The End of Comics As We Know Them

In a recent interview with John Siuntres' Word Balloon Podcast, writer and editor Marty Pasko talked about the idea that comics as we know them are likely to end in the near future. He framed the statement by saying that comics as he knew them had already ended once during his long career and that the next stage in their evolution had served the industry just fine for quite a while before technology, sales and the nature of corporate ownership began putting pressures on the current market structure of the mainstream, superhero comics market which Pasko sees as essentially unsustainable. So, he pointed out, the end of "comics as we know them" doesn't mean the end of comics, or even the end of big two superhero comics. What might spell doom, Pasko suggested, is if publishers and/or retailers cling rigidly to the old ways and fail to rise to the challenges of a changing marketplace. Assuming they don't, what factors might touch off a seismic shift in the way fans currently perceive comics? Lagging Sales As the audience ages and shrinks, sales can only continue to sink lower and lower. While non-superhero and creator-owned material (where fans are there for the artists or the art, not for the characters and stories) will likely plateau, there's really nothing similar in place for the superhero stuff, particularly as most of those characters have vibrant lives in other media (from big-budget movies to children's picture books) that flourish on their own. Low sales may force any number of the other changes discussed below. Shifting Focus With DC and Marvel both recently getting management face lifts and DC doing more and more of its high-level management out of Burbank, the old idea that comics are really just a low-cost research and development arm of large film studios seems to gain a little more traction and credibility. In a best-case scenario, this could mean a shift in the types of titles offered, a broadening of genre diversity and a willingness to experiment. Worst-case, it could mean a reduction in the entire product line as Disney decides that there's really no need for six Avengers titles when one will do the job almost as effectively. Digital The boogeyman for many publishers and retailers, digital publishing is really still a pretty insignificant factor in the overall publishing market for Big Two superhero comics. But with the Avengelyne webcomic garnering as many unique visitors per month as some of the biggest, hottest titles at Marvel and DC (around 100,000), it's only a matter of time before publishers and their corporate parents decide that digital not only needs to become a bigger part of their overall business plan, but that the way comic publishers approach digital needs to change dramatic. Price point seems like the logical place to start, as a steep reduction will open the market to huge numbers of readers who aren't willing to pay $2.99 or more for a 20-page comic featuring characters they aren't already invested in--but that change won't sit well with the direct market and any serious moves made in that direction may hamper hard-copy sales. The Rise of the OGN and the End of Monthly Periodicals As we implied in an article this morning, not every character (even in the DC and Marvel Universes) is best suited for ongoing, monthly storytelling. Many characters would probably do better to have one really great story told to promote their "brand identity" every year and then to perhaps appear briefly in other books just to remind readers that they still play in the same universe. All one needs to do is look to the success of higher-priced hardcovers like Superman: Earth One, developed with new readers and the bookstore market in mind, to see that this business model is a legitimate one. And while current readers are pretty married to their floppies, that market is small and always shrinking. Add in a struggling direct market and it wouldn't be at all surprising to see Marvel and DC beginning to experiment with digital first or digital-only periodicals and a print market centered around collected editions, prestige format books and the occasional digest for underperforming titles. While this format would likely point to a reduced selection at DC and Marvel in terms of the availability of actual paper books, digital-only publications that reduce the overall cost of printing and shipping could really help low-circulation titles which are disproportionately punished for failing to meet thresholds necessary to keep the presses running. The Decline of the Direct Market The direct market isn't healthy, and may not even be good for comics. While almost everyone has a retailer or five that they love and will support until the day the doors slam shut, a sizable chunk of the comics direct market are sleazy, cramped and unwelcoming shops where the employees are hobbyists more concerned with their discount than customer service. As readership dwindles and digital rises, stores like that are bound to suffer, with their print-only readers hopefully heading to the better stores to make a smaller, stronger direct market. Those retailers will need to embrace things like Diamond's digital storefront system and a diverse base of titles in order to draw in not just digital customers, but the type of reader who usually buys their copies of the Fables and Walking Dead hardcovers at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. There are certainly other changes on the horizon for comics, and of course there will be some that we don't see coming, but it seems that these handful are inevitably going to impact the industry in a big way over the course of the next decade or less--and woe to the publisher, retailer or reader who isn't ready for them when they come.