I posted the Marvel version of this topic, but I'm sure there are people who prefer Bats to Spiders, and Steel to Iron.

After reading one of Skullbie's posts about how bad a particular comic was by Marvel, it reminded me of my own disdain for mainstream comics in general. It's one of the reasons why I like Drunk Duck, after all.

One of my arguments as to why mainstream comics tend to be poorly done is because the person with the vision and passion for the comic isn't necessarily the one in control of it.

Then my mind got to thinking: What kind of chaos would happen if one of us DDer's were suddenly given the reigns to Marvel and all its holdings? Let's assume that anyone else you might have to answer to was liquidated (because it's fun) so there is nobody who can stop you from enforcing your will upon the company or any of its titles. (Feeling like a super-villain yet?)

What... do... you... DO? (Please, feel free to cackle evilly)

I'll start...

- First, Lobo's gonna suffer a fate worse than death: He'll be turned into the equivalent to Scrappy-Doo, losing most of his abilities except regeneration so not even death will be a release. I hate Wolverine; why should the DC parody of the character fare any better?

- Infinite Earths? Why not come clean: "Yeah, we are TOTALLY inconsistent with our characters and storytelling. We're just gonna say whose version of a storyline we're going to continue with before starting from now on,"

- Frank Miller's stuff will all be pitched.

- Superman will have an affair with Lex Luthor and anyone else whose initials are "L.L.". Both he and Luthor will be mortified that it happened.

- Wonder Woman will just come clean and openly admit she's totally into bondage.

- Harley Quinn will be left the hell alone. The animated series had a good thing going with her, don't screw with it because you think it should be 'darker'.

- The Joker will have to be genuinely funny as well as evil. Also, might as just admit he has one super-power: Immortality. That way you can stop pretending there was some way for him to survive whatever idiotic 'didn't find his body so he can come back' situation you tossed him into; nobody's gonna just keep sending him back to the funny farm. Kill him, kill him openly, have him admit he was totally killed the last time, and just admit he'll keep coming back as long as he's popular.

- Darkside will get fired. That's right -- instead of killing him he'll just lose all super-villain status and work joe-jobs from that point forward. Just to rub it in, he'll keep his powers too, but just not be allowed to use them in any way that could be considered 'super'.

- Mr. Mxyzptlk will be renamed "Bob" and will be banished if he or anyone else says his name backwards. He will be aware of the renaming and hate me with a passion.

- All the character histories will count. When one contradicts another, someone will point it out, they will name names as to the cause, and them note exactly what they think about it.
Robin: Remember when you used to call me "Old chum"
Batman: I haven't called you that in over twenty years.
Robin: Yeah.
Batman: Oh God... how old AM I??
Robin: Hey, at least we aged well. I'm just glad I'm done with the fish scale underwear.

all fights would become intense psychological battles of rock paper scissors

i'd have to do the oppsite,man. if i had control of DC, you mine as well change it to the lobo club.

I'd revert everything back to the fifties.

I'd totally drop any large continuity and cancel all monthlies, turning everything into miniseries and graphic novels, half of which would be Elseworlds titles. whatever, make it all "imaginary tales" (all the good batman stories are almost exclusively graphic novels or miniseries that either spin-off into directions not touched upon in the monthlies, deal with his past/future or are entirely Elseworlds titles).

Also, I'd have Vertigo drop the single issue format and go strictly with trades/graphic novels, and make all of their titles use better paper, DAMMIT! And reprint the hardcover editions every few years so that people stop trying to pull tricks like sellint The Fountain HC for 700$ through amazon!!!

Oh yeah, and I'd also try to keep all their comics in print in form of 500 page b&w volumes printed through POD to avoid flooding the stores with them... and sell them through an online store or mailorder.

all fights would become intense psychological battles of rock paper scissors

Making the stories and battles more realistic and entertaining at the same time! The plots would be a little less contrived, too. I can imagine the Joker trying to cheat by covering his hand with a puppet, though...

Nah. He'd put his hand out flat and make an argument for shale being a flat rock so he was putting out rock and not paper.

-I would repeat the "Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow" story, but this time it would be for good.

-Bane would break some more backs. Preferably that of the Ultra-Humanite. I hate that faggot.

