How do we help the hobby?

[conditionfreak]

humantorch: is that Farah Fawcett. If it is, you must be an old dude

[COI]

the problem with that theory is that the entertainment value for a video game can last months, a comic......25 minutes.

 

Isn't that what I just said? ?

 

is that porn in your avatar?

 

Thanks for the compliment, but if people think it's porn, I'm removing it.

 

 

[cujobyte]

If you really want to "keep the hobby alive".....you need to get publishers to reduce the cost of new books & get them back on the spinner-racks at your local 7-11 where they belong.

 

The kids today are the future of the hobby if the hobby is to have a future.

 

I don't buy the argument that cost is preventing kids from buying comics. I love video games and I can afford whatever I want, yet I see a lot of kids who have more PS3 and XBOX 360 games than I do @ $60 a pop. If those same kids wanted stacks and stacks of comics, they would have them.

 

As much as I love the medium, it's dying. The gaming industry did something like 18 billion in sales last year. It's kicking everyone's azz, including the film, television and music industries. As both a means of storytelling and as an overall experience, comics cannot hope to compete, even with lower prices. Games have cinemas, soundtracks, voice acting, artistic visual design, and networks which, as I said, allow for socialization and competition among peers. And to be fair, you'll generally get a lot more entertainment out of a $60 game than you would out of a $60 stack of comics, for all of the above reasons, as well as on a cost per hour basis.

 

Entertainment has evolved and there isn't much that can be done. Comics are never going to be to today's children what they were for previous generations, and going back to $1 cover prices isn't going to change that.

 

Good points,I gave my 8 year old son a box of comics,they sat in his closet for about a year till my wife donated them to Big Brothers Association. He just won`t read them unless its manga style.He does loves the comic characters as he plays Spiderman everyday on the XBOX 360 and watches Batman in Brave and the Bold on Cartoon Network. I also tried to get my 12 year old nephew into comics, almost same results,he never looked at them and my sister ended up throwing the comics out in the garbage.This same nephew watches X-men,Spiderman everytime they are on tv and play the videogames of them.My point being they got the comics for free and still had no interest in them.

 

We have an 8 yr old son, and he's totally addicted to Dennis the Menace. That's what I loved as a kid, and have tried to share the passion for the stories (as much as you can considering it is Dennis...). Have you tried reading to the kids?? Just curious. We read to our kids every single nite. Beats hanging out at the local Walmart.

[THE_BEYONDER]

Like stated by others on this thread, the problem is the limited places to buy books. When I was growing up in 1970's Slidell, La, we had a comic shop, but they only carried "used" comics. I bought all my books a the 7-11 or the drug store. When I moved to Birmingham in 1981, there were 2 gas stations, a drug store and a grocery within walking distance of my house. Any/all of those places could have sold comics. Now I have to drive to find books. The publishers are gonna be forced to expand access to books as LCS' go under. The direct maket has hurt the "new blood" factor and retail expansion could correct the problem. I think the Obama comic showing up at Wal-Mart & drug/groceries could be a test for expansion. I wouldn't mind driving to the "rare" LCS and walking to the grocery for new books.

 

(thumbs u

 

 

When I was a kid....I could buy new books everywhere I went. It was only on the weekends that I would take the subway downtown to dig through the back-issue boxes at the comic shops & stare in awe at the comic wall.

[Monstro]

the problem with that theory is that the entertainment value for a video game can last months, a comic......25 minutes.

 

Isn't that what I just said? ?

 

is that porn in your avatar?

 

Thanks for the compliment, but if people think it's porn, I'm removing it.

 

 

 

oh yeah, what i meant to say was, “and to further your argument, the entertainment value for a video game can last months, a comic......25 minutes.”

 

[kidcolt]

Like most of you I use to spend a lot of time hanging out at my LCS. Lots of times I would see new customers come in and walk around checking the place out. The staff at the shop didn't approach them, talk to them or offer any help. These people usually walk out never to return. I also used to see a lot of new customers comein and ask questions and the staff were totallu useless, most times I would try and help. Comic shops need good staff who are really good with people especially kids. Sadly most shops don't fall into this category. My 2 LCS staff have great comic knowledge but they have the personality of a wet rag.

