The State of the Industry, and what we can do to help

In the course of my interviews of talent within the comics industry, I have asked questions about the state of the industry, the market, and the future of the industry. Further down you can read the views of an Editor in Chief of Marvel, an Editor who has worked at most publishers in the past, and a writer who has had great success in the past, and hopes to in the future. They know what they are speaking of, because they have worked within the industry and have perspective that is born of effort and an insider view. For my views though, I speak as an outsider, and someone who knows very little ultimately of how the industry works, and what role various factors play. So I do not write this as an expert... I am just an observer.

From the retail perspective sales of comics are not always about super heroes. The market might focus upon super folks, if you consider titles devoted to their genre but there is a truism in retail that a store will eventually model the customer’s tastes or it will not succeed. Despite the gloom of failure people see in the industry, a promising variety of stores succeed. But it is not all about raw sales, it is about getting the titles people like to read into the store in order to sell them. Having a flexible business model, along with partners in the industry such as responsive publishers, and distributors who are able to pinpoint a store’s needs will allow a store to eventually understand its customers, and respond with product. Genre of books is important in and of itself, but it is not a requirement for sales.

How can publishers help grow the market? I am not so arrogant as to assume that they should listen to me. I hope they grow the market however by moving towards a book oriented, a reader oriented market product instead of a collector’s product. The difference is that a reader product has to be good in order to succeed, and the result of it will mean more readers, and better product in the future. Collectible items make a larger, more immediate splash, but do nothing in terms of a deeper impact, and lead to event based sales, instead of quality based sales. I know I am spitting into the wind, asking that stories be good first, and then “hot”, but the industry hurts itself in some way with every event that is not born out of quality. Sales alone might be a good thing, but sales along with worth means future sales.

What should we do to grow the industry from the perspective of readers, talent and retailers? Free Comic Book Day is a good start. But it is not enough. I suggest be evangelical in your comic book faith. Give away comics. Share comics with readers who might not realize how great they can be. If you set down a comic having read it, thinking wow, that was great... what better way to make it known, than to share it with a non comic book reader. Thinking about it from this perspective, if diversity in the industry makes it stronger, growing the industry is likely best to be done outside the industry. People who already read comics should not be the target of growth, however much their dollars are desired. FCBD is a good thing, but without proper media, it ends up being FCBD for people who read comics. Not much impact there is there?

--------------------------------

Alex Ness: Lets talk about the future of industry: where do you see the comics industry’s future going? After the boom and bust cycles of comics in the late 80s to the mid 90s our industry took a few kicks in the shorts. Is it going to survive? What happened to all the readers in the last ten years?

Joe Quesada: It will be a slow burn but I honestly see comics in the US becoming like comics in Japan. The movies are helping, improved comics on all fronts are helping.

Companies like Tokyo Pop are showing us that there are different ways to skin a cat, it’s all good stuff as long as we understand that it’s going to take some time and we all STAY POSITIVE!

AN: You mention the changing market towards something similar to that of Japan... do you foresee that comics will exist in all genres eventually? Will there be more or less all ages appeal? Or like Japanese comics, will American comics adopt the one size fits all style of manga?

JQ: I certainly wouldn't discount it. In some ways I see it as the British Invasion of Rock n' Roll. Ultimately we'll have to find our own way and it won't be exactly as it is in Japan, but I believe quite similar, with North American tweaks.

Talking With Joe Quesada

Alex Ness: Why is the industry in the condition that it is in, and what might be a solution to that?

Mike Gold: Actually, the industry is in a bit of an upswing. That's no reason to be complacent, though -- we've got a big problem ahead of us, and some folks won't see it until the current movies and the manga cycles end and the returns on all those trade paperbacks in the bookstores start filling warehouses.

Comic book reading isn't a natural experience. Reading, in and of itself, is not a natural experience, and if parents don't read to their children at the youngest of ages, they are not going to grow up to become readers. Well, readers who do not read comics as children are less likely to develop the habit as adolescents. Comic books are not illustrated fiction. Comic books, what Will Eisner calls graphic storytelling, are a synthesis of words and pictures. Some guys discover this when they try to turn their girl friends on to comics -- they aren't sure which way to read the balloons, they don't understand the shorthands and the conventions. Kids have to be inspired to read comics at an early age.

Right now we are missing most of an entire generation of comics readers. Certainly, Archie has been doing what they do, and they've been doing it quite well. Bongo Comics do a nice job of providing value in their reprint lines and kids ask their parents to buy 'em. ToykoPop and Gemstone are trying various Disney efforts, DC is doing their WB animated tie-ins, and Marvel has been trying various things in various formats. I applaud all these attempts, but they're just the tip of the iceberg.

We need lots of comics that will provide the path from the Archie books and the tie-ins to what we regard as mainstream comics. Junior versions of the mainstream comics aren't going to cut it -- preadolescents hate being treated as children. They're offended by what they see as tokenistic treatment. We need to create a lot more comic books for the adolescents and adolescents that they can call their own. We have to market these books to them where they generally hang out, we have to make the average comic book shop more attractive to kids, we have to make these comics entertaining and compelling to today's preadolescents, and we have to put these comics in interesting, value-worthy and affordable packages.

This sounds like a tall order, and it is. But it can be done.

Talking with Mike Gold

Alex Ness: We know the problems with the current comics industry, but what do you see as the strengths of this new comic market?

Mike Baron: Big opportunity to snag new readers. Why? Graphic novel growth--big hype in NYTimes and other traditional media. Dedicated manga and graphic novel sections in book stores like Barnes & Noble. Increased public awareness of graphic novels which are just big fat comic books.

Talking with Mike Baron
-------------------------------------------------

How about collectors, how should they respond in order to expand the market and infuse health to the industry? They need to continue to buy comics that they will never read. They need to buy every comic with variant covers. They need to support publishers and talent that they actually do not like, because they think that the book will be hot.