Is
the Comic Book Industry falling apart? Well, I think you can swap out ‘Comic
Book Industry’ and put almost any business model, institution or political
party before the words ‘falling apart’ and it would be an apt statement for
this past year or two. Yet this year, more than any other, has been in my view
one of the roughest years of comic books that I can remember. It just felt
waaaay off. I mean, I hear how LCS retailers are constantly complaining about the publishers. I see how
stores are closing all over the country. I hear the Comic Book Pundits (am I
one? Mmm, not really) decrying the ills and missteps of the industry itself.
Fans seem to whining and moaning left and right, what the fuck is going on?
Well,
I can only speak from the experience of a dude who has been buying comics for
over 40 years. What I would say is, mmm, it’s not that it’s falling apart it’s
that it’s been reassigned. In other words, comics are means to other ends
especially when you’re talking about the Big Poo (the Big 2). For these
corporate death stars, comics feed into its inordinate amount of IP offerings
that are charted on X & Y Axis graphs and all kinds of business degree
mumbo jumbo bullshit that have basically ruined comic books. Sure, the
independents are going strong. Wait, no, scratch that, Image is still going
strong while other independents thrash and claw for a limited audience with either
rehashed characters or gruesome over the top silly horror/sexy books. Dark Horse got bought out by a gaming company and their titles have also sunk to new lows of blecchh. Even Image,
as wonderful as they are, didn’t knock a lot out of the park this year.
Here’s
the bottom line for me: I bought 150 comic books this year. That’s the lowest
amount of comics I’ve purchased since I started keeping track of it about 15
years ago. Back in the heyday of 2016-2018 I was buying over 300 comics a year.
So what happened? Well, Marvel got bought out by Satan aka Disney and their
comics became all but unreadable.
I seriously root for Disney’s stock to crater
every day with the hopes that, I dunno, they sell Marvel cuz they need the cash
or don’t care anymore? DC? I dunno either, last year was the year of their
amazing run of Black Label titles, this year? Pure poop. I don’t think anyone
knows what the fuck to do or how to do it over in DC and it shows. Their recent
Aqua Turd movie is dead in the water as was most of the garbage they put out
this year. So when you have the Two Pillars of the Industry mired in caca it
fucks things up for everyone else. One would think “oh there’s now a void to
fill because Marvel & DC are churning out titles that look like the pink
goo that they make McNuggets with” but it’s actually the opposite. Hate on them
as much as you want but Marvel & DC are
comic books. If they’re going strong everybody is going strong because that
means butts in the Comic Book shops which means more sales of the independent
offerings.
Here’s
another reason why I bought less books: y’all raised the prices a bit too much.
See, back in the day I could jump on a book for 5-6 issues, grab a mini-series
for 4 issues, try out a series and spend about $15, woop dee doo. Now, every
story arc/mini series is like $25-30, hmm, yeah fuck that! If issue one sucks,
buh to the bye homie. Now I’ll check out the solicits for future issues to see
what’s going on with the plot before I decide to pick something up whereas before I wouldn’t
care, I’d just add it to my pull and read the whole series, because, well, I love
comics. But I’m not trying to spend over $100 a month on comics right now especially since most of them are so disappointing. So
with the quality of books in the toilet and the prices up it makes for a very
nasty combination.
Mark
Millar, who I’m not a big fan of but who I deeply respect as guy who loves
comics, had this to say on what he thinks should be the fix for the industry
I
wouldn’t know if this would work or not but it’s clear to me that something has to change. Somebody has to come in and clean
fucking house at the Big 2 like Javier Milei is doing in Argentina. I need a
Comic Book Geek of the People to go in the same way that Javier did and get rid
of all the Editors and Ideological Fuckwits that have ruined Hero Books.
Yo Marvel and DC Dipshit Editors? AFUERA!
There’s
a guy who makes amazing videos about the Comic Book Industry. I would say he is
the true voice of reason for Comic Book Geeks like myself and it’s clear that
he loves comics as much as anyone. I remember watching a video of his where he
said that the Big 2 were more interested in the Variant Cover market than they
were in actually making good comics. So, that makes a whole lot of sense to me.