 

I also agree that the biggest problem is the lack of material out there. Stores don't carry comics like they use to. Even the drug stores only carry a small selection with most of that being Archie digest titles. When we were young parents use to buy comics as a reward or special surprise for their kids, they don't do this anymore.

[innocuous]

Halloween: all kids get a comic at my house

 

School Career Day: I go to talk about my hobby instead of my job. Every kid in the class gets a comic book. I have two kids in elementary school now. A third in 2 years.

 

Work: I have The Flash on my desk. I wear my ComicSeeker shirt to company outings.

 

My Community: I wear comic related shirts often. I give comics to kids on the soccer team.

 

The Problem: the most common question I get from kids and adults is where they can go to buy comics. Unfortunately, with no LCS in my community I send them to Borders. We need a LCS.

[Wally's Comics]

We have a lot of kids here.

 

Guess what we do for fun?

 

 

 

 

 

[kc120us]

If you really want to "keep the hobby alive".....you need to get publishers to reduce the cost of new books & get them back on the spinner-racks at your local 7-11 where they belong.

 

The kids today are the future of the hobby if the hobby is to have a future.

 

I don't buy the argument that cost is preventing kids from buying comics. I love video games and I can afford whatever I want, yet I see a lot of kids who have more PS3 and XBOX 360 games than I do @ $60 a pop. If those same kids wanted stacks and stacks of comics, they would have them.

 

As much as I love the medium, it's dying. The gaming industry did something like 18 billion in sales last year. It's kicking everyone's azz, including the film, television and music industries. As both a means of storytelling and as an overall experience, comics cannot hope to compete, even with lower prices. Games have cinemas, soundtracks, voice acting, artistic visual design, and networks which, as I said, allow for socialization and competition among peers. And to be fair, you'll generally get a lot more entertainment out of a $60 game than you would out of a $60 stack of comics, for all of the above reasons, as well as on a cost per hour basis.

 

Entertainment has evolved and there isn't much that can be done. Comics are never going to be to today's children what they were for previous generations, and going back to $1 cover prices isn't going to change that.

 

 

True, but it doesn't have to be the most popular medium out there to survive. It only needs a small percentage of new people coming in. Even back in the late 80's during the heydey of comic shops, comic collectors were never in the majority. I was the only person amongst my group of friends who collected. There were always many more people who played sports or video games then collected comics. To expect the hobby to come anywhere near that kind of popularity is unrealistic but also unecessary. We are a small hobby. We always were a small hobby. And we always will be a small hobby. Even back in the 40's when comics were printed and read in the millions, the number of people who collected and preserved those books was small.

[kidcolt]

The card industry is facing a similar problem. Kids are not buying like they use to mainly because they have been priced out and there is very few places to buy them. I always hear people say "they still make sportscards", how sad is that. When I was a kid you could buy a pack of OPC cards in every store, now you have to make a special trip to a hobby shop, park, feed the parking meter, walk to the shop just to get a pack of cards. It rarly happens.

 

The days of mom running to the store for a loaf of bread and bringing back a pack or 2 of cards as a treat are gone. Sadly comics are the same.

[DrWatson]

CaptainOfindustry: you are correct.

 

When was the last time any of you read an actual book, not comic related?

 

The computer and video screen, along with the cell phone, is what it is all about.

 

Progress. Great and sad, at the same time.

Speaking of progress, what did everyone do before Johan got all uppity and invented the printing press...

[kc120us]

How do we get new blood into the hobby? I am not talking about lowering the price on new comics, or new comics in general. I talking about "Vintage" (ie Gold./Silver/Bronze etc.) comic collecting. I think Vince's exposure on TV is one way. What other ways are there?

