future of comics

[gazdadude]

do you think we are seeing the end of dc comics?

[Rrobin]

No. Even downsizing seems unlikely with how much they seem to be investing in the black label line

[DrNewGod]

The day may come, particularly if the movie audience loses its appetite for superhero movies. We're not there yet.

[qwertyuiop1998]

Comics have no future!!!!!
okay, Jokes aside, I don't think so, At least not in the future dozens of years.

[Colossus1980]

Comics are surviving only thru the success of the big and small screen, merch, and video games. Comics bring in a pittance of profits.

[Ascended]

Comics are surviving only thru the success of the big and small screen, merch, and video games. Comics bring in a pittance of profits.

Which has been the case for decades. And a pittance of profit is still profit.

No, I don't think DC is coming to an end. I've been reading DC for over 25 years and people have been saying the industry was on the brink of disaster long before I showed up. Now, I do think the comics landscape is shifting, so the market as we recognize it might be, very slowly, evolving into something different. But at the end of the day these are still billion dollar IP's that are translated into highly successful films, shows, games, and cartoons. Not to mention the merchandise. Comics aren't going anywhere, if for no other reason than they make it easy to maintain legal ownership and provide source material for the larger media stuff to adapt. But the industry is certainly changing, and who knows what it'll look like in ten years?

[Lee Stone]

Future of comics?
Or future of DC comics?

Comics will most assuredly exist indefinitely.
As long as people have access to tools to express themselves in art and writing, there will always be comics.

However, DC comics won't always be here forever.
I could see DC leaving comics, eventually, to focus on animation and games with the money coming in from licensing their top characters out.
And with licensing being way more important to the bottom line than the comics these days, there may come a time that keeping the comics going could negatively effect the value of the ips.
Especially if a writer does something too controversial with them, with DC left to do damage control.

One day, DC may just be Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman being licensed out, much like we currently have King Features with Flash Gordon and Phantom or Street & Smith with Doc Savage and the Shadow.

How soon depends on how fast the current regime can run the company into the ground.

[Buried Alien]

We get this question about twice a week, every week, and have since 1996.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[WillieMorgan]

We get this question about twice a week, every week, and have since 1996.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Exactly. Comic books in general, not just DC, have apparently been on borrowed time for as long as I can remember, certainly stretching back decades. There comes a point where you just grow numb to the constant fear mongering.

There's generally a pattern in the habits that these prophets of doom display as well. Typically, fans that constantly try to predict the imminent collapse of DC tend to be ones with a perpetual personal grudge. They don't like DC's current direction or it's treatment of their favourite character therefore 'We're doomed!'. It's like they actively want the whole enterprise to come crashing down just to justify their own sense of entitlement and resentment.

Saying all that, there will certainly be some kind of 'day of reckoning' for the direct market at some stage in the future as it's business model grows increasingly obsolete. Of that there's no doubt. I'm pretty sure that DC will survive at that time in some shape or form.

[MoneySpider]

If the Star Trek holodecks existed in real life, I would just go in there and create my own virtual reality comic books starring Vixen and stop waiting for DC Comics to give us something with her in a significant role.

[charliehustle415]

If it didn't end in the 90's, it will never end

[Vampire Savior]

Probably the biggest problem is the dollar per entertainment value of these comics isn't competitive at all. I have to wonder how much these companies can keep raising their prices and getting away with it. I don't typically read a 20 page comic in five minutes...because, well, I'm artist and I guess I'm looking at and analyzing all kinds of stuff, but it seems most readers do. To sell something like that for 4, 5 or 6 dollars? That's just...not competitive, especially when the quality is questionable a lot of the time.

I'm pretty sure DC won't go away, but...something will happen eventually that causes a sea change.

[DigiCom]

If by "comics" you mean "monthly 20+ page superhero stories that are primarily sold in specialty stores", then yes, I can see comics ending. They are too expensive, too impenetrable, and too difficult to purchase.

OTOH, if you mean the medium of comics, as opposed to the narrow genres promulgated by the Big Two, then I would say that things are better than ever. As of this post, 3 of the top 10 best-selling books of any kind on Amazon are comics (and 3 of those are in the top 5). But they aren't superhero comics…

[Midnight_v]

If the Star Trek holodecks existed in real life, I would just go in there and create my own virtual reality comic books starring Vixen and stop waiting for DC Comics to give us something with her in a significant role.

Comics? I imagine a lot more is going to be going on there than whats approved by the comics code authority *wink*


There's a market for comics as manga exists and is doing pretty well. I hear that dc recently got bought by At&t or... some such. I should have paid more attention.

The thing is... there will be change. Thats the only constant. Before comics there were pulp books from long ago. For a while cheap kids entertainment was a thing, and now they're something else.

I'm certain that they'll be sometime else again, but if you're asking will things always be the way they are with DC and Marvel doing what they're doing now. Probably not.

Already I an avid reader has switched over to DC's sub service (though I mean to quit, I bought it for swamp thing) and spend less than ever on paper books, but there are a lot of ideas here stories worth selling.

[Restingvoice]

It won't die, but I hope they suffer enough to see and actually change the way things work because this whole business of making a story spread out throughout different books and you have to buy a lot of them so you won't miss lore or character update... very few people can afford that or willing to spend that much money. I can't.

I went into comics because it impresses me how they can do that spread out storytelling, but it didn't take long, even just buying trade, to realize that it's too much. Especially when they reboot. I'm still in the process of tracking down this continuity, and you're already changing it again, which makes me not want to buy them.

I love lore, I love story and character development, I want to read them, but you're updating them too often, DC, and I feel like I'm wasting my money.