How Are Comics Still Niche?

[Wizardly-K9]

The best selling book of 2013 was Walking Dead #115 at 350,000 units. Now, don't get me wrong - that's an amazing number for anything, but I would expect the best selling comic of the year to AT LEAST clear half a million. Hell, Batman: Arkham Origins cleared 500,000 in its first week of release, and its a game based off comic books. Though, most of the people who bought Arkham Origins don't recognize Batman from comics, do they? They know him from the movies, and the cartoons, and the bat-signal panties sold at Target. Really, all that should BOOST comic sales, but they don't.

And it doesn't make any sense that the Avengers can kill every other blockbuster in the box office upon release, but the characters in the movies don't see any increase in the comics they come from. Same goes for shows like Walking Dead and Arrow.

Why is it that; despite all the movies, games, merchandise, and live action tv adaptations; the comic book industry is still so small?

 

[dyre]

Personally, between the silly costumes, the crappy dialogue, and the ridiculous storylines, I've never been able to take DC or Marvel comics seriously. The films sometimes seem to mitigate the ridiculousness of it a little bit, but to be honest I'm not a huge superhero movie fan, although I do like Nolan's stuff.

That said, I do like some webcomics (albeit most of these are just for quick laughs, but I do like some serious ones like Gunnerkrigg Court and Dresden Codak). If DC and Marvel made intelligent, thought-provoking comics with relatable, likable characters, I'd probably give them a try.

Offtopic: Does Time Warner Cable really think that making me type "switch to time warner cable" in the Captcha will somehow make me switch to Time Warner Cable? Even assuming that subliminal messaging works, it's supposed to be a little more subtle...

 

[tippy2k2]

For myself, it's bang for the buck.

I have a handful of graphic novels and I've always bought them in the big batch (so Walking Dead Compendium or Watchmen's full book) because for me, they are still way more expensive than I'm willing to spend.

I don't care about the pretty pictures (which I imagine is the main draw) and so a twenty page comic will take me minutes to cut through and be done with. Comics go very slow since most of the comic is the pretty pictures and so for me to get a full story, I'd have to spent waaaay more money than I'm willing to.

 

[Zontar]

Even for flagship comic books, reaching the 100,000 sale mark is considered a great day. One of the many reasons people find it hard to get into is that it's very rare to get into a series right when issue 1 is printed, and usually it ties into events that where caused by another comic. People like to start a story when it starts, and omnibuses are rare, and when found expensive.

That's all on top of the fact that comic books are also hard to find for most people. I know all of 3 comic book stores (one of which is primarily a specialty game store/collectible card game store which just happens to have some of the more popular books on a shelf and a few dozen boxes). I only learned about them because they're set up right above the Subway next to my CEGEP, and I learned about the other two from word-of-mouth at said store.

Then there's the fact that, for many (especially DC ever since New 52 started) a lot of the artwork starts to merge, and that's something which shouldn't be happening since the comics in question are on a large range of genre.

All this and the fact that it can be pretty hard to just jump into a comic book these days, since many writers have forgotten that it's easy for someone to not have the previous copies available to them, makes it not a wise choice to do so. Hell, the 3 comic books I follow (Ultimate FF, Secret Avengers and The Star Wars) I do so because I jumped in right from the start. If the number in the bottom-right corner was 3 or more I'd probably not want to get into it.

 

[Ratty]

A few things, which have already been mention but eh...

Cost vs. Benefit ratio. A single comic book costs $4 today if you buy it off the rack. $4 If you're working minimum wage that's like half an hours work. And that's just 1 comic.

If you actually want to stay current on the DC or Marvel Universe you might follow 6 or 7 different books. Suddenly you're up to around $30 every month. But wait! There's more, we can't forget about crossover events. So you might have to spend around $40-50 some months. We're not done yet. Now that you've got all these comics you can't just leave them laying around. You've got to bag them, board them and put them in special boxes. Depending on how high quality you want to go this can be another $30 or more.

