Remember These.

Hey remember these, it's a "DC Comics Blue Ribbon Digest" I used to love the crap outta these when I was a kid. I had a number of them, the infamous Superman Red and Blue, a Batman villain collection, and one where Batman supposedly killed some chick (edit note I have since found out it was Tahlia Al Ghul), They where awesome. You used to buy them from the grocery store, y'know by the weekly world news and Cosmo. I'm also pretty sure that people especially kids would love the crap outta them today. But only Archie still makes them. Why they're brilliant, relatively inexpensive to buy, and inexpensive to make. They where the best deal in comics, usually re print material, and priced and placed for the impulse buy, perfect for the mythical "new reader" hell it's where I started. So why on earth aren't DC and Marvel making these!

Just something to think about.


Edit: Changed picture from that old chewed up Warlord to the cool beans Supergirl Blue Ribbon Digest I scored at Wondercon.

How to Make Mainstream Comics Mainstream Again. Part 4. Continuity and Fans.

Another thing that excludes new readers is a slavish devotion to continuity. I've been over this in an earlier post so I won't harp on about it. But Mainstream comics today, spend a devastatingly inordinate amount of time on what has happened in the past. Often at the expense of the current story. And if mainstream comics wish to be relevant this needs to stop. Comics don't need to have re boots like The New 52 to “clean up” continuity. They just need to keep moving forward instead of back. Look at the other major form of serialized storytelling TV. You only ever see a TV show go on and on about what happened before when it's relevant. If even then. Comics should do the same. If you keep the story moving forward every book will be a “jumping on point” I'm not saying comics shouldn't be consistent, you should be able to keep consistency of character and plot without a million call backs to the past. Forget continuity aim for consistency.

The overuse of story continuity has led to an epidemic in the world of mainstream comics. Potential (usually adult) readers fearing that they will need to read a lot of comics before getting on board the current story. These fabled “jumping on points” have been a rallying cry of both large publishers. This used to never be a problem. Part of it I think is that new readers in the past where children, and children don't tend to need explanations of characters and motivations. If Batman punched the badguy it was good. Well as mentioned before new readers aren't kids these days. Another part of this is that back in the day both companies had editorial policies like Marvel's “Every comic is someone's first” policy. That is the reason for the famed expositional “comic book style dialogue” (I'll blast him with my optic blasts for example) but as comics grew more adult and sophisticated, the readers didn't want this “clunky” dialogue. The results are “mainstream” comics that are impenetrable to a reader with no familiarity with character or concept. To go back to my three tier publishing approach. Use expositional dialogue on kids and all ages books, and leave naturalistic dialogue for the sophisticated adult offerings. Believe me adults read comics when they where all written that way they probably will today. True some fans will complain which leads me to.

Comic publishers need to stop caring what fans think. It may be hard to believe, in this day of message boards and twitter feeds that there was once a time when the only thing the comic companies knew about what fans thought was how much a book was selling. They made their books sold them and the readers read them. And we call the comics from this time classics. Today, the creative teams, editors and publishers Are constantly hearing and thinking about what the fans want, and the comics from today are considered mediocre at best. You can see where I'm going with this. Today mainstream writing comes mostly into two camps, writers that pander to fans and writers that try to piss off fans. Neither one is good storytelling, because they are both made for a very specific demanding, to the point of impossible to please, audience. Mainstream comics should be made for a mainstream audience. Write good stories regardless of what the fans may think. Fans respond to pandering but they will always appreciate care, why do you think indie books sell so well to comic fans?

Pandering to fans also has a marked affect on new readers as it pushes away diversity. In both it's readership and it's creators. Fandom of mainstream comics is largely white and male. And it doesn’t take a genius to see that pandering to this base will largely exclude women and minorities. The depiction of women and minorities in comics has become a hot button issues that are to big for this post but I recommend the excellent DC Women Kicking Ass blog for much better coverage of women in comics than I can give. Now I'm not saying to make quotas and token characters. What I'm saying is when writing and drawing a comic just think. Would a woman find this depiction of Catwoman offensive and off putting. Would a person of color like to see a hero nobler that Luke Cage. And if a potentially racist or sexist depiction of a character where right for a story. Is it worth the backlash to proceed, I'm sure there are places were it would be. It won't fix all of the problems but it will be a better start than what we have now.