People are buying up covers at astronomical prices regardless of what’s inside
so the more you poop out and the more you create artificial scarcity for them
the more shekels you will make. That’s all well and good for your corporate
hooker and blow budget but, yeah, sucks for us. If that is what’s really going
on then we may not see the end of this downturn for a while until they cut back
on these variants. You can check out this dude’s channel here:
Anyway,
as for the ‘Best of the Year’ it was a slog to say the least. Last year I chose
a dozen books that were absolutely amazing along with some honorable mentions. This year? I couldn’t even find 10 titles
that blew me out of the water. Not even 10 for goodness sake. I went over every
week of my pulls and, man, I pulled a lot of stuff that ended up sucking ass. To
be clear, this list isn’t of comics that were good, or decent or really good.
This is a list of Greatness. This is a list of books that after I put them down
I went ‘That was fucking awesome’ If I didn’t feel like that then it’s not on
this list. So yeah, not that many to choose from but these did the trick, here
ya go…
8.Deep Cuts
- A series of stories that travel through the history of Jazz? Sign me the fuck up! Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark along with some bad ass artists deliver some wonderfully poignant and historically accurate tales that span the early decades of Jazz. I really wish this was an ongoing series rather than a standard ‘Six issues and we’re done’ affair. That’s something that would be exciting to dive into every month. I really loved the sheet music that they included in the back matter and the homage to Blue Note. This was Image's Golden Offering of the Year by far. For some reason they dropped three issues and then stopped in July but it looks like they’re picking up again in January.
7.barnstormers
- Dark Horse has been reprinting all of Scott Snyder’s Comixology’s Originals Digital Series into 3 issue Drops for the past year or so. One was atrocious (We Have Demons) one was mediocre (Night of the Ghoul) one was really good (Clear) but this one was downright awesome. I’d say the main reason besides an out of the box story of a death defying pilot and his forbidden love on the run is Tula Lotay’s spectacularly beautiful art that graced each and every panel. Bonnie & Clyde take to the air! What an absolute joy to read. Snyder’s got another one that just started, ‘Canary’ and so far it’s also a great first issue. Go Scott Go!
6.The Avengers: War Across Time
- The best thing Marvisney put out all year by far was a Retro Series. What a fucking blast it was to read a story that hit on all the right notes from the Golden Era of Comics! They dusted off some dude named Paul Levitz who was probably busy noshing on a pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Deli and made him pop out a paean to what made hero books great: bright colors, silliness, goofy and sexy dialogue, gravitas, time machines and buildings and streets that were always being destroyed or spewing lava men. I’ve been saying for years that Marvisney should just publish monthly facsimile issues of their great titles like Spidey & FF & The Avengers on a monthly basis so it could give us the feeling that we’re reading them as if we were living back in the 60s when they first came out. But that would be too much fun, so, that won't work these days.
5.Love Everlasting
- The second arc of what very well might be Tom King’s masterpiece of a series upped the ante and the wow factor on what already was a perfectly executed story of Joan Peterson and the multiple timelines of deadly love that follows and torments her through all of her lives in all of the different eras that she has lived in. Written in the style of a dimestore comic book romance this mind trip of a book just kept getting better and better from issue to issue. It’s one of those rare books that you really get excited about when you see a new issue pop up on the solicits. Elsa Charretier is officially an Art Super Star and I will follow her work wherever she goes. I will also say that so far King's first few issues on Wonder Woman are quite good, the best Dubz story I’ve read in ages! Tom King comin’ wit da ruffneck bidness in the two three boyeee.
4.Batman: City of Madness
- It was a really tough year for my homie Bats. I just could not get into anything that he was in. All the books were just blah or refried plot beans. Sean Murphy ended his beyond brilliant White Knight run on a ‘ehh, that was cool but not great’ note then handed it off to his wonderful wife and a putz who wrote a series about the Joker’s kids which I couldn’t stomach. I suffered month after month begging the Comic Book Universe to deliver me a majestic Bat Book and it finally answered my prayers at the very end of the year with Christian Ward’s eye popping beast of a book. My goodness, give this man an ongoing series for the next five years! In a year of cheap fake meat Bat burger stories this was the Wagyu patty with the Goldleaf Bun story that beat the bejeezus out of them all. Hopefully this is the beginning of a new run of great Black Label titles.
