COMIC STORES 2023: 'IT'S NEARLY 2024 AND I'M MORE THAN CONCERNED' 4 4

[Buzzetta]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:22 AM, Stefan_W said:

I've actually bought more than one comic collection from individuals who are selling off their hard copies and switching to reading comics online. People who actually read these things and dont give a rat's you-know-what about collectability are an important subset of the comic collecting community. I dont know the numbers but I would not be surprised if people focused on reading are switching to buying their comics in a digital format. 

 

I also get the sense that Marvel would love to push the market to a completely digital format, where the only physical copies released of comics would be in collected TPB.  I said it earlier in this thread that the comic book as a serialized readable unit will continue to exist but the way it is presented and consumed are most likely going to drastically change in the next 10-20 years.  Maybe only the best sellers or legacy characters will continue as a physical comic such as Spider-man, Batman, and Superman. 

If the major publishers shifted to completely digital for the bulk of their releases, it reduces the cost of producing the comics to simply requiring the funding to pay artists, scanning, and housing the files on a server which is far cheaper than the physical distribution model.  The music industry has already demonstrated that. 

The shift is already occurring.

https://polygon.com/23387106/marvel-unlimited-infinity-comics-jeff-the-shark

Quote

Just over a year ago, Marvel Comics launched a new line of phone-friendly, in-canon digital comics series — the catch was that you could only read them if you subscribed to Marvel Unlimited. But the Infinity Comics line seems to have paid off: Marvel tells Polygon that the company has seen a 30% increase in Unlimited subscribers in 2022 compared to 2021, with over 300 Infinity Comics issues being read over 2 million times.

 

[Stefan_W]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:57 AM, Buzzetta said:

If the major publishers shifted to completely digital for the bulk of their releases, it reduces the cost of producing the comics to simply requiring the funding to pay artists, scanning, and housing the files on a server which is far cheaper than the physical distribution model.  The music industry has already demonstrated that. 

I think a more apt example for this particular discussion is actual books. There are still people who love hard copies of books because of how they look, feel, and even smell, but the market is turning more and more toward formats used by the assorted E-Readers that are out there. Reading on a device is really easy, you dont have to leave your house to buy whatever it is you want to read, and it takes up way less room. I bought thousands of books when I was younger and I liquidated almost everything - I just keep whatever I can fit onto one bookcase. Comics are the same in the sense that they take up a lot of room and reading on a device is pretty easy. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/2/2023 at 10:17 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 12/2/2023 at 9:04 PM, VintageComics said:

My point was always that story content has become far less important now to comic collectors than covers have become

Then your point is just pure bull. It might be closer to being true for slab collectors, but that is nothing.

I asked which age range you were in and you never answered. I ask because you sound quite a bit younger than me. More impatient, your timeline focus is very narrow (I'm surprised you didn't throw in an "OK Boomer") and you have trouble following the string of discussion. 

My entire point rested on this post from a long time (comic) book store owner, before the conversation became distracted by Team Derail. 

On 12/2/2023 at 12:44 PM, Bookery said:

Things have changed, however.  When I grew up, adults did not read comics.  There was also far more text to a comic book.  So not only do kids read slower than adults, there was more there to read to begin with.  A comic, carefully read, might take 20 minutes in the '60s. (And we won't even get into Classics Illustrated).  I could spend the afternoon with an 80-page Giant.  Today, comics are read almost exclusively by adults, and they can whip through 20 pages of essentially splash-pages in a few minutes.  

These are all points brought up in the recent string of discussion:

Comics today have less text. 

Comics today are driven more by the art than the story. I mean, isn't this a common complaint about comic writers over the past few years?  

Collectors today, who are the readers of yesterday (and yesterday can be as soon as 5-10 years ago) are less interested in content and more interested in splashy pages and covers. 

You combine those things and they are all definitely working against selling more reading material. 

What I tried to show, through many different avenues was that reading material as entertainment is less sought out than it was yesterday, and CAHokie's graphs clearly showed that and backed up my discussion points. 

It seems to be pretty unequivocal.

So what exactly are you disagreeing with and more importantly, WHY? 

Edited December 3, 2023 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

Everyone is just looking for one 'silver bullet' answer. What is affecting the market is more than one thing. It's societal. 

All of these are tied into my greater picture. 

