Acts of Creation Part 4

WHY ARE SALES SO LOW WHEN THEY'RE MAKING SO MANY COMIC BOOK MOVIES?

By Dave Elliott

Another in a series of mind boggling trips into the inner workings of the industry OR I bet you thought it was going to be more fun than this.

Part One

There is often talk of cycles in comics, how readers turn over every 3/4/5/25 years, booms and busts, everyone is leaving for Hollywood, kids don't read comics because of video games…

Do you know how many are true?

Probably all of them.  Twenty-odd years ago, it was the established fact that the majority of comic book readers came and went in three years.  Most of the market wasn't around long enough to even notice that certain characters came back time after time.

The comic book industry has had its own share of recessions.  Had its fair share of booms too.  Maybe more than its fair share, fighting against nature some might say.

Hollywood has always courted the industry.  Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas on Fire and Ice with Gerry currently working on Law & Order.  Mark Verheiden on Time Cop (Film and TV versions), Smallville, Battlestar Galactica and the Mask.  Frank Miller on Robocop before Sin City and 300.  Howard Chaykin on the Flash TV show.  Jeph Loeb on Smallville and Heroes.  It will continue to do so.

And yes, kids do play, and would rather play, videogames over comic books.

So what do I think is happening right now?  We are in mid-transition.  It's like the birth of the direct sale market all over again, but I believe for the better.

The birth of the Direct Sale market created an environment where publishers could sell their books directly to the retail outlets that just sold their product.  These retailers could get the books sooner than the newsstands, in better condition, and a better discount.  The publishers didn't have to deal with returns to this sector of the industry.  This enabled small publishers to be able to rise up and do business with just these specialty stores.

Nothing wrong with that, was there?  Not in of itself, but when publishers go from selling to one market and start to change their material to take advantage of another, the first market suffers.  That market was the newsstand.

Not that sales were doing great on the newsstand any longer.  They had been on the slide for years, but the Direct Sale Market was going to be their savior.  So they started gearing their books to this specialty market, even though it meant that those buying the books on the newsstand would grow alienated, but that market was in decline and in the DSM they had found a safe haven.

For the next thirty years they increasingly produced more complex storylines and cross-overs to please the buyers in this market that was no longer a niche but the greatest part of their audience.  The smaller publishers that grew up were doing even more sophisticated material for an older audience.  The larger publishers seeing another market being created went in the same direction.  Batman graphic novels could be sold for 25 to 30 dollars, a far cry from the 25 cent comic.  This is where the money could be made to make up for what was being lost on the newsstand, so what if more money had to go into making them.

Then with two titles, WATCHMEN and DARK KNIGHT, they had breakout sellers into the mass market again.  But this was not going to be a return to the newsstand, it was going to be another niche market.  Graphic novels in bookstores.

Surprisingly, to these publishers, this category didn't explode overnight.  Many 'graphic novels' were produced but didn't take the market in the same way.  What was needed was a bigger spotlight on the comics industry.

That light was to come from Tim Burton's vision for Batman.  In the months prior to the films opening the poorest of Batman comics would triple or quadruple in value… Until the film came out.  The film did great.  Broke records.  But the people seeing the film could not equate it with the comic book.  Even then there were three or four monthly comics with Batman in, but none of them echoed Tim Burton's version and none of them were accessible.  Multi-part storylines and the feeling that too much had happened to be ever able to get caught up on.  Big sales spike and then it was gone.

Comics had become like the daytime soaps, endless cycles of angst but nothing really happens.

Leave it to the independents to steer the way.  One book from England would change everything.  Not with a bang, but slowly.  Too slow to save its own fate, but it had made a change that the publishers in the United States didn't ignore.  The magazine was WARRIOR.  This lead to the import of other British publications such as 2000 AD and even publications aimed at the DSM (Direct Sales Market) such as Harrier Comics and A1 by Garry Leach and myself.  Then came Deadline and Crisis.  It seemed the market could support everything.

The secondary tier of publishers in the US adapted quickly.  Some grabbed the US publishing rights to this foreign material.  Others opted for licensing movie and TV material.  Dark Horse exploded onto the scene with their great sequels to ALIEN and eventually STAR WARS.

The audience was growing older and staying longer.  This audience had a greater disposable income.  More graphic novels.  Trade paper backs.  The cost of a comic soared, but it didn't seem to affect the market.

But it was being affected.  More expensive graphic novels, adult themed or mature labeled books alienated what had always been the biggest demographic of the industry.  The kids.

Most independents producing material for the more mature market took for granted that Marvel and DC would always be there feeding the market.  They would bring in the kids, feed them for a few years and then just when those kids wanted more than spandex heroes, there they would be with more mature material.

They never suspected that they would abandon those kids to go after the older market themselves.

Kids stopped buying them for two reasons.  One, inaccessibility. Two, they had become too expensive.  Five dollars didn't go very far any more.  Parents remembering the 15 to 25 cents of yesteryear weren't going to give their kids $10 or more a month just to keep track of Batman (Spiderman, Superman, X-Men, etc…) and not get a story out of it.

They would really prefer to pay $50 for a video game.  They didn't have the same point of reference for that and they also saw that it kept the kids engaged for hours.

So where are we now?

We made the transition to bookstores.  Back to the self contained comic.  But in the format of 120 pages plus, with glossy paper, it is in a format people will put down $10-$15.

This transition would not be made possible without Tokyopop and Viz.  Kids demand for their product, $10, over a 100 pages, black and white on newsprint paper, has made the book retailers pay attention to the comic industry again.

But even this can't last.  Everything now is transitional.  Permanent? What does that really mean any more.

Bookstores are closing.  Between Amazon and the Kindle who needs to go to the bookstore any more?  While graphic novel sales were still growing in bookstores they proved to be the only one and they weren't enough to keep Borders doors open.  In fact, returns from Borders instead of payment crippled Tokyopop and hurt many other publishers.

Fear not!

What is coming is a new digital age.  An age that many Deviants are already years a head of the curve.

An age where publishers and distributors are no longer needed.  Creators can produce their material and just hit the 'Publish' button and seconds later you're already getting feedback from your audience.

There is a new world coming and its coming fast.  Be prepared.  Keyboards and tablets at the ready.

In part two I may even try answering the question at the top of the page…

- Dave Elliott often writes rambling journals.  I bet you wish this had been at the top of the page...