Raising anti-drug awareness in comics no longer having impact?

[skyvolt2000]

The comic books used to be targeted at primary school children fifty years ago and at teenagers thirty years ago. Now kids and teens are more interested in video games, YouTube, Netflix, Cartoons, Anime and manga rather than American comic books. When Disney purchased Marvel Comics, should they not trying to produce comic books aimed at people under the age of 21? Children and teenagers make potential new readers.

Good grief-they are making comic book for kids-they are just NOT using the floppy format.

They are doing OGN which are more affordable and offer a complete story.

It's easier to access those OGNs at Target and Wal-Mart than the comic book that is at a comic book store.

[CSTowle]

Disney should also (from a business standpoint, not from my perspective as a comics fan) probably disregard comics entirely or move it to a digital-only format. They don't have or need any loyalty to local comic shops, long-time comic book subscribers, or anyone involved in the printing and distribution of the floppies or trades. They're already sitting on enough IP to make billion-dollar blockbusters for the next seven centuries, before you factor in reboots/variants of established icons like Cap/Iron Man/Thor.

Shang Chi, the Eternals, even Doctor Strange without a big name writer really can't sell a monthly title. Yet they can get asses in seats in the theater. Because it's not the same thing, and success in one arena means nothing in our little niche hobby. If they shut down publishing any new sequential art stories (digital online or print) tomorrow they'd still be set, and if they went digital-only they'd still be churning out new IP and probably have an easier time getting a wider variety of stories out there without having to rely on the infrastructure and economy of the local comic shop.

Better yet, they can include it as part of a Disney Plus or other Disney purchase for a lot cheaper sustainably than $4-5 for a 5 minute read and actually reach children who might be interested if the barrier to entry is "free" (relatively speaking) like a Youtube video or other streaming service and those ads you're talking about might actually reach the eyeballs of people it would serve. It would be the best thing for everyone who hasn't been collecting the physical issues for decades, and we'd still be free to seek out "new" old ones. I've been reading for nigh-on 40 years, and there are still vast amounts of comics I feel like I need to check out at some point. I buy old TPBs on eBay for cheap and have a backlog of things that I need to read at some point. We'll be fine.

[MajorHoy]

I have recently read a public domain comic book I found on the internet. The title is Harvey Comics Library #1 - Teen-Age Dope Slaves. The Date of publication was April 1952.
It was quite a moving story about a college boy struggling with his addiction to narcotics. It has almost a powerful effect on the reader as the Amazing Spider-Man story about Harry Osborn's addiction problem.

The comic is in public domain, so it is available on the internet and you don't have to feel guilty reading it for free since Harvey Comics was out of business thirty years ago and nobody owns the copyright to this old comic book from 1952.

But will kids read something like this?!?

Unless you know that kids are reading comic books, there's no point to this damn discussion!
Or is there anything to suggest that adults are likely to benefit from reading a comic book as way of dealing with avoiding drugs?!?