Why the comics industry is continuing to crash

Comic book sales are down. Way, way down. And it's a total head-scratching mystery as to why this is happening.

Except to people like myself, a 45-year-old woman who grew up with a house full of comic books. I used to buy them. My grandfather used to buy them for me. Notice I said "used to."

Check out Little Red Boobinghood here that popped out of my email inbox this morning.

Seriously?

In comic books, in 2012, female characters are still just boobs with legs, or worse. DC's Starfire, an innocent and gentle alien superhero I remember from the 1980s, has been turned into an overt slut, soliciting men for sex. It's sickening.

I thought we were past this, everybody.

Nearly everything is now written for what the industry perceives as their core demographic, men 18 -30, and they wonder why comics have slumped drastically from their peak. Guys, it's because they're full of graphic violence and overt sex, so you've lost the younger readers and a lot of the women. My son is 15 and I don't want him reading some of that stuff. Gone are the days when it was safe to let your kid buy comic books off the rack at the store.

You've turned what used to be a fun diversion into an NC-17 bloodbath with porn stars.

Okay, industry leaders. C'mere. Closer. No, my eyes are up here. Okay, are you listening? Really listening? Okay, here's why your industry is failing.

There are other people in the world besides penises, aged 18 - 30. Kids, women, seniors... a lot of people  like to read about superheroes doing exciting things. Think back to the silver age of comics. Think back to the beginnings of Spider-Man and Wonder Woman and X-Men and Superman and all the other classic characters who continue to excite readers world-wide. There's a reason why they're still around. That reason is not men age 18 - 30.

Your readers include that demographic, they are not solely that demographic. By writing only to them, you exclude everyone else. I don't want to see people being literally ripped in half with their intestines flying everywhere, and I don't want my son reading that either. He doesn't need to see Batman and Catwoman screwing on a rooftop.

This is why comic books are dying. You are killing them.

How do you fix it? Hire new writers, preferably a lot more women. Stop excluding everyone but who you perceive as the core demographic. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you write only for men 18 - 30, your entire market shrinks to become that. If you're more inclusive, your market share will increase to meet it. You'll get the kids and the women again, such as myself and my son, who are eager potential buyers, if only the comics spoke our language. Right now, most of them don't.

Is this true of all comics? Of course not. Look at the Eisner-winning Mouse Guard from Archaia. Look at the top-selling B.P.R.D. from Dark Horse that's getting rave reviews, including right here on UFN. You don't need guts and sex in order to have a well-made successful comic book.

Is anything going to change, or were you just staring at my chest?

All we're asking is for our superheroes to act more heroic, like they did before. All we want is decent entertainment for the masses. All I'm saying is that if you continue to limit your audience, your audience will continue to shrink. It's not that hard to figure out once you talk to people in the real world about what they want out of a comic book. It's not about competition with new media or whatever straw man you want to throw out there, it's about creating something people want to buy.

WonderCon 2011 Panel: Evolution of Comics in the Transmedia Space

Print comic book sales are the worst they've been since, perhaps, they were created. For example, Spider-Man has gone from topping 200K in sales per month to the current level of about 50K. The median age of a comic book reader is 33, which is the oldest ever. In looking at the faces at an event like WonderCon on both sides of the tables, these statistics thrown out at the "Evolution of Comics in the Transmedia Space" panel appear spot-on accurate.

So what happened to the industry once driven by the pocket change of idealistic little boys?

"It's too exclusive," said panelist FJ Desanto.

"There should be enough there that you want to come back every month," added Marc Andreyko. "Each issue should have a beginning, a middle and an end. We've lost that."

"When 'okay' storytelling costs $2.99, it's just not worth it," said Dennis Calero. The point was further made by another panelist that there's sticker shock when you arrive at the register and the clerk says, "That'll be $75."

Left to Right: Diana Williams, Dennis Calero, FJ Desanto

I know that for myself, as a 44-year-old woman whose grandfather collected comics, I stopped buying them in the 1980s when crossover madness made it impossible to keep up with what was going on. Add in the rapid rise in prices at the time, and a poor college student such as myself couldn't keep lining the comic book companies' pockets. And I did see the ploy for what it was -- forcing fans to buy four comics instead of one. I had to drop them all. Recently, I've tried to get back into some of my favorite titles, but there are so many versions and alternate universes for each one, I have absolutely no clue what's happening and there is no jumping-in point any longer, as if they're all perpetually accelerating mag-lev trains.

