Adults, not kids, help comics business survive

[underthebigw]

If they were really interested in getting kids into comics they would have free reading programs set up with schools and would get these comics back into the mainstream. Without that, and a reintroduction at newstands it will always be supported by adults.

 

I doubt this would be successful if they were to use superhero comics for the program...

 

Jim

 

The worst part about this situation is that kids LOVE comics. They just have no way to get them. My kids love them, my friend's kids love them. All of them. Little Lulu, Archie, superheros. They love the characters, the associated merchandise, and the art form.

 

When I see this, I can't help but think that by making comics grow up to cater to certain demographics, the industry has left behind the one market that made comics a mainstay of American life. The irony here is that some great kids books are being published. DC's Looney Tunes titles are great, and the Lulu reprints are fantastic. My daughter tries to get a hold of every Archie digest she sees. Inevitably, if the industry doesn't make the material appealing to kids, it will lose the next decade's adults, as well.

 

There are a lot of great kids books published. And if a store doesn't carry them, it's their own short-sightedness. All 3 of my shops have had a reading area right near the front with spinner racks. Yes, I said it. Spinner Racks. Full of kids books... My third store shared an entrance with a Subway restaurant, and those spinner racks brought a lot of nervous mothers through the door. They expect to see certain things, and if they don't, many will bail. By having spinners with "Archie" and the like prominently displayed I got a lot of mothers and kids through the door.

 

Whether those random Archie, Looney Tunes, and Patrick The Wolf Boy customers turn into collectors... only time will tell. To be honest, I don't think they are any more likely than their friends at the skate park to wind up as future hoarders of CGC 9.4s. They both have an equal shot depending on how the winds blow.

 

But anything that gets kids reading is good. Period....

 

That's a great strategy. As long as parents, especially mothers, see comics as part of the realm of teen-age boys and (wrongly) somewhat maladjusted fan-boys, they aren't going to let kids go into shops by themselves or to cons.

 

The only thing I disagree with is your question about how many of kid readers become HG collectors. As far as I'm concerned--it doesn't matter. What matters is they love the material, the books they buy support the industry, and that 10-20 years later they come back to revisit their youth, by either becoming HG collectors or passing their love for the books on to their kids.

[BLAM_BLAM_BLAM-migration]

Soap Opera Love #1 - 3, Charlton 1983 - low print run

http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=14107

[underthebigw]

But, if anyone could, can you name anything that has survived the death of it's original medium

and stayed mainstream for any length of time?

 

I can't recall of anything right off hand...

 

One good example (if it exists) is if a radio story show left for another medium and has survived

until today. Did any show that was created first on radio make it to others? Because we pretty

much know that the radio serial is long gone...

 

I wonder...

 

 

 

I believe Dragnet did, as well. I'm pretty sure there are dozens of radio shows that made to TV and a couple dozen did fairly well.

 

"Gunsmoke" started out as a radio series.

[skybolt]

Every store should have a spinner rack full of kids books right by the front door.The great part about Archies and such is that they have an indefinite shelf life.Kids and parents don't care if its the current issue or if its six months old.

 

Exactly, I personally don't understand why 7-11's, retail, grocery, thrifty shops, dollar day, etc. stores don't purchase back-issues at a major discount and sell them at their stores. Heck, you can probably get a box full of 6 to 12 month old moderns from Ebay, comic stores, etc. for 25 cents each. If these stores turn around and sell the same books at 50 cents each, it might generate some interest. The adults can still spend $4 to get the latest issue if they want to and can afford it.

 

As a 10-year old I would've much rather owned 5 to 6 Marvel books that were a year old instead of a new one valued at cover price. Heck, before I discovered my LCS at the age of 20, most of the books I purchased were about 4 months old anyway (but still valued at cover price).

 

I doubt if I'd ever been a comic book collector if I didn't spend that 20 minutes each week looking through some comics at Zayre or Venture while my mom was doing the shopping.

[kidcolt]

As long as the comics continue to be edgy, full of violence and sexual explicit material the kids will stay away.

 

 

Adults, not kids, help comics business survive

 

The comics business has learned to survive and grow by appealing to adults instead of kids. And that has opened the door to increasingly mature and edgy material, some of it within famously mainstream comics.

 

[1Cool]

My question is - how many of us got our first comic at a comic shop?? I got mine at the grocery store. I can't imagine my Mom taking me to a comic shop where "they sell drugs" in order to buy comics as a kid. I don't know if they really did sell drugs (they never offered me any:( but you can't expect kids to go to stores and parants don't want to bring a kid to a store that specializes in valuable collectibles. To get kids to read - the schools and the grocery stores must be brought back into the mix. Maybe with the kids then the kid advertisers will jump on and the kid friendly books will be cheap compared with the "adult" comics. My 3 years old loves Dora books and will read a kid comic every now and then but a Dora comic would go over well in our house.

