fujishig

I don't see how you can blame the direct market for taking comics out of newsstands. Certainly, that was a factor... when DC started printing Direct Market Baxter books on better paper, they created a situation where the newsstand was different from the comic book store (the newsstand comics got different stories for a year, then they started to reprint the direct market stuff, so they were behind by a bit). However, at that point, IIRC, the cost of printing was going sky high and to justify upping the price, they upped the quality/content. Also, as a I said before, the newsstand stuff was all returnable. I'm not sure if they left the newsstands or got kicked out due to costs, then dwindling interest. Like I said, the only reason Archie is still at the checkout line is supposedly because of the sweet deal they signed long ago.

The other big event was the almost total annihilation of the small distributor. I'm not sure if it was inevitable anyway, but when Marvel created their own distributor, DC reacted by signing exclusively with Diamond, which cascaded down. The smaller mom and pop type places could no longer meet the minimum of the big distributor, and gave up comic books... or that was always what I thought, feel free to correct me.

The comic book companies latched on to the collector mentality, catered to it and magnified it, and never really though about the bubble bursting. You can't really absolve them of blame, they helped create that scenario with the multiple foil covers, polybagged comics with cards, variant covers, etc. They never really thought about what would happen when people stopped buying multiple copies of every comic thinking it would appreciate. It's like the housing bubble, both the lenders and the borrowers deserve some of the blame.

And who was the top level exec who stated that "comic book reader cycle" thing? I don't remember, anyone know?

madcougar

I'm not disagreeing with you, but in the end the comic book companies are out to make a buck. They certainly didn't HELP, but in the end they were pumping out product that the speculators ate up. If you see Marvel making a killing with this crap, what do you do if you're DC and vice verse? You're not going to leave money on the table are you? Plus remember these folks answer to stockholders.

I'm honestly not sure where I read the comic book reader cycle, but I remember thinking to myself "So that's why this crap keeps repeating!"

Josh-da-man

The newsstand market had already started collapsing by the time that the direct market was created.

Also keep in mind that the direct market led to the rise of independent publishers like Dark Horse, Comico, First, etc.

Young kids stopped buying comics because, by the time the 80s came around, they had more options available for entertainment like video games, collecting Star Wars/GI Joe/Transformers toys, watching cable TV, etc. And these things replaced comic books for a generation of kids.

The direct market was pretty much fucked over by Marvel in the mid-90s when they bought out Heroes World and attempted to self-distribute. They killed one major distributor and left Diamond a monopoly.

stingermck

Not a reboot?

fujishig

Weren't they "holding the line at 2.99" or something? 3.99 for JL? Also, I know this is an entirely different situation, but polybags? Are there alternate covers for those too (since they have to have a different price anyway).

I'm not sure I'd pay the extra buck for the digital download.

brayzie

Yeah, I always heard that the creation of the Direct Market was in response to the declining comic book market.

I think what really prevented the comic industry from becoming even more mainstream was the hysteria in the 50s generated from Fredrick Wertham's SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT book. Before that you had more variety on the spinner rack with crime, horror, and romance books, in addition to the superhero titles. When the code took effect, it further cemented the public's idea that comics were just for kids.

Either way though, I don't think the current decline in sales is just because of the Direct Market, ghetto comic shops, or repetitive material. The print medium, particularly comics and magazines, are having an incredibly difficult time competing with the internet (websites, blogs, etc), iPhones, portable video games, portable dvd/tv's, etc.

Why buy Detective Comics when you can watch Batman: Brave and the Bold for free?

fujishig

Wow, Seduction of the Innocent, I didn't think anyone would go that far back. I obviously wasn't around at the time, but weren't the other titles either romance or pulp or horror, which was also rather juvenile? It certainly focused comic books on superheroes which perhaps further cemented the medium into as kid's fantasy fare, but were there more adults reading comics then?

Price is the key there, though. The reason it can't compete with tv and internet and portable video games and the like is it's just not the same bang for the buck, where the buck is sometimes free. Certainly, 2.99 and 3.99 even for a gorgeously illustrated and well written 32 page comic is a lot of money when you consider the return on investment, and then you have the fact that even the non gorgeously illustrated and well written ones are the same price, and you can't tell jack from the cover anymore.