3.Rare Flavours
- The creative team behind one of the best comics of the decade ’The Many Deaths of Laila Starr’ returned with another magical tale that invoked the earthly representation of another Hindu deity. This time around it’s a Raksha or demon that fancies itself as a type of cannibalistic Anthony Bourdain. Each issue just feels like an event as you’re transported away from your life and immersed into a fully realized elevated world of monstrous beauty. I feel like these two had a conversation that went something like 'Should we tell the Demon Bourdain story now or should we wait?' as if they were waiting for the perfect moment to unleash this gem of a story on humanity. Ram V and Filipe Andrade have that uncanny artistic synergy that doesn’t come along very often in comics. Catch them while you can.
2.A Vicious Circle
- Only one issue of this mind blowing three issue series was released this year, over six months after its first issue which was released in December of 2022 but oh what a fucking issue it is. The art in this comic is absolutely astonishing. Lee Bermejo puts on a clinic on how to turn a comic book into art gallery material. I suppose with the amount of assumed work and attention to detail that went into each of the first two issues it’s understandable why it takes them so long to release them. Mattson Tomlin’s exhilarating time jumping story of mortal enemies does more than enough to keep up with Bermejo’s legendary work. A book like this puts publishers and creators on notice. This is how it’s done. This is how you make a statement to the world on why comic books matter. Despite it being limited to only three issues this is a time traveling book for the ages.
1.Conan The Barbarian
- By Crom you did it! You wrested the Conan license away from the evil clutches of Marvisney and showed the entire planet how to make a Hero Book. True, this Cimmerian isn’t like the heroes of neon tights and inter-galactic superpowers but make no mistake, this Barbarian slashed his way through those mangy curs to the top of the heap of the comic book world this year. Oh, what a joy to experience the true unbridled love that the creators of this comic most certainly have for this character and for them to have the courage to present him in all of his glory. In a pathetic world where nitwits, meager mealy mouthed toads and spindly cowards froth at the mouth with their idiotic claims of toxic masculinity, Titan Comics had the balls to say ‘Yeah, fuck that, here’s Conan’.
And yes, it wasn’t just their approach, Jim Zub’s writing and Roberto De La Torre’s art was as perfect a match for Conan as you could ask for. What an absolute triumph. If you’ve never read a Conan story before you could actually pick up the first arc of this book and know exactly what it’s like to read one of the best from the past as it feels just as authentic as any of Robert E. Howard’s offerings. Perhaps this is the future of comic books. Is it possible for a group of hyper excited artists and writers to somehow get the licenses from all of our favorite heroes and start them over for us? Can we join Conan on his pirate ship with Belit and do a hostile takeover of the Hulk, Spidey and Iron Man? Can we have Scott Snyder and Christian Ward storm DC's offices with guns blazing and take Batman from them?
Is this the way? Will there need to be a Comic Book Civil War? Drastic times call for drastic measures. Titan's 'Conan' reminded me how amazing it is to read a heroic tale. Yes, all genres can be found in comics but it's the heroes that really shine the most. It's the heroes that we can't find in our world, lifting buildings, shooting lasers out of their eyes, flying above us, it's these heroes that we find next to the staples of the pages of our favorite childhood titles that inspire us the most. And yes, we're adults and we have jobs and responsibilities now that go beyond these tales. Yet these tales remind us of what can be, not only in the world but within ourselves. They reminds us that life is a magical journey where anything can happen at any moment. The improbable victories over evil that we read in the pages of strong iconic heroes can somehow give us what we need to overcome the obstacles that we face in our lives.
And so as we turn the page on another year I see hope for a return to this glorified experience of reading comics that sit in our hands, not in our computers. I'm not sure how it will happen but I know it's possible.
“There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage,” - Conan