Four movies I'd like done right away if I controlled DC...

-THE FLASH
Cast
Shia Labeouf as The Flash
Tim Robbins as Captain Cold
Jason Statham as Captain Boomerang
Jeremy Piven as The Weather Wizard
Ryan Renoylds as The Mirror Master


-GREEN LANTERN
Cast
Jamie Foxx as John Stewart
Dennis Quaid as Hal Jordan
Jason Issacs as Sinestro
Ben Kingsley as Abin Sur
Justin Long as Kyle Rayner (Sequel)

-BOOSTER GOLD
Cast
Owen Wilson as Booster Gold
Ben Stiller as The Blue Beetle

-THE QUESTION
Cast
Guy Pearce as The Question

I'd make Superman a dick x10

blntmaker
-BOOSTER GOLD
Cast
Owen Wilson as Booster Gold
Ben Stiller as The Blue Beetle

Dear god no

blntmaker
-THE QUESTION
Cast
Guy Pearce as The Question

That, however, I could get behind

I propose that the DC universe lineup openly admits that they all generally just want attention and the spandex makes them feel butch.

Robin will come out of the closet and explain the reason why he's hung around a 40+ year-old man for so long.

Later on, Nightwing will explain that the reason he left the duo was that he never got top bunk at bedtime and he always suspected Bruce of drinking milk out of the jug.

Alfred will finally get sick of Bruce Wayne's crap and go join the Legion of Doom who long ago offered him a far better paying job.

Superman will get bored fighting criminals due to his immortality, and go on to come clean and propose his eternal love for Lois, who will then admit that she is Wonderwoman who secretly got a sex change years ago and was never interested in Clark Kent, she just wanted the brunette with enormous breasts and butt ( In the true DC fashion of course. ) who works in the mail room. Clark will then proceed to have an enormous mental breakdown and run crying to Aquaman, whom long ago realized that he was petty useless as a superhero since the villains were always attacking some city on land and thus began a career as a job therapist.


The brunette in the mailroom will turn out to be none other than Batgirl who after telling her dad what she was doing all those nights he thought she was out partying, decides to move in with Lois and start raising a family. However, after a tragic fight when Lois' testosterone treatment kicks in at the wrong moment, the couple separates and the children are left with a shattered home. Those children will go on to become part of the Teen Titans who manage to do nothing more than become internationally known for the vast array of Raven on Starfire pornography to be found on the internet.

Finally, The Flash will realize that his super power has one extreme benefit and decide to retire and begin the worlds fastest courier service.

I think that covers most of the big ones. After I do all that, I plan on setting fire to a few piles of first edition Superman comics, just for the heck of it.

Continue on as usual. However, there will be implemented a 2-year plan in which all deaths are FINAL, and battles/crimes will realistically result in deaths. Not once every 10 reader years, but every reader month (fighting crime is a dangerous business, and so is being a criminal fighting superheroes).

Eventually, all the old 2nd-rate/3rd-rate/etc redundant heroes/villains will be phased out (by death etc), and fresh storyline blood may flow in, without time warps or string theory or clones or deals with the devil.

Ditto my big plan for marvel. For the big two, contrary to smaller publishers (who seem to model their business around the possible crossover success of their IPs), I think the big issue is generating new fans and finding new markets. I'm not going to repeat what I said here... but basically the same goes for DC.

That said, I'm a big DC fan, so I'd probably not strip down the universe so much-- One of the cool things about DC is that it's a melting pot of acquisitions vs. marvel just creating new characters. So you have a lot of interesting groups of characters. What i might do is try and market these groups as imprints... put a little distance between them (ie the charlton characeters, the fawcett characters, the original national characters, etc). Y'know... make it a bigger deal when Supes and Captain Marvel team up, or the Question shows up in Gotham.... stuff like that.

Rene Montoya is the Question now, so it'd be weird to see her outside of Gotham

kingofsnake
Rene Montoya is the Question now, so it'd be weird to see her outside of Gotham

hahah.. as i wrote that... i thought... someone is going to point that out.

If you read my lengthy marvel breakdown, you'll see that I would basically end continuity as we know it, without any BS retcons.... So in my imaginary world, when I split the imprints, i would probably revert the Question, as well as have the Ted Kord Blue Beetle, as far as Charlton characters go-- thats thinking more specifically though... Heck, maybe even not, but there would be some separation between the imprints' worlds.

