Tuesday
Feb212012
Discussion: What is Wrong with Comics?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 Filed in Discussions 
Following a heated week of comic industry behind the sceen reveals, Brian and Adam, dragging Shaka along, embark on a journey to discuss just about everything wrong with the world… of comics.
Runtime 1 hour 35 minutes 16 seconds
Reader Comments (6)
Great show! I actually agree with both Adam and Brian on a lot of the topics they discussed. I agree with Adam that nowadays no one wants to try anything new. One thing wrong with the industry that I notice is that most people seem to treat the small press as the red-headed step child of comics. At every convention I get a table at I'm treated more like the information booth than an artist table, not to mention the snickering and jokes I overhear from "big name" creators talking about small press creators.
The main problem with Marvel and DC's thinking is that they are companies run by businessmen, not comic fans. They care more about numbers and stock prices than they do quality comics. After all, Marvel is owned by the soulless corporate monster known as Disney.
Great show guys.
I was particularly interested in the digital comics discussion. Sadly, I have to agree that digital is the future. I really wish it wasn't, becuase I love the feel of a book in my hands, but I feel most people don't enjoy coming out every week when they can buy in their underwear.
Also, speaking as a comic reader who began with the New 52, I have not really had the tendency to view non-DC or Marvel books as inferior in any way. The only difference is that Marvel/DC have heroes who are known outside of the comic reading culture.
BTW, in my eyes, Wonder Woman is a heavyweight character. The only reason she isn't viewed that way is because she is a woman. It's a male dominated industry, both creatively and consumed. Most men can't stand to have their wife make more money or they view woman as objects (much like 90% of comics with mispreportionate females), of course they can't stand a strong female lead like Wonder Woman. </rant>
You know, I was thinking more about the idea that WW is a mid-carder. She's not necessarily a mid-carder. She is a Diva and by association she is a mid-carder because that is the division she is in.
Well, this will be a very long comment. I am in pretty strong agreement with the great majority of the points made in this episode, especially some made by Brian. I think the number one problem with comics is comics fans. Even the fact that the people whom comic book companies service are called “fans” instead of “readers” is quite telling. A reader will tend to be discerning and analytical about a product while a fan is a person who will throw their money after the object of their affectation regardless of quality or content. While fandom may have started off quite innocently with a few shut ins who liked Spiderman, it has evolved into an all too often ugly, angry, misanthropic den of shitty vipers. I can’t help but feel that a great majority of mainstream superhero books are only being manufactured with this (sadly) bedrock foundation of readership in mind. The companies can count on these people’s money because these guys have made liking Batman their entire identity. And, worse, these mainstay readers don’t really care how good or bad a book is as long as it’s “awesome”. Have a look at a common modern superhero book and ask yourself what emotive state the page is trying to convey. More often than not you might see a ridiculous splash or two page spread with panels shaped like shrapnel and a noxious assault of over effect laden coloring exploding from every available edge. Try to even find a focal point in that shit, much less a story. All it wants to say is “This is awesome.” And that’s all a bunch of superhero readers want. Throw in some titties and sliver of spandex going up some top heavy, big haired bimbo’s ass and all the better. Awesome.
So how are new readers ever going to gravitate to that sort of garbage? Frankly, it’s custom made for dumb assholes my own age who came of age during the Clinton administration and who are now the driving force of comics readership. I was interested to hear Brian say as much, that there’s nothing for younger readers in mainstream comics. It’s all for us fat, angry 30-40 year olds. I almost never see teenagers in the comic shops I visit. Rarely do I see someone in their twenties who isn’t just there to look over the manga. I see a lot of jack offs in my own demographic though. Guys who pitched some major tents over that Image swimsuit issue back in ’92 and think Kevin Smith is the voice of their generation. And I guess that’s a trend. I remember reading comics in the Eighties that were little more than rehashing the glory days of mid-Sixties. They were still following those elemental plot points because that’s what sold the all time best. And now we’re here, where what sold the all time best was the all time worst. But, I don’t know if once the current crop of crappy fans fizzles finally out if there actually will be a new generation to pick up the pieces and forage on to something else. I kinda doubt it and, actually, that pleases me in a way because it may just be time for comics as we’ve known them to die off anyhow.
