For Comics to Survive, They Must Align with Movies & TV

[Dragonbat]

The Daredevil/Punisher title is actually out today.

[Brigonos Chomhgaill]

Only a small percentage of people who watch a Marvel movie would ever read a comic book, and a lot of ticket sales are repeat viewings.
Mind you, back in the 1990s, DC Comics were selling something like a million Batman comics a month when the Tim Burton movies were doing the rounds, but that was when you could actually buy comic books in stores if the whim took you, and not have to get in your car and track them down like Nancy friggin Drew because they're only sold in like one tiny store every 2000 miles that looks like a haunt for child molesters.

[graffiX]

F--k 'em. I've talked to enough comic book fans who have said, "If [blank] happens, I'm quitting that book forever." They never do. Or if they get pissed off enough about whatever character death, or major change in status quo, they move on to something else, another title. End of the day, the die-hards are going to be pissed off whatever you do; but as long as you pair good writers and artists to good stories, it doesn't matter. They'll come back.

Nice attitude. You must be some bad ass in real life. Tough!

And for the record, there ARE comic book fans that mean what they say. I was collecting several X-books before Secret Wars but now I'm down to 1 (and Deadpool because of the movie hype). The direction and current characters aren't something that I care for, so I dropped them. When those conditions change (and they will...they always do), I may come back. Is that ok? Or would I qualify as some worthless, spineless comic book nerd who just had a quick temper tantrum and I'm such a loser that I can't keep my word?

Here's a little piece of advice: Don't insult your target audience. You're writing an article posted on a comic book site.

[Atlanta96]

Wow. Just wow. I cannot believe this article even exists. It's a massive disappointment. On the plus side, most of the other commenters seem to agree with me. Hopefully, DC and Marvel writers and editors will come to agree with me as well!

[NightMage]

Option #1: Nope.
Option #2: Nope.
Option #3: Nope.

How about Option #4: Stop treating people as dumb and just release a specific comic universe for movies/TV. DC could do an "Elseworlds" built for that purpose, Marvel can relaunch the Ultimate universe for same; release it as digital-only.

[robreedwrites]

crap like this is what got Rouge depowered and the Xmen in boring black costumes for awhile.

The New X-Men run by Morrison where they had the black costumes was exactly where I started this hobby. The fact that they were visually similar to the movie look helped draw me in to pick up the book off the shelf.

[Wiccan]

I loved the N52 Supergirl. The title was flat for awhile, but the character is/was great, while the show, just decides to go for the easy cliche rote.
She lives a normal life, she hides her identity from her friends or family until she don't, then she have a nerd friend who does, you know, nerd stuff, and some two love interests, Jesus, that's fcking Arrow and Flash. They really shouldn't had hired the same producers for ALL the 3 shows, they have no identity, they don't really want to inovate even on a soft way.

[Galvanite]

The thought of aggressively alligning comics to fit into tv/movie continuity is sooo bankrupt it isn't funny. Others on this thread have already made good counter points, but i have another.
Television and movies are limited by a budget. Comics are not. Asking comics to allign with tv and movie continuity is asking the creators to stiffle their creativity, since at the end of the day, the comics would have to continue to look like their live action counterparts. That's ridiculous.
The stiffling gets worse specifically as it pertains to movies. You're asking comics to essentially have the relationship Marvels tv division has with it's movie division. That relationship has tv kowtowing to the needs of the movie side. Can't use this character because the movies has that character optioned. And to make matters worse, the movie product comes out once every three years so anything you do has to coincide with a plan years in the making and in some cases not even decided on. Can't go here with a story because that would mess with the universe established in the movies. That's why i have no problem with DC tv being it's own thing. With but a few exceptions, the tv side has the freedom to create. If the Flash was linked to movies, we would never have gotten Reverse Flash or King frickin Shark or Gorilla Grodd on tv.

Comics should not be beholden to tv/movies. Let the creators create and let the tv/movie side continue to take those ideas and water it down for their product.

[Ghatanathoah]

F--k 'em. I've talked to enough comic book fans who have said, "If [blank] happens, I'm quitting that book forever." They never do.

And people wonder why fans are so hostile to new people. Believe it or not, most people don't like having something they cherish completely changed for the benefit of newcomers.

I generally find most arguments about "cultural appropriation" to be stupid. Cultural artifacts are in the public domain, they belong equally to everyone. But in the case of fandoms built around of copyrighted material, I can see the point. If some Hindu person gets upset that the spirituality is being drained from yoga in order to appeal to non-Hindus, they can just start their own more spiritual yoga group. But hardcore comics fans can't publish their own comics about Superman or Spider-Man if they don't like how the characters have been changed to appeal to new fans, they'll get sued for copyright infringment. I'm perplexed that all those people who protest white people wearing dreadlocks don't also protest when geek franchises are changed to appeal to new fans, especially since the copyrighted nature of these franchises means that the geeks have a much stronger case (after all, at least white people wearing dreadlocks doesn't stop black people from wearing them).

