12-08-2004, 10:16 PM
After reading Glenn's article on Stunt Writing in the latest issue of Comic Widows, I realized how struck I am by it.
A couple years ago, when I started wondering about the frailty of the comic industry's future, I speculated that if comics kept to nothing but a very weak unpredictable audience dominated by cash-strapped highly critical adults, things would get bigger & uglier as time passes :twisted:.
Translated, that means if the industry doesn't get a serious increase in it's readership & instead continues to shrink, what do you think comics companies will do to keep the audience they have, & hope perhaps beyond hope they can get a little increase:
More vulgar deaths? CHECK
More characters (yes this includes heroes & good supporting characters) getting sickened emotionally &/or physically? CHECK
More trash talking, including putting in numerous cuss words? CHECK
More less-than-casual displays of characters having sex? CHECK
More general misery than you & most soap operas can shake a stick at? CHECK
And the list goes on. Desperation knows no bounds
.
So would you want to give a child any comic that prominently features such sad crap? I didn't think so!
IMHO opinion the best way to get the audience increase I just know the industry dreams of is to get comics back all over the darn place like they were in the early days, before distribution snafus snuffed pretty much all retailers from carrying them (even killing several comic stores).
Every discount, convenience, grocery, etc. store willing to carry comics should have a good stock of them.
And ways should be found to encourage reluctant retailers to join the party!
But if the industry doesn't seek to do this, comics will only continue to grow bigtime ugly because the industry will be blindly fighting their shrinking readership & looking to increase it in the worst ways possible.
A couple years ago, when I started wondering about the frailty of the comic industry's future, I speculated that if comics kept to nothing but a very weak unpredictable audience dominated by cash-strapped highly critical adults, things would get bigger & uglier as time passes :twisted:.
Translated, that means if the industry doesn't get a serious increase in it's readership & instead continues to shrink, what do you think comics companies will do to keep the audience they have, & hope perhaps beyond hope they can get a little increase:
More vulgar deaths? CHECK
More characters (yes this includes heroes & good supporting characters) getting sickened emotionally &/or physically? CHECK
More trash talking, including putting in numerous cuss words? CHECK
More less-than-casual displays of characters having sex? CHECK
More general misery than you & most soap operas can shake a stick at? CHECK
And the list goes on. Desperation knows no bounds
.So would you want to give a child any comic that prominently features such sad crap? I didn't think so!
IMHO opinion the best way to get the audience increase I just know the industry dreams of is to get comics back all over the darn place like they were in the early days, before distribution snafus snuffed pretty much all retailers from carrying them (even killing several comic stores).
Every discount, convenience, grocery, etc. store willing to carry comics should have a good stock of them.
And ways should be found to encourage reluctant retailers to join the party!
But if the industry doesn't seek to do this, comics will only continue to grow bigtime ugly because the industry will be blindly fighting their shrinking readership & looking to increase it in the worst ways possible.