I had an interesting experience this weekend at a yard sale on my street. While digging through a bin full of kids’ clothes in hopes of finding some for my two-year-old son, I had a Spider-Man t-shirt thrust into my hands. “Trust me,” said the father of the boy whose old toys and clothes were being sold, “when he turns three he’ll be demanding that you get him one.”
It’s true; my neighbourhood is full of kids, and nearly all of the boys routinely wear clothing with logos or images of superheroes; Spider-Man is easily the most popular, but I often see Superman, Batman and occasionally Wolverine. Love of superheroes seems to be an almost universal phenomenon among boys of a particular age. At the same time, it’s almost certain that few of those boys will wind up being regular or even occasional comics readers. This presents us with a paradox: superheroes are more prominent in popular culture than ever (particularly kids’ culture), but fewer and fewer people are reading comics – and almost none of them are kids.
I don’t need to tell you what you’ll see if you go into a typical comics shop: adults, and not even particularly young ones. Sure, you’ll see a few teens, but odds are they’re there for whatever anime and manga the shop sells – and you certainly won’t see anyone under thirteen. This isn’t a new problem, and lots of people have discussed the reasons for it and possible strategies for addressing it. But I’d like to raise two points that I’ve never heard mentioned. First, that the loss of the children’s market is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what kids’ comics are for; second, that the paradox I describe above is not actually a paradox, in that the omnipresence of superheroes in media and merchandising is actually a cause of the loss of the children’s market.
Let’s start with the purpose of comics. Not the purpose of comics for you and me, or the purpose of comics for the kid who might theoretically read them, but the purpose they serve for the parents who might conceivably buy a comic for their child. For parents, comics are not an entertainment medium; they are a distraction device. Think back to your earliest childhood experiences with comics. Here are mine: being bought comics to keep me quiet at restaurants while we waited for the food; being bought comics to keep me quiet in the car while we drove to the cottage; being given comics in my Christmas stocking to keep me quiet while my parents slept a few more hours… getting the picture? So long as the content isn’t explicitly offensive (are you reading this, dismemberment fans?) parents don’t care what’s in a comic so long as it distracts Junior for a reasonable amount of time. Once you look at it that way, you see why comics for kids don’t work today. You need to go to a special store to buy them, and the price-to-value ratio is terrible – especially when you compare them to an in-car DVD player or an iPhone. (There’s a reason the NFB’s free library is one of the top iPhone apps.)
That covers the parent side of the equation, but what about the kids? Children can whine hard enough to overcome nearly any parental reluctance to buy something, so if they’re so keen on superheroes why aren’t they demanding comics? Because they don’t particularly want to read Spider-Man comics; they want to be able to project themselves onto Spider-Man as a fantasy figure, and they don’t care whether they get that fix from movies, TV, the Web, their t-shirts or Underoos. This is where it gets counter-intuitive: rather than leading kids to comics, the merchandising is satisfying a need that once only comics could meet (of course, it doesn’t help that in many cases the media versions are better than the comics ones.)
So what can comics publishers do to get kids reading comics again? Well, they’re not going to do it by publishing kid-friendly comics in the traditional format; as good as those individual comics may sometimes be, they don’t meet parents’ value-for-cost analysis, and they don’t meet kids’ need for superhero fantasy any better than do other sources they can access more easily. What they need to do instead is make printed comics that are bigger and cheaper (imagine a scaled-down version of Marvel’s Essentials line) and sell them everywhere: gas stations, convenience store, grocery stores – you know, everywhere you used to buy comics. Or they can give up physical comics and concentrate on the Web – or, what’s really the most rational option, give up on comics entirely and simply license the characters.
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I’ve said for years that American comics should embrace the manga business model. Dirt cheap ($5 for 300 pages), newsprint paper, black and white. then collect the winning strips into higher quality TPBs.
I dropped all my monthlies years ago because of the low page count. I can’t recommend any kid pick them up.
The obligatory wailing and gnashing of teeth.
But yeah, comics really do need a decent digital delivery method that is also legal. Quite a few webcomics do very well putting themselves out for free and then living off of the back-end stuff like donations and merch, and a subscription model isn’t unheard of, either. For that matter, there are programs and file formats that exist right now that are perfect for viewing comic books–just ask the pirates. To make a comparison, it’s easy to get pirated copies of mp3s, but I don’t see Apple going broke for want of sales.
Hell, by cutting out all the printing and shipping costs, digital distribution could actually bring a comic’s cover price down while leaving the company with more profit per sale. So why aren’t they jumping at it?
For the same reason the music/movie industries had to be forced into it. They think they can control the content, and think they’ll encourage piracy by selling un-DRM’ed versions of their content.
