Broken Frontier

Well, this is my final installment as guest columnist for Outside the Box.  I’ve thrown out a bunch of crazy ideas, and for those who stuck with me, thanks!  As always, if you missed any parts, check out the archives.  Also, stop by the message board to let us know what you think.  On behalf of everyone at Broken Frontier, we want to hear your ideas and comments.  Now lets wrap this up!

The only unanswered question I have left is, what is the next move for the comic industry?

Naturally, it could do nothing.  There are those in the industry who are happy with the status quo.  There are others who insist there is nothing wrong with the industry as is.  Some even think the industry will return to its pinnacle if it just maintains the course.  I personally don’t buy into any of those beliefs.  Yes, some publishers can show on paper that they are experiencing fewer losses, or that profits are increasing.  Maybe it’s a real effect or maybe it’s just clever number crunching.  Sure, more issues are selling in the 100,000 to 200,000 copy range during the past couple of years.  However, there are now more people walking away with three copies of a book like New Avengers #1 or Identity Crisis #1, than there were in the past few years.  Speculators are making something of a comeback.

There really isn’t a direct gauge of the health of the industry or whether total readership is increasing or declining.  One indirect gauge of industry performance that I do believe is the success, or lack of success, of the distributor.  About a decade ago, Diamond was bringing in about $50 million in revenue and last year they brought in $76.2 million in revenue.  So their revenue increased by roughly $26.2 million in about 10 years.   Sounds promising right?

Well, not really.  A $26.2 million increase over 10 years equates to an average revenue increase of 4% per year for Diamond.  Over this period, their revenue would need to grow 2.5-3% per year just to match inflation.  So if 2.5-3% of that increase each year was inflationary, the actually revenue increase due to product growth was only about 1-1.5% per year on average.  Well at least some growth in comics is good, right? 

Maybe.  In this case, one has to question what caused the growth.  Was it actually comics?  A decade ago, Diamond distributed little or no Manga.  Now they distribute tons of it.  A decade ago, there were no Manga publishers in the Top 10 and now there are two.  Taking into account reorders, Tokyopop may sell as much Manga to the direct market as Image sells traditional comics; and Image used to be the third largest US comic publisher!  Diamond also distributes more magazines, toys, and gaming products than ever before.  Some of this revenue growth is surely attributed to the success of new products instead of the growth of comics.  It is likely that much, if not all, of the 1-1.5% per year product growth Diamond experienced in the past decade was the result of introducing new products, such as Manga, outside of traditional comics.  It is even possible that comics have declined and the decline is masked by the increase in revenue from other products.

So no, I don’t think doing nothing is the right answer.  With a best-case growth rate of 1.5%, that title you currently enjoy with a circulation of 25,000 issues per month will have a circulation of 50,000 issues per month in 50 years!   Something else must be done.  If the industry wants to grow and sustain that growth, the best option is to increase the readership.  The best way to increase the readership is to get quality comics into the hands of people who don’t currently read them. 

Where can the industry find people like these?  Well, they certainly won’t find many in comic shops or at comic conventions.  This leaves only two general strategies to pursue that have a chance at success.  The industry can find new ways to lure non-comic readers into comic specialty shops (bring people to the comics), or they can find new places to distribute comics where the general public can already be found (take comics to the people).  For numerous reasons, I think the latter is the easiest route and has the best chance of success.

Maybe a new comic distribution model isn’t the way to go about taking comics to the people.  Or maybe a new model is the correct approach, but there is an infinitely better way to implement it than what I suggested.  Maybe the industry just needs to have mobile comic book carts (like a hot dog cart) that vendors wheel around at circuses, concerts, public celebrations, tourist destinations, and sporting events.  It’s been my experience that people will spend their money on almost anything at these types of locations, so maybe that is a better solution!  Like I said at the start of this series, I just wanted to get people thinking outside the box!

I don’t think increasing the comic readership is a lost cause.  However, I don’t think the industry can keep doing the same things over and over, hoping that the readership will magically return.  Sometimes I feel like the industry is just sitting around waiting for some societal switch to flip that will suddenly make everyone want to buy comics again.

The industry wants to have its cake and eat it too.  But as we all know, you can’t do that.  So instead of waiting around, as an industry let’s take it to the people.  Let’s light the fire that starts a rebirth!

Next Week: Sellner FINALLY steps back into his own friggin’ column! Seriously, many thanks to Will Norris for all of his hard work and research in doing this. We plan some follow-ups down the road to our first in-depth series. Next week however, Sellner issues his first challenge to every single publisher out there! Tune in to find out what it is!

- Will Norris