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emeraldnebula · 6 years

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Thoughts on the comic book industry, Part 7

You can’t really talk about the state of the current comic book industry without addressing one of the most infamous, long-standing problems it’s had for a long time. And it’s a problem that’s only gotten worse as the convention scene has taken on more prominence.

I, of course, am referring to the remaining fandom’s steadfast determination to hoard what’s left of the comics industry to themselves at all costs, actively opposing the very idea of new fans or even older fans whose tastes and opinions don’t fit with the groupthink of the moment.

This is nothing new, obviously. I’ve talked about this at varying times before. Comic book pros and older fans who do want new blood brought into the fandom have discussed this. Cosplayers talk about this quite often, especially as they’re among those who get persecuted by self-styled purists and SJW-leaning fans. And anyone who’s on social media can attest to the fact that newcomers and older fans who don’t conform to the hive mind can and will be bullied nonstop. (Rabid fanbrats harassing and insulting other fandoms is a popular Tumblr pastime in and of itself.) But what doesn’t get talked about so much is how destructive this mentality is, and how it would be self-defeating beyond belief.

As it stands, the comic book industry's business practices of the last 26 years or so have resulted in atrophy, outdated and incoherent storytelling choices, mean-spirited and destructive creative decisions, and the alienation of everybody but a tiny, aging, selfish minority of whiny idiots. Many, many times, it’s been pointed out that unless new fans, new blood, and new perspectives are brought in and accepted, the American comic book industry is going to die. And every single time, that same tiny minority of morons that’s become DC and Marvel’s target audience of choice is venomously opposed to the notion that anybody but them should be allowed in the fandom, much less have a say in it. “New readers be damned, we were here first!” “I’m not giving up what I like for anybody!” “You’re betraying the existing fans by chasing after new ones!” “Changing comics to get new fans is too much of a risk!” “There’s no reason why ‘new’ fans can’t enjoy things the exact same way that we do!” “Who cares about people who think the industry is becoming outdated?” And some go the extra mile by openly admitting they’d rather see comics die altogether before letting new blood in, on the grounds that “at least I’ll have gotten to enjoy what I like!”

I’ve seen all these comments in various places over the last 17 years alone, and I’m never not surprised by the inherent greed of these statements. Given the choice between staying a self-destructive course towards oblivion and allowing the industry to change and accommodate new fans, these regressive fanbrats will choose the former every single time. They feel so entitled to essentially ownership of the industry that they’ll kill it with their selfishness. All because they don’t want to lose their perceived control over it. This is even sicker when – again – this whiny, tiny minority of idiots were all newcomers themselves at one time. The industry predated them by decades. But for some godforsaken reason, these regressives want to be the only people reading comics and view any new blood, any new ideas, or even older fans who don’t share their exact tastes and beliefs as a threat to their dominance.

Mind you, this sort of close-minded, “keep everything the same as when I first saw it or else” mentality is not unique to the comic book industry. What is unique is that the industry has largely caved in to this clutch of entitled morons. Most other properties know better than to kowtow to regressives like these. For all the squawking the lunatic fringe Star Trek fans do about “continuity” and “prime universes,” CBS/Paramount is smart enough to ignore them. They have every reason to: the Rick Berman era of Trek may have pleased the fanbrats, but it stagnated the franchise severely and led to a prolonged hiatus that only ended with the reboot trilogy movies and Discovery. And while the merits of those newer projects can and should be debated, CBS/Paramount undeniably did the right thing by striving to update Trek and keep it relevant to modern sensibilities. Mattel and Hasbro have wisely ignored regressive fans who want He-Man and Transformers to stay permanently locked in their ‘80s iterations, updating and reworking those properties as necessary. Looney Tunes undergoes periodic revamps and updates on the regular, and aside from Loonatics Unleashed has been very successful at that. Hell, even Mickey Mouse, a character nobody usually cares about, has made a comeback in the last decade with a retro-styled makeover in both the Epic Mickey games and the recent Toon Disney shows. (And this was in spite of absolute idiots refusing to acknowledge his first appearance in “Plane Crazy” and insisting that his 1940 Fantasia redesign was the “original” Mickey.)

Anywhere but comic books, the entities in question know not to stagnate their properties and cater exclusively to a tiny group of selfish banshees. They know it would be suicidal to do so. But because the major comics publishers have bent over backwards to service the very vocal minority at the expense of the industry’s well-being, said minority feels entitled to be gatekeepers and to shut out anyone who doesn’t buy into their Landru-meets-the-Buddy-Bears mentality or who might pose a danger to their sense of control. I’m just going to say it right now: the major publishers are half the reason comics have such low readership. The lunatic fringe that makes up what’s left of comics fandom is the other half of the reason. If you go out of your way to make newcomers feel unwelcome and you run off longtime fans who don’t agree with whatever your chosen dogma is, you’re part of the problem. Nobody wants to associate with a fandom composed of greedy, unreasonable nuts. And the end result is, again, a shrinking, aging readership that can’t sustain the industry in the long term.