 

What you're really talking about here is appealing to speculators in order to keep the BSDs rolling in, which is fine. But keep in mind that the back issue market is "healthy" right now because the vast majority of the players have a long history with the medium, one which started with genuine passion and not financial motivation. I would assume, therefore, that the only way to sustain "health" as we've defined it, is to build new collectors from the ground up. Unfortunately, as I pointed out in my previous post, that ship has sailed.

 

I think the only ship that has trully sailed is the one where people can pick up a book off a rack for pennies and wait sixty years for it to turn into a fortune ala the Action #1. That will never happen again.

[kc120us]

CaptainOfindustry: you are correct.

 

When was the last time any of you read an actual book, not comic related?

 

The computer and video screen, along with the cell phone, is what it is all about.

 

Progress. Great and sad, at the same time.

Speaking of progress, what did everyone do before Johan got all uppity and invented the printing press...

 

Isn't that what started the 100 year war?

[hockey&comicsguy]

I took some comic books to the YMCA in Cleveland years ago. Put them on the tables in the waiting rooms, for anyone to read or take. Keep in mind that in the YMCA's in Cleveland, they rent rooms out to down and out people. Many with drug and alcohol problems. I just felt that I had so many books that I could not sell for much, that I would share them.

 

Of course they all disappeared the first few day. Maybe to sell for a nickel or whatever. But the point was that the YMCA started asking me to donate more as they were so popular and they said that it actually made the "problems" of arguments and fights in the lounge, drop considerably. The guys were too engrossed in reading the comic books and discussing the stories.

 

 

 

My nephews are 10 & 8. Mostly into pokemon, lego star wars and the like. I started giving them my moderns in the hopes they would at least get some reading out of it. If they wind up getting into the hobby that would be an added bonus. I like the idea of just giving stuff away to others without expecting anything in return. Spread the joy, brighten somebody's day with some freebies and maybe people will pick up on it. It's a nice thing to do.

 

Kudos to you for doing what you did. Very cool.

Mike

[Bosco685]

Not sure if this was stated already, but what about global roadshows with "hobby experts" where key books are put on display, famous creators tag along to provide symposiums on the period of time they were involved in and changes they saw take place, and even how the hobby has influenced a portion of global cultures.

 

You hear major retailers doing this in their region like Chuck R. with University of Colorado, but what if it was on a larger scale and a common event every year? Would that help drive more interest in the hobby and it's history? Something along the lines of "Free Comic Day" but on a much grander scale, and reaching deep into the history of the comic hobby.

 

I read quite a bit of what gets posted on here and am floored with the extensive experience. It only adds to my wanting to read more. I can only imagine it would do the same for others.

 

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTION: And since this would drive business towards existing comic companies as a side-benefit, I would think they would want to sponsor this effort if managed by the right hobby leaders.

 

Just a thought

[COI]

If you really want to "keep the hobby alive".....you need to get publishers to reduce the cost of new books & get them back on the spinner-racks at your local 7-11 where they belong.

 

The kids today are the future of the hobby if the hobby is to have a future.

 

I don't buy the argument that cost is preventing kids from buying comics. I love video games and I can afford whatever I want, yet I see a lot of kids who have more PS3 and XBOX 360 games than I do @ $60 a pop. If those same kids wanted stacks and stacks of comics, they would have them.

 

As much as I love the medium, it's dying. The gaming industry did something like 18 billion in sales last year. It's kicking everyone's azz, including the film, television and music industries. As both a means of storytelling and as an overall experience, comics cannot hope to compete, even with lower prices. Games have cinemas, soundtracks, voice acting, artistic visual design, and networks which, as I said, allow for socialization and competition among peers. And to be fair, you'll generally get a lot more entertainment out of a $60 game than you would out of a $60 stack of comics, for all of the above reasons, as well as on a cost per hour basis.

 

Entertainment has evolved and there isn't much that can be done. Comics are never going to be to today's children what they were for previous generations, and going back to $1 cover prices isn't going to change that.

