Monday, January 26, 2009

Comics imitating a Nine Inch Nails album

Looks like the new administration is going to have to bail out the comics industry also.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the comic industry is currently on the downward spiral. One of the proposed solutions (jacking prices from 2.99 to 3.99) probably won't do much good.

2 comments:

Nate said...

And current quality issues won't help one bit. The recent mega-events have amounted to all of shite - Final Crisis is a brain-numbing mass of incomprehensibility, and Secret Invasion was much ado about nothing and served merely as a chapter instead of a big story.

Individual titles have been standing out w/ some significance, like "Secret Six" and "Deadpool." But, given the industry's tendency toward cancelling and repackaging (and in some cases, re-re-repackaging ... I'm looking at you, Moon Knight!), it's truly hard to get behind any particular stories anymore.

And Marvel has all but killed Spider-Man. That whole clone thing and the recent "One More Day" (not to mention the debacle of "Spider-Man 3") did Webhead no favors. Just make the "Spider-Man 4" movie him vs. the Sinister Six and kill the franchise already! Even cameo some Fantastic 4 members, Wolverine, the Punisher of the "War Zone" film, and you'll make your money back in spades.

Ron said...

I didn't have that bad of a problem with Spider Man 3. I am wondering, though, if he fits in with the Avengers movie that is coming out in 2011. Will it be the New Avengers, or will it be the old school, non-Spidey Avengers.

No word yet if Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood is in line to play Captain America in those movies, as was rumored earlier. That would be cool if it happened.

But to your bigger point, I think you are right. Occasionally when I am at Borders or Books-A-Million working in their coffee shop, I will pick up a couple of issues of whatever is on the racks for break times. I have absolutely no idea how a casual fan, or even an 8 year old kid just getting interested in comics for the first time, could get into these storylines at all. The Skrull are invading the Marvel Universe! That sounds cool on paper and it Stan Lee did it it would be excellent. But to have it cross 18 books and involve 140 characters is a bit much.

Tony Stark is Director of Shield? What? I'm sure that transition of power only took 15 issues across three books.

Comics used to be about storytelling, not merchandising. Well, the merchandising part was secondary to the story. Not so much now.