Nor can this shrinking, aging minority of jackasses keep the convention scene alive, either. The comic book industry has hobbled itself so much that a purely comic-centric convention isn’t financially feasible. There’s not enough of an audience for it. Conventions are pop culture-oriented for a reason. And it’s because modern conventions are so all-encompassing that it’s allowed the rise of American cosplay as a force in fandom. Whether the lunatic fringe likes it or not, conventions have become the gateway for new fans, as well as an opportunity for older fans left behind by the industry and the lunatic fringe to come together with like-minded people and commission stuff that’s more to their liking. In short, conventions by their very nature are inclusive and open-minded...the very antithesis of both the current comic book industry and what’s left of the active fandom.

So naturally, the lunatic fringe fans don’t like this. They’ll scream and yell about how conventions are disregarding and insulting comic book culture by including mass media in their lineups, never mind that comics and mass media have been interlinked at least since Buster Crabbe’s Flash Gordon movies of the 1930s. They’ll spew bile and venom at newcomers for daring to “take away convention tickets from real fans” and not being already being well-versed in comics lore, ignoring the fact that they themselves were once total newbies who came in cold. Many times cosplayers will have their fan credentials – or in some cases even their mental health – questioned or outright denied by these people (Jessica “Maid of Might” Chancellor has been on record about her own experiences). These same fans can and have gone the extra mile to champion banning cosplay entirely, or discouraging it by giving cosplayers heavily restricted access to the convention floor. And if they overhear older fans voice disapproval of whatever is the current fans’ sacred cows of choice, the insults and shaming will be instantaneous, because how dare anyone voice opinions contrary to the lunatic fringe’s party line? (Been there, experienced it, couldn’t reason with them worth a damn.) And many times, these same fans will decry the size and popularity of modern conventions, demanding a return to comic cons being tiny, comics-only affairs held at hotels.

Keep in mind, what these crazy gatekeepers want would kill conventions outright. Shut out movies/TV, video games, and sci-fi/fantasy/horror from comic cons? You’d lose the mass appeal these events have, and thus lose out of paying customers attending. Ban or discourage/restrict cosplay? Instant plunge in attendance and major loss of money. Make anyone and everyone but the insane lunatic fringe fans DC and Marvel so cherish feel unwelcome and unwanted? Again, major plunge in attendance and profits. Force conventions to go back to being tiny, hotel-based events? You risk the venue either losing money on an event with piss-poor attendance or being swamped with far too much attendance for them to handle, thus creating a safety hazard. Every stupid, egotistical demand these nuts make is an automatic guarantee of failure. And over and over again, what’s the party line? “The real fans will keep comics and conventions alive!” These people are so deluded that they think they and they alone will and should be sufficient to keep the convention scene going. Never mind that comic book readership is drying up due to the industry’s unwillingness to change with the times, never mind that the lunatic fringe fans are an extreme minority that can’t keep the industry going forever, never mind that DC and Marvel’s pet demographics are college campus nutjobs and aging fanbrats in their mid-to-late 30s at absolute least (and in some cases even older). They’re convinced that they and they alone are the anointed who will keep comics and related events alive and well, and that anyone else is a heretic who should be run out of town.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if these dopes ever got what they want, it would be the death knell of comic cons altogether.

Turning conventions into a members-only club with a secret handshake (which is exactly what some of these people openly advocate) would not yield any successful results. Like DC and Marvel, the lunatic fans are hopelessly stuck at least 26 years in the past. They’re still living under the delusion that the big 1990s comic book boom never ended, that “pure” comic cons care still money in the bank, that their pet creators are the comics equivalent of rock stars, and that they and they alone are plentiful enough to support the whole shebang without any filthy newcomers or normal folks tainting the industry’s purity. Absolutely none of this is the case. The days of comic book creators being celebrities are long over, and the few whose names are known (Frank Miller, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Joe Quesada) have deservedly bad reputations. The people the Big 2 keep peddling as “superstars,” regardless of actual talent, are people most folks would shrug their shoulders and say “Who?” at. The press that the comic book industry used to get in the 1990s doesn’t exist anymore, either, and it’s not like the industry even tries to get the word out about itself. So how the hell would “pure” comic cons made by and for the remaining, gatekeeping idiots ever be successful?

