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.