Broken Frontier

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of the comic book industry, small press and otherwise. Looking back on my week, it was bound to happen with everything that went on. First it was exhibiting at the crazy NY Comic-Con, then I saw some trailers for the upcoming comic movies (not to mention cross marketing), and just the other day I met with my former teacher, Joe Kubert, where we discussed, among other things, the growth of the graphic novel market.

The thing is, it’s easy to say that big conventions, movies, and the growing popularity of graphic novels are great for comics, but that doesn’t mean that we should just mindlessly ride the wave because it might not end up exactly where we’d hoped. And although they all might be doing a great job getting comics out there to be noticed by the general public, I still wonder what tangible results they’re creating. This is tough to measure, as there are plenty of statistics out there without much meaningful analysis. We can see the rising numbers of convention attendees, movie ticket sales, and graphic novels in bookstores. But is this increasing the amount of people that view reading comics as a viable source of entertainment? Is it improving the conditions of the average worker in the industry - the writers, artists, and other creators?

Maybe we just need to be more patient and this will eventually lead to more steady readers. But the more I think about it, the sudden broad but superficial attention to comics seems more like a fad with people trying to jump in and squeeze as much money out of a growing market while they can. And comics aren’t some kind of new technology that is going to stay with us because of its profound impact on the way we live our lives like TV or the Internet. Comics will survive or die out purely on the strength of its content.

To gauge these things, I tend to use the people I know who would not be considered comic book fans. Most of my life I have been the sole comic reader in a sea of non-believers: my friends, family, etc. I didn’t spend too much time trying to convert them, because it has always seemed to be a pretty closed industry; you were either "in the know" or you weren’t, mostly due the continuity of long running stories. Now with this new push to garner more attention from the general public, it would seem that this task should be easier. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Let’s start with the New York Comic-Con. This was a majorly marketed event and I did my part to invite as many people as I knew that weren’t comic fans to come and check it out. Yes this means I rotated people in on my spare exhibitor badges. Deal with it, NY Con. These people I invited were excited to come and see what the fuss was about. And they did enjoy the show, although an hour was usually about all they could handle before either leaving or retreating back behind my table. Most of them didn’t purchase anything, or if they did, it was a toy for some nephew or something. The point is, though they were excited to check it out, they didn’t leave being even slightest bit more a comic reader. They didn’t find the atmosphere to be very conducive to really taking the time to discover anything new. Also, the show was so packed with everything, and I don’t mean that in a "there’s something for everyone" type of way, but more of an "everything is all over the place" kind of way.

Despite all the craziness, I had a good time, as I’m sure many people did. It was like a huge party for those who really like comics. Nothing wrong with that, but I’m just not sure how much it did to increase true comic followers.

Comic book movies have been doing well in the box offices for quite some time and no question about it, they draw in a lot more of an audience than just comic fans. But I haven’t seen these people in the comic shops, and if it were going to lead to that result, we would have seen more of it by now. Again, from my own experience, I have a few friends who are really excited to see the new comic movies that are coming out this summer. But none of them are interested in buying any of the comics for these same properties. The publishers have been making more of an effort to produce more comics of a particular property around the time of the movie’s release, but I feel this is just a strategy to make more money from the comic fans who are so excited about the movie that they buy up all the new series and special editions. For the casual fan, there isn’t something easily accessible for them to just pick up and read. Sure, publishers would like to get new fans to pick up all the volumes of a title and read each new issue forever and ever. But we’d have better luck selling one good, all-inclusive volume to casual fans than hoping they’ll become obsessed fans who’ll buy everything.

This is why, in some ways, it was easier with a movie like A History of Violence to get a non-comic fan to pick up the graphic novel. If I knew someone who liked the movie, it was easier for me to recommend or give them the one, single graphic novel rather than have to pick one out from an assortment of volumes that are probably part of an even longer running continuity.

Which leads me to the topic of graphic novel sales. I’ve already written about how many comic readers, including myself, now prefer to wait for the collected graphic novel rather than buy the individual issues. So we know that already established comic fans are responsible for the growth of graphic novels, but what about new readers? I’m sure that the nicer, more sophisticated look of the thicker format has brought in new readers, but how many and how quickly? Are there really that many new readers to support the three thousand or so graphic novels produced last year?

I don’t think so. I think that number is more a reflection of publishers realizing that this is a growing market and that they should try to make a quick buck from it. Graphic novels are at a great risk of flooding the market. There is too much being published and too much of it is not very good. Buyers for bookstores and new readers can’t keep up with it, and the format is too new for them to be discerning enough to know what to get and what to stay away from.

My experience of seeing graphic novels in bookstores is that they get put in a messy, disorganized section of random volumes and mix-matched genres. Eventually these bookstores and readers are going to get tired of getting burnt by bad work and not knowing what to buy. They are just going to stop buying and then the fad will be over.

It’s too much effort to pull together a product just to meet a speculative demand, but this demand will only grow if there’s something worthy of it. We have to be more concerned with publishing and promoting only the best work. Quality should always be placed above quantity. And if we think there’s enough demand to support most of the stuff thrown together to create a graphic novel, then we’re fooling ourselves.

As an industry, we need to take the responsibility of putting the best work forward or else we’ll all get washed away when the bubble bursts.

###

Tyler Chin-Tanner started his own publishing company, A Wave Blue World, and writes and draws layouts for Adrenaline, its flagship series.

© 2008 Tyler Chin-Tanner.  All rights reserved.

Email:tyler@awaveblueworld.com

www.awaveblueworld.com