In a nutshell, the panelists are absolutely right. So what about the next generation of readers?

"I picked up a book where Superman was married, and that turned me off to comics for twenty years," said panel moderator Jeff Krelitz. "Aquaman was getting a divorce, and I had to wonder, "How much of that is what the writers are going through?'"

Clearly, overly complex storylines, crossovers, cover prices and "socially relevant real-life" scenarios are not working, and are not bringing in new readers. What will? Jeff Newelt has some ideas.

"When things are shared a zillion times a day on Twitter, Facebook and so on, it's an easy click over to Amazon for the print version. Digital will feed print," he said.

"Saving print is the point," said Calero. "In the future they'll say, 'You used to kill trees to make books? How weird.' But it's an association that's generational." Andreyko goes as far as to call it "nostalgia porn." In the Archaia panel the next day, however, an attendee made the point that their higher-quality papers and products don't shy away from print, but instead they embrace the medium. 

Left to Right: Jeff Newelt, Marc Andreyko

It's not a battle between print versus digital. Instead, they can compliment and help each other.

"The connection with the end user and delivery to them is so fragmented," said Adrian Askarieh. "Transmedia helps solve that."

"Anyone under fifteen... digital is all they've known," pointed out Diana Williams. Unfortunately, most companies miss the mark in capturing these new fans. "Disney and Lucas are the kings of telling a story in different media."

"Make the early stuff accessible and cheap," said Andreyko.

"There needs to be education to the general public about digital comics," said Newelt. "It's mostly only core comics fans. It's also too partitioned -- 'comics are this, video games are this, movies are this,' and so on. It's about taking something and having it work organically across the board."

"I've never seen an industry so big market themselves so poorly," added Desanto.

But it's far more than marketing and accessibility. "Storytelling is just as important for getting new readers," said Krelitz. "What about putting Spider-Man and Batman out in all these new media?"

"It's great if the content doesn't suck," replied Desanto.

"When it backfires, you lose them FOREVER," Andreyko said dramatically into the microphone. Or for at least twenty years, in the case of Krelitz.

At the close of the panel, we saw two examples of motion comics, the first being Fall Out Toy Works with professional voice talent done by Anna Faris. The second, aimed at ages eight and younger, was much more comic book-like and was a simplified retelling of the current Tron film, using the same actor audio tracks and additional narration. In both, I found myself questioning where the "comic book" ended and where small-scale animation began.

Being one of the aging generation of comic book fans that grew up on paper books only, I'm not convinced that "the kids" will look at a motion comic and desire the traditional paper editions -- I see them simply asking for more motion comics.

Is Calero right? Will images printed on dead trees be looked on as a curiosity of the primitive past? Or will the human need for the tactile experience always create a demand for the easily created and portable humble comic book on paper? Time will tell, and the question bears ongoing examination, especially at excellent and thought-provoking panels like this one.

L to R: Diana Williams, Adrian Askarieh (back), Dennis Calero (front), Jeff Krelitz, Marc Andreyko, FJ Desanto, Jeff Newelt

Inaugural Post - What is Urban Fantasy News?

Welcome to Urban Fantasy News, the sisterchild of House Petrelli, of Heroes fame. Even though Heroes has (probably) ended (stay tuned for news on that), our interest in modern fantasy and speculative fiction hasn't, and never will.

Speculative fiction is the great "What If?" What if ordinary people suddenly discovered they had superpowers? What if you could take a pill and never have to sleep again? What if the world was actually one big computer simulation? What if you were immortal?

Urban Fantasy News covers the fantastic in the present. As much as we enjoy things like Sherlock Holmes or Halo, the focus of UFN is solely the comics, films, television shows, books, video games and more that take place in the present day, such as Iron Man, The Matrix, Tron, Being Human, Dead Rising and so on.

So what's in store for UFN?

Our next event is WonderCon in San Francisco, April 1 & 2. We've gotten some great press-only invitations, so look for our first exclusive UFN content next weekend (and keep your fingers crossed for some killer interviews we've requested). We'll also be posting links to hot articles, and continue our perennial photo op favorite, Where's Peter?

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That's all for now. Stay tuned to this channel for news of the fantastic!