Michael Deeley has been reading comics since he was 12 years old. His first book was an issue of Silver Surfer by Jim Starlin, leading him to see all comics as ideological conflicts with big-ass fight scenes. At the very least, he expects a comic to be entertaining in some fashion, which is why he thinks Secret Wars II is better than Dark Knight Strikes Back. He has never work in the comics field, but he does have a belligerent attitude and a lot of free time.
During his brief intervals in the real world, Michael looks for a paying job that should, (theoretically) lead to a better life involving more comics, privacy, and women.
He currently lives between Pittsburgh, PA, and the Pittsburgh International Airport, in a suburb so new, it only has one McDonalds.
“As I've said before, newsstands don't want us. We don't bring in enough profit for the space involved, which is why newsstands dumped comics – not the other way around, as many seem to think – in the first place.” -Steven Grant
First of all, I want to apologize for the lateness of my column last week. I had written it all on Monday night, 8/4, but neglected to attach it to the e-mail I send to editor Craig Lemon. I was in a rush as I was leaving the next morning to catch a flight to Detroit for a job interview. (Didn’t get it.) [And this week’s is entirely due to a deadly combination of the editor and AOL getting into a fight – Ed.]
Now for this week’s topic: getting comics outside of comics shops.
OK, let’s have a show of hands. How many people here bought their first comic at a comic book store? Right, now how many bought their first comic at a local grocery/drug store? That’s “bought”, not “read”. All right, that’s about everyone. It was the same for me too. I’d wager that almost everyone who reads comics first started buying them at a local supermarket or pharmacy, or some other store that has a “newsstand”. Such stores see far more customers than comic shops and have great potential to expose comics to new readers.
So where are they? Seriously, it’s getting harder to find comic books in non-comic shops. And the ones that do sell them have a pitifully small selection. So this week, I took a look around my local stores and made notes on which ones sold comics. Further, I noted what comics they sold and how recent they were.
No matter who sold comics, I noticed they all had one thing in common: name recognition. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and X-Men comics were common. So were ‘The Powerpuff Girls’, ‘Tomb Raider’, and ‘Justice League Adventures’. Archie comics were found everywhere. (I mean, EVERYWHERE!) Clearly, the managers of these stores selected the comic they felt customers would easily recognize and therefore buy. These retail outlets are concerned, first and foremost with selling as much product as they can as quickly as they can. Representing the wide variety of comics doesn’t concern them. They’re catering to customers, not collectors.
Which would explain the condition many of the books were in. A hard-core collector would be apoplectic to see so many folded and creased comics. Many stands had comics rolled up and wedged down into the shelf. I had to fight the urge to “rescue” these books, flatten them out and put them in order. Again, these stores do not cater to collectors; just customers.
Traditionally, the most common place to find comics is the supermarket. That’s where I first bought comics. In my neck of the woods, there are two major supermarket chains: Giant Eagle and Shop n Save. Giant Eagle is a more upscale suburban store, while Shop n Save emphasizes lower prices. As far as comics go, You’d be better off getting your monthly fix from Giant Eagle. They had a spinner rack in front of their newsstand section containing recent issues of ‘Superman’, ‘New X-Men’, and other popular titles. While Shop n Save has a much larger selection, it’s woefully out of date. They’ve had the same issues of ‘X-Treme X-Men’ on their shelves for nearly a year! If you missed an issue of ‘Adventures of Superman’, ‘Iron Man’, or ‘Green Lantern’ in the last six months, they probably still have it. By contrast, they seem to get new Archie comics every month.
I should point out that the comics selection is not uniform across all stores in the chain. Another Giant Eagle, this one located in Pittsburgh, does not sell comics at all. There are, however, several newsstands that do carry comics. But since the majority of American’s live outside major urban areas, I’ll focus on national chains and other stores found outside cities.