There’s just a complete lack of perspective altogether. And it’s all driven by greed, self-entitlement, and shortsightedness. The comic book industry, by choosing to cater to a regressive, selfish minority with a largely aging membership, has set itself on a collision course with extinction. It’s already doomed. Conventions, as they are now, are what’s keeping comics culture alive. Whether anybody likes it or not, pop culture conventions where comics are one of many puzzle pieces are the future. To protest or fight this is pure stupidity. At yet this is the hill DC and Marvel’s pet demographic wants to die on, shutting out any possibility of new blood or even old blood with dissenting opinions being allowed in.

It also doesn’t help that their “we’d rather the industry die than share it with anyone” mindset is completely counterproductive. For all their crying about “continuity” (which is purely subjective to their tastes) and “history” (which they’ll deny and ignore as they see fit), they never once acknowledge that if they get what they want and comics culture dies out completely on their account, nobody’s going to remember it. It’s going to be just as forgotten as vaudeville. At least with movie serials and old-school radio dramas, they’re still readily available for anyone who wants to go back and check them out. They may be dead genres, but they certainly haven’t been forgotten. Hell, even soap operas, another dying genre on its last legs, will have more staying power due to the massive backlog of episodes they recorded. Even horse-and-buggy manufacturers have the benefit of historical interest and reenactments to keep them going, even if it’s as a specialty. Comic books in their present state? If the fanbrats get their wish, it’ll be a completely forgotten medium altogether. There won’t be any nostalgia for it, no warm memories. Historians will flat-out admit that the industry destroyed itself by being regressive, ignorant and dismissive of its overall audience, and pandering only to the worst minority possible at the expense of anything resembling competent business.

And yet none of this even occurs to the fanbrats. All they care about is getting what they want right this instant and shutting out anyone who isn’t part of the clique. They never once stop to think that what they want and how they want it will be left in the dust once the industry is no more, and that all their efforts to stagnate the culture for themselves will ultimately be for nothing. Crappy, malicious funny books that suck on purpose and deliberately cling to tactics and trends at least two decades out of date are not worth fighting for, nor will they be worth remembering. And they won’t be remembered. You can’t even call the current fandom’s goals a Pyrrhic victory because it won’t be a victory at all, just a self-indulgent failure. And it’s a failure that will lead to the vast majority of people who would or even do truly love the medium completely in the lurch.

But then again, the current comic book fandom is terrible in general when it comes to picking and choosing their battles. In addition to fighting any kind of beneficial change and gatekeeping at all costs, they take up causes that are meaningless at best, and utterly selfish and regressive at worst. Bill Willingham’s hateful attitude toward Batman fans over Stephanie Brown’s apparent death in “War Games”? That should have been the trigger for fans to take DC to task for their arrogance toward the readership, and to demand accountability for disrespecting the people who keep the company in business. Instead, Girl Wonder.org decided to campaign for Stephanie Brown to get a trophy case in the Batcave. Not only was that a meaningless goal to begin with, but it didn’t even begin to address the real problem at hand. A common talking point among the remaining fandom is wanting comics to abandon computer coloring and glossy paper and go back to flat colors on newsprint...a move that would be absolute suicide in a day and age where glossy paper is the standard and digital coloring can be done by anyone at home on their personal computers. Not only that, but such a move would do nothing to drive down the cost of comics or change how inaccessible they now are. (And yet when called out on on how regressive and impractical this demand is, these same fans will go thru contortions to claim what they want isn’t a selfish bid for nostalgia.) Smallville’s infamous “no tights, no flights” rule that convinced Tom Welling to sign up for the show? A very vocal, very stupid clutch of comic book fans started championing at the time for superhero costumes to be abolished across the board, even throwing a fit when Sam Raimi kept Spider-Man in his classic suit for the 2002 movie. Cross-title, event-driven storylines where readers are forced to buy multiple books just to follow one story that doesn’t even have an ending in sight? Fanbrats have resisted attempts to move away from that model for years, citing the ‘90s comic book boom as proof that it’s an everlasting sales boon and that “real” fans will buy all the books regardless of whether or not they like them (which flies in the face of consumer choice or anything resembling reality). And so on.

When you consider how inept the remaining fandom is over what they think is important and what isn’t, their absolute refusal to allow new blood, new fans, and differences of opinion is par for the course. They only care about what they want, to hell with anything and everything else. They don’t even care if their wants are completely self-defeating, so long as they get their fix in the short term. But what does this mean for the comic book industry as a whole? Between the selfishness and stupidity of the major publishers and the sheer awfulness of the fandom they’ve cultivated, there’s nowhere to go but down. And we’ve been seeing that downfall play out in slow motion right before our eyes.

It’s a very sad ending to a legacy of more than 80 years, but that’s to be expected when you refuse to change with the times. More on that in my closing thoughts.

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