Originally Posted by
Revolutionary_Jack
Gerry Conway has become that Old Guy Shouts at Sky meme from The Simpsons.
It's not that he's completely inaccurate, or invalid, but his ideas and suggestions is extreme, and unworkable. Were it to be implemented would not in any sense bring about the turnaround he wants.
As for the historical sketch he traced:
-- I don't think it's true at all that Stan Lee wanted just kids to read his book. He was trying throughout his editorial to target a more mature readership and was thrilled that Marvel Comics were popular with college kids, and hence his many lectures on campuses. So this idea that boomers ruined it, that's giving himself and others a little too much credit. It was inherent to Marvel's brand in the '60s that comics grow up. Stan Lee kept trying to get sophisticated types involved with Marvel, so I don't think it's fair to say that he was the same as Julius Schwartz (and considering that Schwartz was a creep at DC, not sure we need to be refer to him).
-- Marvel Comics' sales were pretty strong and big in the '80s, between the direct market and the bust (skimmed over by Conway, not coincidentally, because this was when he Wein and Wolfman left Marvel for a decade plus, so yeah not easy to acknowledge how cool the party got when you left). This was the decade of SECRET WARS'84, the one comic event that did more to rope in new readers than anything since Kirby left. This was the era of Claremont and X-Men, MacFarlane and Jim Lee. It was Marvel's corporate relationship with artists and driving them to Image, which created problems.
-- This idea that continuity is somehow a barrier to new readers is dubious. The fact is that any long running series or stuff gets continuity. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman has continuity, as does SAGA, as does WicDiv. Game of Thrones the TV Show, was the biggest thing on TV and it was a very continuity heavy series. If Continuity was such a big turnoff how come Claremont's X-Men did so well in the '80s, or Hickman now. Or for that matter Lee-Kirby in the '60s. Continuity in the intensified way was introduced by Lee-Kirby when before it wasn't in any case the norm.
-- The fact is that when comics were at its biggest market share across the board in the '50s, superhero was not the dominant genre. In a free marketplace without censorship and other forces fencing stuff, superheroes fell out in favor of EC Comics, Donald Duck Comics, Pogo, and so on. So Conway's essay suffers from a sense of entitlement about the superhero genre=Comics. The truth is that the superhero genre isn't inherently going to always be a big mainstream thing.
-- The larger point that Conway skirts is the fact, that ultimately comics writers and creators need to unionize to negotiate better deals for them now that their stuff is valuable IP stuff. The attempt at reformism at trying to keep the ship float isn't going to improve stuff for them.
That said...I do in fact think bringing comics to Walmart, Target, Costco is a very good idea. Changing the distribution model for comics is important, but cancelling all superhero titles and existing events is overkill.