[Lazyboy]

As long as the comics continue to be edgy, full of violence and sexual explicit material the kids will stay away.

 

 

Adults, not kids, help comics business survive

 

The comics business has learned to survive and grow by appealing to adults instead of kids. And that has opened the door to increasingly mature and edgy material, some of it within famously mainstream comics.

 

 

Don't know very many kids, do ya?

[sterlingcomics]

As long as the comics continue to be edgy, full of violence and sexual explicit material the kids will stay away.

 

I wish we could all go back to a more innocent time in terms of comic content...but pop culture typically reflects our times...

[lighthouse]

As long as the comics continue to be edgy, full of violence and sexual explicit material the kids will stay away.

 

I wish we could all go back to a more innocent time in terms of comic content...but pop culture typically reflects our times...

 

Frankly, even as a dealer I would not wish to go back.

 

Today I have options at every end of the spectrum as far as maturity of content. There are titles written for the under-5 set, there are titles that most 30-year-olds are not prepared to handle. A store owner that knows their product can make recommendations for just about any possible customer, whether they are interested in stories about a young boy and his dog or stories about drunken orgies involving vampires and werewolves.

 

The comic spectrum is nearly the same as the cable tv spectrum. With no children in my house, I can choose to watch shows like Rome and Deadwood, replete with graphic sex and violence. Those with youngsters in the living room can choose from the biggest variety of kid-friendly fare ever available. Comic shops that order from Cold Cut (instead of just Diamond) can fill their stores with more variety than most of us dreamed of as kids. Would you really want to go back to the days when DC told Marvel they were only allowed to publish 8 titles a month?

 

The fact that shops do not carry the wide variety of content is the fault of those shops. Period.

 

 

(and frankly this whole discussion is convincing me I need to hurry up and get my fixtures out of storage and hang out my shingle once again... )

[drice6900]

Every store should have a spinner rack full of kids books right by the front door.The great part about Archies and such is that they have an indefinite shelf life.Kids and parents don't care if its the current issue or if its six months old.

 

Exactly, I personally don't understand why 7-11's, retail, grocery, thrifty shops, dollar day, etc. stores don't purchase back-issues at a major discount and sell them at their stores. Heck, you can probably get a box full of 6 to 12 month old moderns from Ebay, comic stores, etc. for 25 cents each. If these stores turn around and sell the same books at 50 cents each, it might generate some interest. The adults can still spend $4 to get the latest issue if they want to and can afford it.

 

As a 10-year old I would've much rather owned 5 to 6 Marvel books that were a year old instead of a new one valued at cover price. Heck, before I discovered my LCS at the age of 20, most of the books I purchased were about 4 months old anyway (but still valued at cover price).

 

I doubt if I'd ever been a comic book collector if I didn't spend that 20 minutes each week looking through some comics at Zayre or Venture while my mom was doing the shopping.

 

Considering the premium placed on floor/shelf space at most markets/shops, I doubt this would happen. Maybe they would do it at a privately owned small shop where the owner was into comics, but not a big name chain like 7-11. It is hard enough getting new books in each month...

 

No one has really talked about it, but I place much of the blame on the current state of comics on Diamond and their distribution monopoly.

[awe4one]

Not all collectors are fueled by nostalgia...

 

I agree with you for readers of new product...but I'd argue that nostagia is key when talking about back issue collecting.

 

Jim

[awe4one]

Soap Operas are still around and they were started with Radio.

 

But they won't be around for long based on the current dwindling viewership. In fact, there was a recent national syndicated article talking about what the Networks are going to replace them with...

 

Jim

[shadroch]

That goes without saying..The very system that saved comics in the 70s is now strangling it.What the industry needs is another Phil Seuling to come along and attempt the impossible,but Geppi would never allow it to happen.

[awe4one]

No one has really talked about it, but I place much of the blame on the current state of comics on Diamond and their distribution monopoly.

 

It not entirely Diamond's fault...it's the fault of the Direct Market system itself. And you really can't blame that completely because it was implemented due to changing magazine distribution, crowded shelf space, and less bang for a comic's dollar on the newsstands...

 

It's was an evolving process to get where we are now that had many contributing factors along the way...

 

Jim

[mikephoen]

Now more than ever - comic books need new younger blood

if this hobby is going to have any future...

 

 

 

Strangely enough, I disagree with that statement...

