Read the entertainment bits on Yahoo or MSN and every week it’s the same damn thing: Box office is down. The movie industry is sinking like the Titanic, which ironically was one of the highest grossing movies of all time. I can’t see why – it’s not like anyone didn’t see the ending coming. Hollywood executives only have themselves to blame. They don’t make very many good, original movies anymore. Every year there are more and more remakes and sequels. Did anyone need more Scary Movies, or big name, low expectation remakes of TV shows like the Dukes of Hazzard or Miami Vice? Nope. We the people demand better. We demand originality. But we don’t very often get it, so out of sheer boredom we end up forking over way too much money for a ticket to see something derivative and weak — or in some cases, repetitive. Who saw Armageddon and Deep Impact? Who saw Dante’s Peak and Volcano? Who saw Invincible and Gridiron Gang? There were even two movies a couple years back about some famous Mexican artist I of course never heard of. So when we’re not spending money on remakes like Denzel’s “The Manchurian Candidate” or Sandle’s “The Longest Yard” we pay to see the same crap twice: two volcanoes, two asteroids, two football pictures, two Frieda biopics. Regardless of the celluloid drivel we’re forced to endure, we’re creatures of habit. We go. We pay. We bitch about it afterwards.
Boy, the comic companies are missing the boat on that one.
Not the bitching about after part – they get that with every issue they release, except for the ones that say Brubaker or Simone on the cover, which is fine because we use that extra bitching on Liefield. No, I’m talking about the millions and millions of future comic readers that go ignored because the comic companies don’t work with the film industry to encourage cross-pollination. Think about some of the big movies in the last few years, ones that stayed around for more than three weeks or that actually made a chunk of money. Disappointing as Superman was, it brought in easily millions of moviegoers. So did Spider-Man 1 and 2, Batman Begins and the X-Men franchise. One of the movies I hear everyone getting excited about is the third Spider-Man film. And I’m sure there will be no short lines for any future X-Men spin-offs, such as the Wolverine and Magneto features I’ve seen reported.
So with millions of people going to see Superman, and apparently millions and millions more going to see Batman (as evidenced by the higher box office figure), why is it then that only a paltry 100,000 or so people are buying Batman and Superman comics even with Jim Lee drawing them? If just a lonely, solitary million people went to see Superman and only one tenth of them buy the comic, that is a sad state of affairs. After all, the comic related movies bring in anywhere from $100 – $300 million pretty routinely. The comic companies are not taking advantage of the opportunities that exist here.
It makes no sense. I never see a commercial for DC comics. There are no ads on TV for Marvel comics. But television and movies are arguably the biggest components of the human entertainment machine. More time and money is invested in television and movie entertainment in some form or another than anything else. Marvel and DC lament the lack of new readership as the old readers move on for various reasons. But they don’t DO anything about it. They make their comics “New Reader Friendly” but they don’t actually get many new readers to look at the friendly content. The prospective readership is too busy watching Lost, playing Madden 07 or renting DVDs on Netflix between downloads of the Paris Hilton video. And even when they’re in a bookstore there’s little to no incentive to peruse comic offerings if there are any to begin with. The last thing many prospective readers are thinking about is, “Where can I go to get comics?”
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Readers will be stuck forking out full price for 3/4 of a story, enduring “new reader friendly” recaps that no NEW readers are actually reading. |
The industry must take advantage of media outlets. Why not run a television spot? They get a little rub from the campy “What’s In Your Wallet?” credit card campaign. Frankly, I don’t think it’s a particularly effective advertising campaign because all I remember about the ad is that the heroes were really sort of dicks to the damsel in distress. And I can’t even remember which credit card company the ad was for anyway. But a decently designed campaign, be it animated or live acted, couldn’t hurt. Let them know the product is out there. If they can get their act together and get comics back in the mass retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven, etc., they should mention that at the end of the ad. “DC Comics are available at these fine stores: Wally‘s Supermart, Sam and Twitch‘s Club, and Barns and Daughte’s Books.” It’s simple, and now I can ask my Mommy to take me the store so I can buy some Batman Adventures comics. If they have to rely on the specialty shops, then they should end with, “Look in your local Yellow Pages under ‘Comic Books’ for a store near you.” And some graphics about their websites, in this modern age of the information superhighway, wouldn’t hurt either.
I haven’t forgotten about the movies. They have to do a better job of getting those millions of butts in theatre seats out looking for comics afterwards. One option would be to offer free comics at the movies. Have ushers distribute “The Official Movie Adaptation” of Spider-Man 3 for free as people leave the theatre. Maybe some of them will seek out more. Hand out vouchers for free comics, redeemable at any local comic shop. That would probably involve some work, coordinating reimbursement to the owners of the comic shops, but many other forms of retail shopping utilize coupons to great effect. Or put a few select issues in a stand at the concession counter. Since they’d be the only things that are not overpriced (assuming, perhaps naïvely, that the theatre chain wouldn’t slap a 70% markup on the comics), they should sell like beer at a Cowboys vs. Redskins Thanksgiving Day game. There MUST be crossover, no matter what they do or how they do it. It makes no sense for the comic companies to continue to option their characters as movie fodder and not see at least short-term improvement in sales of the same comics bringing in millions and millions of box office dollars, much less permanent gains in readership.
Until the publishers get their acts together and work harder at drawing new readers in by taking advantage of media platforms that reach BILLIONS of people, us old readers will be stuck forking out full price for 3/4 of a story, enduring “new reader friendly” recaps that no new readers are actually reading.
Welcome to my nightmare.