So how long do you spend reading a comic? Let's say you take your time and savor it so it takes you 15 minutes, at $4 that's about a quarter for a minute of entertainment. Not a very good return on investment. And that's not counting the added investment in bagging/boarding and storage in case you ever want to read it again.

"But I have lots of money" you say, "and so do lots of other people, $50 a month is nothing." That's where the fact that most people don't want their house cluttered up by big white boxes comes in. And also the fact that comics have removed themselves from mainstream distribution to out of the way, mom and pop specialty stores. "But you can just subscribe! You even save money that way!" You might say, well yes you could do that. But most people who would consider getting into comics would like to pick up individual issues and try out different series to find one(s) they like first.

And at the end of the day, I think most people just don't think it's worth the hassel. Especially when you can get entire arcs in TPBs for a fraction of the cost now, and just throw them on your bookshelf when you're done instead of fussing with bags and boards.

PS- Let's not forget that comic books for the last 30 years or so have mostly abandoned the casual consumer market. DC and Marvel comics are mostly written by 30-40 year old fanboys for 30-40 year old fanboys. The mass market didn't abandon Marvel and DC, DC and Marvel abandoned the mass market. So now manga and things like Archie Digest have picked up that slack.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I assume this is Kindle sales too?

I really want to get all the Walking Dead comic books but they're so damn expensive for the full set. When I buy comic books, I only spend up to £20 on them because I don't think they're worth much more and sometimes I'm poor.
I always by actual physical books because I love seeing them on my bookshelf. I wouldn't say it's a niche market, a lot more people who you wouldn't expect seem to be reading comic books and the growing popularity of comic cons means that most people are opening their minds to this sort of entertainment.

 

[GiantRaven]

I assume this is Kindle sales too?

It won't be. I don't recall ever seeing digital numbers for any comic released.

 

[Eamar]

I'm big into Marvel comics, but even I don't buy individual comics at the time of release because, as others have said, they're really fucking expensive.

I wait for TPB collected editions. I'm not too fussed about being completely up to date with most characters - there's 70 years of continuity to catch up on.

 

[Floppertje]

because format matters? just because people think iron man is awesome on film doesn't mean they care at all about comics as a medium. Superhero movies are a mainstream success, the mainstream isn't going to read comics because they don't really see superhero movies as all that different from any other movie. Hell, I'm a geek, I love all the marvel movies, love all that continuity stuff and I still can't be bothered to read the comics.
make of that what you will.

 

[Boogie Knight]

I imagine many people who try have the same experience I do when buying an issue: I'm always on the ass end of an arc where nothing happens and the whole experience is over in a matter of minutes because I don't care enough to give the art more than a quick glance. Basically, it's the cost-benefit argument being made. Further, comics you can find easily are almost exclusively about superheroes. It's really hard to find one that doesn't have superheroes in it.

 

[144_v1legacy]

Because you have to read them. Watching, as a method of interaction with an entertainment medium, is passive, while reading is active.

You can lie on the sofa, eat, talk to people, do work, play other games, all while watching TV. When reading, I can't do any of those things. It's a dedicated, unsocial activity. Therefore, it's harder to work reading into a variety of situations.

 

[ThreeName]

Because comics are, frankly, a mess. I've been on those wikis; it looks atrocious. I could never get into anything as convoluted as comic book continuity.

 

[shootthebandit]

I can imagine its really hard to get into

a) comics are collectable thus making them pricey
b) they are usually sold at comic book stores which arent that common (atleat in the UK)
c) theres a huge back catalogue of canon and even non-canon storylines going back in some cases to the 1950s or possibly earlier

I wouldnt say theres a stigma behind it now but its definitely still niche because its difficult to get into

 

[V4Viewtiful]

Availability.

Profitability.

Because comics are, frankly, a mess. I've been on those wikis; it looks atrocious. I could never get into anything as convoluted as comic book continuity.

that's usually the big two, but that's what happenes whe you have a shared universe full of bad dicisions.