 

I don't think it matters at what age someone discovers comics. Yes, new blood (and the new money that comes with it) is important. But I had more "power subs" (the people with more than 30 titles on their monthly pull) at my shop who started reading comics over the age of 17 than I had who started reading as young kids...

 

The profile for the new voracious comic reader today is someone who is introduced to comics at an age where they can afford to be buying. It is much, much easier to take a random 22-year-old from zero comics purchased to 500 books a year than it is to get parents of a 10-year-old to purchase 500 books a year for their child...

 

I can't tell you the number of collectors I have had at my shops who got their start after the age of 18, reading an SO's copy of Sandman or Preacher and then branched out into super-hero comics while chasing good writing (or less often, good art).

 

The pattern of:

 

I like Kevin Smith movies...

I hear Kevin Smith wrote some comics...

I finished reading Smith's runs on Daredevil and Green Arrow in TPB form...

I get recommendations from that store of other things I might like...

I am reading comics each month...

 

is more common than the folks here would believe.

 

 

Done right, the upcoming HBO "Preacher" series is likely to do more for comic store sales than the Spidey and X-Men movies combined... The success of the Marvel movies has not translated into big increases in readership. But the casual HBO viewer who starts with Preacher, and then is convinced by friends to check out "Y" or "Fables" or "Walking Dead" is a likely candidate to start reading "mainstream" comics...

 

Even among our group of forumites, there are many people here who do not fit the common misconception of "read comics at age 7, now spending big bucks on buying back my youth"....

 

I havent read the whole thread yet (on my way to the hockey game in a couple seconds), but I doubt anyone has hit the nail on the head any better than this. Excellent points.

[codfish]

This article is not news. I have known it and said it for years. I have even fought with people saying that comics are a dying art form. I think it was Jim that struck upon a big part of it .... availability. Price is another factor parents have big issues with giving kids money for comics. Content does play a factor but I really think there are many other factors that stop comics from leaving the shelves in a kid's hand. Comics have not had a good image with parents even when the content is clean. I doubt the industry could clean up the image enough to convince the majority of the world out there that it is a decent form of entertainment for all ages.

[shadroch]

This is not a comics only related issue.

A friend owns a hobby shop on Long Island and has worked it since he was in his teens.His average customer is pushing 40 these days,with very few kids interested. I recently shopped at a Toy Soldier store,and they had a sign saying unaccompanied minors were not permitted in the store.

[underthebigw]

This is not a comics only related issue.

A friend owns a hobby shop on Long Island and has worked it since he was in his teens.His average customer is pushing 40 these days,with very few kids interested. I recently shopped at a Toy Soldier store,and they had a sign saying unaccompanied minors were not permitted in the store.

 

Definitely not just related to comics--the toy industry struggles with the same problem of age compression, or the view that they have an increasingly small window of opportunity to interest kids in toys, before the move on to video games. Again, while there's an element of truth, I think some of this is not having found a way to deal with a new form of competition.

 

And, as far as comics go--it amazes me that publishers of other magazines fight tooth and nail to get rack space in drugstores, groceries, etc., even if it is not economical. The realize the need to keep their publications in front of readers, even at a loss, and that this will hopefully lead to subscribers, loyal readers, etc. As far as I know, Archie is the only comic publisher who has attempted this.

[Sid]

Someone suggesting getting comic books as "e-books" to solve this issue, and I strongly disagree.

[testinadical-migration]

As long as the comics continue to be edgy, full of violence and sexual explicit material the kids will stay away.

 

I wish we could all go back to a more innocent time in terms of comic content...but pop culture typically reflects our times...

 

Frankly, even as a dealer I would not wish to go back.

 

Today I have options at every end of the spectrum as far as maturity of content. There are titles written for the under-5 set, there are titles that most 30-year-olds are not prepared to handle. A store owner that knows their product can make recommendations for just about any possible customer, whether they are interested in stories about a young boy and his dog or stories about drunken orgies involving vampires and werewolves.

 

The comic spectrum is nearly the same as the cable tv spectrum. With no children in my house, I can choose to watch shows like Rome and Deadwood, replete with graphic sex and violence. Those with youngsters in the living room can choose from the biggest variety of kid-friendly fare ever available. Comic shops that order from Cold Cut (instead of just Diamond) can fill their stores with more variety than most of us dreamed of as kids. Would you really want to go back to the days when DC told Marvel they were only allowed to publish 8 titles a month?

 

The fact that shops do not carry the wide variety of content is the fault of those shops. Period.

 

 

(and frankly this whole discussion is convincing me I need to hurry up and get my fixtures out of storage and hang out my shingle once again... )