An observation about CBR

[mbm721]

Some of the recent articles were mean spirited. Like, why would you shit on comic books on a comic book site frequented by comic book fans?

I totally agree. And why do we need 15 reasons anything sucks?

[Spike-X]

I meant the website content and articles appealing to the least common denominator, not the "comics industry" which probably means the publishers and actual comics. And I did not define any term, just personal experience.

Gotcha .

[beetheb]

In many ways I feel like the last of my kind. LOL. I just know too many people who either no longer buy comics or are in the process of giving it up. I'm not talking about recent fans who picked up different hobbies or interest, these are people who were 30+ year readers. I don't blame the websites and their decline, it's just interesting that all of this happening seemingly at once. But I personally notice it with the websites, the substance is gone.

It really is pretty amazing how quickly it's dropping off. Speaking anecdotally, my brother and I--both 25+ year collectors who were buying 10-15 titles a month each in the mid-aughts--rarely buy anything anymore. The reasons are myriad, but they mostly begin and end with quality and price. Jacked up cover prices, event fatigue, radical character reconceptualizations, convoluted plots, weak art, it just doesn't seem as inspired or immediate as it used to. Not to us. There are some gems out there, but they are too few and far between. The decline of the printed magazine as both the people and the industry make the shift to digital isn't helping either.

If it weren't for the very promising TPB market, and very powerful parent corporations using the big 2 as IP farms for films, I'd be worried about the future of traditional superhero comic books, period.

[Spike-X]

It's a good thing, then, that there's so much more to comics than traditional superheroes.

[beetheb]

If the big two die or massively scale back it hurts the entire industry enormously. If 75% of the LCS's are closed, indie books and publishers will struggle along with everyone else.

[stain]

It really is pretty amazing how quickly it's dropping off. Speaking anecdotally, my brother and I--both 25+ year collectors who were buying 10-15 titles a month each in the mid-aughts--rarely buy anything anymore. The reasons are myriad, but they mostly begin and end with quality and price. Jacked up cover prices, event fatigue, radical character reconceptualizations, convoluted plots, weak art, it just doesn't seem as inspired or immediate as it used to. Not to us. There are some gems out there, but they are too few and far between. The decline of the printed magazine as both the people and the industry make the shift to digital isn't helping either.

If it weren't for the very promising TPB market, and very powerful parent corporations using the big 2 as IP farms for films, I'd be worried about the future of traditional superhero comic books, period.

We have seen spikes and dips before, nothing new, it's just that before comic book properties were not this mainstream (tv, film, clothing, etc) ... yet comic book related websites have dropped in quality and comic books themselves are not selling as well as they did before the comic book entertainment explosion.

Quality is subjective, the fact remains we tell ourselves that if only the big two would market more and if only people could find comic book shops then the industry would boom. I'm questioning that logic because it seems to me if people were interested they would take a few seconds and find that local comic book shop just like they find all the other hobby and boutique businesses. Advertising? I worked twice at LCS's and only saw advertising in store. I don't remember seeing all of those DC and Marvel billboards, tv commercials, and mag ads growing up ... Once again, when comics books sold better. Why now? Would marketing really grow the fan base. We are talking a generation that kind find the most obscure of whatever their desires, yet they are ignorant of comic books ... the source material for most of their entertainment?

I don't mean to come off so negative, and I know my posts must read that way lately .... I just feel we (or me) has been deluding themselves to the real issue. I dropped Marvel with Secret Wars (after 30 years of being a dedicated zombie) then tried to come back and didn't like what I found. I find the political angle of Marvel to be based in pandering, and I agree with their politics. I like new characters but don't understand why the old characters need to be marginalized. It's hard to type that stuff because I know it will be misread, but I can't pretend these issues are not real (at least for me). So I voted with my wallet, I picked up more DC and am really enjoying them. Apparently I'm not the on,y one but it sure feels like it.

Back to topic ... I'd love to see more substance at the comic book related sites. Not just the same echo chamber or lists we have been getting for a few years now. I feel my rant above is related to the topic on the slim evidence that the websites all echo the complaints above about the industry ... No advertising and the ability to find a place to purchase books is the cause of the decline, along with events-crossovers-etc, but nothing else at all.

[beetheb]

Think this guy has hit the nail square on the head.

Most of the people saying comic books themselves are doing fine are kidding themselves. The industry is doing well due to the interest generated by the comic movie phenomenon but won't last forever. The future of these characters is going to be in digitized comic books or animated short films released on a similar monthly basis to the paper comics we have today. The characters are popular enough to survive but the classic comic book that you can collect and hold in your hands is on the way out, much in the same was as newspaper is.

The medium, and this forum, are a shadow of their former selves. It's my first time back on CBR in many years and it took coming back here to realize that, I think. The main page has almost nothing to do with print comics anymore, save a 'Big Two' shill piece here or there. Looking around the web, most sites in CBR's wheelhouse are doing the same thing. Covering comic book culture, not comic books themselves.

It's sad to see an industry I've loved so much since early childhood go out with such a... whimper. And I hope I'm wrong--I hope it's all cyclical and it comes roaring back with a new golden age, as some have predicted--but the more pragmatic side of me thinks this person I've quoted is closer to the mark. These characters will live on into the future across countless mediums, but at this point I'm far from certain that printed comic books will be one of them.

