As an over 30-year veteran of the comic book industry, I’ve seen a lot of cycles. Lots of creators, trends, and comic books come and go. There has always been one thing that keeps comic books in America from rising to the levels that the medium has in Japan, France, and Italy. There is one factor that destroys the medium’s potential every single time we get even a slight mention outside of the comic book movie paradigm. And every time, this one factor cripples any hope of normies embracing the medium and realizing its full potential.
That factor is the collectible mentality of the publishers and creators.
Did you think I was going to blame the fans? Never blame the fans. Fans are not responsible for the mountains of Ponzi-scheme crap that clutters every struggling comic book store shortly before it closes. They are not responsible for creators doing the multi-covered, chromium encased turds dropped online. These people give us an opportunity, a chance, and their trust— And I am sickened by my fellow indie creators’ drive to just line their own pockets while blaming the big two for the state of the industry.
When Superman died and comics exploded, I was doing my TV show out of Philadelphia called The Comic Book Show on channel 65. We were interviewing big creators and small ones, plus entrepreneurs who dove into publishing because they saw an opportunity to make a bank. Much of this was very cynical. Publishers no one had heard of, with unknown talent, were launching comic book universes with heroes that were so derivative— They were fighting over certain names and adverbs because they had been so overused. (Maybe if they had tried to develop a completely original comic story rather than another superhero, they would not have had this problem.)
The big publishers and even the small ones were making bank. Comic book stores were springing up everywhere in the 90s, and even old-school sports card dealers were carrying comic books. Did any of the comic book creators use this as an opportunity to expand the fanbase? To reach millions of potential new fans with stories that had a broader appeal outside Spandex, monsters, and hot chicks? Nope.
What they did do was develop new and fancy ways to sell the same crap they were cranking out at an alarming rate. Chromium covers were developed at this time, paper stock was improved— One local comic book company announced that they would never print more than 100,000 copies of their issues in order to stabilize the price. Another one is the physical numbers of each individual comic book printed. Wizard magazine was still big, and fans would rush out to buy “hot” comics based on the tips and guidelines. They couldn’t wait to shove their purchases into a plastic bag and never read them again. Lots of fans bought two copies, a reading copy and a sell copy. This was encouraged and welcomed by publishers, creators, and store owners.
For a while, this worked. Everyone bought comics. Prior to the Death of Superman, it was hard to convince normies comics were worth much, but after that, you couldn’t convince them any comic was worthless. I went to a yard sale where the woman had a bunch of poor-condition 90s Image comics that were worthless, and she insisted the price was ten dollars each.
The Pyramid Scheme collapsed when fans started to walk back into the comic book store to sell their “investment comics” only to realize the store didn’t want to buy them. “But I sold them to you!” The ensuing panic caused a meltdown in the secondary market as the normies abandoned comics in droves in the mid-90s. Eight of the 20 or so comic book stores in my area closed down within two weeks, the bottom dropped out in prices and sales collapsed across the board.
And even after all that, most indie creators haven’t learned their lesson.
There is almost no difference between a collectible comic, pushed on fans because of a hot cover and not the story— Than a Funko, today’ Beanie Baby. Personality-based creators selling merch on YouTube make money, but few are building a readership. The enticement that you will somehow resell the comic and make money overshadows what little story concept is put into most indie comics.
The Weak Writing
Understand that comics, even in the 90s when they were pretty readable, were weak ass sauce. You could point to a few marginally bright spots, a few auteurs— But most follow the same predictable patterns: The Batman Knock-Off, Hot Girl and Monster, The Avengers Knock-Off, I-Really-Want-To-Be-Doing-Spiderman Comic— They might as well all be called Artist-Learning-To-Write-From-Reading-Other-Comics.
And the sad thing is, you could probably put most of the Image Comics in the latter category.
The craft of writing is just as difficult. Its process is multi-layered, and its practitioners have an even bigger struggle than artists. You can’t see it without reading. One glance at an artist’s portfolio and an editor can go, “You! You will draw Batman. Come to my office on Monday.” (I know this is the case because that’s how my late friend, Tommy Castillo, got his gig.) This will never happen to a writer. Reading takes time and thought.
And if the big two aren’t interested in hiring a writer with a track record and a resume that includes novels, articles, plays, screenplays and comics in multiple genres— Do you think the few random artists that hire writers in the indie scene are bothering? Judging by what pours out of crowdfunding and other indie places, I’d say no.
Most writers I know stay far away from comics now. Between the lackluster return on investment and the struggle just to put the comic together, there’s also the drama of hiring comic book artists with delusions of grandeur. Some artists are great professionals and understand the work vs. reward going into a project, but many have romantic delusions of living a carefree lifestyle on an Italian villa creating art pieces at their leisure. And some of them cannot handle the news that the crowdfunder failed or the orders won’t even cover the cost of the printer.
Unfortunately, the response of the industry, driven mostly by artist-creators and publishers, was to embrace collectible gimmicks. This allows creators to resell the same sad story with multiple covers. (Did you order Covers A, B, C or D?! A is the hot one!”) How about an unbelievable ripoff of having to order 50 copies of a comic just to get the “special” cover? Who’s reading a comic when you’re selling one copy for $300 on eBay and the “common” cover for a dollar just to get rid of it?
And the ultimate form of killing the industry is, of course, indie guys doing action figures. The toy market, which also has been sucked down this rabbit hole, now makes these “wonderful” boxes of clear plastic so you never have to open them!
This is killing the industry.
Oh, it makes money. I don’t deny that at all. But do the creators turn around and take that money to develop a consistent universe under a team of writers and editors? Do they use the cash they’re grabbing with both hands to finance riskier stories that aren’t normally superheroes but could open the industry to a wider normie audience?
You only have to look at the comic book industries in Japan, France, and Italy to see what works. Where are the phonebook-sized black and white collections in the U.S.? Where are the high-end Westerns (other than Ghost of the Badlands, of course) and Fantasy with rich design and deep stories in hardback?
The big 2 choked this industry on collectible garbage, and the indie guys just picked up the same torch and ran with it. You can blame the woketards all you want, but the problems in comic books run much deeper in America. What will be the point if you finally drive the Heather Antoses out of comics only to go right back to multiple covers, chromium specials, artificial scarcity, and all the same stupid gimmicks?
Story is king. The rest is all noise. Which way Western Creator? Which way?
(Tony DiGerolamo is a writer from South Jersey. Previously, he wrote The Simpsons for Bongo Comics and jokes for Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. He currently writes The Webcomic Factory, Super Frat and the novella series, The Pineys.)
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This is the kind of dumb money wasting autism that recently hit retro videogame collecting, too. Spend your money elsewhere, turbonerds. lol
Stellar article! Mandatory reading for anyone who is a Western/American comics fan.
Thanks!