Looking around my local mall yielded two surprises. One was finding books from SLG sold at Hot Topic. If you’ve never seen it, Hot Topic sells clothes to teenagers who want to be “punk”, without all that rebellion, anger, politics, or legitimacy. Mostly they sell new products featuring cartoon characters, old and new. Their latest are the re-released Care Bears dolls. I’m serious. On a shelf next to new LP’s are individually bagged copies of ‘Lenore’, ‘Squee’, and ‘JTHM’. Hot Topic is probably selling these books because they appeal to their “goth” customers, but they could have just s easily not sold them at all. And ‘Lenore’ and ‘Squee’ are two of the funniest comics you could ever read. So many thanks to Hot Topic for exposing teens to two great titles that are often ignored, even among long-time comics fan. Now stop selling Ozzy and Strawberry Shortcake T-shirts in the same store!
The other surprise was ‘Shonen Jump’ being sold at Gamestop, a chain of used video game stores. To remind you, ‘Shonen Jump’ is a thick, monthly collection of Japanese manga, including ‘Dragon Ball Z’, ‘Yu-Gi-Oh’, and ‘Yu-Yu Hakusho’. Common sense tells you that there is a crossover between video game fans, manga readers, and Yu-Gi-Oh card players. But not all game players read comics. Now there’s a comics magazine featuring characters they like in new stories every month. And after dropping $30-$60 on a video game, $5 for a 200+ page comic looks like a fantastic deal. So some of them buy it, like it, and start looking for more. More manga, that is. Brand name recognition, low prices, and the right location are attracting new readers to manga. Not American comics.
The growing success of manga in the USA is beginning to worry me. Not only are manga romance comics attracting the young female readers American comics have ignored for years, but they are easily available in bookstores. Waldenbooks still has a decent selection of American comics and some TPBs. But when I walk into my local Walden’s, the first thing I see is a tall shelf filed with the latest manga releases. And the variety of stories is enough to attract any fan. In addition to romantic comedies like ‘Love Hina’, there’s ‘Day X’, the story of high school students plotting to blow up their empty school; ‘Clamp School Detectives’, a light hearted series about chivalrous grade-school boys; and sci-fi/fantasy series like ‘Scryed’ and ‘Ragnarok’. In short, Japanese comics cover a wide variety of genres and stories that aren’t found in mass media like movies and TV. American comics used to be that way. And if they’re going to thrive, they need to be again.
The entire American comics industry may have to reinvent itself; be known for more than just superheroes. It won’t be easy, but the publishers could be coming to the point of change of die. And for all their talk of being innovative, Marvel and DC are still reluctant to risk losing the few thousand loyal readers they have to attract possible millions more.
So how can American comics once again reach a mass audience? The growing shift to a graphic novel format is a step in the right direction. While $3.00 seems too much for a 20-page comic, people are more willing to pay $20 for an 80+ page collection of the same comic. The book format is easier to sell and market in stores. The drawback is it can’t be read as quickly as a comic book. A book requires an investment of time and energy, while a comic can be read and discarded in under 15 minutes. But even non-readers see comics as collectibles rather than entertainment, so the idea of comics being “disposable” has been forgotten. Besides, a TPB of 5 comics takes up less space than 5 individually bagged and boarded comics, and they’re easier to store.
Most importantly, American publishers can diversify their product. They can tell edgier, more thought provoking stories. They can be controversial, political, shocking, and just plain bizarre. DC already has material like that through Vertigo; it’s just not marketing it properly. Just imagine what DC could achieve if it spent all the effort at promoting the latest ‘Superman’ rehash on pushing ‘Transmetropolitan’ to the general public. These are very political times, and such works of political and social satire should go over like gangbusters. If DC ran ads on the WB saying, “Here’s the story of a drugged-out psychotic internet journalist in a world where the vice-president was grown in a vat and puppets have sex on children’s TV”, they’d sell through a dozen printings!
Comic book publishers want the same public perception as TV and movies: as a varied medium capable of high intellect, low comedy, and everything in between. The publishers are working out the form it should take. Now they need to provide the product. You’ve got the stage, boys, now let’s see some new acts.
Once again, I’ve gone off topic. I meant to talk only about how difficult it is to find the comics you want outside of comics shops, but that would belabor the obvious. Of course, one would think it was equally obvious that, in order to remain competitive, a publisher would produce many different kinds of stories for the many different audiences that exist. Guess not. Maybe some directors and CEO’s of non-comics companies should take a turn at the heads of Marvel and DC. I wonder what would happen if a book publisher ran the House of Ideas, or an editor from Time was named EIC of DC/Vertigo. I wonder what they’d do?