As I said before, this move is probably completely losing me, at least as a monthly comic buyer (though they will get me with graphic novels and maybe even downloads). But it is a bold move, and removing obtuse continuity and trying to reach out to new readers is probably a step in the right direction. By not just doing a separate Ultimates universe, they are basically saying that this is do or die... I'm certainly not coming back to monthlies even if they revert. The question is, has continuity been the main obstacle? Are there those who are just clamoring for digital downloads who don't currently collect comics? I'd love to see how those Comicology 99 cents sales do, and whether even lowering the price has had an impact on people checking comics out by impulse. They obviously expect the current comic fans to contribute... no new reader is buying 52 new #1s, and some may even be confused by all the titles.

Giantrobo

Wow, so Captain Atom is no longer the scourge of the DC Universe from a couple years ago?

PhantomStranger

That is the best news I have heard all day about the reboot, if true. Not because I have any desire outside of a what-if to see Superman and Wonder Woman together, but that radical of a move implies either the reboot is temporary or will ultimately end up as its own continuity like the Ultimate universe at Marvel. From what I have heard, Superman will be single again and not yet married to Lois Lane in the new universe. There is no way DC would stick for long with those two not romantically together.
The pricing for a single issue is a major barrier for new customers, particularly kids. Years ago you could pick up at least several issues with a typical allowance. Most kids could afford to follow the one character they really liked in one, or at most, two monthly issues. If you like Batman as a kid today and want to buy all the monthly comics that feature him, you would be talking about hundreds of dollars. That is a recipe for failure and a shrinking base of comic book fans.

The industry really needs to figure something fundamentally out about page count and format if it wants to hang around. The value proposition is just not there because the comic book market has shrunk. Publishers have to continually raise prices over the pace of inflation to counteract the smaller buying audience.

Sonny Corinthos

This the kind of crap that got me out of buying comic books in the 90's.

brayzie

This reminds me of the proposed All-Star lineup. It was supposed to bring casual readers back, as well as bring in new readers who weren't familiar with heavy continuity but only the basics.

Problem was that it catered to artists who couldn't meet monthly deadlines, so they made the line bi-monthly.

All-Star Superman was beautifully drawn and well written, but even with a bi-monthly schedule, it was still plagued by delays.

All-Star Batman was beautifully drawn, but came out bi-yearly, the writing was horrible, and one issue had to be recalled because the writer put actual swear words in the comic.

All-Star Wonder Woman was supposed to come out but never did.

brayzie

I thought so too, but I read an article that claimed a substantial amount of adults were buying crime and horror comics back then. If true, maybe the American comic industry would have been more like the Japanese manga industry.

It's not really a deal when 3.99 buys you PART 2 of a 35 PART STORY, when for $1 you can't rent a movie.

But how can they make it any cheaper? Go back to newsprint? Hire less experienced, but cheaper talent?

Comics aren't really a good impulse buy anymore.

boredsilly

I'm game for this. DC has been dreadfully boring to me for the last 5 years, so a shakeup can only improve things from my perspective.

Travis McClain

I'm a little late to this thread and Hokeyboy has already covered much of what I would have said but I want to point out that it does no good for there to be a Dark Horse Comics in business today if their product is known only to the fans who are already accustomed to shopping at their LCS. For instance:

I was born in December 1978, so I was a kid during the 80s. Want to know what got me into comic books? Marvel's run of G.I. Joe and Transformers, which I could find at gas stations, pharmacies and grocers here in my small town. I immediately recognized that they were more sophisticated than the animated series, and I was instantly hooked on the more mature dialog. I credit Larry Hama far more than any teacher I had for my vocabulary. At seven I found out that a dirge is a mournful song, because I wanted to know what the hell that Decepticon's name meant.

From those two series I became conscious of other comics. I began to take notice of the other titles on sale. I saw ads for comics in the issues I did buy, and I read about back issues and yet other comics through the letters columns and editorials. This awareness led me to being curious about the comics I read about that weren't being sold through the mass market.

Simply put, without those comics available to me in my small town at mass retailers I may never have taken notice of comic books.

Let's not forget that Marvel's ill-timed acquisition of Fleer (just in time for the MLB strike of 1994) played a key role in urging them to pursue such a risky business scheme in the first place. I wouldn't have recommended that they create a multimedia empire just to insulate it, but they didn't ask me.