They are of course, wrong. They’re also not doomed. They’ll get on board, but they’ll be damn slow about it.
The problem with the manga business model, is all that manga has been created already and is simply being reprinted for our market. That keeps costs low. Also, manga is drawn much quicker, “American” comics most pencillers do a page a day at best.
As for digital, I don’t think there is a huge demand for digital comics and that there would suddenly be a larger audience. There would be a few new readers, yes, I just don’t think the appeal is the same as other entertainment options, and comics will remain a small niche audience.
I’d rather pay $2.99 (or $3.99) for a physical comic, I wouldn’t pay $1 to suddenly switch to digital-only, because you own nothing. I like having the option of trading/lending/reselling comics. I also don’t like reading comics on a screen, I’ve tried, and I prefer paper. If that makes me a dinosaur, so be it. If comics ever go “only digital” that will be when I stop reading comics.
“The problem with the manga business model, is all that manga has been created already and is simply being reprinted for our market. That keeps costs low. Also, manga is drawn much quicker, “American” comics most pencillers do a page a day at best.”
I was thinking of manga in Japan 500 yen for 100s of pages. All original content.
I agree totally that pencilers would also have to become looser, not spend as much time on backgrounds etc but to return comics to their disposible roots that would be fine.
They could always color and embellish them in delux TPBs.
The “manga model” argument has come up pretty much constantly since the 90s and isn’t wrong (per se) it just doesn’t work outside of Japan. The “Manga Digest Model” only works given a very rigid set of parameters (incredibly high urban densities, geographically small country, wide market penetration of comic reading, hugely exploitative “artist assistant” factory model of comic making, and very consolodated periodical distribution) that don’t exist anywhere outside of Japan. Many have tried (especially in France, which would be the closest thing to a match) with no success. Honestly that model only really arose in Japan because the hegemony of “rental” Manga shops in post-war Japan completely re-calibrated the value proposition for tankobon… kind of like if you introduced the concept of “digital piracy” to golden-era Hollywood).
I digress. My point was this sentence:
or, what’s really the most rational option, give up on comics entirely and simply license the characters.
You mean the status quo? Note the parent companies of DC and Marvel. It’s reasonably clear that their only marching orders are to generate ip that can be licensed in as much other media as possible.
Honestly, the only thing comics “need” is to get out of their niche bs.
Comic books are a medium not a form of content. Comics need to get out of comic book stores. That’s all this is. You need to have TPBs and Graaphic Novels in bookstores as much as in “LCS” while at the same time stop trying to put all the company’s eggs on “the superhero basket”, because SUPERHEROES are certainly a niche.
So, first you need to make people comfortable with comics as a medium for ANY story, and then, they’ll be a lot less reluctant to go for the superhero comic if they feel like it, because the biggest barrier (prejudice) will be lifted.
Manga does so well in Japan in no small measure due to the fact that there’s stories for everyone and anyone, so people have long ago learned that they can read “books” or they can read “magazines” or they can read “comics(manga)” and THEN they can read purple prose, playboy or shonen. They’re not afraid of the medium because the medium welcomes all. Over here, on the other hand, its either a truckload of superheroes and tights or a drop of “fantasy/science fiction-y” stuff. And then comes the “indie books” that’s stuff so obscure that you need 10 years of reading comics before you even know they exist, so the market is still “16-30yo males that have been reading comics for years”.
So yes. We need people to stop fearing the format, so that writers can then tell different stories than the ones they’ve been telling for years now. And to do that, the only method i see is throwing them around like candy. So that everyone can see that stuff like “I Kill Giants” or “Blankets” are nice and accessible and have no superheroes at all and can be read and enjoyed by pretty much anyone, so lets get the damn books to “anyone” so he can read them already, right?
I second the “make them disposable” option. I can remember being able to buy a couple of hours worth of comic reading material with $5. Now, I’m given the choice of buying Shonen Jump for $5 (with hundreds of pages of art and a few interesting interviews/sidestories) or a copy of the “Amazing Spiderwhatthefuckjusthappenedtothatkid! I can’t give this to my nephew, his mother would kill me!” for the same amount. I vote with my wallet.
The value-for-cost argument holds no water from my perspective. I have a four-year-old son with an ever-growing collection of small books on his increasingly-inadequate bookshelf. A softcover version of Curious George in the Snow sets me back USD$3.95. An issue of Uncle Scrooge contains nearly as much story and visual interest in a single page as the entire Curious George book, and costs the same. Add in the easy guarantee of new content every month, and it’s a no-brainer to add this to my pull list.