They’d probably make graphic novels for adults and comics for kids.
I watched the ‘Daredevil’ movie on DVD with director’s commentary. In my review of the movie, I said that director/co-writer Mark Steven Johnson’s love for the Daredevil character clouded his objectivity, thus resulting in a bad movie. In other words, he was so caught up filming “cool scenes” he forgot to see if the overall movie was any good. His commentary confirms this. Johnson goes on about the technical aspects of the film, such as camera angles, digital effects, and fight choreography. Frankly, if I hadn’t heard Johnson describe what he was trying to achieve with the film’s story, I never would have figured it out. (Actual quote: “I wanted to do a story in a post-9/11 world, where one man can make a difference.”)
An accidental moment of comedy came when I realize that Johnson had almost nothing to say about Ben Affleck’s performance. After heaping praises on Jennifer Garner, Michael-Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano, Colin Farrell, Joe (Foggy Nelson) Favreau, and even the little guy who played “Wesley”, the only good thing I heard him say about Affleck was, “I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing Daredevil.” That’s like saying you couldn’t see anyone but Josh Hartnett play Clark Kent.
I did enjoy the documentary feature, “The Art of Daredevil”. This 60-minute special has interviews with some of Daredevil’s most prominent creators. Included are Stan Lee, John Romita Sr. and Jr., Frank Miller, Gene Colan, Brian Michael Bendis, and Kevin Smith. I think this gives non-readers a rare glimpse into the “real world” of comics. You can hear the bitterness in John Romita’s voice when he talks about how the first pages he drew for ‘Daredevil’ were suddenly replaced by Jack Kirby’s work. Hearing Gene Colan talk about how he still has to work, even though his hands shake, is heart-breaking. If ACTOR, (A Credit to Our Roots, retirement fund for old comics artists), ever needed a living symbol for what they stand for, Gene Colan is it. Overall, the writers and artists featured come across as smart, energetic, thoughtful and well-spoken. (Except for Kevin Smith, of course). I think this could go a long way to putting a positive, mature face to the comics industry. Best of all, I got a look at a Gene Colan page showing Daredevil holding Howard the Duck! I MUST HAVE THAT PAGE! NAME YOUR PRICE, COLAN! I WILL TRADE MY KIDNEY FOR THAT ART!!
I paid $20 for ‘Daredevil’, and the store threw in the 1960’s ‘Batman’ movie for free. Overall, a good deal. I wouldn’t recommend paying more than $25 for ‘Daredevil’, unless you get a free movie too. It’s a nice rental if you’re a Daredevil fan and you’ve got a weekend to kill.
Being the 5th Wednesday of the month, there weren’t a lot of new comics on the stands. I only got two new books.
Beware the Creeper #4 -
Judith’s antics become more outrageous, and result in the death of a close friend. Frankly, I’m starting to regret buying this book. It’s just not as crazy or original as I thought it would be. For a story that uses the Surrealist art movement for its inspiration, the book is very pedestrian.
Swamp Thing Vol. 6: Reunion -
The final volume collecting Alan Moore’s run on the series. The Swamp Thing continues his journey through space, stopping off at Rann, a bio-mechanical world, and a planet where all plant life is sentient. Back on Earth, Abby meets her long-lost father, and sees what her uncle did to him. This book could easily serve as the conclusion to the entire ‘Swamp Thing’ series. It even has a fairy tale ending: The prince returned to his true love and they moved into a beautiful castle, and they lived happily ever after.
And the rest, including some cheap books I’m still working through:
Thing #30; Darkhawk Annual #2; Uncanny X-Men #235-238; Essential Avengers Vol. 3: Avengers #57; The Tick Omnibus #1; Superman Red/Superman Blue; a reprint of Superman in 3-D; X-Men: Inferno; Marvel Select: Spider-Man #2, reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #101 and an Ant-Man story; Chaos Effect Alpha; What The? #7; and Daredevil Legends Vol. 4: Typhoid Mary, and yes, it is better than what Bendis did with the character.
Next week, I’m going to bite the bullet and read some Archie comics. Fortunately, they are so easily available at local stores, I won’t have to buy any of them. Unfortunately, they seem to be written for an audience 15 years younger than me.
