The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[LOLtron]

There comes a time when all bloggers feel the need to tell the comics industry how to save itself from any number of problems and concerns.

Originally Published at Power Honor Grace http://powerhonorgrace.tumblr.com/post/29689507893

READ THIS ARTICLE ON THE FRONT PAGE, HUMANS!

[David Bird]

LOLtron seems to have no problem copying over links and pictures, but not text. Here's the piece:

How To Sell Superheroes To Children

There comes a time when all bloggers feel the need to tell the comics industry how to save itself from any number of problems and concerns. I am not feeling quite that ambitious today. Instead I am simply going to point the way to selling superhero comics to children.

While there has been a lot of much needed calls to make the medium more hospitable to women and minorities, the future of comics is in the hands of today’s kids. The 8 to 10 year olds of today are getting older every day. Just this week Publisher’s Weekly reported a study that showed 23-33 year olds have now become the single largest group of book buyers. That’s the generation that grew up reading Harry Potter, first published 15 years ago. Potter’s success fueled a huge demand for Young Adult novels and created the generation of readers now buying all kinds of books.

Publishers haven’t been blind to the demand for kids’ graphic novels either. Scholastic’s Graphix imprint, built on the success of the Bones and Wimpy Kid series, has been a great success. The Wimpy Kids series alone has over 30 million books in print. Imagine a 7 volume superhero comic with over 30 million comics in print. But I am focusing my attention today on the Big Two. DC and Marvel. This is an area where they could do a lot better.

The idea of writing this article came to me while I was reading a copy of Teen Titans Go! I enjoyed it, but while reading it I couldn’t help but think there was a better model out there for getting kids to read superhero comics than basing them on TV cartoons: comics written before the mid-80s. From their inception right up to the introduction of dark and gritty characters in the 80s, it was assumed that the principle readership for comics was mostly children. All those Golden Age tales, the Silver Age revival of Scwartz, Infantino, Fox and so many others at DC. Lee, Kirby, Ditko and the bullpen at Marvel. Kirby’s New Gods, Starlin’s cosmic adventures, Gerber’s comix sensibility. All for kids. Comics like Teen Titans Go! forget this. The results are far too self-consciously “kids” comics. Especially the art, which ignores the generations of far more complex and rewarding work that people once assumed was what kids wanted.

So, should we just start marketing comics to kids? No. Comics have changed, but I see no reason why we can’t have superhero comics written for children as well as for grown ups. But in writing comics for children we should look to the comics of the 60s and 70s instead of Saturday morning cartoons. How would that change things? Not very radically.

The sex and violence would have to be toned down. Violence is a basic part of the genre (men and women dress up and fight), but the levels of gore and bloodshed don’t have to be as high as they sometimes are. No more girlfriends in refrigerators, for example. As for the sex, there would be no actual sex, obviously, but the change here would most likely be reflected in how female characters are presented. When I was a kid I could easily see that characters like the Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow, and Storm were attractive women (yeah, I read a lot of Marvel back then), but artists didn’t present them as though they using a Victoria Secret’s catalog to develop their character model sheet.

The second change is character. The characters’ character. The good guys are good guys. Even when they make stupid mistakes or are conflicted, their intentions are clear. It is possible to generate conflict without dirtying up a character. Namor was a good guy, an enemy of mankind, and serious threat to Sue and Reed Richard’s relationship. I think children are more capable of appreciating a character’s complexity than they are often given credit for, but this is an area where parents will protest. Good guys don’t casually rip through hordes of bad guys with their adamantium claws. Mom and Dad won’t like it.

That brings up a third and very important point. As adults we may put money down for collected volumes that can cost $100 to $150, but parents won’t spend that much on a comic for their kids. And when I say comic, I mean graphic novel. Keep the cost under $10. They may shell out a few dollars more for things like Bone and the Wimpy Kid books, but these are limited series. If you want little Tim and Janey’s parents to keep buying Batman and Spiderman, keep it under $10. I am not speculating here. I work in a bookstore. Parents don’t want to spend more than that. Cheaper books will mean shorter stories, but by shorter I only mean page count. Comics of the era I am referencing typically had a lot more story per issue than we’re used to seeing today. So plot out your story for the usual half dozen issues, then condense it down to four.