When I pick up a DC comic nowadays... and damnit, i DO love em-- but its like you're reading a comic where it seems like probably more than 50% of the population is superheroes. In my eyes, that makes the heroes less fantastic.

I look at it like this. Batman and Superman (to simplify) occupy the same world. So if there is anything that comes up for Batman that is a little too much for him to handle, he can always call Superman. So then there's no challanges for batman, so then you always have to explain why superman can't come to help....

A good example of this is in the marvel universe, where the FF battle galactus or whatever (i'm no marvel expert) way back when in NYC. This was before continuity. Well, now lookign back you have to ask, why weren't the 45 OTHER MARVEL HEROES that live in NYC helping out? They should be! The reason is, because Stan Lee wanted to write a story about FF, not all the other heroes.

In this way, continuity complicates things because you're always having to explain why 72 BETTER qualified heroes aren't saving the day in place of the protagonist... among other thing....

So I'm saying, do away with the whole continuity business to that extent. Have some consistency... okay Renee Montoya became the Question, Okay she lives in Gotham, but maybe she doesn't have to rub elbows with Batman all the time. Let her occupy her own world, even in gotham. So you don't have to read her comic and when she gets in trouble wonder why she didn't get Batman, Nightwing, Robin... or any JLA types for that matter involved. It's just Renee.

Frankly, I enjoy the DCU in all its convoluted continuous glory... One of my main concerns for "mainstream" comics (and you'll get this idea from my "marvel plan"), though, is that they are not accessible to new readers. Continuity is a big problem with this. Look at both of these posts and see how many folks want the continuity to go away.

I see it with my own kids, who know i love reading DC comics, they see Dark Knight (not that dark knight is exactly a kids film), think Batman is cool, but when they pick up an issue of Batman.... woah... "what the hell is going on?" Try explaining to a kid who just wants to read a single batman adventure why he's stomping around crazy talking to himself in a bright purple costume, while people are saying alfred is his father, and whatnot. Yes, this is what is going on during the big cross over while DC has the opportunity to cross promote their comics to new readers piqued by the movie.

Sorry, i went a little tirade there. I'd just like to see the comics be more accessible to new readers, and perhaps have that new reader aggressively marketed to. The way i see it, right now, "mainstream" comics are a product that are HARD to get interested in, and don't exactly go out of their way to present themselves to people who don't regularly expose themselves to them (insert "Flash" joke here) by going to comic book specialty shops.

By the way, if anyone is interested, KEITH GIFFEN wrote a great and amusing column about continuity (some of which i have reference in my examples here). I think its a great read, short, but fun.... check it out: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=15750

Okay.... Ill shut up now

I have no idea how i made that winking guy.... it was supposed to be closed parenthesis.

as good of a thread idea as this is, there sure are alot of smartass answers.


If I were in charge of DC the first thing I would do is fire everyone who has childhood memories of these characters. seriously. it's annoying how sick and perverted your love for green arrow is, stop.

I'd hire a bunch of people who have no idea about the histories of the characters and put them in charge of writing the comics along with Frank Miller, who is the only creator who actually (GASP!) has fun with his characters.

All the god-like characters would be complete dicks and assholes. Wonder woman would be an out-and-out lesbian, since everyone knows she is (she lived on an all woman island through her puberty years for chrissakes...she was munching some rug)

I'd stop naming all events "crisis"

hell, id stop having "events"

Id let batman kill. I mean seriously, his parents were killed. youre telling me hes not going to have extreme murderous rage?

and lastly...id bring back panels like this

NickGuy
If I were in charge of DC the first thing I would do is fire everyone who has childhood memories of these characters. seriously....
I'd hire a bunch of people who have no idea about the histories of the characters and put them in charge of writing....

