Broken Frontier

During my time writing this column, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to quite a number of different comic creators about comics advocacy, and invariably I end up asking them the same question, “What do you think you can do as an artist and I can do as a fan to help comics reach a wider audience?” This week, I give the floor to a few of the responses those creators gave me.

Paul Hornschemeier, Mother Come Home
I think the first responsibility of the artist is to create work that is as good and as honest as possible. I think that's some of the most viable, potent "promotion" you can do: the more the medium is filled with good quality, the more likely that, when people take a chance to delve in to it, they will find the medium rewarding. I think the next thing is to address a wider audience, and that comes with diversification of stories: make westerns, make romances, make crime noir, make horror, make funny animal stories, do it all as a medium so that there's something for everyone. The great handicap of comics has been the blind and stubborn reliance on a niche: superheroes and, more generically, male power fantasies.
Fans of the medium should take opportunities to give great works to their friends, to be proud of the works they enjoy. Past that, I don't know... wear an "Eightball" shirt?
Steve Lieber, Whiteout
A comic artist who wants to reach out to new readers should consider doing the sort of work that isn't already widely available. The audience for superheroic ass-kicking is already well-served. Someone who wants to expand the audience needs to tell the sorts of stories that aren't being told. That can mean non-fiction, (like Jim Ottaviani's Science books (http://www.gt-labs.com) or Joe Sacco's The Fixer and Safe Area Gorazde, or adult literary fiction, (like Jamie Hernandez's Locas stories, or Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan) or crime stories, or humor, or any well-crafted work in an under-represented genre.

Clarity of presentation is important, too. The information on a comics page needs to be easily grasped. It's one thing to ask your readers to work at understanding the ideas in a story. It's another to make them puzzle out the basic content of a panel. Good, clear, expressive composition isn't easy, but it's an obligation if you want a casual reader to stick with your book past the flip test.

As for fans, I don't think they "should" be doing anything. It's not their job. But for those who like getting active for comics, it's all about getting the word out. Pick a small-press or creator-owned title and tell people about it. (It's almost impossible for fan activism to make a difference for corporate-owned books. The numbers just don't work.) Write reviews or thoughtful criticism. Talk to your retailer about a good book he isn't carrying, and make it clear that if he did, you would buy it from him. Give Tintin or Jay Hosler's comics to kids for their birthday.

Of course the ultimate thing a fan can do to reach new readers and promote comics is open a new store. The biggest problem comics has is that there simply aren't enough places to buy them. Wanna save comics? Find an under-served market and open a good store. It's an awful lot of work, but you'll make a bigger difference than any creator can.

Jeffrey Brown, Clumsy and Bighead
Try promoting your work in places other than comics shops and conventions; try getting your work to be seen in places not normally associated with comics so you're not just selling to the choir. For the work itself, try to stay away from the traditional niches of comics – i.e. superheroes and daily newspaper funnies; those are niches pretty well filled and have audiences that are pretty well established. Also, artists and fans alike should give comics as gifts, especially to friends who say things like 'I don't know anything about "comics"'. Fans should also read comics they're not embarrassed to be seen reading.

Mark Ricketts, Nowheresville and Lazarus Jack
When America thinks of comics readers, they imagine the geeks featured in the film Trekkies. And it's too damn hard to fight that "geek" stigma when television news shows comics conventions as a sanctuary for middle-aged men in tights and capes, or when comic readers are portrayed as halfwits on television, in film and in literature.

I don't have a comics shop nearby, but I hate being judged by the literati when I buy graphic novels at Borders and/or Barnes and Noble. (“See that pathetic creature with the funny book? Poor thing must be mentally deficient.”) I mean, people who read romance novels get more respect.  This is why I buy my graphic novels off Amazon.  They come in a box to my door. No one has to know what I purchased. I can read my books without being persecuted by the snooty and the misinformed.

I say, if we're gonna raise our banners and fight the good fight, we should concentrate our efforts towards bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders.  We should find out who buys books for individual stores and educate them. Let them know that there are graphic novels for all tastes and every age group.  Bully them into highlighting these diverse books.

Now, I understand that there are rules to racking books in these stores.  Mystery comics can't be placed with mystery novels. Horror comics can't be placed with horror novels. It's a political thing. It's got something to do with the publishing mafia, but I won't go into that. Don't want to find my favorite author's severed head on my bedpost. Know what I mean?

My suggestion is that these bookstores take titles like Blankets and Jimmy Corrigan and make them easily accessible in their cafes. Come on, you can't finish a novel over a cafe latte (no matter how grande)! I have the answer! I'm lookin' at you too, Starbucks!  Anybody got connections with those people?  We need to infiltrate!!

As a writer of comics, I've had the pleasure to meet many intelligent, thoughtful and well rounded individuals who share the same love of sequential storytelling. None of us wear silly costumes or speak an alien language. BUT we're still misfits. We're as downtrodden as the Beat generation was in its day.

I once saw Janeane Garofalo tell a television reporter that she enjoyed reading graphic novels.  She didn't care about the stigma; she boldly set herself as an example. She was also keen to point out that some comics are even thought provoking. The girl's got balls! She actually put her rep on the line.

This got me thinking that Marvel and Warner Brothers should poll the famous, get them to talk about well written, sophisticated comics and make a few commercial spots.  Show these F.Y.I. spots before films and on television (and I don't just mean on the SciFi channel). Celebrity endorsement could be the answer, if we want to take comics out of the gutter.

Comics infiltration progress report: Opera Memphis performed I Pagliacci and its companion piece Cavalleria Rusticana at The Orpheum last year, they had master comics artist P. Craig Russell signing books at the performances.  Yeah Team!

Tom Beland, True Story Swear to God
The thing I've noticed - and I've been guilty of this as well - is that people want to get new readers, but they promote in areas where people already know comics. I post new issue releases on the Bendis boards, Sequential Tart and places like that, but if I really wanted to get new readers however, I'd take an ad out in Entertainment Weekly. Since comic movies are so well received these days and EW often reviews comics, here's a chance to grab onto their readership. I think that's a new area of people who already know now what comics are and would be willing to take a chance on something different. I'd like to see comic companies branching out and taking chances in new areas.

I honestly think that the fans do as much as humanly possible. They really do. First of all, they spend money on new titles, but in my case, many readers give copies of True Story Swear to God to people who've never read a comic book. That's as much as we can expect, and that's STILL going a lot.