[Goggindowner]

The cold hard truth is that the world at large doesn't care one bit about comic books. Not beyond what can be farmed out into movies and TV shows, and even when those adaptations become popular no one cares about the source material.

And can we please stop floating the idea around that the fall of the big two would spell the end of comic books? Because it just isn't true. That is like saying that the death of the book store is going to be the end of the novel. It just doesn't make any sense when you step away from it. Yes, it will cause a MASSIVE shift in the ideology of how comics are made and how they are distributed. But they will survive that change. It's already happening and a lot of people are trying to pretend that it isn't. Digital distribution is a game changer. It un-limits your audience. It reduces over head and speeds up delivery. The established fan base seems completely unwilling to admit the benefits of this change, and instead want to continue to cling to old, out dated ideas about the way this industry operates.I think publishers need to full-tilt embrace digital distribution.

I also think the idea of a comic book publisher is dying in and of itself. I think as time goes on, we will start to see the major publishers absorbed by larger publishing houses as subsidiaries. It already happened, basically, to the Big Two. Both bought by large entertainment conglomerates for IP access and merchandising. How long before Image or Dark Horse is absorbed by a company like Harper Collins or Macmillan? Or even a company like Sony or 20th Century Fox?

At some point we as a fan base are going to have to accept some harsh truths about this hobby that we love so much.

[Kevin Street]

Comic books are fine. There are problems, mainly with too high a price point and too many titles overall - but there's always something going on, and those problems aren't fatal to the industry so long as wiser heads eventually prevail. Treat the industry as a maximum cash extraction mechanism and there will be a crash, but if you treat it with respect comics will survive. The direct market business model still works. People like to read paper.


Comic book news and discussion on the Internet is something else though. That is in serious trouble. It seems like the cycle has been:

- People start fan sites. Some fan sites become very popular.

- The most popular fan sites become professional.

- The most professional fan sites get bought by larger companies.

- Larger companies change the sites to make them more popular, and lose the qualities that made them ideal for comic book news and discussion in the first place. People stop going to them. They shut down.

The main problem on the Internet is that there just isn't enough profit in advertisements, for anyone besides Google and Facebook. Everyone else, all the content providers, have to fight for the scraps left over that don't go to the huge social networks and search engines. Because profit margins are so low everyone feels like they have to become the next Buzzfeed to survive, even if that model doesn't work for comics.

[RLAAMJR.]

There's only one music store left in the city (Cebu City) where you can buy physical music cds but there used to be like more than 10 ten years ago. And i feel that the only music store left is also going to disappear.

Same with bookstores. There used to be a lot of them but now the numbers are decreasing.

So im not surprised if comicshops are decreasing in numbers too. Even in sales.

[MkII]

Yeah, the site is total trash now. As someone who was reading it back in the late 90s, it's just sad to see what was once the premier source for comic book news on the Web become just another source of clickbait garbage. Same thing has happened to Blastr, it used to be amazing when it was Sci-Fi Wire, but it went downhill when the rebranded it, and in the last few years it's really hit rock-bottom.

[rui no onna]

Comic books are fine. There are problems, mainly with too high a price point and too many titles overall - but there's always something going on, and those problems aren't fatal to the industry so long as wiser heads eventually prevail. Treat the industry as a maximum cash extraction mechanism and there will be a crash, but if you treat it with respect comics will survive. The direct market business model still works. People like to read paper.

Unfortunately, that seems to be what both WB and Disney are doing otherwise, we wouldn't have so many crossovers, events, variants and unnecessary renumberings.

[beetheb]

Unfortunately, that seems to be what both WB and Disney are doing otherwise, we wouldn't have so many crossovers, events, variants and unnecessary renumberings.

Exactly, and they've been exceedingly stubborn about doing anything to change it. It's apparently the only model they've found that's profitable in the age of the Diamond monopoly and dwindling readership.

They need to put good creators on titles and leave them there for extended periods. A legendary run like David and Keown's Hulk, Claremont and Byrne's X-Men, or hell, even Lee and Kirby's FF almost couldn't happen these days, the Big Two seem to be in a mad scramble just keeping up with the 75-90 monthlies.

If it's at all feasible, get back into grocery stores, newsstands, really make a concerted push towards digital. Stop making the medium so exclusive. Younger adolescents (the potential future readership of comics) generally aren't going to bug their parents into taking them to a LCS, but they'll certainly bug them into picking up that issue of Spider-Man at the Kroger checkout line, or paying for a digital subscription on their tablet. Out of the way shops in seedy strip-malls, filled with dreary comics mired in clunky continuity and non-stop relaunches, stamped with expensive cover prices and confusing crossover tie-in headers, being hovered over by a "Can I help you?" employee because the shop's profit margins are so razor thin they don't want you even touching a book, let alone flipping through it to see if you like it for the five bucks -- all things not conducive to growing the audience.

When the DM was established and Diamind became the Lords of Distrubution, I think this situation the industry finds itself in now was inevitable, it was only a matter of time.

[Goggindowner]

Out of the way shops in seedy strip-malls, filled with dreary comics mired in clunky continuity and non-stop relaunches, stamped with expensive cover prices and confusing crossover tie-in headers, being hovered over by a "Can I help you?" employee because the shop's profit margins are so razor thin they don't want you even touching a book, let alone flipping through it to see if you like it for the five bucks -- all things not conducive to growing the audience.

I can't understand why so many people in the fan base can't see this.

Either choose the change or have it thrust upon you. Either way, the change will have you.