So here we have just a few ways to make mainstream comics strong again, There are other problems that are more far reaching. Lack of a variety of good female and minority characters. The lack of the same females and minorities in the creative teams. Creative teams that are consistent and on time, a broadening of Genre, the list goes on. But the thing is all of the ideas I put forth in this series are things that can be done today, with the system that exists now. None of these ideas are changes of the business, but changes of attitude. Mainstream comics are struggling today but the companies that make them have all the tools at their disposal to make them great. They just need to use them.

How to Make Mainstream Comics Mainstream Again. Part Three: Readership

But the business is just a part of the problem, mainstream comics are also suffering on the creative side.

People are still reading Comics in droves, and the super hero genre has held the movie box office as it's plaything for years now, but for some reason mainstream Comics have been on a decline. Both the medium and the genre are currently winners but the comics are floundering, partially this down to the economics mentioned above. But partially it comes down to content, mainstream comics are no longer made for a mainstream audience. And they totally ignore new, especially young readers.

I like most of my comic reading peers began reading comics when I was young. Super hero comics where for kids, though in the early eighties that was changing. As super hero comics move form the newsstand to the comic shop. More and more emphasis was place on making super hero comics more mature. This I believe was a misstep. Now I'm not saying that there should not be super comics for adults or that they should be made exclusively for children. But I have to note that Comic fans when I was growing up had no problem reading and enjoying kids books, in fact I believe that comics being kid's books was a great deal of their appeal. And times have not changed as far as adults enjoying good kid's books, look at the success of Harry Potter. But in the last decade, mainstream comics have gone from being Kids books that adults could enjoy, to books I have to think long and hard over whether I'd let a kid read. And this I think is bad for business. Engaging comic books for adults mainstream and independent, require a knowledge of a sophisticated visual language, a language that used to be learned at younger age by reading mainstream super hero comics. Sadly the primary titles in mainstream comics today all are engaging comic books for adults. With kids series' being the exception not the rule. It's too late to make comics for kids again. This would also be a stupid move as there are so many adult readers. But I think that the main titles of a line should be for as broad an audience as possible, Make the stories for that lost idea of a family audience. Think PG, super heroes have kid appeal, but they can work on an adult level, and best yet there are many adult elements that could be put into the books that would go completely over kids heads. And the thing is both parent companies of the big two already are doing this to great success, with the same characters, in the form of DC and Marvel animated shows, learn from your own people guys. DC is so good at it that the DC Animated Universe is the definitive version of these characters to many people. With this all ages line in place with full advertising force behind it. Adults only and kids only comics can fill in the gaps and every audience can be pleased, which isn't that what mainstream means?

Next week Continuity and fans

How to Make Mainstream Comics Mainstream Again. Part Two Distribution

A huge problem with mainstream comics is their current form of distribution and sale. Mainstream comics are sold virtually exclusively via an scheme called the direct market at comic specialty stores. Traditionally a publisher sells their books to book stores and newsstands, the books then stay the shelves of the store for a prescribed time after which the unsold books are sent back to the publisher for credit or replacement. If you've ever seen the folks at your local bookstore piling up books this is most likely what's happening. The direct market is a system that came about in the '70s. The comics publishers noticing that Comic specialty stores where popping up all over the place decided that they would strike a deal with these stores, they would buy the comics direct at a lower price, but the stores could not send unsold books back for credit, the books where theirs for good. Everyone came out a winner, the publishers got some guaranteed sales, and the comic shops got a better profit. But it didn't last. The direct market began to be handled by distributors and as comic shops became more prevalent. The comic companies began to focus solely on the comic shop and less on the newsstands or markets that where once it's bread and butter. Eventually the direct market distributors came and went leaving a single direct market distributor, Diamond, which rules the comic shops and publishers with it's strict ordering and selling rules. Even mainstream books stores use Diamond now to stock their comic books.

