Ten years ago, comic book writer and internet presence Warren Ellis wrote a series of articles titled “Come in Alone” on the Comic Book Resources website (later collected in a book form by AiT/Planet Lar). In these articles, Ellis addressed various problems within the comic book industry, interviewed writers and artists, promoted under the radar pop culture, and had moments of rage as he lashed out against all sorts of different people that he felt were damaging the comic book industry. In his fifth essay, published on New Year’s Eve of 1999, Ellis boldly states, “Comics don’t need saving.” He goes on to state that the general idea of how comics need to be saved is based in the presumption that the industry was in perfect form during the boom era at the beginning of the 90’s.
At the time that Ellis wrote that comics weren’t in need of saving, the industry was at one of its lowest points. The highest selling title for December 1999 was X-men #97 at 117,491 compared to three years previous when the highest selling title was Fantastic Four (vol. 2) #1 at 313,980. The reason for the high sales in the mid-90’s were due to the speculator market. People were paying high prices for “rare” comics and turning around to sell them for higher prices. Because of this, publishers started publishing more “collector’s edition” and “variant” comics to capitalize off of rampant fan speculation. Retailers bought comics in droves and once the supply of “rare” books outweighed the demand, it was the retailers that paid the price. Comic stores sprung up over night and seemed to go out of business the next day as this blip of financial success reverberated throughout the industry. Once retailers started going out of business, then publishers started getting stuck with left over product and then they started to feel the backlash.
Even though academia seems to have embraced the graphic novel as a unique art form worth study, this has done little to improve actual monthly sales of comic books as a whole. On March 15, 2010, the New York Times announced that they were introducing “three separate lists of the best-selling graphic books in the country: hardcover, softcover, and manga.” After stating that “comics have finally joined the mainstream.”
So, while Ellis was concerned that “saving the industry” could be misinterpreted as falling back towards the speculator market that nearly killed comics, what he was really calling for was a legitimization of the form. Ten years later, the form is soaring to new heights of respectability, and yet, sales have never been lower.
To further illustrate the state of the industry, consider the following chart:
The statics for this chart have been compiled from the Comics Chronicle website. The earliest information that they have is from September 1996. From there, the data on this chart is from September of each year up until 2010 where I chose to include the August data due to the September data not being available yet.
As we can see from the chart, from the late 90’s on into the early millennium were difficult times for comic books. There is a sharp spike in September 2003 due to a particularly successful partnering of Jeph Loeb and Jim lee on Batman, but the real peak is from 2006 when the Marvel Comics mini-series Civil War was in the middle of the storyline.
Out of curiosity and a little fear that the highest selling titles might be simply interpreted as fluke collector’s items rather than genuine interest in the medium as a whole, I decided to consider the total sales of the Top 10 comics for each September. The following chart further delves into comic sales by looking at the total sales of the Top 10 comic for each year:
When taking the Top 10 selling comics for each September of each year, we can see that the results, while similar, are not quite as drastic. What this should tell us is that while there are certainly some very high selling comics out there, there seems to be a more even distribution of sales across the board rather than on select top titles.
Both charts clearly show that the comic industry is in a very tough spot right now. On the Robot 6 blog at the Comic Book Resources website, Brigid Alverson declared August 2010 comic sales to be “Augustmageddon” due to the poor numbers. She went on to explain, “Comics sales were down 17% from August 2009, graphic novel sales were down 21%, and no individual monthly comic sold more than 100,000 copies.”
So, how does one “save” comics?
What is the end goal?
Looking at the success of Marvel’s Civil War, we can see that the storyline was one that was one that was much publicized in the mainstream media and due to the attention it received, sales increased. This increase in sales wasn’t due to a speculator market (though certainly, there was some speculation in terms of how much variant covers and first issues would be worth), but rather, it was due to a concentrated effort by all involved to get new readers into comic books. The problem with comic book sales lies within sustainability. People can be interested in comic books for a short period of time, but many of those new readers move on to other things once they have been satisfied by a particular story. Sustainability is only a very small part of the problem, however, and it’s not even the most difficult of problem to overcome.
The first hurdle to overcome in terms of saving comics is actually getting comics in the hands of readers. While the direct market system of distribution was once a very useful resource, it has outlived its usefulness and must evolve in order to expand.
From there, the promotion and advertisement of comic books has to change in order for potential readers to become familiar with new products and titles coming from various publishers. Currently, fan sites and word of mouth are the main tools of promotion when comic books are released and considering how poisonous fans can be towards their favorite titles on internet message boards, this form of promotion has to change as well.