For real, why do we rarely get beyond this handful of tired archetypes drawn out by our grandparent’s generation? These things should be moribund but we keep hoisting them up as if they mean something beyond being a thin veil through which a massive corporation can none too delicately pick our pockets. I too am susceptible to nostalgia, I too had Underoos and metal lunch boxes and I feel connected to those characters of my childhood. But those imaginary gentlemen have been bought and sold many times over and have been horribly mangled in the process. I hear a lot of people talk openly about how much they hate the direction the industry has taken and how dissatisfied they are with the products they’re offered but they continue to read and, more importantly, continue to buy because they have a love affair with a certain character. Why are we so reluctant to give these characters up? Is there really any magic left in them? Isn’t it time to quit pouring money into the mouths of the very vermin that are destroying the things we love? Give these guys up. Quit caring about Batman and Spiderman and all the other mans. Let them die and allow comics to evolve into a new and better thing. Brian made points about comics being a business, about it being an industry. And it is, but it could be an artform if it could just shake loose the corpse that ties it to the meatball factory.
Anyway, lastly, I can’t completely agree with some of the talk about how it’s the creators own faults if they find themselves swindled by the industry. OK, sure, it’s capitalism, in all its nastiness, sure. But still, the comic book medium is and has been since its founding by mobsters and pornographers, one of the most underhanded and deceitful entertainment enterprises to ever grace the face of the Earth. While movie studios and recording industries have largely been reformed since the bad old days of the last century, the comics industry still takes the greatest of pride in royally fucking over their greatest talents. Do you see the greatest actors, the greatest musicians, the greatest directors living in any age you may choose existing as squalidly as our great cartoonists have lived? Somehow the companies have managed to keep all the rights, all the profits and all the glory for time in memorium. They manage this by being almost totally unreasonable in their assholishness. In what other industry does the machine drink so brazenly and drunkenly on the blood of the creators? Maybe you have a sense of how hard it is to make comics, or maybe you don’t. Comics are fucking hard, bros. It is an incredibly labor intensive task to make even a single page of the worst comic imaginable. The creators who make these things can easily work on them 80-90 hours a week and then are rewarded at the end with a salary comparable to an assistant manager position at a Burger King. With no benefits. They make 90% of the product and are rewarded with less than 2% of the sales. Any you can say “Fuck ‘em, they don’t gotta make comics. They could go take that job at the Burger King and shut the fuck up.” And they don’t, it’s true, that’s their choice. But that’s never going to change anything, the publishers got the fix in early on because, as I said, this industry was organized by mobsters and pornographers. They’re still operating like it’s 1938 and they’ll keep on keepin’ on unless we, the saps who buy their products, show some kind of objections.
I agree that the comic book industry is nearly dead. It’s just too spoiled and stupid to change at this point. And thank God, let it die. It makes me a little sad to think that very few people my niece and nephews’ ages will ever go in a shop and pick up a printed paper comic but you know, that’s me projecting, those kids are already way beyond that kind of thing and have their own mindless garbage to keep them busy. Maybe if the industry part can die, then the part of comics that is eternal, the artform part can flourish more openly. Small press creators, independent publishers, web comic weirdos and others are already working in the artform but largely outside the system. Comics as a medium has a lot of untapped potential and in the ensuing decades it will be realized more and more. Disengaging from the dying Deathstar of legacy superheroes and large publishers of bound material may be just the thing we need to reach the next stage.
I agree a lot with Henry's post. I've noticed that most of the complaining about the DC relaunch is done by people BUYING DC BOOKS! DC and Marvel aren't forcing you to buy their books, that's your choice. I myself an a beloved Batman fan, but I stopped reading Batman books when I was unhappy with the direction they were going. The best way to show DC that they're the morons they are is to simply don't buy their comics if you don't like them. There are plenty of good comics out there no one is picking up. Superheroes aren't the only genre in comics.
REALLY good comments guys. I think the discussion of what comics is vs what it should be or for that matter any artform vs the business of that artform is a never ending (but good) debate.
Interesting and perhaps difficult days are ahead for comics regardless of what side of the table you are on or what you buy.