Marginalization of comics

[Kevin Boyd]

I was at a book festival today in Toronto, and I ended up staying to watch a Panel discussion on the Graphic Novel.

 

Panel discussion included Seth (Palookaville), Chester Brown (Louis Riel), Ho Che Anderson (King) and Sarrah Young & Willow Dawson (Mother May I).

 

With its definite indy focus it was definitely a panel that praised the merits of self-publishing. Seth's comments particularly interested me when he said the following (more or less I'm quoting him from memory on this so please don't attribute this as a direct quote):

 

We have a lot of freedom in comics now because no one is interested in comics anymore. What used to be a mainstream media isn't. Even the so-called mainstream efforts are marginal and no one cares. It allows me the freedom to tell my stories my way, and I do it for me, not for the audience. Most of us who work in comics got into them because we loved them, but once we started working in comics we didn't want to do the type of comics we grew up on... we don't want to draw Spider-Man forever...

 

The moderator started out by saying that comics are slowly on their way out... that superhero comics and nostalgia collectors were losing interest and that the new hipper audience was turning to Graphic Novels (like the panel participants work and other like Adrian Tomine's Summer Blonde and Craig Thompson's Blankets) and to english reprints of Japanese Manga - sales of Manga and indie GNs are up... mainstream stuff is dying... or so he says.

 

I think that's wishful thinking on his part, but any thoughts on this? Do you see the lack of interest in comics leading to a successful GN market of autobiographical comics? Is Manga going to surpass and replace mainstream comics with kids and teens?

 

Kev

 

[Aman619]

no. Seth has masturbated so often his brain is low on juice.

 

but seriously, no. Comics will eventually only be indy/autobiographical comics because the art fform lends it self to these personal quirky self-made stories of pictures and words. And superheroes will have moved onto where the money is in other media, electronic etc. But Im talking years and years fron mow. They will "win" by default, not by superiority.

 

I suppose Im sort of agreeing after all.... but Im saying syuperheroes will ALWAYS have a much greater audience...just not always in th ecomic book form, whereas indy/autographicals comix will be sort of like poetry as a business. REALLY marginalized in self-published pamphlets.

[Kevin Boyd]

Interesting analogy to poetry. That's a great comparison.

 

What about Manga? Is it going to replace comics? Is it a better format?

 

I guess what I found interesting about this panel was that it seemed to catch the attention of the audience. The press seems to react similarly in this town as well, as I've seen many articles on autogbiographical comics and graphic novels but hear next to nothing about mainstream books (unless Stan Lee speaks or Wonder Woman cuts her hair). Half of the time I come across an article in a newspaper or magazine it is about a book I've never heard of, and I like to follow most aspects of the industry - mainstream and indie. So it must be pretty obscure, and usually is.

 

That to me, is true marginalization. Part of the problem that the comics industry in general faces is an indifferent press, who simply don't see comics and graphic novels as good copy, even when the online press seems to release articles all the time about the growth of sales of graphic novels... particularly mainstream trades.

 

The only mainstream artcles seem to concentrate on the creator rather than the creaton, and even then, the creator must be some kind of triumphant figure... rising from some past indignity or disaster, or belong to a group that the media wants to promote.

 

Unless it's Stan Lee... everyone loves Stan Lee. He's always good press.

 

Entertainment Weekly, surprisingly, has gone out of their way to promote comics of every level. A good comic is a good comic seems to be their motto. We need more of that.

 

Kev

 

 

Kev

 

[Aman619]

Entertainment Weekly does a good job on comics...but of course, being part of the AOL/Time/Warner/DC Comics empire accounts for a lot of that support.

 

I dont understand the bit about manga. Those are Japanese comics. I guess if Japan takes over the world we'll all be reading manga. I know you didn't mean that, so I dont know what to say.

 

I agree wholeheartedly that comics are marginalized. Theys always been considered kids stuff. And that wouldnt be be so bad but its just that its the cheapest lowest form of kids stuff - - makes the least money and flies beneath the radar fo "the powers that be".

 

 

..and God bless Stan Lee.

[Kevin Boyd]

Some argue, like the moderator of the panel that I was at, that since sales of Manga tpbs (reprints of Japanese comics) are far outselling comic books with teens (especially girls) at his comic store - and at Anime stores, book stores that carry them and so on - that it is the wave of the future. That graphic novellists in North America should be copying their lead.

 

Comic sales are huge in Asia - crossing all genders and age groups - what is it about them that makes them so successful there? Why have they connected with this new generation of readers here?

 

Something must be wrong with the comics in North America, according to the moderators pov. Superhero comics and Marvel and DC in particular are to blame, as is the emphasis on collectibility as opposed to entertainment, and that comics have never been able to successfully shake that perception that it is still a children's medium.

 

Kev

[joe_collector]

Comic sales are huge in Asia - crossing all genders and age groups - what is it about them that makes them so successful there? Why have they connected with this new generation of readers here?

 

I think at least part of it is ethnic diversity. As more people from other countries come over to North America, they often bring their own interests along, and help these permeate our culture.

 

I honed my French from a roomie, learned to appreciate ethnic food from friends and co-workers, and even watched some horrible Indian movies and grasped the rules of Cricket. If one of them had bought and read Manga, then I would have been exposed to that as well and may have become a reader.

[Zanarkand]

Some argue, like the moderator of the panel that I was at, that since sales of Manga tpbs (reprints of Japanese comics) are far outselling comic books with teens (especially girls) at his comic store - and at Anime stores, book stores that carry them and so on - that it is the wave of the future. That graphic novellists in North America should be copying their lead.

