Something I care a great deal about is right on the precipice — and at a time when its identity is more popular than ever.

I speak of the comic book.

Growing up, I learned a lot from them, including the basics of storytelling, acceptance of others, and wonder at the universe, and they gave me a lot of joy. But it pains me to see that just about nobody buys them any more. Comic books are mostly unseen, hard to find, expensive to purchase, and also difficult to get into because of convoluted and interwoven back stories that scare away all newcomers.

While comic-book characters rule screens around the world, as demonstrated again just this week with the out-of-this-world success of “Captain Marvel,” grossing over $150,000,000 in its opening weekend, titles of big-name characters from Marvel (which spawned Captain Marvel, as well as Spider-Man, the Avengers, Black Panther and countless others) and DC (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.) rarely scrape together 100,000 unit sales. In fact, many of today’s comics from the big two publishers linger down around 20,000 sales or lower. I have tried, more than once, to pencil out just how a Marvel comic book selling under 20,000 copies is sustainable. The answer:  It’s not. But then, none of them are.

Here’s something else that isn’t happening. All of those movie (and TV) fans of these Marvel and DC heroes and villains? They’re not turning into buyers of comics. The movies have replaced the comic books.

Gerry Conway, who in the 1970s and ’80s wrote just about every major DC and Marvel character (and in the process killed off Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy, and created The Punisher, Firestorm, and several other significant characters) lays out a lot of the problem in this post on his blog:

On the one hand, you have superhero mythology in mainstream media– a mass market appealing to millions upon millions of consumers world wide, a potential audience beyond anything imagined by comic book creators half a century ago in our most weed-enhanced fantasies. And on the other hand, you have superhero publishing in the direct market– a shrinking niche market numbering in at most a hundred thousand, dominated by a core readership of a few thousand, whose financial support is strained to the breaking point and beyond by ruthless and extortionate marketing of low-value-added gimmick publications that thwart long term emotional investment.

He also proposes a solution:  Recognize that that the money, and the interest, in comics is actually an interest in the characters and the stories — in the intellectual property — and that the companies should just use comics creation to foster creativity accessible in other media.

… But, I would ask… isn’t that what’s already happening?

Last week, just before I came across Conway’s blog post, I happened to read a 10-point prescription from comic-book-store owner Brian Hibbs on how to save the comic-book industry. Here it is.  For the most part, Hibbs wants the direct distributor of comic books, Diamond Comic Distributors, to change a lot of its terms, and his fellow comics retailers to stop falling victim to all sorts of sales schemes intended to extract more money from the wallets of an ever-dwindling supply of comics buyers.

His viewpoint is shared by the four people who sat on a panel I sat in on this past weekend at San Diego Comic Fest. The panel was called “What’s Wrong with Comics and How Can We Fix it?” The retailer on the panel, who doubled as the moderator, said that there were two perceived problems with comics:  content and cover price (the lowest cover price is now $3.99 — and $7.99 is not unique), but that it was “naive” for anyone to think that the cover price was going to drop, so he immediately took that off the table. He too blamed Diamond, but also added that DC and Marvel don’t make it easy for new readers to enter the market, and they should make it easier to navigate which publications are entry-level for people who come into comic-book stores and don’t know what to buy. Other panelists agreed in various ways. Finally, I put up my hand, and said something like this:

“All of your proposed solutions are related to comic-book stores. Comic-book stores are a subset of book stores. They are specialty book stores. Last week, Samuel French, the specialty book store devoted to theatre, film, and television, closed all of its stores. [Note: They still have one inside a theatre in London, England.] Barnes & Noble is going out of business. Even the porn bookstore in West Hollywood just went out of business! Book stores aren’t going to be around. The solution to the problem with comic books isn’t going to come from comic-book stores. When’s the last time you had a new customer come into a comic-book store?”

They chattered about this for a while, and much of the subsequent discussion from the audience and the panel revolved around my statement, and then about 20 minutes later, someone else on the panel turned back to me and said, “No one up here answered your question, did they?” And I said no, they hadn’t.

Before the panel, I had gone out to the exhibit hall — what, back in the 1970s we used to call the dealers room — and wound up chatting with a middle-aged guy named Koop who was selling comics from the Silver Age. I asked him where he was from, and guessed correctly — it’s hard to mask a Pittsburgh accent — but he’s lived in Arizona for decades. Koop said that selling comics is his hobby, and it’s a lot of fun, but the rest of the time he’s a database administrator. We talked about comic-book shows of the 1970s and people we used to know in common, and I told him that I now realize what a good father I had because he was willing to take me when I was 12 years old to New York City in 1975 at great expense and inconvenience because he knew how much the chance to go to a comic-book convention — my first! — meant to me. He took me the following year, too, and we stayed over, and the year after that I got to take a friend as well. After that, I was selling comics at conventions and hiring friends or, later, my niece to work for me.

“You must be around my age,” Koop said, and we figured out that I am. His father wouldn’t take him to that convention in New York City, so he didn’t get to start going to conventions until he was older. I shared with him the story of how my father and I met legendary Disney artist Carl Barks, the creator of Uncle Scrooge, at a small convention in central New Jersey when I was about 15. Barks had brought one of his paintings of the Disney ducks to auction off, and it had gone for $3,000 on the spot. “THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!?!?!” my father exclaimed loudly. “I was just having a beer with that guy in the bar!”

Koop loved that story — what comics fan wouldn’t? — and noted just how much $3,000 was in the 1970s. I pulled a bunch of bagged-and-boarded ACG comics from the mid-60s out of one of his long boxes and when he saw what I’d fished out, Koop said, “Ahh… great Kurt Schaffenberger covers!”

“Nobody else is going to appreciate these,” I said. “None of this. When we’re gone, the hobby’s gone. There’s nobody after us.”

Just then, a guy in his 30’s next to me said that his son, aged 12, was here in the room and loving every minute of the convention. I’m still doubtful that that kid is ever going to develop a love for Silver Age and Bronze Age comic books, but it was nice to hear.

I took the ACG comics, and two DCs, all from 1965 to 1971, and paid Koop $55. He cut me a break on the price, and it felt to me like a steal.

If comic books have a future, it won’t be as periodicals. Will they even be in print? I don’t know. I’m glad they’re here while I’m here. I don’t expect things to last forever, and I don’t hold onto the past.

Although I do plan to hold onto my comic books.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 11th, 2019 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Comics, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.