Comic popularity

As the Marvel and Batman movies have shown over the last five to ten years, there is a way to take comic books and make them appeal to a more mainstream audience. As a result, Marvel has started putting out more comics that are aimed at easing readers into their universe. It's a really smart tactic and I understand why they do it. Certainly there's some trepidation there, as you worry about alienating long time and loyal fans by catering too much to potential new markets but, by and large, Marvel has been well-balanced in their approach. Also, I used to be a big fan of the adult cartoon programming block, [adultswim]. Bear with me. I liked a lot of their original shows which were all relatively cheaply made but had really great elements that appealed to me. They were also fairly unique. Eventually, they bought the rights to the dead Family Guy and Futurama. Both easily brought in the most viewership of any shows on the block. They brought in so much traffic, in fact, that both shows ended up being renewed years after their cancellations. You would normally have to watch a couple hours of these two shows before getting into the original programming. I like Futurama and I didn't used to have a big problem with old Family Guy. However, it wasn't what I watched [as] for. Although the two shows inconvenienced me, I accepted their existence with [as] because I knew they were the cash cows that allowed my little shows to exist. THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS. I'm totally happy with Marvel having a few books to lure readers in in the hopes that they can get more money for their other books (there is a fundamental fear here, and one that [as] fell into long ago. Eventually you start to realize that ALL your media can copy your big hitters and hope that it translates to more money, but that's not here nor there).

Look, I'm sorry I'm being long-winded and indecisive about what I want to write about. It's been a long day coming off a long week. Let's get to what I want to get to now.

With the recent success of AMC's The Walking Dead, more attention is being paid to independent comics. I don't review any indie comics here because this blog is called "Marvels" and I'd feel awfully silly posting about Saga in here. However, they still directly impact Marvel, and not just for the market shares. More and more, indie comics are kinder to the creators, meaning that more writers and artists would likely prefer to work in that market. That means that people tend to make a name for themselves with the big two before slowly branching out and bringing their audience to a new book that lets them retain the rights. I'm all for creator rights and everything, so I harbor no ill-will towards people who do that. I'm still sad because I'll always love Marvel and it forcefully reminds me that Marvel isn't really the end-game for a lot of these creators. However, it's created an interesting and great little problem for Marvel.

As comics are finding a more mainstream appeal, more writers and artists are looking into the industry. That means we're getting more talent and allowing the producers of comics to find even better talent. Even though we lose someone like Ed Brubaker to his own excellent series of comics after a great long stretch at Marvel, we get someone amazingly talented to fill his shoes (like Rick Remender). With the indie market looking stronger than ever, the amount of good talent filtering through the big two first has really put readers in a great place. Yes it's still going to be sad when your favorite artist or writer or colorist leaves for greener pastures (Bettie Breitweiser's contract with Marvel ended a couple months ago, though she is also heading over to Brubaker's excellent series), but there's a whole wealth of talent bursting right under the seams. I guess what I'm long-windedly getting to is that we're in an exciting time for new comics. Comics haven't had this much wide-stream appeal in my lifetime, maybe ever. Hopefully they can maintain this because, ideally, with success comes better product.