Saving comics means to change the industry from the top down in order for comics to gain a larger audience. There isn’t one single group of people to blame for the state of the comic book industry today; everyone from distributors to fans and from publishers to retailers have a part in creating a fractured industry. It would take a concentrated effort by all parties involved to create positive and active change in order for this industry to not only survive, but to thrive in the current economy.
The best place to begin in terms of what is the overarching problem within the industry is to look at the distribution system because this is where all of the problems began.
The more I think about this topic, the more I think it is an incredibly complicated issue. For example, what state would the industry need to be in for it to be considered “saved”? Does it need to sustain the companies and talent that produce comics? What profit margin would be considered success? My wife and I were talking about this a week or two ago and we started wondering if the industry, either as a whole or individual publishers, may need to decide where to focus their energy. Perhaps the reach of distribution is too widespread. Perhaps the cost of distribution is too high. The industry may be faced with some tough, paradigm changing decisions, looking at digital distribution or alternative methods of publication. Don’t get me wrong, I would hate to see the disappearance of monthly titles and comic shops, but with the way the market is going, if companies want to make more and sell more than they are now, they may have to get extremely creative in their methods. We’ve seen DC attempt this in two different ways in the last couple of years, with the new graphic novels they are currently trying, and with the Wednesday Comics. Which leads me to wonder, do they still do Wednesday Comics?
It’s definitely a complex issue and you bring up a ton of issues that I hadn’t considered before. Damn.
To me, Saving Comics means working towards the destruction of stereotypes and barriers that prevent us from ascending to the mainstream. It means getting comics in the hands of people who would never have read them before.
Think of it this way – In 1965, Batman was on the verge of being cancelled because his sales were in the 300,000 range. 300,000 was considered poor sales back then and today those same numbers would be considered astronomical! Distribution has changed significantly though and it’s not enough to simply say “grocery stores need comics” because that didn’t work out before. Something else has to be done.
It’s a matter of increasing distribution so more people can get comics because specialty stores aren’t enough.
I admit that I’m happy to see that Borders still has a small place by the magazines for comics. I haven’t seen if Barnes and Noble still carries them. In some ways comics are comparable to magazines, and a bit cheaper considering some prices. I wonder if a type of comic magazine would be a good idea. When my wife and I were in Ireland a few years back I picked up an X-Men comic. What I thought was interesting was that it collected two issues of New X-Men (during Grant Morrison’s run) and one issue of Uncanny X-Men. Essentially, you got three issues for the price of two (so long as I’m doing my monetary conversions correctly). Distribution and price are, I think, intrinsically related. When comics are sold in book stores, they will be compared to the price of books or magazines, the latter two offering more content for one or two dollars more. To compete with other periodicals (which seem to also be seeing decreases in sales) comics may need to find ways to cut costs without sacrificing art and writing. Paper quality is a first thought. Since book stores get monthly titles a few weeks after specialty shops, perhaps there should be two print runs, a smaller run that goes to the comic shops on higher quality paper, and a second run that goes to other stores on lesser quality paper. Not knowing the industry, I’m not sure if it would make a huge difference in price, but this way you can still have your collector’s market and a casual market.
As for digital formats, I’m not really sure how the industry could utilize this, but I think whichever publisher can figure out a practical and reasonably priced way to do this may find it to be a boon. It may be too late in the evening for me to really work toward brainstorming this.
I think the biggest problem with buying comics is the fact that collecting single issues sucks. You rarely get a whole story and in the end it would be cheaper to buy a compilation of those issues, but not every title releases compilations of their particular series, and its even worse when they only release certain collections, or don’t number which volume is which.
I really love going into my local comic book store and buying my comics, and as much as I’m going to miss doing that, I really feel like digital comics are the way of the future. I hate reading comics on my computer as much as the next person, but if products similar to the iPad become cheaper (essentially something with a decent quality screen that is the size of two standard comic book pages), digital comics could take over the market. Especially when you think about the way the Kindle handles newspaper subscriptions. It automatically downloads that day’s newspaper the minute its released. Imagine waking up Wednesday morning with all your favorite comics already in your hand. That would be pretty amazing.
Although, Steven, your thought about comic periodicals is an interesting idea. What if major players in comic books came out with a Shonen Jump-esque publication the same way manga does. They could put a completion of that weeks comics, with much lower quality paper, and maybe even sacrificing color, to make a much cheaper sample issue. A company such as DC could put together similar titles, like Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman and Justice League of America, for example, and give casual readers several stories without the hefty price tag several comics a week can carry.