 

 

True, but it doesn't have to be the most popular medium out there to survive. It only needs a small percentage of new people coming in. Even back in the late 80's during the heydey of comic shops, comic collectors were never in the majority. I was the only person amongst my group of friends who collected. There were always many more people who played sports or video games then collected comics. To expect the hobby to come anywhere near that kind of popularity is unrealistic but also unecessary. We are a small hobby. We always were a small hobby. And we always will be a small hobby. Even back in the 40's when comics were printed and read in the millions, the number of people who collected and preserved those books was small.

 

I understand. I started collecting as a kid in the mid-late 80's and there was no shortage of comic shops in my area, yet a lot of kids didn't collect, so I agree with you there. But things were a little more balanced at that time. The game industry was actually close to failure. I remember NES games costing $60-$80 new back then which was extremely expensive. There was no way that a poor kid like me could get his hands on a ton of NES games. The best I could do was swap the one game I got a year with another kid in order to get something else. The accessibility wasn't there. And even when I was playing games, the intense level of immersion and social networking wasn't there, due to the obvious technological limitations of available gaming hardware.

 

The landscape has changed. Even if you couldn't afford a PS3 or a 360 today, there's the PS2 which is an affordable alternative with a back catalog of over 2000 games, many of which are easily attainable for $10 or less at this point. And due to internet marketing and exposure, gaming has become a sub-culture of its own. Average gaming message boards have thousands and thousands of posters on at any given time. Just check out the gaming categories on youtube to see how prevalent this new gaming culture is. Heck, I didn't even really get into gaming until just a few years ago as an adult; that's how powerful the pull of the industry can be.

 

In the 80's, you had a small but highly developed and accessible medium(comics) up against a larger, but underdeveloped and relatively inaccessible medium(games), so there was a little more balance. Now you have a small, highly developed, less accessible medium vs. the 800lb gorilla that's crushing all other forms of entertainment into dust.

 

I really appreciate and respect the positive intention of your post Casey, and I really hate to bring all this doom and gloom, but as someone who is sitting on both sides of this fence (comic and gaming fan) I really don't see any hope for the long term viability of this medium, unless they drastically change the way in which their products are delivered. I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel and DC eventually became gaming developers, and DC already has its own division. The characters certainly have timeless appeal, the medium itself, however, does not.

[DrWatson]

CaptainOfindustry: you are correct.

 

When was the last time any of you read an actual book, not comic related?

 

The computer and video screen, along with the cell phone, is what it is all about.

 

Progress. Great and sad, at the same time.

Speaking of progress, what did everyone do before Johan got all uppity and invented the printing press...

 

Isn't that what started the 100 year war?

What? Did they have discussion on chat boards, too?

[Rodey]

So what comics need is along the lines of a comic book along with a game. Like read a comic to get a code that initiates the game.

 

Just throwing out ideas.

[conditionfreak]

Are we saying that 50 years from now, comic books will be like "pieces of eight"? Old, not so rare, and not so valuable? Is Action #1 gonna be forgotten about? Is ASM #1 gonna be forgotten about? Is Hulk 181 gonna be forgotten about? Except as a fond memory of some old dudes playing intergalactic checkers?

[the blob]

i disagree that $2.99-$3.99 cover prices don't scare off kids. a couple of comics winds up being a ton of money, particularly if you're middle income and maybe your folks only make $30-$40K or somethin. i've seen it enough times when adults come into the shop to pick up some comics for a child and their eyes bug out when told that even the comics in the kid oriented section are $3 a pop. they can't fathom how those thick gladstone donald duck books are $7 a pop (and I've never seen my LCS sell one of them, not one)

 

with that said, if kids actually were interested they could go to a shop and scrounge around the 50 cent and $1 boxes just like I do on my six figure salary. just like i did when I was a kid (when new comics were 50-60 cents and the comics in the boxes were 4/$1 or 3/$1). of course, not every shop has that sort of thing, but most do.

 

but there is at least a decent possibility that some kids get scared off initially with $3 prices at walmart or wherever they first might be interested in comics and never discover that there's cheap overstock if they just want cheap reads.