So if you were God, Uwe Boll would inherit DC.

no i wouldnt hire crappy people lol. id hire good writers and ediitors who happen to not be in the superhero comic field.

let me expand on this for a moment...

what i find to be the biggest problem in comics is this....the inmates took over the asylum. what i mean is, all these people who loved comics as a kid are now the ones in charge of it (im talking about guys like Didio, Schreck and Quesada). That's all well and good, but the reverence that these guys have for past comics of their childhood has ultimately developed into a bizzare and stunted growth that has left "mainstream" superhero comic books a joke. I mean, even what Marvel and DC consider mainstream is a joke. The best selling comics out there sell maybe 200,000 copies. thats pitiful by most novel standards. What I would do is remove this infantile love for batman and superman that everyone has working at DC and put in people who arent afraid to be irreverent and funny and hip and, in a word, pop culture. Thats why I say the only relevant comic to come out in the last 20 years is The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller. The art is punk rock, the colors are like a skittles factory exploding, and the story is a near perfect satire on the society we live in today. Comic books, and more importantly Superhero comic books, have not focused on "the issues of today" since Captain America was fighting Nazi's and thats sad. Yes you can point out issues where 9/11 happened, or where someone was on drugs, but the majority of comics are still "the Batmobile lost a wheel and Joker got away". Thats why I love ASBAR, its no coincidence that that comic is also written by Frank Miller. He is the only guy in comics today that "gets it" IMO. It is time for comics to grow up. You would have thought that would have happened in the 70's with underground "comix" but sadly everyone let that go to waste. what i would bring back to the marketplace if i was inc harge of DC was simply...RELEVANCE. I would piss off all the fat fanboys living in their mothers basement with a sweaty green lantern shirt on and a shelf full of comics wrapped in plastic bags that have "NEVER BEEN OPENED!!!!!111" but it needs to be done, IMO, or comic books are going to remain a joke for a very long time. That's why manga is so successful right now.

You raise some really great points. By the way, I enjoyed your 12 page Batman Riff... that was good stuff.

I have to take a slightly diverging opinion though. While I totally agree that what they're doing (give or take, there's a lot of good stuff going on too) could use and overhaul. From the sales standpoint (I gave a detailed "plan" for re-vitalizing the big two in the matching marvel thread), I think the problem is less the nostalgia as it is non-accessability to new readers. I see three big blocks in front of new readers:

Reliance on the Direct Market - If you're only selling your comics at a store that ONLY sells comics, how are you supposed to attract non-comics readers? I know there's a shift toward the book market, but I think comics need to get back into news-stands/ spinner racks, etc... get them into the "Mombuymethat" spots where its not a $20 book investment, but one more small item in a $150 dollar grocery purchase...

Convoluted Continuity - If you've read comics for years, you may not notice it, but for a new reader to jump into the DCU, you almost need an encyclopedic knowledge of the universe to understand have the crap that's going on! Gone are the days where a little asterisk will tell you that so-and-so figured out SuperDude's alter ego two issues ago... To pick up a comic these days you need to know the outcome of 15 crossovers, special events, and an obscure line of dialog from a 1960s issue of Detective Comics! You have to be pretty determined to take this on as a new reader.

Long Story Arcs - I think if they were presented as mini-series (ie DKR), thats one thing. But now (thanks to the book sellers, who determined that a 6 issue arc makes the ideal price point TPB) we've got every comic doing six issue (or more) arcs NON stop, mostly due to the fact that, to get the most for their investment in writing/art, the publishers want to be able to market the product twice. I get it. But once again, for a new reader... if you wanted to get into, say, Batman, you've got over an 80% (based on 2 six issue arcs a year) chance that the current issue is in the middle of a story arc... who wants start in the middle? And for that matter, a six month commitment is a pretty tall order for someone who isn't even sure if they're going to get into it.

My solution would be to throw continuity out the door in favor of a more general consistency. Nix the non-stop events. Take the monthlies and pear them down to the basics of the character and do shorter stories that a less involved reader could get into. These could sell in supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations, etc... like they used to. Meanwhile, spend a little more money on some well produced mini-series' (that may or may not adhere to the consistency that are more for the direct market audience (ie established fans), and then, of course, double market them as TPBs in book stores, where they'll be more relevant as WHOLE CONTAINED STORIES than story arc collections.

