Are comic books doomed?

Yeah, one of the comments on that article stole I joke I was about to make: "Alt-headline: NYT to publish weekly list of books by Raina Telgemeier."

Basically accurate. Marvel and DC would murder for her numbers. Like, literally, I'm pretty sure they would straight-up kill as many people as they had to to get her numbers.

C. Spike Trotman mentioned that one or two of Iron Circus' books probably would've made it onto the best-seller list, during the time it was gone, so she's really psyched about its return.

I don't believe that comic books are doomed. Media adaptations can raise interest of a comic book character, and this may led to increased appearances in comics and/or changes to make the character closer to how it appeared in the popular adaptation. Nick Fury, for example. The 616 Fury was Caucasian (to be fair, Ultimate Nick Fury was modeled after Samuel L. Jackson himself, with his approval, with the condition that he would portray the character in movies), then after the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 616 Fury looked his Ultimate and MCU selves. Not to mention the MCU helped raise interest to many, many characters. For another example, when it was announced that Moon Knight would get his very own show on Disney+, the issue where he debuted was sold like fresh bread, in over hundreds of thousands of copies.

I don't believe that comic books are doomed. You can use the media adaptations to make a character well-known. You just need... the touch. And you need to know and master the marketing, understatement of the character and the public appeal (and how to delightfully surprise them with likes as the Guardians of the Galaxy, Shang-Chi, Shazam, Blade, Deadpool etc.).

I don’t think anyone who posts on this thread really thinks comics are doomed. Heck even if the direct market and all the currently functioning comic companies crash and burn, the first part could happen but the second part is extremely unlikely, there would still be someone making comics. This thread really seems to exist more or less for discussing and predicting the state of comic sales and comic companies.

Comics may live on, but I could see Marvel and DC reaching a point where they decide it isn't profitable to keep publishing so many titles, and drastically reduce the number of books they publish. Maybe just put out a small number of comics featuring the most popular characters. I could also see some of the lesser companies, like IDW and Boom going under. Even if comics don't die, it does seem likely that there will be some kind of major restructuring of the industry at some point.

I think a more accurate thread name would be 'Are Mainstream Comics Doomed'. Specifically the big two.

Indies and webcomics seem to be doing fine.

Edited by kkhohoho on Sep 27th 2019 at 11:37:17 AM

So are Manga if you count those. My Hero Academia saw a boost from Endgame...and of all the comics to get a boost it was that.

Are you sure Endgame brought up Hero Aca’s sales? Seems a bit farfetched.

I think it’s possible at some point but I would hope the companies would still put out books for some of their more obscure titles (Doom Patrol, Howard the Duck, etc) every now and again.

Maybe not directly but sales were up that month in a month where the Diamond charts were pretty flat. It was weird.

Of course that reinforces the point that the medium of comics will survive because it’s a cheap medium to work in (which is part of why the big two continue to see sales drying, value to cost ratio is too expensive!)

For whatever its worth, I think many people would put manga in a separate category from western comic books, despite the New York Times lumping them together.

As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t matter what country they come from comics are comics.

A recent conference has shown growth in pretty much all sectors of the comic market, save superheroes and science fiction, the traditional realms of the Big Two.

Comics aren’t dying, but the average comic people buy is fundamentally changing. The massive attendance in NYCC are comic fans, even if the comics are things like Hilda and My Hero Academia rather than whatever big crossover Marvel has planned.

Edited by Beatman1 on Oct 7th 2019 at 8:35:16 AM

Nice.

I'll be honest as a big mark for superhero comics, I'm not sure I'm even sorry that their death grip on the North American comics industry has loosened. Like, fundamentally, it's weird that one particular brand of genre fiction has dominated an entire medium (mostly because of moral panic in the 50s).

I had this whole discussion recently in an FB Comics History group to which I belong. My thought, ultimately, is that comics are by no means doomed, but are changing, at least in the US. While I don't know the numbers, by all appearances comics in Europe and Japan seem to be trucking along like always. In the US comics are currently in a period of evolution; even if the popular public consciousness hasn't noticed it yet (still making the automatic association of comics with super-heroes), there are more genres available in comics than at any time since the Golden Age. Super-Heroes will, I hope, always be a healthy part of comics, but they will, I expect, cease to dominate the form it utterly, possibly becoming mostly province of the Big Two.

Comic books aren't doomed... but superhero comics might be.

That's the funny thing; superheroes have been more popular than ever this past decade, but superhero comics are less popular than ever. People still like the characters, just not in their traditional medium anymore. I think a lot of that has to do with Marvel and DC pandering to longtime hardcore fanboys, instead of casual fans and new readers. Superhero comics are stuck in this loop of trying to be "mature and edgy", but without being allowed to evolve or progress in any meaningful way. They just keep telling the same stories over and over again.

Is it really any wonder that most people aren't interested in Superman dealing with one of Lex Luthor's schemes, or Batman going after the Joker again, or the eternal debate between Xavier and Magneto (even movie fans seem to have gotten tired of that last one).

Plus theres also all the executive stupidity that the major superhero comics are being bogged down with.

"The problem is that they don't tend to release the sales figures, so it's hard to tell just how well they're really doing. Instead they keep using physical copies as the primary sales indicator even though they probably don't sell as well as digital."

(Months too late,) I want to object to this statement. With subscription services like Marvel Unlimited and Comixology unlimited, paying for individual digital issues seems like it wouldn't appeal to a lot of people. You don't get an actual physical object you can own, and as far as the reading experience goes, you might as well get a streaming subscription.

Yeah, I get that there's gonna be a lot of digital sales when old issues are marked down to 25% of the original price a year after release, but that's not too much of a sales incentive.

The Hollywood Reporter pens an article concerning the effects of the Coronavirus on comic book stores, and the scenario it paints for the direct market is...not pretty to say the least.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/coronavirus-lands-thanos-sized-punch-comic-shops-1285520

That reminds me, are comics shops still the primary source of comic books or has ordering them online or getting electronically supplanting that?

The direct market and paper copies are still the primary source by a mile. One of the regulations Diamond has in place is 1:1 costs for all new comics. You save $0 when you buy digital, so most opt for the familiar paper copy.

In solidarity with the local comic shops, Dark Horse will not publish any digital releases for the duration of the shutdown.

Good for comic shops if and when they can reopen, bad for the bottom line of Dark Horse. No word on if others plan to follow suit. Note that in 2017, DH did announce initial plans to release digital at a lower price point than physical, then quickly backtracked when comic shops and Diamond objected very loudly.

Edited by Beatman1 on Mar 27th 2020 at 10:09:10 AM

Diamond will not be paying its vendors this week, citing “cash flow problems.”

A good example of why monopolies are so awful. Diamond has never been efficient. It's never needed to be efficient, because they were the only option available. So now, when things get bad, Diamond has absolutely no way to cope. If things go on much longer, it very well may result in Diamond ending up gone.

And it'll be very interesting to see how comics adapt to that. Because comics will adapt. It's what they do. Comics will continue to be made.

One option is the elimination of single-issue floppies. They're an outdated concept, anyway, with nowhere near sufficient entertainment value for their cost. But $10-$15 dollars for the equivalent of a 4-5-issue collection? Well, that has potential. That's something that might be worth the cost.

Either way, fuck Diamond.