Buddy Scalera is a comic book writer and self-publisher.
He is best know for his co-writing work on Deadpool and his solo story in Weapon X. He has contributed to X-Men Millennial Visions, X-Men Unlimited and other comics. He co-wrote and self-published Necrotic: Dead Flesh on a Living Body. He also recently published a multimedia CD-Rom titled Visual Reference for Comic Artists. Currently Buddy has a two-issue arc of Agent X in stores.
Scalera worked at Wizard Online for many years as the original Online Editor.
Forget the kids. Seriously, it’s a lost cause. Forget ‘em.
If we continue marketing comics to kids, we’re surely doomed.
First, a very quick background. Hang in there, this has a point…
Most creators, publishers, retailers, and other industry professionals grew up reading comic books. We remember buying comics on the newsstand, and then later at specialty shops. It was a great time because comics – compared to other forms of entertainment – were cheap.
And everyone at that time knew…comics were for kids. Period.
As the 80s rolled in, a new wave of creators helped comics mature. Vertigo and the independent comics offered some sophisticated literature, which expanded dramatically in the 90s.
The mass media followed our industry lead. The new mantra became: “comics aren’t just for kids anymore.” (Many articles started off with the obligatory “pow, bang, comics aren’t just for kids anymore” lead. While that was cute for a little while, it’s just downright annoying now.)
Note that in the last paragraph, I say that the mass media followed OUR lead. That’s right. Us. We. The industry professionals. They listened to our message which was, if you were paying attention, “pow, bang, comics aren’t just for kids anymore.”
The good news: our message got through. Yay. The bad news: our message got through. Uh oh. Want to know WHY that’s bad news? Well, it’s clear that parents stopped buying comics for kids.
As a father, I don’t buy products for my daughter that are clearly marketed toward adults. I buy my kid products specifically designed for children like Barney, Elmo, and The Wiggles.
That’s where the mixed marketing message screwed us up. We wanted the rest of the world to respect the art form of comic books. So we reconfigured our marketing message to attract adults, which it did. Many more adults are aware of the fact that comic books are often written for mature minds.
But we still hear many people say that we need more kids reading comic books. WRONG.
We LOST a generation of kids to video games and the Internet. And they’re NOT coming back to comics. They have enough distractions.
My idea (I told you there would be a point to all of this) is to market comic books to adults, almost exclusively. That is, emulate mass-market publishers and book retailers. Turn comic books into an adult hobby.
If you walk into Barnes and Nobles, you can assume that MOST of the books are written for adults. There are sections for Business, Health, Fiction, Automobiles, etc. Then there is a SPECIFIC AREA for kids.
And yet…people walk into a comic book store and assume that the products are mainly for kids. And that they have to look for the product geared toward adults. This is wrong.
Kids don’t have money. Yes, yes, I know, kids have some money, but not compared to adults who work full-time jobs. Adults control most of the big cash in the real world, so it makes sense to market your products clearly and consistently to them.
Let’s stop marketing comic books half to kids and half to adults. Let’s market comic books to adults. Let’s get more adults reading good, intelligent, mature stories. Then let’s rope off a section in the comic book store that is geared towards children.
Market dirty books to adults, and kids will want them. Market automobiles to adults, and kids will want them. Market R movies to adults, and kids will want them. Market Rated-M-for-Mature video games to adults, and kids will want them. And….
Market comics to adults, and kids will want to read comics.
Look, it works for big publishers and mainstream bookstores, it will work for us. People make their decision based on where books are racked. Unless otherwise specified, most new books are marketed to adults. These books are racked in the main part of the store. This is true for fiction and nonfiction. If a new Stephen King novel comes out, you know that it’s probably intended for adults, right? If a new book on business etiquette comes out, you know that too is intended for adults. Same with politics, science, history, etc. All racked in the main (or adult) part of the store. The mainstream retail bookstore is an adult environment. Family friendly, yes, but definitely designed, decorated, and marketed to adults with adult prices.
