The American comic book industry sabotaged itself.

[toadspittle]

@AHunter3

I don’t know if it’s really responsible for the demise of the market — it’s a problem with deep roots that were apparent in the days of the 12¢ issue —but the storylines, the plots, all feel like they were fabricated one page ahead of time about 5 minutes before the ink hit the paper. They don’t know where they’re going and often don’t make much sense when they get there. Instead of interconnected subplots contributing to a developing whole, the world of any given comic series seems to be a huge clutter of semi-coherent details.

"Well, he came from another planet where they read minds, but that planet was destroyed by the Dark Ranger, who actually came from the future, although it’s a future that won’t necessarily exist because later on the Green Guy has five timelines captured in a glass thimble and he drops it when his girlfriend, who is the Dark Ranger’s younger sister, except not really (because the Dark Ranger wasn’t born in the ordinary sense, he came from the future but his parents are from the past that he destroyed, which creates a paradox-stream that is always constantly in the process of resolving…anyway, his younger sister was born mortal in the normal fashion, except that her kitty cat gives her powers because he was a witches’ cat), startles him, and when it breaks some of the timelines dissipate but we don’t know which ones yet. Anyway, he joins the police force and helps solve crimes which are committed by mobsters and robots who escaped from the prisonworld of Automatia, they were originally self-governing and moral sentient machines but Karoch the Destroyer permanently modified their n-Chips, and…
::eyes glaze over::

So why is it so many of us think that same nonsense is so “deep” and “brilliant” when it’s done by the Japanese? Sounds like the same convoluted, barely-explained hoo-hah found in Ghost in the Shell or Akira or any of the other Manga/Anime out there.

[Evil_Captor]

I don’t know really that much about comics, but I’ve never found them interesting except as cultural phenomena. The only comic I buy with any frequency is Cavegirl. Sexy fun, I like that. The only comic my 14-year-old son buys regularly is Shonen Jump. The only comics my wife reads regularly is Vampire Hunter D and Saiyuki (actually, my kid likes Saiyuki, too.) My kid is big into webcomics, though.

We’d buy American comics if they were interesting – we go to the biggest comic shop in town weekly to rent obscure anime titles – but they’re not so we don’t. We see the titles ever week when we go to the store, but never feel much impulse to read one. The question is, why is that?

[Scott_Plaid]

@toadspittle

So why is it so many of us think that same nonsense is so “deep” and “brilliant” when it’s done by the Japanese? Sounds like the same convoluted, barely-explained hoo-hah found in Ghost in the Shell or Akira or any of the other Manga/Anime out there.

I think it is because mangas tells more time telling the story. Sure, so it can be summerized as above, but a manga reader might also know more details about the life of Dark Ranger’s younger sister, while an american comic would simply dedicate one frame to her back-story.

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

@RealityChuck

No one’s mentioned Ron Perlman yet? He’s the #! person responsible for the collectable craze turning bad. I know a comic store owner at the time seeing the parallel with the stamp collecting craze of the 40s and 50s and speculating that a likely result would be comics would become just a small niche market. Also, Perlman’s mismanagement of the Hero’s World fiasco ensured that comic book prices would continue to rise.

Dude, he was Hellboy, and he ruled in that movie!

[BMalion]

I miss Kirby.

[Kent_Clark]

@AHunter3

"Well, he came from another planet where they read minds, but that planet was destroyed by the Dark Ranger, who actually came from the future, although it’s a future that won’t necessarily exist because later on the Green Guy has five timelines captured in a glass thimble and he drops it when his girlfriend, who is the Dark Ranger’s younger sister, except not really (because the Dark Ranger wasn’t born in the ordinary sense, he came from the future but his parents are from the past that he destroyed, which creates a paradox-stream that is always constantly in the process of resolving…anyway, his younger sister was born mortal in the normal fashion, except that her kitty cat gives her powers because he was a witches’ cat), startles him, and when it breaks some of the timelines dissipate but we don’t know which ones yet. Anyway, he joins the police force and helps solve crimes which are committed by mobsters and robots who escaped from the prisonworld of Automatia, they were originally self-governing and moral sentient machines but Karoch the Destroyer permanently modified their n-Chips, and…

I bought that issue. I thought it would be a collector’s item.

[Licentious_Ectomorph]

@Silentgoldfish

Number two: nothing ever happens! And if anything does ever happen it’s almost a guarantee that a few months or a few years later something’s going to reset it back to the way it’s always been. Batman’s been 39ish for decades, Spiderman’s grown all of 5 years, etc etc…

AMEN!

I’ve recently begun to realize that my comic-buying habits have been dwindling to a fraction of what they once were, without my even noticing it was happening. Whereas once I would rush straight to the comic store after work every Wednesday, nowadays I don’t mind putting it off until the weekend/next week/whenever. And once I buy them, they still sit around unread for days or weeks.

When I got to thinking about the reason for this, a major conclusion I came to is that nothing happens that needs to be kept up with. I can’t work up even the tiniest bit of interest in the “Infinite Crisis” stuff going on because I know from long experience that it will all come to naught. My days of buying comics I’m not interested in to keep up with some contrived crossover that will be undone or outright ignored within six months are long over.

The wholesale re-Silver-Age-ification has made the 2005 DCU virtually indistinguishable from the DCU of 1980 (which is about the time I started reading).

I don’t feel like DC Comics are my DC Comics anymore. The Superman books have been unreadable for several years now; I burned out on Batman ten years ago (I used to be a huge Bat-fan but he’s not even likable any more, he’s just an insufferable prick), they’ve screwed up the Titans beyond all recognition…I could go on and on. I dislike so much of what they’re doing, the DC Universe is steadily becoming one that I just don’t care about. A part of me feels a little sad about that, but mostly I just think “oh well.”

