Tor.com, repurposed to be a user friendly experience where authors and editors come together to present a series of articles, stories, links, and insights into all things fantasy and science fiction has an article the other day on the death of comic books. Specifically, one example of the impending demise of the comic book as we know it is the inflation of the cost-per-comic and that it falls outside of the range of inflation. This is similar to housing costs, car costs, and other costs associated with the way our economy is growing. In part, because our government borrows and spends willy-nilly, the people in turn borrow and spend willy-nilly with the outcome that costs rise because people are willing to spend the money which means that companies charge more, it becomes sticky, and then they don’t want to charge less. It’s all a nasty cycle that recessions, but more so depressions, are meant to fix. But because it is also political suicide to allow the market to correct itself, something that Congress is not willing to allow to happen.

With the (very) simple economics lesson out of the way, it is important to note that I broke some of my reading teeth on comic books. I discovered the Transformers comics when I was somewhere around the age of twelve or fourteen and purchased a shrink wrapped package of three. I read and re-read those comics again and again and as I grew older, made my own money, and decided what to spend it on, comic books were my thing. Back in the day I was a fan of Marvel Comics, hated DC Comics, and spent more money than I have any idea how I ever came up with it on various occasions. I even had a pull list at the local comic book store and spend quite a bit of money on used books as well. In fact, my (now defunct) collection of original Star Trek and Star Wars books (note: I really loved Splinter of the Mind’s Eye).

I am not a comic book collector anymore, though give me a good bookstore and some old titles (Marvel and DC now) and I am willing to sit and read. I have found that if I like a series enough I would just rather have the graphic novel (essentially, the collection of serialized (monthly) comics into a book) and read entire story arcs that way. Granted it is an adult attitude where I don’t need-slash-want to see what is new and the latest. At present, I am interested in the Fables graphic novels and haven’t purchased the last one or two novels as they’ve come out for lack of money. I did read one of them, and have most of the collection, but, you know, another story another day. I also started buying the Jack of Fables series of graphic novels but realized that offshoot of the series where the protagonist, Jack, is unreliable and the pictures do not match (necessarily) the story Jack is sharing and honestly, I don’t really care about Jack that much. Point in case, I do still (on occasion) buy graphic novels but not very often and certainly not of the superhero genre where they recycle characters and story lines and return to the beginning and then mess everything up and where no one really ever dies.

Fables is produced by Vertigo which is owned by DC and is a series that has a finite future. When the writer/creator is done telling his story the series will come to an end and Vertigo will replace it, or have already replaced it, with something else. As a result, readers can expect a couple of things: first, consistent storytelling because it is author/creator driven and not (often) handed off to someone else; and second, it will not be restarted, recycled, or rehashed until the original generation of fans become too sick of the storylines to care anymore.

On top of which, comic book art has changed so that all women are stick thin and large breasted (had a friend describe it as two olives on a toothpick once) and not physically possible, while all men are tall and buff and “V” shaped in the torso. There is nothing real about comic books and nothing that draws readers to actually believe that the fiction could be possible because people don’t look the way they do in comics. As a result of that, there are super-star artists who demand a lot of money for their work and get it, but at the same time also draw the cost of a comic book outside of the reasonable realm to purchase on a month-to-month basis. The outcome of that is (quite honestly) the very trend that make little fanboys go all wild over the artwork also make the comic books priced too high.

So, comic books are being priced too high. People who would want to buy them don’t care that much so much anymore. And the stories being told aren’t all that compelling to established (enough) people who could afford them. The outcome isn’t that comic books are a dead item, but that the large companies that produce them are producing them at a price that doesn’t meet the what the general public is willing or should be willing to pay. I mean, come on, the price of a standard paperback has gone up over the years but you can expect to spend between $6.99 and $7.99 for most mass market paperbacks and $12.99 and $14.99 for trade paperbacks. We won’t talk about hard cover (or cloth) novels. So, yes, inflation is a reality we have to deal with, but it is also a reality that does not support a sudden and unexpected rise in prices. More, the cost separation between, say, supermarkets or small bookshops and specialty comic book stores makes purchasing equally difficult as well.

The outcome, for me, is not that I think comic books are dying or even that a shift from paper-medium to electronic medium is wrong or a bad evolution, but that it is more necessary. For the electronic comic I read The Wotch, Girl Genius, and then some daily comic strips. I occasionally look around to see if there is anything interesting that I would also like to follow and for the most part find the answer is, “No.” At the same time, the Girl Genius comic is printed and I keep thinking I should buy the entire storyline up to what is currently online (as they do an online version before a print version) as well as start buying The Wotch comics in print format.

My point in all of this is, “Yes,” I think that the large comic book companies are pricing themselves out of a competitive stand and allowing smaller comic companies to enter the market with different and more unique material. At the same time, I think that comic books are definitely moving to a different format-slash-medium with smaller overhead printing costs and a more realistic graphic novel model than the serialized monthly comic books.

One of the problems some twenty and fifteen years ago is that a lot of companies will start a series and then delay publication because the penciler’s (principle artists) inker’s and colorer’s all have a process and that process doesn’t always fit into the monthly sales model that a lot of comic companies want (or advertise) to keep. This, by the by, was one of the reasons I stopped reading comic books in their serialized (month to month) format. If you end up waiting two or three months between installments the outcome is that reading installments becomes less important. And as a result, waiting six, nine, or twelve months for the the serialization to be put in book format is easier than the anxiety of waiting month-to-month. As a result, I have two stacks of comic books. The first stack is those (serialized) issues I purchased to learn about a specific character and includes graphic novels. The second stack (Vertigo :: Fables) is what I am interested in reading and find to be literary and not an action story with no real character development, no real consequences, and no longer commentary on politics, the world, or what is happening.

No. What I think is happening in the industry is that those who wish to follow comics will do so online. The model will include an inconsequential monthly fee to read the comic online on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. And in the end Marvel and DC and other companies will end up with a print run of fewer graphic novels that make them more money. On top of which, the options sold for movies or television based on the characters will help supplement the costs and the revenue stream will change drastically. Heck, if I had any money I would start an online only comic book company and once a year would publish that years comic books into graphic novel format and then sell them on a per-ordered-publishing basis through places like Amazon.com and whatever the name of the website is, and other e-retailers.

So, comics are not dying. The current model is dying. And yes, I think there is a decent model and market for someone, or lots of someones, with a vision and the ability to follow through with it to make some real money.

Real Heroes Fly