Broken Frontier

Despite some of the recent difficulties I’ve had in my personal life, I have not strayed from the eternal optimism that is at the core of my being. When my great-uncle died, it was no surprise, since he had been in the hospital quite some time, and I looked at it as an end to his suffering. Lately, I’ve been overwhelmed at work with tons of grading, but I always kept my eye on the light at the end of the tunnel.
I’m a "glass half full" kind of guy, I guess. I’ve certainly been filled with optimism lately for this site. We just reached our one-year anniversary here a few weeks ago, and it seems people have really been taking notice of our stuff. It’s getting easier for us to convince pros to do an interview with us because they’ve heard of us, maybe even read our columns (Hello to any lurkers out there!). We’re quickly getting recognized by pros and fans alike through our reviews and our features as more than just another fan site.

One bit of evidence to back up that claim would be the fact that, in the past month, three separate people have written me e-mails, asking if they could interview me as an "expert" on comics for papers or speeches they were doing for school. Some crazy folks out there apparently have been reading my column and have come to think of me as a guy who knows what he’s talking about in relation to the history of the industry. Their humble requests to use my "informed opinion" on these events as if I were an "authority" on comics is evidence I think that we’re doing something here that’s making people take notice of us (and my thanks to those three misguided fools—I hope my comments helped you in some small way).

One of these people asked me about the shifts in the industry over the past twenty years, which of course got me ruminating on the speculation boom and then bust of the ‘90s. Of course, there were a number of negative effects of the bubble bursting, but it is in my nature to accentuate the positive. When I look at the speculation era of the ‘90s then, I look at a time period which led to the weeding out of fair-weather fans of comics, leaving only the true devotees to the medium. I look at the shrinking market that resulted from the void left by the speculators’ departure as an environment which fostered creativity. Artists who entered comics at the time didn’t do it to become the next hot property, for the wealth and fame; they did it to express themselves. Artists today seem to be in comics, more often than not, because they had a message they wanted to present, something meaningful to say in a format that they had a deep love and respect for, and it has led to a more diversified market that appeals to fans but still maintains artistic integrity.

There have been many recent developments in the industry too that some people (I’m looking at you, Graeme) have been quite nervous about. I however greet these incidents with a cheerful sense of hope.

For example, I believe that the change in solicitation of the Tsunami TPBs is a mighty good thing. In their new, digest-sized form, these collections will be readily available to bookstores in a format proven to sell there. There is nothing in Marvel’s press releases that leads me to believe these collections won’t be available in comic shops, and even if that were the case, comic shops still have ready access to the individual issues anyway.

Comics publisher IDW of late has been cornering the market on comic books based on TV shows, what with their CSI books and the new Shield series forthcoming. This development too is positive, I think. With the increased exposure that these books will bring from the mainstream, we can potentially capture some of the spirit of those shows in the books and draw in readership, all the while telling a gripping story that we might not have been able to otherwise. It’s a win-win situation.

On the flip side of that idea, a number of comics have been adapted into film and television programs lately. Hellboy, The Punisher and Fantastic Four are the biggest examples—upcoming films that can capture the mainstream’s attention and hopefully pull them into comics. To that end, the publishers are re-releasing Hellboy collections in new slick editions, starting a new volume of Punisher under a new imprint and with a grittier direction, and beginning several new series that focus on the Fantastic Four.

And as for Epic, I don’t see why so many people are sure this thing is dead, just because the books are going to be published as an anthology. Fans on various message boards have been saying, "I really wanted to check out series X but now I can’t because anthologies don’t sell." You know, anthologies don’t sell because you don’t buy them. The books will stand a chance, if fans don’t let the fact that it’s an anthology color their perception of it. Sure, a lot of people are upset about the new creators getting screwed over, but… well, wasn’t it already pretty obvious that was going to happen anyway? Mike San Giacomo is a perfect example of someone who has turned the situation to his advantage, taking the work he has done to another publisher where he has more creative freedom.

"But Steve," you’re probably thinking to yourself right now, "don’t some of those claims you just made contradict statements you’ve made in this column before? What if the Tsunami digest books are sold in chain bookstores exclusively? Wouldn’t such a situation possibly lend itself to the kind of market deflation that you described in your column months ago as "sacrificing diversity for the sake of marketability?""

"What if the stories based on TV shows are weak (as the first CSI story was)? Wouldn’t that turn off new readers, making them jump to the conclusion that comics can neither come up with our own ideas nor properly carry out the ideas originated by someone else?"

"What if, in a publisher’s zeal to appeal to movie fans, the market gets flooded with too many books devoted to movie tie-ins? Couldn’t those circumstances end up pushing out other, more original stories for the easy buck and make us reliant on those kinds of fair-weather fans which you just mentioned led to the speculation bust in the ‘90s?"

"And who in their right mind is actually encouraged about the state of the industry because of the whole Epic fiasco?"

Well, part of being an optimist means that you always look for the silver lining, even if it’s incredibly difficult to find. Sometimes in order to see the glass half full, you have to play devil’s advocate and take a point of view you don’t really believe. Often optimism is a comfortable facade you can put on, a front you use to show people there’s still hope if things go the right way when you’re secretly worried that that "if" is a mighty big one.

Like I said, I’ve been feeling very optimistic about the state of the industry lately.