I personally don’t know what exactly will “save” comics, but I personally feel like the stories are as good as ever, they just don’t have the support base they used to. If the masses could realize that you don’t have to be a super-geek or a child to enjoy a comic book, that would solve the problem more then anything. Its much more of a PR issue for the industry as a whole.
Terry – “I personally don’t know what exactly will “save” comics, but I personally feel like the stories are as good as ever, they just don’t have the support base they used to. If the masses could realize that you don’t have to be a super-geek or a child to enjoy a comic book, that would solve the problem more then anything. Its much more of a PR issue for the industry as a whole.”
I COMPLETELY agree with you! There is definitely a PR problem, but I think that this is just one of the many problems that face comics. I plan on writing about this issue more and more as the blog goes on, so keep checking back. My next article on Saving Comics actually addresses the issue of digital comics and the one major problem with them which is getting the word out about them.
In short, comic shops have a very important function and that is to display things for people to buy. Customers browse and peruse the aisles and this gets them thinking about what they want to buy. A purely digital system would put the responsiblity of PR and getting the word out on fans and if you spend any time on internet message boards, you know that most fans aren’t too kind about any comics.
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I don’t believe comics need saving.
Comics as an art form is achieving greater legitimacy and being embraced by a younger generation who gravitate to the DIY nature of the form and are eager to post their work on the web. We are slowly finding more people using comics to tell unique kinds of stories with personal visions.
What this post seems to really be discussing is the direct market spandex comics set from the big two that have been choking the market for years and pushing away any potential for newcomers to cater to a shrinking market of fans who are getting louder even as they grow smaller.
Yeah, they’re dying.
But that’s not a form, it’s a genre. It’s certain type of distribution and a certain business approach.
Comics as an art form and means of creativity has rarely been stronger in North America.
Just sayin’.
Gorilla – I’m not sure what operational definition you’re using for comics. You wrote, “Comics as an art form is achieving greater legitimacy and being embraced by a younger generation” and while the first part is certainly true, I question your evidence of it being embraced by a younger generation. What do you mean by this?
Also, you state, “Comics as an art form and means of creativity has rarely been stronger in North America” again, I think I need some specifics in order to understand the argument that you are making. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’d like to know more.
The idea of the Saving Comics Project might naturally gravitate towards the spandex crowd, but I think it is larger than that. The main idea is that the comic industry simply cannot sustain itself commercially if it continues in the same way it has been for quite some time. This goes beyond simple genre like superheroes and looks at the business end of things. While the form itself probably can’t die (because how could one kill an entire art form?), the idea of comics as a business certainly can and will unless things are done differently. So, ultimately, it doesn’t matter how creative the “younger generation” is because the whole form will be commercially inviable if things don’t change.
Please refer to my article on the distribution of comics for more insight into the business end of things and to show that I talk about more than simply superhero books.
Furthermore, please refer to this paragraph at the end of the article,”Saving comics means to change the industry from the top down in order for comics to gain a larger audience. There isn’t one single group of people to blame for the state of the comic book industry today; everyone from distributors to fans and from publishers to retailers have a part in creating a fractured industry. It would take a concentrated effort by all parties involved to create positive and active change in order for this industry to not only survive, but to thrive in the current economy.” – while the immediate examples I made in the article are superhero-related, please don’t misunderstand that I only care about superhero books. The focus is on the industry itself and while I make references to superhero books, I do so because they are the only ones that make any real money.
But even if I did only care about superhero titles, is that not a worthy cause considering that the comic book industry makes nearly all of its money on superhero titles?
One last thing . . . the numbers don’t lie. You wrote, “Comics as an art form and means of creativity has rarely been stronger in North America.” If they really were, then sales would reflect this. I know my data is from August of last year, but it hasn’t gotten better. Sales for January featured the number one title being the death of the Human Torch selling over 100,000 which is good, but the number 2 title was Brightest Day selling at 70,000 copies.
Sales are dropping across the board. This is a fact. To say that comics don’t need saving is to ignore the numbers. I understand that you are equating the decline to superhero books, but if other genre books were as commercially viable, or if the industry didn’t need saving in some form, then other genre books would be selling well. Returning to the January chart, the first non-superhero title to make the list (if we don’t count Star Wars, and I never do) is American Vampire at #89 with 16,000 copies sold. That means that there were 88 titles before it that were superhero books meaning that the industry lives on superheroes for better or worse.
Does this mean that there should be an exploration into diverse genres? Probably. But to say that comics don’t need saving or that the only ones need saving are spandex superheroes is a foolish assumption with no hard, empirical evidence to back up the claim. While sequential art will never die, single issue comics of all genres will disappear no matter how “creative” they are and something must be done.
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