There you are: look to the comics of the 60s and 70s for a role model, tone it down, value integrity, keep it short, but full of story, and remember the costs. It seems so simple!

[DMM]

I can't stand the comics or cartoon's marketed to children these days. They all have that same sarcastic tone and humor. Maybe if comics for children were more innocent and adventure-based instead of sarcastic and comedy-based, they would rekindle the imaginations of young readers.

[Keb]

I can't stand the comics or cartoon's marketed to children these days. They all have that same sarcastic tone and humor. Maybe if comics for children were more innocent and adventure-based instead of sarcastic and comedy-based, they would rekindle the imaginations of young readers.

Did you watch Avatar: the Last Airbender or Legend of Korra?

[Ntikrst]

I can't stand the comics or cartoon's marketed to children these days. They all have that same sarcastic tone and humor. Maybe if comics for children were more innocent and adventure-based instead of sarcastic and comedy-based, they would rekindle the imaginations of young readers.

This, is exactly why I only expose my kids to Golden/Silver Age comics.

[Punchy]

Make them more violent and filthy, kids fucking love violence and stuff that is too mature for them.

Nothing worse than pandering and making things deliberately childish, that will turn off most intelligent kids in a heartbeat.

[David Bird]

Did you watch Avatar: the Last Airbender or Legend of Korra?

They are far from typical. Sadly.

Nothing worse than pandering and making things deliberately childish, that will turn off most intelligent kids in a heartbeat.

And that is what too many of them do.

[Strict31]

In the Golden Age of comics, they didn't have such stiff competition from other sources for the entertainment dollar. And at a considerably lower price, they offered far more bang for the consumer's buck than they do today.

Even though a comic book costs less than a videogame, that game isn't over and done in 5 to 10 minutes. It will last for weeks, maybe even months before a kid grows tired of it. Especially multiplayer games using miscrotransaction models to crap out a constant stream of new and attractive content. A fifty dollar game goes a hell of a lot further than a four dollar comic.

And it's generally a hell of a lot more accessible. It was great for the average kid when he could tag along with his folks to the local drugstore or supermarket and check the spinner rack for the latest issue of Micronauts or Godzilla. But aside from stuff like Archie, that's not a thing anymore.

It's not just the content that has changed. The market has changed. Comic companies must adapt to that change or die.

[David Bird]

The market has changed. Kids are buying their comics as graphic novels--either original or collected into trade--and they're getting them at bookstores. The Big Two already have the infrastructure in place to take advantage of this, but they aren't putting out product that kids are interested in.

[Victorian Squid]

If kids in general wanted to read comics like '70s and '80s superhero comics, why wouldn't they be reading the bajillion collected books of them or straight from the comic bins? Even if you argue price, the used bookstores and online venues are full of them for $10 or less.

That's overlooking everything strict said and the fact that that isn't what writers want to write anymore for the most part, either.

[David Bird]

Whether they want to or not, writers are being hired to write comics for kids. Teen Titans Go! is a good example.

Forget about how comics used to be distributed, before direct market. That's not coming back. Even without it the kids comics market is booming and the Big Two are just sitting there watching it go by. Actual stories from the 60s and 70s are easy to find, but they're all being marketed to nostalgic adults.

Marvel and DC need to court (these millions) of new readers and they can start by crediting them with the imagine and interest that they used to assume their readers had, instead of trying to recreate TV shows.

[Strict31]

Whether they want to or not, writers are being hired to write comics for kids. Teen Titans Go! is a good example.

Forget about how comics used to be distributed, before direct market. That's not coming back. Even without it the kids comics market is booming and the Big Two are just sitting there watching it go by. Actual stories from the 60s and 70s are easy to find, but they're all being marketed to nostalgic adults.

Marvel and DC need to court (these millions) of new readers and they can start by crediting them with the imagine and interest that they used to assume their readers had, instead of trying to recreate TV shows.

They're not gonna hit the kids without a proper means to reach them; without a proper method of reminding them why kids are gonna love their product. No matter what's being written or drawn today, the companies are not competently, competitively getting their product out ahead of everything else that is fighting for those dollars.

When you've got kids more interested in playing Lego Batman than they are reading Batman comics, the companies are doing something wrong. This shows that kids are well interested in the properties and characters, but the companies aren't doing a good job of getting the books into the hands of all these potential fans.