1) The corporate structure of the industry has diminished the ability of artists to put out the art form as they see fit. They have to bend their creations to the will of their overlords. 

This is proven by examples I've given like the corporate interference in the purposeful demise of the John Carter film, the cancelling of Marvel's flagship superteam The Fantastic Four a decade ago and the need of corporations to virtue signal "social justice" through their products to maintain a relatively high ESG score (also proven).

This prevents the art form from being just pure art for the sake of art, and instead is the medium becomes an investment vehicle for alternative purposes other than storytelling. 

Even @EastEnd1 , who worked pretty high up at a competitor for Disney confirmed that the comics are no longer the end product. They're just incubators to create Intellectual Properties for greater industries. 

2) The shortening of attention spans of the general public, a product of a much more competitive market field AND socially engineering the patience out of people have reduced how and what sort of content is desirable for entertainment. People want their quicker sugar / crack / serotonin fixes than the longform complex carbs of sitting through a long reading.

This was proven by CAHokie's charts of how the numbers of people who read for entertainment voluntarily are dropping. 

No, this doesn't mean spending 100 hours on a video game makes it a "complex carb" type of entertainment. That's ridiculous. All the 100 hours on a video game means, is that you have your crack supply set to last 100 hours. 

And this dovetails into my 3rd point:

3) Children, as they grow up are being programmed by social media and education systems to not want to read and rely on short form communication. The proof being that kids these days can't form entire sentences and proper grammer, hardly comment on social media and get anxiety when they need to have a voice conversation. Raising better children is a root product to greater success for those kids. 

There are probably more points. 

One would be that because the general public's voices are being censored, and that big Legacy Media has basically been co-opted by special interest groups, especially in the West, people are vocally and purposefully pushing back on #1 by voting for what they approve of with their dollars, which is the only recourse they have left, although you can look for that option to disappear soon as many currencies becomes digital and how you choose to spend your money also becomes more limited. 

In short, the problem is not just comics. It's society in general. 

The general public doesn't really find that walking to the local store, buying something to read, sitting down with a good book, in a quiet room, with no rush to go anywhere as something productive right now.

That's how all of us used to do it, right?

And I hope that the pendulum swings back, because that really is the root solution to many of the worlds problems IMO.

Edited December 3, 2023 by VintageComics

[october]

Nobody reads LB Cole anymore?

He was always primarily a cover artist. He only did a handful of interior work during the Golden Age and most of that was stuff like Young King Cole or other snoozefests. Bizarre example. 

[Ryan.]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:10 AM, october said:

Nobody reads LB Cole anymore?

He was always primarily a cover artist. He only did a handful of interior work during the Golden Age and most of that was stuff like Young King Cole or other snoozefests. Bizarre example. 

Oh no! You've been sucked in! Now you have to ignore your family for the rest of the day to make time to type up endless screeds about how your opinions are actually unassailable facts.

[october]

On 12/3/2023 at 10:19 AM, Ryan. said:

Oh no! You've been sucked in! Now you have to ignore your family for the rest of the day to make time to type up endless screeds about how your opinions are actually unassailable facts.

He's second only to William Ekgren for famed interior work. 

[namisgr]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:19 AM, Ryan. said:

Oh no! You've been sucked in! Now you have to ignore your family for the rest of the day to make time to type up endless screeds about how your opinions are actually unassailable facts.

Where else did you expect the thread to possibly go?

[VintageComics]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:10 AM, october said:

Nobody reads LB Cole anymore?

He was always primarily a cover artist. He only did a handful of interior work during the Golden Age and most of that was stuff like Young King Cole or other snoozefests. Bizarre example. 

How many L.B. Cole Graphic novels are being published as we speak? 

[Ryan.]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:23 AM, october said:

William Ekgren

[shadroch]

Grandma would remark that this thread, and most of the posts, are a bunch of hooey.  Growing up around cows, she had an uncanny knack for detecting cow manure.

[namisgr]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:23 AM, october said:

He's second only to William Ekgren for famed interior work. 

  I had to look him up, and glad to have done so.  Few covers, but some spectacular ones.

[NoMan]

you guys in this thread ought to hook up with the guys in the Comic Book Movies sub-forum who argue about what movies gross financially 

[october]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:28 AM, namisgr said:

  I had to look him up, and glad to have done so.  Few covers, but some spectacular ones.

