THE END OF COMICS

[That Ron Dude]

For Bookery-- Thanks for the thought provoking comments.

 

My experience as a school teacher where I often took on the role of Captain Ron of the Halton Board of Education is that most high school students have never held a comic book in their hands. When you say, "comic book" they think you are referring to a hard cover book that tells a story in pictures. It could be a graphic novel or a compilation.

 

Most people my age have no idea that pulps even existed. When I have reason to mention the subject I get at it through the movie Pulp FIction then explain it from there.

 

I didn't know that Amazing and Fantastic were beyond the bounds of "Pulps" but I accept what you are saying. I assume the size is different, the paper is different and the decades are different and that is enough to excuse them. As a teenager I saw them as what was left from the tradition of pulps. I was just about never interested in the stories. I would buy them used if they were cheap enough for the covers and interior illustrations. I own none of them now and I really don't miss them.

 

I have to wonder how many people care about the short stories in the few remaining pulps or digest that are left. I have heard it said that there are more people attending the San Diego Comicon than there are people reading comics. To about the same degree, I assume the number of people reading the SF/Fantasy/Adventure pulp/digest/short story magazines that are published today is about the same size at the editorial boards plus all the potential contributors. Casual readership equals zero.

 

What we had in comics, as children is gone. At the very most it has evolved or sublimated into cartoons, film and video games. It's cousin Manga seems healthy enough. I guess kids get the same thrill watching a Batman cartoon or a Duck Tales as I got reading one of those comics in the early 1960s. As for the pulps, the media is dead but adventure stories will live on forever. They will always be an undermedia (if you will allow me the creation of a compound word) where the unpolished talents will congregate. Some of them will have something to say and their stories will become part of the cultural landscape.

 

 

 

 

[mintcollector]

In fact we could say Mid-century modern furniture is getting a second revival because of pop culture. Mad Men has made Mid-century modern furniture explode in popularity. If it wasn`t for Mad Men icons of pop culture I doubt we see this revival of Mid-century modern furniture.

 

Mad Men premiered in the year 2007. Mid Century Modern was already an established genre at the turn of the millennium and new auction records were already being broken well into the mid to late 1990's. While it is true that Mad Men helped contribute to the popularity and identified the style to some; stating that the style's popularity is completely based on one television show is not accurate. Please research this. Be sure to check out auction records from not only international auction houses, but regional auction houses as well.

 

Now with Rookwood(Great stuff btw I love it),any betting man going forward would pick Transformers Generation 1 Optimus Prime 1984 over any piece of 100 year old Rookwood to hold long-term 10 years.

 

Can I please take this bet? How would you like to set it up? No offense (and I don't know your age), but if you are under the age of thirty I can guarantee that you may be a totally different person in ten years than you are now with a completely different set of tastes and priorities. Are you sure you will still be an advocate of pop culture at that time? Someone wise once said time is both an enemy and a friend. In order for time to heal it must also hurt at times; would you not agree?

 

I will take the best blue-chip Harry Potter,Transformers,Star Wars, Batman and Marvel Superhero collectibles over the best 100 year old antiques any day going forward for long-term investment.

 

How are we defining long term? Coming from a background in finance I view long term as ten years or longer. In reality I would like to view it as twenty years or more, but I know that isn't always practical. When I 'invest' in something I like to be able to carefully place it in long term storage and forget about it. I can do this with antiques. I also do it with collectibles, but if I was buying for investment I would worry what the future may bring once they see the light of day and eventually hit the auction block.

 

Remember I am saying best Holy Grail blue chip type collectibles,not manufactured stuff we can buy at Wal-Mart.

 

You are aware that every franchise you stated could (at one time) be bought at Wal-Mart and was mass-produced, correct? All this stuff is mass produced. Ironically the Rookwood pottery you mentioned is not.

 

Just a response in kind for nostalgia clouds the mind. (I actually never meant to rhyme this, but it just worked out that way so I left it alone).

 

 

 

 

 

[Bookery]

For Bookery-- Thanks for the thought provoking comments.

 

My experience as a school teacher where I often took on the role of Captain Ron of the Halton Board of Education is that most high school students have never held a comic book in their hands. When you say, "comic book" they think you are referring to a hard cover book that tells a story in pictures. It could be a graphic novel or a compilation.

 

Most people my age have no idea that pulps even existed. When I have reason to mention the subject I get at it through the movie Pulp FIction then explain it from there.

 

I didn't know that Amazing and Fantastic were beyond the bounds of "Pulps" but I accept what you are saying. I assume the size is different, the paper is different and the decades are different and that is enough to excuse them. As a teenager I saw them as what was left from the tradition of pulps. I was just about never interested in the stories. I would buy them used if they were cheap enough for the covers and interior illustrations. I own none of them now and I really don't miss them.

 

I have to wonder how many people care about the short stories in the few remaining pulps or digest that are left. I have heard it said that there are more people attending the San Diego Comicon than there are people reading comics. To about the same degree, I assume the number of people reading the SF/Fantasy/Adventure pulp/digest/short story magazines that are published today is about the same size at the editorial boards plus all the potential contributors. Casual readership equals zero.

 

What we had in comics, as children is gone. At the very most it has evolved or sublimated into cartoons, film and video games. It's cousin Manga seems healthy enough. I guess kids get the same thrill watching a Batman cartoon or a Duck Tales as I got reading one of those comics in the early 1960s. As for the pulps, the media is dead but adventure stories will live on forever. They will always be an undermedia (if you will allow me the creation of a compound word) where the unpolished talents will congregate. Some of them will have something to say and their stories will become part of the cultural landscape.

 

Actually, even Pulp Fiction isn't "pulp". Never saw the movie (despite being a film major!) but from what I understand Tarantino based it on the noirish crime paperbacks of the late '50s and '60s (published by Gold Medal in particular) rather than on the true pulp authors of a decade or two earlier. I'm guessing it's inspired by the works of Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, Harry Whittington, and the like more than the original "Black Mask" authors.

 

Pulp stories didn't really die... they just transitioned. "Pulp" itself, as used by pulp collectors, is more a format than anything else. The pulp format gave way to digests (for short stories) and to mass-market paperbacks for novels. Now the mass-market paperback is dying out in favor of more-expensive trade-format softbunds, and, of course, digital.

 

Here's my wild speculation on the future, based on the information we have today. Comics will eventually cease to published in pamphlet form, possibly within the next 10 years (I'm talking mainstream publishers of course... small press and garage-made comics may continue on by somebody somewhere). The comic art form will continue for awhile as digital downloads. But even this artform will eventually change, and give way to semi-animated or interactive "comics", and eventually fully-animated projects that will be released monthly.

 

Comic artists will still be in demand to establish the look and feel of a "title", which CGI folks will then adapt to the animated format. There may be limited edition comics prepared in "classic format" for us old guys (pretty much like today's Archives and Masterworks) for another 10 or 20 years... but they will be expensive and produced in small numbers, probably available via subscription.

 

So it it the end of comics? If that means paper monthlies, then yes. But like pulps to paperbacks to trades to digital, comics will simply transition. The world will indeed move away from paper (eventually we won't be able to harvest enough trees to supply billions with printed matter anyway, at least not at a price affordable to the masses). Comics will survive however as digital (like everything else), until technology and indifferent new generations lose interest in still pictures that neither move nor speak aloud to them.