[HNutz]

I've always wondered why places like Wal-Mart don't carry comics. Even if they're not carrying Vertigo or Punisher MAX, why not something like New Avengers or JLA?

[David Bird]

They have the proper means to reach them, and Walmart does sell comics, but they sell them in book form, not magazine. I didn't make up that 30 million plus number and that's only one series (albeit it top one). Forget about magazine spinners. The fact that kids aren't entering the medium the same way we did, doesn't mean they aren't interested in comics. They are interested in superheroes too. Maybe the reason the two interests aren't coming together is that Marvel and DC are still thinking magazine racks too.

[Strict31]

They have the proper means to reach them, and Walmart does sell comics, but they sell them in book form, not magazine. I didn't make up that 30 million plus number and that's only one series (albeit it top one). Forget about magazine spinners. The fact that kids aren't entering the medium the same way we did, doesn't mean they aren't interested in comics. They are interested in superheroes too. Maybe the reason the two interests aren't coming together is that Marvel and DC are still thinking magazine racks too.

Nobody's really tlking about spinners except to say that these were what helped make comics so accessible in the span of decades you're discussing. It wasn't the content back then; it was the fact that any kid could just about go anywhere and pick up comics on the cheap. We acknowledge that those days are done. What we're saying is that the lack of that same accessibility, combined with greater competition for the entertainment dollar is keeping kids and comics apart.

I mean...shit...you wanna talk about content...I was reading these bleak-ass Sgt. Rock comics when I was a kid. I remember that issue, "Angles with Black Wings", talking about the Tuskegee Airmen, and that was some heavy shit. Death, racism, Nazis, all in one tidy package, illustrated with torturous perfection by Joe Kubert.

I read Savage Sword of Conan when I was a kid, and that was when Wolverine wasn't killing half the amount of guys Conan did in a single issue. Where Sonja and Belit and Valeria were running around half-nekkid and Conan was wnching the hell out of lascivious tavern bitches.

Dark Phoenix Saga, with all these Hellfire chicks in corsets and g-strings; the X-Men fighting this titanic but doomed battle against the Imperial Guard only to have Jean killed anyway...that was some heavy shit for a kid.

Shit, I even read goddamn Vampirella when I was a kid. I read heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated, and I could pick up both of those very much adult-themed books right off the news stand. All those books could be picked up at a news stand or a bookstore. It's not the dark or sexual or violent content of modern comics that is the obstacle today.

Comics were king back in those days. Any kid could pick up any comic (including Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated). The companies could reasonably expect to dominate a kid's (parents') entertainment dollar.

But the accessibility is a thing of the past and the domination of the entertainment dollar is a thing of the past.

They've got to try new models to make their product more competitive in an age where kids have other options for spending their parents' money. It's not the content. Sure, Starfire might be more inanely sexualized today. But I can remember issues back in the day where she was drawn with the only thing hiding her giblets being her crazy hair. I can remember issues of the Defenders where Cloud never once put on a scrap of damn clothing. We're talking stories about demons incinerating people and then laughing about it. We're talking Hercules and his good-natured wenching...but it was still clear he was fucking these sexy space bitches. I recall one issue where Herc was macking on a space chick who wore a spray-on bikini. And then, he got vaporized by Galactus, who was tired of dealing with his shit, I guess. We're talking the Death of Captain Marvel, where the enemy is goddamn cancer.

This is all some pretty major content for a kid to be reading, and this was all during the time period you refer to. I will grant that we've had several instances of rape in modern years, either overtly or implied, like in Identity Crisis, and that probably wouldn't have flown back in the day in mainstream comics. But at the same time, Marvel was putting out Epic Illustrated, as I mentioned above, and just to look at the covers, you couldn't tell that Marada the She-Wolf was gonna have a back story in which she was raped. Or that Abraxas and the Spaceman was gonna feature a naked green space-babe having full-on sex with the main character. Kids could easily pick up that book right alongside Iron Man.

It's not the content. The content has always run the gamut between family-safe, infantile, puerile, mature and outright gratuitous. The problem is accessibility and greater competition, and the company's inability to adapt quickly and efficiently enough.