 

Comic sales are huge in Asia - crossing all genders and age groups - what is it about them that makes them so successful there? Why have they connected with this new generation of readers here?

 

Something must be wrong with the comics in North America, according to the moderators pov. Superhero comics and Marvel and DC in particular are to blame, as is the emphasis on collectibility as opposed to entertainment, and that comics have never been able to successfully shake that perception that it is still a children's medium.

 

Kev

 

Rumiko Takahashi, creator of the astonishingly popular InuYasha and Ranma 1/2 series, has to date sold over 100 million copies of her books. When's the last time you heard of an American comic book series selling that well?

 

Most of the popularity of comic books in Asia stems from the fact that much of it is not child oriented. Businessmen read them on the subway on the way to work. Libraries stock them.

 

In the United States, this simply isn't the case. It's a question of origin, in my opinion. Here, comics were written, drawn, and priced at a dime specifically to catch a kid's eye. Many dealt with "sci-fi" topics, also known as "fantasy", which was pulp material and viewed as not for the serious mind. And of course comics were great propaganda material.

 

Over in Japan, defeat at the hands of the Allies led to a series of cultural restrictions. During the Occupation, forms of entertainment were either banned or restricted. This includes movies, books, and pictoral media. Line drawn strips, already somewhat popular, took off.

 

For one reason or another, probably because to the American occupiers comics were well known "kid stuff", manga got under the radar and became a major publishing endeavor. All demographic sets were catered to. There were (and are) children's manga magazines, young adult, teen, men's, even ladies magazines.

 

It simply never was "kid stuff" over there, and always was here.

[joe_collector]

It simply never was "kid stuff" over there, and always was here.

 

And you see this as bad?

 

I see the Japanese model as the right one, cheap, disposable media for all age groups, and printed on whatever fits the market.

 

In NA, we have old fogies buying high-end, glossy superhero [!@#%^&^] printed on paper and cardstock that magazines can't afford. Comic publishers long ago dropped everyone from their target market, except old geeks with FT jobs.

 

That's why the Silver Age has never ended.

[Zanarkand]

It simply never was "kid stuff" over there, and always was here.

 

And you see this as bad?

 

I see the Japanese model as the right one, cheap, disposable media for all age groups, and printed on whatever fits the market.

 

In NA, we have old fogies buying high-end, glossy superhero [!@#%^&^] printed on paper and cardstock that magazines can't afford. Comic publishers long ago dropped everyone from their target market, except old geeks with FT jobs.

 

That's why the Silver Age has never ended.

 

Not bad at all. Their way works. If Japanese studios were as obsessed with making live action comic book movies as US studios are, they'd make good ones. Too much cultural programming over here. Directors don;t know how to take the subject seriously.

[duncan36]

Most of us who work in comics got into them because we loved them, but once we started working in comics we didn't want to do the type of comics we grew up on... we don't want to draw Spider-Man forever...

 

I think its this attitude that sucks, people like Romita drew Spider-Man with great care and love because he placed the people who read it above himself, I'm sure at times it was hard work, but creative types in comics in these days werent afraid of hard work.

Nowadays creative types whinge to be able to 'express their inner child' in print or whatever, and simply putting your creative energies into Spider-Man well 'pfft' thats beneath them.

[Kevin Boyd]

I do understand what you are getting at, and I agree that those "fogies" make up a large segment of the audience for super-hero comics, but I do think there are many buyers still out there that have "grown up" with comics and still buy them because they enjoy them.

 

Remember the promise of 1986? That comics had finally grown up? At least that was according to magazines like Rolling Stone and the hype within the industry itself. 1986 was a pivotal year - as that was the year that The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were at the tip of an avalanche of new well-written adult comics. That promise did carry over to the works of Moore, Miller, Gaiman, Ellis, Ennis, and others. They did manage to keep people other than your silver age fogies interested in comics.

 

Here we are, 17 years later and we are still fighting the same battles. Comics are an all ages medium, etc. Except we are even more marginalized than we were in the mid-1980's.

 

Now along come the Japanes comic reprints (and cartoons - most of the hottest kids shows are dubbed versions of Japanese cartoons) and we suddenly have a new audience of readers who couldn't care less about the comics we care about. Will their exposure to the same Asian material lead to a similar cultural awareness of comic book material as their is in Asia? Only time will tell.

 

Either they will grow up and grow out of it. As was the prevailing attitude in NA, or they will follow the Asian model and comics (like Manga) will be a part of their lives.

 

But I think in order to succeed, we do have to rejuvinate the disposability aspect of comics that has been lost.

 

I was at a meeting on Monday night with writer J. Torres, and he was telling me about a conversation he had with a young girl buying Manga at a store, and she couldn't believe that he kept all of his comics. While we couldn't believe that she wanted to get rid of them as soon as she read them. That's a telling difference in the growing shift in perspective. They want disposable. We want collector's items.

 

Trades are great, but CrossGen may have been on the right track with their smaller versions of their tpbs... they began to compete with Manga in the same format. It would have been interesting to see if those fans will cross over back to mainstream comics. I noticed the other day that DC is now doing the same with little collections of their Powerpuff Girls comics and with ElfQuest volumes.

 

Marvel gave up to quickly on their "Backpack Marvels". Cheap black and white reprints of old comics.

 

Kev