| On The State of the North American Comics Industry Today and in the Future:
Most, if not all people that know me would describe me as superlatively pessimistic and cynical. I disagree with that assessment. I consider myself a realist. If my opinions are that negative, it's because they are logical to me, not because I have a need to put a negative spin on everything.
Suffice to say, I have a very negative outlook. That might seem irrelevant, but I felt it was an important point to establish before delving into the intended topic of this article. If you know about the state of the comic industry in North America today, (Thursday, June 22, 2006.) you will probably see why. If not, and you are still interested in reading this article, I suggest you read up on it so that you may understand the article better.
Having said all of that, there is one thing I can be optimistic about:
Comics.
I know, I know. Sales are at an all-time low, potential new readers are being alienated, most of society is dismissive of, or apathetic towards comics, digital piracy is on the rise, the industry is struggling, blah, blah, blah.
But the industry has some things in its favour. First and foremost among these are Japanese comics, which have become very popular and continue to grow in popularity.
Some people are prejudiced towards Japanese comics. And as much as I hate to violate my policy of behaving as neutrally as possible, to be quite honest, those people are very ignorant and should be removed from the gene pool.
Like it or not, Japanese comics are revitalizing the industry. People who would otherwise not read comics are reading them now. And Japanese comics continue to grow in popularity.
I believe the reason for the success of Japanese comics is that they target a much wider audience. Whereas American comics are dominated by stories that cater to an already existing fanbase thereby alienating new readers.
You might have just now gotten the impression that I think little of American comics. That I falsely believe "It's all superhero crap." Before you get on your soapbox, I would like to point out that I enjoy both American and Japanese comics immensely and that I have great respect for them. I am sure I would say the same about other comics, if they were more accessible to me. Sadly, because they are not, I am largely ignorant of them.
I realize that there is a lot more to American comics than superheroes, problem is, not many other people do.
But since Japanese comics appeal to a wider audience, more people will learn to appreciate comics. I believe that these new readers will bring in even more readers as they turn friends and family onto comics. Also, with more people reading comics, there will be more people who want to create comics, which of course means more stories for people to enjoy.
Another thing the industry has in its favour is the internet. The internet has made it tremendously easy for creators to make their work available to an audience. Thanks to the internet, you can create an online portfolio, publish comics at low cost and with little difficulty, and talk about comics with others, thereby informing others about great comics, and discovering stories you may not have otherwise.
There are thousands, perhaps even tens or hundreds of thousands of webcomics. And while the common belief is that ninety-eight percent of them are crap, (Which is probably true.) there are quite a few that have very high readerships. Some of them are actually good.
In fact, I have often heard that there are more readers of webcomics than there are of print comics in North America. Of course, it is hard to find evidence of this, but it would not surprise me.
Like Japanese comics, webcomics appeal to a wider audience. And as I said, the internet makes publishing and distributing comics cheap and easy, which has brought in an influx of creators. I think that in time, as webcomics become more widely read, people will become more tolerant towards comics.
Another way the success of Japanese comics and webcomics has helped the industry is by convincing book publishers that comics are a viable market. Del Rey now licenses manga, and Ballantine is publishing the third volume of the comic book anthology Flight. Also, bestselling author Stephen King is adapting his Dark Tower series into a comic to be published by Marvel.
And I think it is only a matter of time before someone creates the iTunes for comics. Should comics ever become more widely distributed over the internet, it will be that much easier for people to check them out.
So in summary, I know the industry is currently in bad shape, but it will recover. I mean, there was a time where noone would have ever expected to see bookstores and libraries carrying comics, to see Japanese comics ranking on bestselling lists, to see big publishing houses enter the market, or to see a bestselling author adapt one of his series into the comic book format. But look at how times change.
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