While upgrading/contemorizing (i just made that word up), might be a cool idea (and its been done, and i'm not just talking about the super-mullet) these things are usually relegated to either be temporary, or classified as elseworlds (which apparently are now mainstream DCmultiU) . I think that a reason, by and large, this sort of thing gets avoided is because we're dealing with up to 70 year old intellectual properties. There's only a certain amount of permanent updating/changing you can make before (at least in the eyes of the people in charge) these properties start to lose who they are, and become less strong as properties. Y'know? They're not gonna give Superman, say, a mask, the same as Disney wouldn't give Mickey Mouse pointed ears. It kinda sucks to look at characters as IPs, but its what they are, and there has to be a certain level of cohesiveness to what they are across the board.

But I'm not anti-nostalgia either (probably why I'm more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan.... they play it up the nostalgia a lot more). I think All Star Superman (make that an acronym!) is one of the best books made in the last 20 years. And thats pure nostalgia!

Blah....

I've said to much...

Thanks for sparking such a great topic... looking forward to more!

once again... no idea how that emoticon got in there

NickGuy
no i wouldnt hire crappy people lol. id hire good writers and ediitors who happen to not be in the superhero comic field.

let me expand on this for a moment...

what i find to be the biggest problem in comics is this....the inmates took over the asylum. what i mean is, all these people who loved comics as a kid are now the ones in charge of it (im talking about guys like Didio, Schreck and Quesada). That's all well and good, but the reverence that these guys have for past comics of their childhood has ultimately developed into a bizzare and stunted growth that has left "mainstream" superhero comic books a joke. I mean, even what Marvel and DC consider mainstream is a joke. The best selling comics out there sell maybe 200,000 copies. thats pitiful by most novel standards. What I would do is remove this infantile love for batman and superman that everyone has working at DC and put in people who arent afraid to be irreverent and funny and hip and, in a word, pop culture. Thats why I say the only relevant comic to come out in the last 20 years is The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller. The art is punk rock, the colors are like a skittles factory exploding, and the story is a near perfect satire on the society we live in today. Comic books, and more importantly Superhero comic books, have not focused on "the issues of today" since Captain America was fighting Nazi's and thats sad. Yes you can point out issues where 9/11 happened, or where someone was on drugs, but the majority of comics are still "the Batmobile lost a wheel and Joker got away". Thats why I love ASBAR, its no coincidence that that comic is also written by Frank Miller. He is the only guy in comics today that "gets it" IMO. It is time for comics to grow up. You would have thought that would have happened in the 70's with underground "comix" but sadly everyone let that go to waste. what i would bring back to the marketplace if i was inc harge of DC was simply...RELEVANCE. I would piss off all the fat fanboys living in their mothers basement with a sweaty green lantern shirt on and a shelf full of comics wrapped in plastic bags that have "NEVER BEEN OPENED!!!!!111" but it needs to be done, IMO, or comic books are going to remain a joke for a very long time. That's why manga is so successful right now.

While I agree with the "inmates taking over the asylum" analogy, I don't think your solution would work. It would actually harm the sales even more. Why? Because if you end up changing up the heroes totally, you will NOT bring in any new readers (since those that dropped the books or never read them wouldn't pick them up anyway, nor would they enter a comic book store most likely) and you only alienate the existing ones, who want Batman and not "sort of batman".

Let me illustrate it with a short dialogue.

Three fans standing in a store, one Batman fan one Spider-Man fan and one hmm... let's say Underground fan.

Store owner: Hey guys, here's the NEW Batman, check it out.

Batman fan: I don't want it cause it's not MY Batman.
Spider-man fan: I don't want it cause IT IS Batman.
Underground fan: I don't want it cause it's superhero!

Most of people who buy these books are not comics fans anymore. They're Batman/Spider-man/Superman/X-Men fans, and all they care about is their monthly fix of their fav characters. This is why you get events, too. A large chunk of the surviving fanbase wants these and the rest is mostly going along to get their fix, while at the same time complaining about the contents of the books.

Miller's last few Batman creations are generally reviled among the fans an they sell mostly because there's enough Miller fans to pick them up.

Obviously, following this pattern both Marvel and DC will run themselves into the ground, their comic divisions at least anyway. Marvel already took to making their own films rather than rely on movie studios, so that they can have more control and rack up the profits themselves rather than share them with someone else, and I've read somewhere that DC wants to do the same. Basically, at some point in a decade or three you'll have Batman cartoons, movies, games and perhaps a novel from time to time, but the comics will fade out of existance. Well, at least the monthlies will.

