The comic book industry constantly changes and evolves. It's seen its share of massive booms and incredible busts. Now, Disney and Warner Brothers are trying to guide its course. Will they be successful or are they steering the ship into the maw of a hungering seabeast?
With all of the feature film success being enjoyed by both of these companies with this summer's blockbuster releases of THE AVENGERS and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, they have each taken the reins of their publishing arms with more confidence than we've seen in years. Marvel's big event focuses on their main movie franchises, the X-Men and The Avengers. Fresh off their Warner-mandated corporate reorganization and rebranding, DC Entertainment is following suit by centering their summer event on one of their big films from recent years.
The focus on movie properties may attract new readers from the world of film, but the comic book industry has yet to see any evidence of that happening. Most months, nothing sells more than 100,000 copies. It's obvious to everyone except those running Marvel and DC that older readers are finally reaching their breaking points, after building up incredible tolerances to the marketing antics of the big two, and getting tired of reading the same Spider-Man storylines and leaving in droves.
My prediction is that this vicious circle will continue and lead to an industry in its most dire of straights. Marvel and DC will continue to lose readers and push movie properties in efforts to get them back until they no longer have enough readers to stay profitable.
From the ashes, a new crop of independent creations will rise to dominance. The beginnings of this can be seen by going on Twitter. It seems everyone has his or her own web comic creation. And, many of them are very popular, but still completely foreign to the vast majority of the regular comics readership.
Most people who read web comics are women who have never read a traditional print comic book, but plan their whole year around dressing up in cosplay gear and going to Dragon Con. These are the mythological "new readers" whose tale turned comic book editors into raving lunatics in the eyes of many over recent years. Bigfoot does exist, but can she be captured?
If there's anything we know about Bigfoot, it's that he's incredibly elusive. Catching her would take masterful skill. This assertion is evinced by the fact that it still has yet to be done. The same goes for capturing this new audience of web comics readers and getting it to buy traditional comic books. To do this, it will take great effort at the very least from the big two publishers.
Marvel and DC will need to change their publishing line-ups drastically to have any chance at actually appealing to the readers of web comics. Superheroes, at least in their current forms, will have to be shelved in favor of importing the ideas from the web into comic book form.
This importation of web ideas will lead to something very exciting that should have happened a very long time ago. Mainstream comics will foster completely new concepts. Each comic will be its own world. Each story will be a unique creation. The magic of comics will be unburdened to illuminate 1,000 new genres, and a new golden age will dawn.
Scott Amundson is the writer of KRAK GETS A JOB, a 24-page action comic book about a cyborg who falls in with the wrong crowd. Read it at http://www.reconditepictures.com/ - Your Source for New Ideas!
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