How To Save Comics Article

[Guest Luke Cage]

Cut and pasted here in hopes of inspiring some discussion...

 

How to Save Comics

 

During World War II Superman regularly outsold Time magazine. Today

New X-Men barely has half the circulation of Horse Illustrated. And

that's a damn shame. Especially since there are more good comics being

produced right now than at any other time in the history of the

medium. Not to mention the fact that the comic industry's "Q" rating

is at its highest level in a decade thanks to mainstream media

crossover successes like the Spider-Man movie and Michael Chabon's

Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and

Clay. Yet comics remain the red-headed stepchild of pop culture and

sales, while improving, are still marginal at best.

 

What can comic companies do to rectify this gross injustice? First,

they can get comics out of the direct market ghetto and back into mass

market venues. Then they can finally offer a viable alternative to

the flimsy and overpriced monthly pamphlet.

 

Thanks to The Simpsons, the general public's perception of comic book

stores is largely negative. Though to be honest, the Comic Book Guy is

a fairly accurate (if much more erudite) representation of a large

percentage of comic shop owners. The stores guys like these run -

dirty, cramped and inhospitable to women and children customers ? are

an impassible barrier to most fair-weather comic fans. But even the

comic stores that do everything right are facing the prospect of

ever-dwindling sales.

 

Why? Because comic stores, like all specialty shops, require a

motivated customer base. The customer has to want to buy a comic

before he ever steps foot in the store. There is no such thing as the

casual comic book store customer. The general public simply has no

reason to go inside a comic store ? especially on a regular basis.

Which means that if the direct market and the comic industry as a

whole is going to survive then comics must return to mass market

venues in a big way.

 

The first tentative steps in this direction have already been taken in

chain bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble. Both devote prime

shelf space to a large selection of graphic novels. Borders has

recently begun stocking monthly comics as well while Barnes and Noble

does the same in its Waldenbooks mall chain. This is a good first

step, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. In order to again break

through as a mass medium, comics have to return to the checkout lines

at department stores like Wal-mart (yes, I know Marvel has a deal for

the Ultimate line to be distributed there but that's a baby step at

best). They need to be stocked along with magazines and paperbacks at

the local Walgreens. There needs to be a section devoted to them at

Toys R' Us. Then and only then will comic industry have the proper

environment in which to recapture the youth market and ensnare older

causal buyers as well.

 

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