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.
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