Byrne is RIGHT! No, wait... he's not!

Alex pointed me towards something John Byrne posted on his forum recently. The whole post is interesting, but Byrne’s main point is that comics’ sales started to decline about the time that Peter Parker and Robin headed off to college. “When the characters ‘grow and change,’” Byrne says, “they run a very real risk of losing whatever it was that made them popular in the first place.” I can’t argue with that. In fact, it mirrors very closely something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

I’ve been watching the first season of the old George Reeves Adventures of Superman series. I grew up on that show and I’m still enjoying it on DVD, but the commentator on one of the episodes said something that got me thinking. He was gushing about an episode with a haunted lighthouse and talking about how scared and thrilled he was when he first saw the episode at the age of four.

The age of four.

In the ‘50s, Superman fans were created at the age of four.

My son David is three-and-a-half. I’m not sure Adventures of Superman would hold his attention right now, but soon he’ll be at the age where it would. And even if I didn’t have those DVDs, I’d still have the Cartoon Network with Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited. Plenty of exposure to superheroes. Of course, he’s too young to read comics right now, but that’s coming soon, right?

How interested is he going to be in Greg Rucka’s Adventures of Superman? Or Action Comics? Or Superman? Don’t get me wrong, I love what Rucka’s doing in his title. David though? At four or five years old? I don’t see it.

In the ‘50s, if a kid watched Superman on TV, chances were that sometime during the next week he’d be in a drugstore and see an affordable Superman comic that he could buy. Setting aside for a moment the discussions about availability and affordability, let’s look at this hypothetical comic. It’s self-contained, it’s understandable to a kid that age, it’s exciting, and – and don’t underestimate this point – it’s disposable. No multi-page sequences of characters standing around talking about how they’ve been betrayed by the JLA or how S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t what it used to be. Batman might make a cool guest-appearance, but you sure didn’t have to go buy his damn book to finish the story. And best of all, when you’re done with it, you trade it to your buddy for the Spider-Man book he just bought and read.

See, the collector’s mentality – not just the extreme speculation of the ‘90s, but the mere idea of holding onto series in complete runs – is hurtful. It’s not “killing the industry,” don’t be silly, but it does beget these long ass arcs and “writing for the trades.”

Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m totally into Infinite Crisis, I enjoy me some Brian Michael Bendis, and I love a great cliffhanger that makes me want to come back next month. I like adult superhero books. But I’m 38 years old. I don’t think comics were better when I was a kid, because when I was a kid, I didn’t have any taste.

But doggone it, there are still kids with no taste who will buy comics if we write to their level, make them affordable, and sell them in places where kids go. And here’s where I disagree with Byrne. Not in what he said, but in where he didn’t quite go because it was a completely different subject than what he was talking about. Not very fair of me really.

But see, there are comics for kids, self-contained and featuring iconic, unchanging versions of the characters. It may be true that comics started not selling as well when the superheroes started to age. I haven’t done my own research nor seen Byrne’s, so I don’t know. What I do know is that books like Marvel Adventures, The Batman Strikes, and Teen Titans Go! exist. So do Disney comics and Looney Tunes comics and Cartoon Network comics. The problem is: they’re at best inconvenient; at worst unavailable to buy.

The days of kids’ riding their bikes down to the drugstore to buy and trade comics are gone, but kids do still go to drugstores with their parents. They still go to grocery stores. They still go to movie theaters. What if there were cool, self-contained superhero comics in those places that could be bought for a couple of bucks a piece?

I’ve got a younger brother in his early teens. He stayed with us for a week over the summer and I introduced him to Smallville via the first season DVDs I was watching at the time. He immediately borrowed and read Superman: Birthright from me and went home at the end of the week to buy and watch every season of Smallville available. Didn’t go out and buy any comics though. What if there had been Superman comics next to the Smallville DVD display at Best Buy? Spend a couple of extra bucks and get a comic? He woulda gone for that.

I’ve got a nephew, also in his early teens. Every time he comes over he asks me if I’ve got the latest issue of New Avengers. Never goes out and gets them himself; just asks me if I’ve got them. Hell, I’ve got grown friends with jobs and cars who borrow comics from me rather than make a trip across town to a comic book store.

There are comics shops that try to make themselves a destination for kids. The Source Comics and Games in my neck of the woods gets a lot of kids who come in for their excellent selection of collectible card games. It’s the right idea, but what about kids who don’t play those games? Where can they get comics?

If anything is killing us, this is it. Getting rid of adult-themed superhero comics won’t do it. Getting rid of superhero comics in general won’t do it. Getting rid of any sort of comic, thus decreasing the diversity available, will only hurt the industry. Make superhero comics for adults, please… I love them. Make more for kids too, by all means. My son will thank you in a couple of years. There’s room for them all. Or there will be once anyone can get a comic anywhere. Until then, we just have a bunch of publishers fighting over the few people willing to make a special trip to the comic shop.