So by clinging to the direct market for their sales the major comics publishers are limiting themselves to selling primarily in comic specialty stores. Now the problem with this is twofold, one the modern comic book store is often a very uninviting place. Sure there are many good ones, don't get me wrong but the cliché of the “Simpsons” Comic Book Guy didn't spring from thin air. Comic stores are often smelly dark dens of geeks that actively exclude “outsiders” and can sometimes be quite rude to their customers. These shops tend to sell to collectors and not readers so having a flip through the comic that your interested in buying is vehemently frowned upon. Which leads to the secondary problem. Few people other than active comic book readers can impulsively buy a comic book. Periodicals sell primarily two ways impulse and subscription. Impulse being the primary, this is why markets and books stores place their magazines on the way out. Comics companies have done themselves the “service” of eliminating what should be their primary source of income.

So comics need to get out of the comic shops and back into regular stores. The direct market needs return to being an option of how to sell comic books not the option. True the mainstream publishers don't have a distribution apparatus, but the big two comics publishers are owned by two of the largest media corporations on earth (Marvel by the Walt Disney Company, and DC by Time Warner) they in fact already own traditional publishing arms (Hyperion and Time Life respectively) So this should be a no brainier.

Another option which we have seen take it's next major steps with DC's New 52, is digital distribution. The publishing world is changing and the change is occurring on hand-held devices such as Kindle's and Nooks, and that is the digital distribution of books. And this is a perfect way to make mainstream comics more mainstream. One it circumvents the direct market all together, and it also enables the reader many options of reading. Downloading a single chapter, subscribing, or buying the final collection. It has all of the benefits of direct market, you can by an old issue at any time, and a newsstand, you can check it out on a whim. The only problem right now is price point. Most same day digital releases are price the same as a print issue, and if a single issue is overpriced on paper it's criminally overpriced in pixels. Digital distribution is possibly the answer to comics returning as a great option for cheap entertainment. The comics companies should price them lower, and take in the close to pure profit possible with digital. Apple made millions if not billions by selling songs at 99 cents, Marvel and DC could easily make that much by doing the same.

Next Friday: Readership

How to Make Mainstream Comics Mainstream Again. Part One: The Comic Book Business

Recently DC comics has had a company wide reboot re numbering scheme, the so called “New 52”. Although it has in the short term raised the profile of so called mainstream comics in the short term. I believe that it has brought to people's attention many of the problems of the current comic book industry. The major problem is that “mainstream” comics aren't mainstream anymore. They are a niche hobby enjoyed by a small elite that tends to keep any but those fans out by catering to them and them alone and to top it all off, you can really only get them in specialty stores for the most part. So here my idea's as to how “mainstream” comics can be brought back to mainstream entertainment.

Note I have never worked a day in my life for a mainstream comic publisher or for a comic store or a distributor. All of my knowledge on how these things are run is from other peoples experiences, and all of my ideas come only from common sense thinking, and my experiences as a comic fan.

The first aspect to look at is the business side of things. Mainstream comics has to have one of the worst business plans that anyone who has taken 12^th grade economics has ever seen. The most visible problem is the comic book itself. A modern “mainstream” comic book is a 20-35 page color pamphlet that sells for between $3 and $4. And a comic book with a modern sensibility takes about 20 minutes to read. Now I'm no math whiz but that does not exactly scream bang for buck. The mainstream publishing houses really need to address this disparity. They need to make the books longer or make them less expensive. And I believe the second route is the way to go, because, most mainstream comic companies do not have the periodical comic as their ultimate goal. The ultimate goal now a days is the trade paperback, a collected edition of an entire “story arc”. Trade paperbacks have been selling well, so the companies have been emphasizing them. And who can blame them, the value to entertainment ratio is great, you have the whole story, and it allows the writers to really stretch out. Since the end goal is a slick high quality book, then why does the periodical serializing the book need to be? Comics weren’t printed on good paper or with fine printing until the late nineties and no one seemed to care then, why is it so different now? My suggestion is to print comic books on a lower stock of paper, and get that per unit price down. With this idea, simple economics tells us, that more people would be willing to check out a comic book on impulse. That is if they could.

Next post Distribution.