Anyway, as for DC's planned relaunch, I'm not terribly interested. I was a regular reader of all the Batman, Superman and Green Lantern books in the 90s, and when "Zero Hour" came out, I read all the pertinent #0s and the mini-series and then I bailed on Superman entirely and dropped my Bat-reading to Legends of the Dark Knight and whatever incarnation of The Batman Adventures was active at the time (I believe it was Batman & Robin Adventures). I only kept up with those because they were self-contained series, and it wasn't too long until I stopped keeping up with those, too. I don't see this as a particularly attractive jumping-on point, but maybe others will.

Ultimately, the fate of the industry lies in its willingness to be innovative. There are lots of talented writers and artists out there, but it seems that few have been given the chance to really do anything interesting with the characters they don't personally own. Gail Simone's work has cultivated a devoted following (noted elsewhere in this very thread, for instance), but the standard has really been to just rotate talent from one book to the next, and then to disregard the most immediate predecessor's run through a bold new declaration that will, of course, itself be subsequently disavowed or undone by the next creative team.

Say what you will about Archie being a square, but readers of those comics know what they're going to get from month to month. It may not be particularly dramatic material, but Archie has never aspired to be a heavy hitter. It's a modest, lighthearted series that has stayed focused for decades and even cultivated some longterm spin-offs. There's something to be said for that kind of consistency.

Also, I think it's high time that DC and Marvel both began to consider adopting a publication scheme focused on mini-series rather than ongoing titles. We've seen cable TV shows move toward 13 episode seasons that allow more flexibility with production and more concise storytelling throughout each season that tends to keep viewers engaged. Dark Horse was built on mini-series. And if DC is in fact committed to distancing themselves from their previous numbering system, then I have to ask what the point of committing themselves to the ongoing format even is. I say let each story arc be its own mini-series, allowing readers to more clearly identify what they're buying.

I don't want to guess if I pick up a random issue of Green Lantern next month whether I should have read three different other GL spin-off issues first, and I shouldn't need a 22-issue checklist to tell me where a given issue fits into things. If, instead, that 22-issue story was metered out in a 22-issue limited series numbered #1-22, and united by a series-wide, unique title, I might be more tempted to make a commitment. It's hard to have a sense of fidelity to a story, when it requires me to buy multiple series; and it's hard to feel loyalty to a series, when a story requires me to be a polygamist.

boredsilly

Yeah, but those foil covers were pretty sweet when you were 12 years old.

All I know is, right or wrong, the direct market sucks. It serves existing fans well enough, but it's the total opposite of what is necessary for growth. Somebody had to step up and really start to push for digital because that is easily the best way to at least get tons of comics in the hands of people who would never go into a comic shop, or to the trade section at a book store.

flansered

I think that would help. Going back to newsprint could make the books cheaper, and possibly more enticing to people that would make an impulsive buy. Most people would rather drop $2 on something that they might be curious about than $4.

Navinabob

The current speculation is that this will just be a new "event" catered around the Flash where he crosses over to this new universe, then will slowly start to figure out that things are not feeling right. After he crosses back that universe will be their version of the Ultimate brand and things will go back to the way they were.

Travis McClain

I liked some of them. Batman #500 comes to mind, as well as Legends of the Dark Knight #50 and The Amazing Spider-Man #300. But even at 12 I resented the frequency of foil covers. It wasn't the covers that I had a problem with, but rather the blatant point of those covers.

Just to add to this, imagine if you couldn't buy movies or music at Walmart, Target or other such retailers but instead had to rely on a local video or record shop. It's great for specific items to be exclusive, but not an entire industry.

JasonF

Because Downfall parody videos never get old ...



I agree with Hitler.

Wait .. what?

JasonF

The awesome thing about this news is the digital distibution stuff, because I think that really could be a game changer that makes comics available to those 12-year-old kids who, in our day, would have gotten into comics at the 7-11. I'm very pissy about the continuity changes, but I think the digitial distribution news could do great things for the industry.

(Imagine if you could buy comics via XBLA or PSN and read them on your TV?)

brayzie

Superman is super strong and can fly, yet they constantly keep retelling his origin, changing the status quo, etc.