See, here’s the thing: I have friends who have a kid (now 6) who loved the Justice League and Teen Titans cartoons. When “Tiny Titans” and “DC Super Friends” started coming out a few years ago, I started buying them for him and, every month, he eats them up. He demands his parents read them to him over and over again (I wound up getting him the trade because the comics were falling apart) and his parents have no problem throwing $5 at me every month for new issues. Last Christmas, I got him the first JLA Showcase volume and he loved it.
So, this whole “kids want comics only to project themselves” thing doesn’t work for me, anecdotally. Neither does the “adults only buy comics for kids to distract them” thing, although I can understand where that comes from. I do agree that more all-ages stuff (especially at the JohnnyDC price of $2.50) and better distribution (though not necessarily digital) would help a lot. Make them available and the kids will come.
They could also look at the operations of Marvel’s UK partner, Panini UK, which produces a child-orientated title with stories, puzzles etc to run alongside its reprints of other Marvel comics for £2.20 a month.
I don’t get the desire to move comics into grocery stores, or graphic novels into bookstores, because both of those things have been going on for decades already. Now, you won’t have as large a selection as you would with a comic book shop or online retailer, but they haven’t entirely vanished from shelves everywhere as some would think.
I suspect what’s going on is three factors. The first is more “shrinkage” than actual death, and that’s been a problem with comics for decades anyway. Popular characters like the Silver Surfer or Ghost Rider will have their own series for a while, interest will increase then fade, and they’ll lose their series for a while until interest renews enough to generate more comics. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Hulk, the iconic ideas of these guys are always popular no matter what the latest comic has done to them. But the popularity of IP like Machine Man, or Bizarro, or the Suicide Squad or Damage Inc. just doesn’t have the same weight. And any comics fan can come up with dozens of beloved groups and characters that have had their own series, but couldn’t keep the momentum of comparatively lesser known folks like Green Lantern or Doctor Strange.
The second problem comics are running into is one of incestuous competition I suspect. With advances in technology, anyone can create and publish and distribute comics independent of anyone else. Add that to the vast backlogs available online, and there is more product than demand right now. Do you want to buy five new comics for $20 or pick up an entire series from the 80’s? Do you get your kid the new spider-man comics on the shelf, or do you get him some children friendly issues from a few years back that an online store is dumping? (and this problem is hardly unique to comics)
The third problem is a combination of the first two. In the face of increasing competition with other companies, independents, and their own products being sold second-hand, companies are forced to focus on their strongest IPs. This results in the overall shrinkage of the industry in order for the big companies to survive as mainstream vendors (i.e. grocery stores, book stores, etc.) will not take large risks on selling unknown IPs and can’t carry immense backstock. Local comic book shops can pick up the slack currently, but they’re in a gradual death spiral because of the overall shrinkage.
tl;dr: The reason why comics are dying are because whatever is being sold today, I can go find something just as good from yesterday being sold for pennies on the dollar.
Stop making them for just the fanboys may help as well…
“The “manga model” argument has come up pretty much constantly since the 90s and isn’t wrong (per se) it just doesn’t work outside of Japan. The “Manga Digest Model” only works given a very rigid set of parameters (incredibly high urban densities, geographically small country, wide market penetration of comic reading, hugely exploitative “artist assistant” factory model of comic making, and very consolodated periodical distribution) that don’t exist anywhere outside of Japan. Many have tried (especially in France, which would be the closest thing to a match) with no success. Honestly that model only really arose in Japan because the hegemony of “rental” Manga shops in post-war Japan completely re-calibrated the value proposition for tankobon… kind of like if you introduced the concept of “digital piracy” to golden-era Hollywood). ”
Worked in Korea and Taiwan too. OK, not really proving my point…
But if the US can support 128 different Bride magazines (number is estimated) I think a few manga type comics could work. But it won’t be DC or Marvel who does them.
@William George:
“Stop making them for just the fanboys may help as well…”
Exactly.
Just look at DC. A lot of people have dropped most of the DC titles they used to follow due to content issues and/or getting fed up with all the “event” storylines.
DC was actually doing better, in terms of readership, before Dan DiDio started trying to fix what he saw as the company’s problems. And usually about the same in revenue while charging less for their comics.
We could get really nerdy and intense about comic book sales estimates for various years, but for me it comes down to this: the great sales during Infinite Crisis and 52 don’t really make up for the way they’ve spent the last six years driving away people who were loyal customers before DiDio came on the scene.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to lure some of those people back. DC’s “mainstream” superhero line still wouldn’t be all that healthy, but at least there would be somebody buying the things other than Jonah Hex fans and Newsarama posters who think it’s really cool when Black Adam kills some dude with his bare hands.
