You can’t give away a superhero Graphic Novel but anything manga is selling well.
The heyday of comic book sales was in the 40s, not the 80s. Since maybe 1948, only a handful of comics have sold in the seven figures. Most of these (like Superman #75, the Jim Lee X-Men #1, and a couple others) played games with the speculator market with multiple covers and such, tricking the 200,000 habitual comic book readers in America into buying multiple copies. Others, like Marvel’s first KISS comic, lured people who usually don’t buy comics into buying one.
There are countries, like Japan and Brazil. where million-selling comics are commonplace. We aren’t one of them and haven’t been in over 50 years.
Askia and digs, have you looked for spinner racks at antique stores? Haven’t seen one in a while, but they do show up from time to time, especially the ones that say “Hey Kids! Comics!”. Try calling multi-dealer malls - the larger the better - or pop culture-related antique and collectible stores.