 

His story is pretty interesting, if you have some time to delve deeper. He was not a comic artist at all, total accident that he ended up on some St. Johns covers. 

More of the story.

 

[VintageComics]

On 12/3/2023 at 12:38 PM, october said:

His story is pretty interesting, if you have some time to delve deeper. He was not a comic artist at all, total accident that he ended up on some St. Johns covers. 

More of the story.

 

Interestingly enough, the William Elkgram story starts at Now And Then in Kitchener. 

Dave Sim also had his first works published through that store and I believe still lives not far. 

My best friend of 25 years managed that store and now runs his own store (Carry On Comics in Waterloo). An incredible amount of material went through that store. The stories are surreal to hear today and dealers from all over the area would show up whenever Harry had a new collection in. 

That store was a Canadian comic book store staple until Harry died in a car crash tragically. 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:23 AM, october said:

On 12/3/2023 at 11:19 AM, Ryan. said:

Oh no! You've been sucked in! Now you have to ignore your family for the rest of the day to make time to type up endless screeds about how your opinions are actually unassailable facts.

He's second only to William Ekgren for famed interior work. 

You missed my point. 

Old school collectors used to hunt down everything their favorite creators did, no matter how small it was.

As an example, my friend who owns Carry On Comics collected everything Neal Adams in multiples right down to an Archie panel Adams did. He had 4 copies of everything. 

Collectors no longer collect interior work like they used to. 

Even if it wasn't common, L.B. Cole did do interior work and this would have been sought after by older collectors. 

Today, relatively few people collect comics for their interiors and yes, L.B. Cole was always popular, but demand has been driven exponentially mostly due to the way society has changed due to the internet age, which the slabbing market is a large part of. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by VintageComics

[Lightning55]

On 12/3/2023 at 10:59 AM, VintageComics said:

Everyone is just looking for one 'silver bullet' answer. What is affecting the market is more than one thing. It's societal. 

All of these are tied into my greater picture. 

1) The corporate structure of the industry has diminished the ability of artists to put out the art form as they see fit. They have to bend their creations to the will of their overlords. 

This is proven by examples I've given like the corporate interference in the purposeful demise of the John Carter film, the cancelling of Marvel's flagship superteam The Fantastic Four a decade ago and the need of corporations to virtue signal "social justice" through their products to maintain a relatively high ESG score (also proven).

This prevents the art form from being just pure art for the sake of art, and instead is the medium becomes an investment vehicle for alternative purposes other than storytelling. 

Even @EastEnd1 , who worked pretty high up at a competitor for Disney confirmed that the comics are no longer the end product. They're just incubators to create Intellectual Properties for greater industries. 

2) The shortening of attention spans of the general public, a product of a much more competitive market field AND socially engineering the patience out of people have reduced how and what sort of content is desirable for entertainment. People want their quicker sugar / crack / serotonin fixes than the longform complex carbs of sitting through a long reading.

This was proven by CAHokie's charts of how the numbers of people who read for entertainment voluntarily are dropping. 

No, this doesn't mean spending 100 hours on a video game makes it a "complex carb" type of entertainment. That's ridiculous. All the 100 hours on a video game means, is that you have your crack supply set to last 100 hours. 

And this dovetails into my 3rd point:

3) Children, as they grow up are being programmed by social media and education systems to not want to read and rely on short form communication. The proof being that kids these days can't form entire sentences and proper grammer, hardly comment on social media and get anxiety when they need to have a voice conversation. Raising better children is a root product to greater success for those kids. 

There are probably more points. 

One would be that because the general public's voices are being censored, and that big Legacy Media has basically been co-opted by special interest groups, especially in the West, people are vocally and purposefully pushing back on #1 by voting for what they approve of with their dollars, which is the only recourse they have left, although you can look for that option to disappear soon as many currencies becomes digital and how you choose to spend your money also becomes more limited. 

In short, the problem is not just comics. It's society in general. 

The general public doesn't really find that walking to the local store, buying something to read, sitting down with a good book, in a quiet room, with no rush to go anywhere as something productive right now.

That's how all of us used to do it, right?

And I hope that the pendulum swings back, because that really is the root solution to many of the worlds problems IMO.