Of course I might be wrong about that prediction.

Aurora Borealis
Obviously, following this pattern both Marvel and DC will run themselves into the ground, their comic divisions at least anyway. Marvel already took to making their own films rather than rely on movie studios, so that they can have more control and rack up the profits themselves rather than share them with someone else, and I've read somewhere that DC wants to do the same.

Marvel is at an advantage when it comes to this, because they aren't owned by a huge movie company the way DC is. This gives them the freedom to work with producers and various studios that will work closely (or closer) with them... seems like they're getting more done this way. Movies are getting made about the comics.

DC, on the other hand, is owned by Warner Bros. and thus the DC characters are actually Warner property, and they can do what they see fit, regardless of what DC thinks. The film side of things is very separate from the comic side of things, though they have to respect it, since thats where the stuff originates from. I'm sure Didio and crew would love to get a little more control over the film side, but I doubt WB would give them free reign to shop around to other studios...

Basically, at some point in a decade or three you'll have Batman cartoons, movies, games and perhaps a novel from time to time, but the comics will fade out of existance. Well, at least the monthlies will.

I think this is pretty close to what's going to happen. All print comics that AREN'T the big two, seem to be farm leagues for movies (all though the "next season" phenom thats going around is interesting). Unless they radically rework their business model for monthlies... I see the comics periodical getting phased out.. though it might hang on by a thread for a while.

Things going they way they are, I really think that comics publishers/distributors and book stores need to market "graphic novels" as BOOKS and not separate them off as "graphic novels." To me its as silly as having a separate section for first person narritives. DC/Radome House tried this with their MINX line of graphic novels (targeting teenage girls)-- I thought the idea was amazing and great, but they couldn't get it off the graphic novel shelves and into the "teen fiction" sections.... ie- in front of their target demographic.

Sigh... I'm ranting... I just think comics deserve more mainstream attention....

Aurora Borealis
Obviously, following this pattern both Marvel and DC will run themselves into the ground, their comic divisions at least anyway. Marvel already took to making their own films rather than rely on movie studios, so that they can have more control and rack up the profits themselves rather than share them with someone else, and I've read somewhere that DC wants to do the same. Basically, at some point in a decade or three you'll have Batman cartoons, movies, games and perhaps a novel from time to time, but the comics will fade out of existance. Well, at least the monthlies will.

Of course I might be wrong about that prediction.

i disagree with that, people have been predicting the end of comics since the 30s. And if the "pamphlet" format of comics gets tossed out, i.e. the 22 page issue costing 3 bucks, then that can only be a boon to american comics. Think about it. This may sound weird, but hear me out...

The current size of comic books are awkward. In a way, its a slave to people's mylar bags and thats insane! The average (non-comic) reader looks at a comic and goes "i dont want to carry that around. It's bigger than my 5x7 novel and not a comfortable size". look at most manga graphic novels. the size and format of those books are very intimate, not so small you cant see the art, but not immediately recognizeable as "comic-book size" like most TPBs. Now me personally, I draw on huge sheets of paper. I love drawing big. my sketchbook is 14x20. its more fun for me. but when i go to print off a book, I'm looking to do it in digest sized installments. why? because its easier to pick up and not gaudy. The current comic book format is too thin, too big and generally not an accessible size. Again, Im issuing "mainstream" comics when i say all this, but the field really needs to change its printing patterns. get rid of the fact that a long time ago, some guy folded a newspaper in half twice and gave us this bad size to work with.

and mattchee, the direct market needs to dissappear. It was a great idea in the 70s when it first came about, but instead of branching out and becoming part of modern media, it instead has secluded itself, shrunken in to little dingy dark-lit stores (again im generalizing here...i worked in a comic shop in times square that was awesome) that have become jokes unto themselves. By secluding comics, you intimidate the non-reader. And Aurora, I disagree with you on another point. With todays comic book buying audience and the internet, radical changes wont lose longtime fans. They will keep buying the books just to bitch about them online. Hell, think about ASBAR. so many people hate it, but its one of the hottest selling comics because everyone loves to hate it!

plain and simple, comics the way they are now need to change alot about themselves if they want more readership.