Books specifically geared toward kids are racked in the children’s section. Plain and simple. It’s an easy purchase because parents know that they can trust that section of the store to carry age-appropriate stories. The children’s section of a mainstream bookstore is designed, decorated, and marketed with colors and displays for kids.
Mainstream retailers know that you need to market product separately for children and adults. The marketing message of Toys R Us is much different than Starbucks.
And yet comic stores must straddle the line and market the EXACT SAME PRODUCT to both kids and adults. Imagine how a 35-year-old man may feel when he’s buying the same comics as an 11-year-old boy.
As a child matures to pre-teen and teen stories, a parent gives the child some latitude to select their own books. Often, these books come from a line of books marketed specifically to the teen bracket.
As the teen grows into his or her adult years, not only do they graduate primary school, they graduate to adult literature. They want to read adult books, not censored, watered-down, “safe” books. They want the “good stuff.”
We see this in Hollywood too. Kids go from Rated G, to PG, to PG-13, to R. Getting into an R film is a big deal for most kids. They WANT to see the adult films.
Given a choice, most teenagers would rather go see Terminator 3 (Rated R) than Spy Kids (Rated PG). Why? Well, duh, if you’re a self-respecting teenager, the only reason you’re seeing Spy Kids is as a babysitter. You go see Terminator 3 with your friends. Because that’s how we market and advertise those films.
But comic books…gee…we want to market comic books so that an 11-year-old boy, a 20-year-old guy, and a 31-year-old man can buy the same issue of Avengers. All three age groups may enjoy the Avengers story…but the 31-year-old and the 20-year-old don’t want to be perceived as immature for reading a story aimed at an 11-year-old boy.
Stated more simply, the 11-year-old boy may want to emulate the maturity of the 20-year-old man by reading mature literature. But the 20- or 31-year-olds do NOT want to be reading stuff geared toward 11-year-olds.
Again, if we marketed comic books specifically to adults, we would start to remove the stigma for older readers. It would be okay for that 31-year-old guy to read comics in public. It would be assumed that he was reading a mature-level comic.
And if someone saw that 11-year old boy reading a comic, people would assume that the kid was reading either (a) something appropriate to his age or (b) something beyond his age.
But marketing the same product to everybody is not working. Hell, even Harry Potter – proudly read by MANY adults – is still marketed to kids. Adults may choose to read Harry Potter because it’s the “in” thing. But I doubt many of those same people are running out to read Sweet Valley High.
That is, adults don’t want to read ALL kids books, just Harry Potter because it’s special.
Marvel and DC now publish books that are generally adult, yet accessible to teens. For some reason, we persist in marketing these comics to kids. As a result, a huggggge majority of adult readers assume that they have outgrown comics. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Barnes and Nobles on a Saturday night. Lots of adults browsing and buying books. Adults can be seen buying books for themselves and for their kids, but they’re probably not the same books.
Let’s market comics to adults. We’ll continue to make comics for kids, but let’s make kids want to graduate to adult comics. Let’s create the mystique that better, more mature comics are just around the corner.
The kids reading Harry Potter today are going to graduate to Sweet Valley High, then to books by Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, and others.
With comics, we can guide kids through the same path. A kid today can graduate from Archie to Batman Adventures to Avengers to Batman to Daredevil to Vertigo and other mature books. It’s a natural path and they can continue to read kid-safe titles, if they want.
But for now, forget the kids. They’re off doing other kid things. Let’s concentrate on making comics into an adult hobby by changing how the rest of the world perceives this form of media. Repositioning comic books as an adult art form will extend an invitation to adult shoppers.
Most importantly, adults interested in comic books will find themselves surrounded by other adults….rather than children.
Buddy Scalera is a freelance comic book writer with credits at Marvel and several independents. He is the publisher of Visual Reference for Comic Artists and Necrotic.