I can't see how these digitial comics are going to bring in new readers. It's probably just going to the comic shops because a percentage of the regular Wednesday customers are just going to download them.

Kids who watch cartoons on their iPhones are not going to have the patience and attention span to download "pages."

I will say this, buying Astonishing X-Men, when it first came out, at 7-11 was a good experience. I didn't know they still sold comics there. Unfortanately it's rare when you could find quality titles at 7-11. Mostly it was various Star Wars books. Now you're lucky if they sell those speciality magazines featuring Spider-man or Green Lantern.

Travis McClain

Here's the thing, though: If motion comics, which add music, voices and even limited animation, haven't won over the young kids, what makes anyone think that digital comics are going to capture their attention?

Look at it this way: Let's say some kid gets curious about a digital comic book. He signs into iTunes, sees a promotion for the current issue of Green Lantern, decides to download it. How easy it is going to be for him to actually get caught up and even understand what the hell is going on? In September he can be there for the (next) beginning, but what about the kid who gets his first iPad for Christmas this year? He's already four issues behind, and that's assuming that GL's storyline is contained to a singular Green Lantern title.

Suppose, though, that kid does become interested in reading Green Lantern comics. Is he supposed to only read current digital comics? Is the hope that he'll go to his LCS and begin delving into back issues--whose content may be entirely meaningless in the current continuity? What if he lives in a community that doesn't even have a LCS?

Don't get me wrong: I think digital comics are worth trying. They're pretty easy to upload and distribute, and maybe they'll garner some attention. At the very least, I think they'd be fools not to at least try it.

But eventually someone in the industry is going to have to admit that the only way they can survive is to again reach out to mass retailers. It's no coincidence that cover prices have soared as the print runs have gotten smaller. Paper and shipping costs have risen, yes, but economies of scale should take care of the apparently escalating cost of writers and artists. The industry has effectively insulated itself from the public, relying way too much on the sale of movie rights to offset the effects of their short-sighted withdrawal from the marketplace.

When Batman opened in 1989, it led to a boon for the industry. Yet The Dark Knight, whose box office take eclipsed its Bat-predecessor, did not make an impact. Why? Because kids who were oblivious to comic books before still weren't exposed to them. My first Batman comic book was Detective Comics #603, which I bought at a gas station after having seen Batman. I had, to that point, not set foot in a comic book shop in my entire life. The Dark Knight audience never even had that opportunity.

It may have made some money had there been readily available digital comics in 2008, but the thing is you still have to actively go looking for those online. There's no equivalent to placing a spindle of comics next to a checkout register and letting the covers call for attention from people in a store who may not have even been thinking about comic books when they walked in and began shopping.

brayzie

Same for me, except it was #602, it was in a 7-11, and I almost didn't find it becuase I was looking for "BATMAN," and not something called "Detective Comics."

One more thing I noticed. Companies usually use primary colors to catch kids attention to products. That's why superheroes are so brightly colored.

When I look at the comic rack at Borders, Archie and those kids comics stick out, but the Marvel/DC stuff looks kind of the same. Darky, muddy painted covers, and they all look very mature in content.

Travis McClain

To wit, here's the cover to 'Tec #603:

The building has the muddy look you cite in current covers, but Batman is prominent (and blue), and Etrigan is vibrant and in the center of the cover. This is the cover that caught my eye, and like you I had no idea what the hell Detective Comics was. I was afraid it was just a guest appearance by Batman, but I took a chance on it and quickly discovered that it was, in fact, a Batman comic series.

kgrogers1979

I started reading comics around the same time. I started with Batman #442.



It was late 1989, and I was 10 years old at the time. I had not yet seen the Batman movie, but I loved watching reruns of the old Adam West show.

There wasn't a local comic store in my town (the first didn't open until 1991), and I had never even looked at a comic before. I was at the grocery store looking at video game magazines when the Robin cover caught me eye. I bought it and read through it cover to cover twice that same day. Even though it was actually the fifth and final part of the "A Lonely Place of Dying" story arc and I hadn't read the first four parts, I still loved every minute of it. It boggled my 10 year old mind how drastically different the comic was from the Adam West show. The language and violence and seeing Dick as Nightwing and reading about a second Robin being brutally killed by Joker amazed me. That was the beginning of my comic addiction.