It's true about the direct sales problem. Who walks into those stores anymore? Everyone goes into Barnes & Nobles, or Waldenbooks, or 1 of those. Yknow, the chain stores in malls. Where kids, boys, and young men with gfs go. I don't even know where I can find a direct sale store anymore.

And the things I find in those big bookstores are all graphic novels, or manga.

NickGuy

Aurora Borealis
Obviously, following this pattern both Marvel and DC will run themselves into the ground, their comic divisions at least anyway. Marvel already took to making their own films rather than rely on movie studios, so that they can have more control and rack up the profits themselves rather than share them with someone else, and I've read somewhere that DC wants to do the same. Basically, at some point in a decade or three you'll have Batman cartoons, movies, games and perhaps a novel from time to time, but the comics will fade out of existance. Well, at least the monthlies will.

Of course I might be wrong about that prediction.

i disagree with that, people have been predicting the end of comics since the 30s. And if the "pamphlet" format of comics gets tossed out, i.e. the 22 page issue costing 3 bucks, then that can only be a boon to american comics. Think about it. This may sound weird, but hear me out...

Let me clarify. Events sell, right? right. Can't deny that. Each major event title breaks the 100k copies sold easily, some reaching up to nearly 200k. Except, with each event you lose some readers. They get tired of all that "nothing will ever be the same" bullshit, they get lost in the convoluted continuities, they run out of money to buy 15 spin-offs and 11-tie ins just to get the entire affair. I know a guy who was importing most of what Marvel and DC offer, but then he got fed up with events. First he stopped buying tie-ins and spin-offs, then stopped buying main event books, and finally started to drop every single book that tied into the crossover. Result is he's only buying books outside of the continuity.

So at some point the number of readers will drop to the level, where only the biggest DCMarvel characters will be selling anything. You can already see that starting. Why is Wolverine in EVERY SINGLE MARVEL BOOK? Cause he sells. Meanwhile nobody bothers trying to do a monthly out of secondary characters, only miniseries.
And the more you use the same characters, same plots, same events etc. the faster it burns out. If it keeps on like that, then at some point making comics stops being profitable.

The current size of comic books are awkward. In a way, its a slave to people's mylar bags and thats insane! The average (non-comic) reader looks at a comic and goes "i dont want to carry that around. It's bigger than my 5x7 novel and not a comfortable size". look at most manga graphic novels. the size and format of those books are very intimate, not so small you cant see the art, but not immediately recognizeable as "comic-book size" like most TPBs. Now me personally, I draw on huge sheets of paper. I love drawing big. my sketchbook is 14x20. its more fun for me. but when i go to print off a book, I'm looking to do it in digest sized installments. why? because its easier to pick up and not gaudy. The current comic book format is too thin, too big and generally not an accessible size. Again, Im issuing "mainstream" comics when i say all this, but the field really needs to change its printing patterns. get rid of the fact that a long time ago, some guy folded a newspaper in half twice and gave us this bad size to work with.

Hah, have you seen old newspaper comics? Now these were HUGE. Personally I'm of an opinion that while b&w books can be printed at a smaller size, color ones shouldn't be. If anything, they should be bigger. All these oversized hardcovers are simply beautiful. Although that depends on the content too. And how it is presented. Try taking an "euro" comic and resize it from A4 to pocket size and tell me if you can see anything on these 10-15 tiny panels per page. I don't know how other editions of Akira look like, but the Polish one was printed at roughly A4 size. I really can't imagine reading that in a smaller size. On the other hand comics that were "designed" to be read on a train or a bus work perfectly in smaller format.

and mattchee, the direct market needs to dissappear. It was a great idea in the 70s when it first came about, but instead of branching out and becoming part of modern media, it instead has secluded itself, shrunken in to little dingy dark-lit stores (again im generalizing here...i worked in a comic shop in times square that was awesome) that have become jokes unto themselves. By secluding comics, you intimidate the non-reader. And Aurora, I disagree with you on another point. With todays comic book buying audience and the internet, radical changes wont lose longtime fans. They will keep buying the books just to bitch about them online. Hell, think about ASBAR. so many people hate it, but its one of the hottest selling comics because everyone loves to hate it!

plain and simple, comics the way they are now need to change alot about themselves if they want more readership.