[Wolfian]

@toadspittle

• increase mainstream availability; this is the hardest issue for any publisher or manufacturer (not just comics), and is also a chicken-and-egg issue (once enough people are demonstrated as wanting them, any retailer will gladly sell them). I would recommend vigorous lobbying of retail giants like Wal-Mart (since the newsstand network of the 1940s and 50s doesn’t really exist today, outside of a few cities). But, obviously, this issue is a bitch of a roadblock.

You can find a comics rack in Borders and Waldenbooks. When I first started reading comics I used to find issues that my LCS missed there. I’ve never found a comic rack at Barnes and Noble. I’m not sure if the comic industry has a exclusive deal with Borders Inc. (which would be silly) or if B&N doesn’t believe in the purchasing power of comic fans. That’s more likely as Borders has a much bigger TPB/manga section than B&N.

I don’t see most comics flying at Walmart (imagine the protests), but a rack of kiddie titles (Plastic Man, Justice League Unlimited, etc.) would be awesome.

[smiling_bandit]

OTOH, no manga has lasted 80 years and I expect none ever will. This is also part of their salability, and why I don’t personally like them. There’s no history beyond the moment, and most writers are much, much worse than I got in my American comics.

[Cliffy]

Were it not for Phil Seuling, comics wouldn’t have survived the '90’s. Yes, the DM has balkanized (actually, no, ghettoized) us into a rabid niche group, but at least we’ve got a niche. Comics were not going to be in wide distribution, so the DM at least kept them in some distribution.

–Cliffy

[rjung]

@dotchan

I was looking over the shoulder of someone who was reading the original Fantastic Four comics and was rather astounded that every single panel had paragraphs worth of dialogue. (And I’m willing to bet that none of the dialogue read like it could come out of real people’s mouths.)

So, to add another line to the cardinal sins of the American Comic Industry:

*The dialogue. 'Nuf said.

I’ll kinda disagree – one thing that bugs me is breezing through a comic in four minutes because it’s a bunch of pretty pictures with a few words stuck here and there. At least if you’ve got something to read, you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.

And thanks for the JLA reference, CandidGamera. I’ll try to snarf a copy this weekend.

[Menocchio]

@Licentious Ectomorph

I’ve recently begun to realize that my comic-buying habits have been dwindling to a fraction of what they once were, without my even noticing it was happening. Whereas once I would rush straight to the comic store after work every Wednesday, nowadays I don’t mind putting it off until the weekend/next week/whenever. And once I buy them, they still sit around unread for days or weeks.

When I got to thinking about the reason for this, a major conclusion I came to is that nothing happens that needs to be kept up with. I can’t work up even the tiniest bit of interest in the “Infinite Crisis” stuff going on because I know from long experience that it will all come to naught. My days of buying comics I’m not interested in to keep up with some contrived crossover that will be undone or outright ignored within six months are long over.

I think it’s only recently that the US market has been at all open to ongoing stories that have frequent huge changes, and a biggininng, middle, and end. For example, in novels fourty years ago, kids read the Hardy Boys, where nothing ever changed. Now kids read Harry Potter, where the characters and world are hugely and irrevocably altered with each new installment.

So it was with comics. At the end of each issue, Superman would return Lex Luthor to the hoosegow with a gentlemanly sock on the jaw. And that’s the way kids liked it. If they grew tired of it, their little brothers were their to take their places. And, since nothing ever really changed, it was easy for the newbies to pick up what’s happening. That model worked for decades, and it’s easy to see why there’s a resistance to changing it, and the iconic characters it supports.

Now many comics are trying to have their cake and eat it too. Things change, making it harder for someone to get into a book not on the ground floor. But things too often change right back. And while there’s change, nothing ever really ends. Batman will still be there. Superman will still be there. Their foes, supporting casts, and situations may alter enough to make summing it all up for a newbie a daunting task, but it’ll all just keep building without ever ultimately paying off.

There’s nothing wrong with unchanging characters. There’s nothing wrong with telling a story with drastic changes and endings. Trying to combine the two is very, very dangerous.

[foolsguinea]

@RealityChuck

No one’s mentioned Ron Perlman yet? He’s the #! person responsible for the collectable craze turning bad. I know a comic store owner at the time seeing the parallel with the stamp collecting craze of the 40s and 50s and speculating that a likely result would be comics would become just a small niche market. Also, Perlman’s mismanagement of the Hero’s World fiasco ensured that comic book prices would continue to rise.

You mean Ronald Perelman. But yeah, the people who ran Marvel for him (I’m not sure how much he micromanaged; he owned a lot of companies) were not so bright.

But that said, Marvel’s money men weren’t only problematic under Perelman. I just read Modern Masters Volume 1: Alan Davis, & in it Davis & Paul Neary both commment on how hard it was to get money for new UK-produced work at Marvel UK in the 1970’s. Of course, when Perelman owned Marvel & Neary was editorial director, they glutted both the UK & the USA with inferior Marvel UK product &, well, bankruptcy resulted. Balance is hard, but you’d think professional businessmen, who maybe even went to school for it, would understand moderation maybe…

[foolsguinea]

I want diversity. I want something like Warren’s Creepy & Eerie in wide distribution.

And like toadspittle, I want cheap, accessible, cheap, self-contained, cheap, comics for new readers.

Girl comics, like Katy Keene. Romance comics that read like the sharper Silhouette romances. Fun screwball stuff like The Fox & the Crow. Historical comics.

Comics for kids, comics for housewives, comics for truckers, & an awareness that all of these are such, & even though people may have unconventional tastes, & some things will cross over well, no comic has to be all of those things, nor all things to all fans.

And I want them everywhere. High visibility. I miss the gas station newsstands.

Really, that’s the issue. Gas stations that ditched printed matter for bottled water.