Grant Morrison isn’t as big of a draw he used to be. And while Geoff Johns fans love to say the guy’s insanely popular, most of his stuff sells around 50-60,000 copies a month when there isn’t some event going on to help drive up his numbers.
Johns would be nothing special if DC started publishing more comics that casual readers actually want to buy.
DC should really be asking themselves, “What happened to all the people who helped keep our mid-list stable?”
Instead, they just let Johns write whatever he wants and hope they’ll get another cash cow out of him.
… which kind of misses the point that there are a lot of people like me who would buy more of their stuff if practically every title wasn’t either written by Johns or somebody emulating the worst aspects of his comics.
I’m looking at you, Cry For Justice. James Robinson writing a JLA spin-off? That sounded awesome until I found out about all the pointless deaths, torture and the apparently now mandatory scene where somebody loses an arm.
How about, you know, writing more superhero comics where no likable supporting characters die for cheap “drama” and nobody gets maimed? That could help solve some of their problems right there.
@Brian T, I hear you. I just got the Power Girl TPB, the very essence of fun comics right? Nope. There in issue 1 we have people jumping off skyscrapers in NY and, in case you missed the point, a character pointing out how it’s just like September 11th.
Cause yeah, September 11th, that’s what I think of when I think of fun comics.
Kid Kyoto: I can’t remember if it was issue 10 or 11, but Power Girl uses her heat vision to blow off the villain Satanna’s left arm off. When someone (I can’t remember if it was Satanna herself or PG’s sidekick Terra) she replies “She’s a doctor. She can fix it.” So, yeah. HEY KIDS! COMICS!
I think the biggest problem is marketing. No one in comic books knows how to market their material outside of their own comics or Wizard, which is nothing more then Marvel and DC’s wiping boy anyway. What a lot of indy fans forget is that superhero comics drive the industry. That guy who just bought Love and Rockets, chances are he’s got a copy Batman and X-Men to go with it. So, Marvel and DC need to get off their asses and realize that they need to pump some advertising dollars into television, radio and magazine ads. Let people know what’s going on with Superman and Spider-Man. Maybe if the story line sounds interesting enough they will buy it for that. Because I guarantee that what’s happening now in the comic is more important to a new reader then what Spider-Man got up to in the 70’s.
My eight-year-old daughter loves Archie comics. As an impulse purchase, Archie digests are available at the grocery store register. We can buy her an Archie digest every now and then, she loves it, and we can do it without going somewhere extra.
My six-year-old son doesn’t read any comics. There’s nowhere convenient to buy them, like the grocery store or convenience store; we have to either go to the bookstore or to a comic shop, neither of which fit easily into our time budget. Plus, if what I’ve read on this blog is any indication, the superhero market isn’t what I should be steering him toward anyway.
I remember, growing up, taking my tiny allowance (fifty cents a week, if my room was clean on Fridays) and saving it up to buy a comic book. At the gas station/convenience stores, I could pick from Archie, the Gold Key Disney comics, the Brave and the Bold, Spiderman – it gave me a lot to choose from, and it was something I could afford on not a lot of money. I wish something like that was still around, because I’d love to give my kids enough for a cheap comic apiece and tell them to go pick out a comic. Selecting a title would keep them busy for twenty minutes all by itself.
/older-former-comic-reader rambling
Kid Kyoto: That sucks. I thought Power Girl was supposed to be all-ages appropriate fun, and sort of empowering to women to boot. I’ve been meaning to check that title out, but after what you said and that Satanna arm thing Lister Sage mentioned… forget it.
@Laridian: I can understand the comic shop time-budget problem, but bookstores too? Are you in an area that isn’t very well-serviced by bookstores?
@Gloria: Going to the bookstore takes 20 minutes or more depending on traffic. Which doesn’t sound like much, but we don’t buy books (library = free and five minutes away) and the bookstore has nothing else near it to make me go there. In terms of my time investment, it’s not worth it. Whereas I hit the gas station twice a week (stupid commute) and the grocery store weekly.
If the library carried comic books I’d let the kids check those out. They do carry manga trades, which we’ll probably hit this summer, once I can review the titles available.
[…] DEATH OF COMICS DEPT: At least, if the headline is to be belived. Matthew Johnson on how and why kids have fallen away from comics: For parents, comics are not an entertainment medium; they are a distraction device. Think back to […]
Comics are fast going the way of model rail roads.
Not true. I have been going to my local comic book store for superhero comics since I was 6. I have always loved them, and always will.
I thought you wrote, “While digging through a bin full of kids’ clothes in hopes of finding my two-year-old son,” and thought to myself, “tsk tsk, some attentive parent.”