Regarding Point #1, that's conspiracy theory, in my opinion, or "just the way it is" (or has become,  deal with it)

Regarding points #2 and #3, as Aristotle said in the time of Ancient Greece:

They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things -- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning -- all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything -- they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.

https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-with-young-people-today.html

As I said earlier, everything runs its course. Join in, or step aside, or get run over. Your choice. 

 

[Cat]

On 12/4/2023 at 1:59 AM, VintageComics said:

Everyone is just looking for one 'silver bullet' answer. What is affecting the market is more than one thing. It's societal. 

All of these are tied into my greater picture. 

1) The corporate structure of the industry has diminished the ability of artists to put out the art form as they see fit. They have to bend their creations to the will of their overlords. 

This is proven by examples I've given like the corporate interference in the purposeful demise of the John Carter film, the cancelling of Marvel's flagship superteam The Fantastic Four a decade ago and the need of corporations to virtue signal "social justice" through their products to maintain a relatively high ESG score (also proven).

This prevents the art form from being just pure art for the sake of art, and instead is the medium becomes an investment vehicle for alternative purposes other than storytelling. 

Even @EastEnd1 , who worked pretty high up at a competitor for Disney confirmed that the comics are no longer the end product. They're just incubators to create Intellectual Properties for greater industries. 

2) The shortening of attention spans of the general public, a product of a much more competitive market field AND socially engineering the patience out of people have reduced how and what sort of content is desirable for entertainment. People want their quicker sugar / crack / serotonin fixes than the longform complex carbs of sitting through a long reading.

This was proven by CAHokie's charts of how the numbers of people who read for entertainment voluntarily are dropping. 

No, this doesn't mean spending 100 hours on a video game makes it a "complex carb" type of entertainment. That's ridiculous. All the 100 hours on a video game means, is that you have your crack supply set to last 100 hours. 

And this dovetails into my 3rd point:

3) Children, as they grow up are being programmed by social media and education systems to not want to read and rely on short form communication. The proof being that kids these days can't form entire sentences and proper grammer, hardly comment on social media and get anxiety when they need to have a voice conversation. Raising better children is a root product to greater success for those kids. 

There are probably more points. 

One would be that because the general public's voices are being censored, and that big Legacy Media has basically been co-opted by special interest groups, especially in the West, people are vocally and purposefully pushing back on #1 by voting for what they approve of with their dollars, which is the only recourse they have left, although you can look for that option to disappear soon as many currencies becomes digital and how you choose to spend your money also becomes more limited. 

In short, the problem is not just comics. It's society in general. 

The general public doesn't really find that walking to the local store, buying something to read, sitting down with a good book, in a quiet room, with no rush to go anywhere as something productive right now.

That's how all of us used to do it, right?

And I hope that the pendulum swings back, because that really is the root solution to many of the worlds problems IMO.

Please stop commenting on video games. Your arguments on them sound ridiculous. It's fine to know nothing on the subject, no one is saying you have to, but then don't include it in your arguments. You sound ridiculous. 

Image Comics is larger than ever, giving creators a voice, and letting them publish exactly what they want, how they want. How does that fit in with your argument? It doesn't. Your argument only works for Marvel and DC (if that). Move it to other companies and it crumbles. 

Please keep the politics out for gods sake. You shouldn't have to be told that. You've received enough warnings on it that you know when you're over the line, and to answer some of your points fairly would take us over the line. That's not fair play. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/3/2023 at 2:49 PM, Lightning55 said:

Regarding Point #1, that's conspiracy theory, in my opinion, or "just the way it is" (or has become,  deal with it)

Why would you go straight to a smear without showing ANY proof of your claim, except to try to discredit the source so you don't have to discuss the topic? That's a loser's attitude but understandable considering you've already told everyone to conform or die. 

I have already shown my work with immutable proof in many ways, and yet rather than try to dispute my longform work which is clearly there for anyone to do, you just threw out an insult with no other purpose than to smear the messenger. 

Either discredit the message using logic, or not. 

On 12/3/2023 at 2:49 PM, Lightning55 said:

As I said earlier, everything runs its course. Join in, or step aside, or get run over. Your choice. 

If people that believe what you espouse had their borders stormed by enemy forces, they'd be handing over their women and children using this philosophy. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

On 12/3/2023 at 1:44 PM, Amazeron said:

 

Brother, the children are fine. 

Yeah, no.