I should also say that the way I was drawn into comics does not match the idea the article has for how new people are drawn in. I only started reading comics as they came out six years ago, before then I read trades for another six years. I was primarily drawn in by the excellent "Justice League" cartoon. When I read the Justice League comic I was not put off by how different it was from the cartoon. I knew the cartoon was an adaptation and that the source material was much richer and had a much longer history, the same way books are often deeper and richer than the movies they are adapted into. The reason I got into comics was specifically because I wanted something even richer and deeper than the TV show.

I identify strongly with the reader who have read comics for decades, even though I've read them for far less, because that sense of depth and history is appealing. I think most comic readers nowadays are like me. They're not people who want more stuff that's exactly like the adaptation. They're people who want the next level. I don't think the age of comic book readers is going up because new fans aren't being attracted. I think it's because new fans are being attracted, it's just that they're older than they used to be. They're fans of adaptations who are so into it that they want to take the next step.

New comics readers aren't the kind of people who want more of what the movie and TV are giving them. They're more like the people who saw the movie, and now want to read the book. Saying that we need to make comics more like the TV and movies to get new fans is like saying that if a book is adapted into a movie, publishers need to pull the original book from the shelf and replace it with a movie novelization. It totally misunderstands what the people want.

[bandoogiemanz]

Must be a slower wed than usual here at cbr. How did this article receive a green light to begin with?

[stjamesdawson]

Hoping Marvel finally reprints not only the Ennis "Punisher" omnibus, but the individual hardback collections of his "Punisher Max" run. It's ridiculous that the Omnibus and "Punisher Max" HB Vol. 4 sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay, simply because Marvel won't go back to press on those titles.

[azalben]

crap like this is what got Rouge depowered and the Xmen in boring black costumes for awhile.

Well, I'll respectfully disagree with you about the boring black costumes, if you're referring to "New X-Men" (which is 75% awesome). But it also doesn't necessarily preclude creativity just like the TV shows and Movies don't.

[JBatmanFan05]

Hoping Marvel finally reprints not only the Ennis "Punisher" omnibus, but the individual hardback collections of his "Punisher Max" run. It's ridiculous that the Omnibus and "Punisher Max" HB Vol. 4 sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay, simply because Marvel won't go back to press on those titles.

Uh, you do know that the MAX run is currently seeing like Epic-sized softcovers being released? Vol 1 (Punisher Max Complete Collection Vol. 1) is out, Vol 2 is coming soon. (Doubtful you'll see the precise hardcovers come back now, Marvel will point to the new more complete softcovers that include Born and probably others like Tyger, The End, etc)

[azalben]

"and are ready to take it to the next level: you want to read the comics."

Less than 1% of the audience is ever going to "want to take it to that level".

Most TV viewers don't read for pleasure.

I mean... I don't think that's true. I WOULD be very interested to see if there have been any demographic studies done to see how many TV/Movie viewers actually go and pick up the comics; but other than camping pollsters out in comic book shops nationwide year round, I'm not sure how you could effectively do that.

[Holt]

The article and most of the comments here are two polar extremes when I think the ideal solution should be a happy medium in between. Changing the comics to be exactly like the movies is a losing battle because the movies are now moving so fast that Marvel trying to change the status quo to match them is just looking kind of stupid.

Look at the Avengers. Marvel aggressively tried to rejigger just about everything to center around the six heroes from the movie (and this goes beyond comics too), but then come the next movie, the Avengers line-up is no longer the one the company had been pushing as the face of the franchise, so now they're playing catch-up. They made War Machine into Iron Patriot to match up with the movies even though the movies ended up ditching it in the very next installment, making the entire change pointless. This goes for a lot of the changes Marvel has done up to match the movies and TV.

But on the flipside, not doing anything at all to cash in on the massive popularity of the movies and TV shows is a mistake. Not having a Supergirl book out when she had a high profile TV show was a stupid move on DC's part. Hell, wasn't the reason Bob Harras was fired that he did nothing to have the X-books cash in on the success of the first X-Men movie? Conversely, even if they aren't influenced by the movies in the actual story, it's very clear that the movies have been a major reason why we're now getting new Doctor Strange and Black Panther series for the first time in years. That's a good way to handle things. You should have something out with these lesser known characters who are now getting some mainstream recognition from a whole new audience.