Other comics aren't like that though, they're better maintained.

 

[DementedSheep]

Because they very are expensive for how long they entertain you and if you are talking superhero comics which is the ones from the current craze they are hard to get into because a lot of shit been been going for ages so they have a massive backlog. They swap between many different writers with many of them wanting to do some major game changer event or revert back when something is changed by someone else so continuity is a mess (though they do keep trying to fix that). Depending on what you reading other characters pop in and out all the time which is great if you know them but can be confusing if you don't.
Many prefer watching something to reading it. They also still have a reputation for shitty writing and wtf plots despite people liking the moves. When people think comic they think marvel or DC and superheros so a lot of comics outside of that just aren't well known, it doesn't occur to people to even look for the other stuff and you aren't as likely to see them in the actual store.
I like comics but then I like reading, art and often find movies boring (I don't know exactly why, I just do) so its not surprising. I can understand why people don't.

 

[Wizardly-K9]

I'm starting to a see a common thread with all of the posts on this forum: everyone is referring to Marvel and DC. That's part of the reason comics can't get out of this niche they've dug for themselves. And I don't mean Marvel and DC specifically are the problem. They make good stuff, and deserve the reputation they have.

The problem is that everyone's default train of thought when it comes to ANYTHING relating to comics come back to Marvel and DC, when in truth, there are hundreds of comics released yearly that have nothing to do with either of those publishers. My very first sentence on this post was "The best selling book of 2013 was Walking Dead #115 at 350,000 units." Walking Dead is published by Image Comics, the guys who made Spawn. Not Marvel or DC.

The best selling comic book of the year had nothing to do with superheroes, but the conversation came right back to superheroes, because that's what people think makes up 99% of the industry. Why does everyone think that?

Who made it so that Marvel and DC fill up most of the screen time comics get with their fat, spandex-wearing asses?

 

[jademunky]

Why is it that; despite all the movies, games, merchandise, and live action tv adaptations; the comic book industry is still so small?

Probably because decades of continuity invariably results in a huge literary mess. Casual readers feel intimidated since they often find that events they remember reading about a decade ago have been retconned out or that supporting characters that they love have been killed off or just forgotten about. Or that characters they thought were dead, suddenly came back to life for reasons that make no sense.

Don't even get me started on crossover events. They are just too damn big. Often the reader will need to follow multiple titles just to understand what is going on which demands spending even more money. Here is an example: Final Crisis. Decent story, nice artwork, etc. At the tail-end of the story, however, after the character I thought was the main villain was killed off, this other guy, whom I have never even heard of shows up, announces that he was the real villain all along, then promptly dies at the hands of about a hundred Green Lanterns. Who was that guy? Well apparantly I did not bother to read the tie-in books which explain his origin and how he ties into this and the previous crisis crossovers. "Silly consumer, you need to pay us more to understand what is going on"

No other format does this. At least not to the same extent.

 

[V4Viewtiful]

superheroes, because that's what people think makes up 99% of the industry. Why does everyone think that?

Availability.

If the public don't see it, they don't know, I had to explain to several people that The Walking Dead was a comicbook, hell people don't even know Sonic has one.

It's more the fault of the speculator boom of the 90s and Image with variants, foil, first editions and marvel and DC following (leading?) suit also the era of "Dark" lead to the the bust. As a result fewer places sold comicbooks because the market was then oversaturated. However saying that it did lead to smaller publishers rising from the ashes with a now smaller but dedicated audience through surviving outlets.

Also in regards to cost publishers used higher quality paper and card for their books and eventually they couldn't cover those costs and so the price rose, this was around 2001ish.

This is just a broad statement though, Britain has comic collections of DC and Marvel comics in local newsagents but not much else in the vein of variety.

 

[UltraPic]

I wouldnt say theres a stigma behind it now but its definitely still niche because its difficult to get into

I'd have to say there is a stigma about them, why else would almost every news agent not carry such comics any more despite the massive variety of all the other publications that are usually stocked even in the smaller paper shops.