While a lot of people seem to be buying comics to bitch about them (same as Metallica fans buy new albums while saying how the band went bad after this or that album), content changes do affect the sales more or less. I agree there are people who will pick up a book with a specific character regardless whether it's good or bad (see my Wolverine comment above), but for example one more day/brand new day did affect Spiderman negatively (in a way). While there was a spike in sales due to the controversy over the storyline (people picked it up to see what's the whole deal about) and later some people grabbed BND to see the promised "fun" stories, the readership started to drop off. Some new people remained, but from the article that I read (one of the columns on comic book resources that I can't locate right now) it appears that currently the readership fell from roughly 80 to 60 thousand (shooting the numbers from memory, sorry). Overall the books sell more, cause you have three issues monthly selling 60k instead of one selling 80k and two selling below 20k (giving 180 vs 120 total), but technically every reader they lose is costing them three monthly sales instead of one. It's basically the same thing like doing a crossover across several books with one character, but doing it in a less obvious and certainly less annoying fashion.

Also, a lot of people who complain about these are simply completists. "I got the previous several hundreds of issues, I guess I'll keep on buying it as long as they don't cancel it". "I don't like it, but I'll pick it up anyway". "Gotta catch them all!" :)

So basically I think we're both right to some degree, only time will tell who was right. But I do agree comics need new readers, although personally I'd send those new readers towards Image, Dark Horse's/IDW's non-licensed books, etc.

First off... I;m really enjoying this discussion, guys! Okay:

NickGuy
and mattchee, the direct market needs to dissappear. It was a great idea in the 70s when it first came about, but instead of branching out and becoming part of modern media, it instead has secluded itself, shrunken in to little dingy dark-lit stores (again im generalizing here...i worked in a comic shop in times square that was awesome) that have become jokes unto themselves.

I wholeheartedly agree. I think that the DM as an ALTERNATIVE to newstands for specialty shops is not a bad idea in and of itself. But somewhere between the late 80s and now, the industry has become completely reliant on the DM for issue sales. They've gone from being available in several markets to ONE. How foolish is that?

How to you introduce your product to prospective consumers when your product is only available in stores that specialize in your product? And like you said, while some of the stores are GREAT, many comic shops are very unapproachable... I've moved quite a bit over the last few years, and I can tell you how many times i've tried a new shop, and I go in and get this vibe like i walked into somebodies club house that I wasn't welcome in. That's rough! So, bad enough a new consumer would have to be motivated enough to go to a SPEACIALTY store, but then its not very welcoming?

They've stacked the cards against themselves by catering only to the direct market and giving up on the news stand scene. There's no new readership in the DM.

Look: I don't know about you guys, but I got my first comics at 7-11.

I don't know if giving up the DM entirely is neccessary, but I can only see a positive side for mainstream comics to aggressivly getting back onto news stands. The increased exposure will get them bigger ad campaigns (who will pay more for the increased circulation) in addition to the new reader benefits. I don't think they should use the adverts to increase revenue though (the new readers will increase revenue), i think they should use those ad dollars to offset making a lower price point.

22 page comics are WAY too expensive (okay. I buy em, but for non obsessed kids its like 10 minutes of entertainment vs 6-8 candybars!). I even think they could reprint older comics to sell on news stands to bring the price even farther down (less overhead, the art/writing has already been paid for)-- and maybe pack 3 or 4 stories into a bigger comic. Go to a newstand right now, no "american" comics, but you can buy 300 pages of manga via shonen jump for, what? six bucks? How does 3-4 dollars for 22 pages figure against THAT?

Short story long: For comics to survive as they are, the business model needs to be radically reworked. Or else as the DM dries up (as its currently doing), there will be no where or no one for them to sell their comics to.

Unfortunately, I don't see the companies changing their ways, though... So Aurora Borealis is probably right when he says that comics will be relegated to graphic novels and the IPs showing up in other media.

Aurora Borealis
While a lot of people seem to be buying comics to bitch about them (same as Metallica fans buy new albums while saying how the band went bad after this or that album), content changes do affect the sales more or less.

Ha ha! Great analogy.