I picked up Peter Coogan's Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre (based on a rec by Denny O'Neil). I haven't started it yet, but I figured I'd draw your attention to the infamous Endnote 3, which sets out Coogan's conception of the Ages of Comics:
Of these, I need to read his definition of the Iron Age, because if it ran until Kingdom Come, then it represents a style that I would say didn't start until Hawkworld. And, in particular, I would have called New Teen Titans an exemplary Bronze Age book (a mature but non-senescent continuity, post-Marvel characterization, and very high end Adams/Giordano-derived art).
Posted by Greg at March 26, 2007 11:31 AM
Wow - first reference to Nick of the Woods that I've come across in 20 years.
How much explanation does he give to these? And is he referring to the Ages of Comics or the Ages of the Superhero? Some of them seem awfully arbitrary. Why is Murray Boltinoff taking over the editorship of Teen Titans "the end of relevance"? It seems relevance should be considered alive and kicking at least until the introduction of John Stewart nearly a year after that. And I'm with you, Greg. New Teen Titans doesn't seem to be doing anything that Marvel (and particularly X-Men) wasn't already doing (other than bringing it to DC).
I've been meaning to get this book, but haven't yet.
Nick of the Woods, huh? Never heard of it. To the library!
Endnote #3 doesn't have much discussion, and "end of relevance" is the only comment on his Bronze Age claim.
Okay, I'm a bit confused. Is he saying that Bronze Age is supposed to be the age of capital-R Relevance or the age that occurs after it dies? The way it's listed it reads like the latter, but I don't associate Relevance with the Silver Age (to my mind it's a small but influential, particularly later, movement of the early Bronze Age). Besides, the Death of Gwen Stacy has always appealed to me as the end of the Silver Age.
And absolutely NTT is one of the stalwart runs of the Bronze Age, so that's just wrong. If there is an Iron Age, I think Hawkworld is an excellent starting point, although I think you could also make an argument for replacing the Iron Age with the Mylar Age, starting with McFarlane's Spider-Man #1.
This would make the post-Crisis train wreck part of the late Bronze Age, but I don't really have a problem with that since Crisis was narrative engineering designed to rewrite DC's narrative DNA to make it like Marvel's Bronze Age.
And I'm not buying the existence of a "Renaissance Age." I'd say it's the Mylar Age followed by the Fanpro Age (an age where Bronze Age fans who are long on hype and continuity, and often trivia, but all-too-often short on craft and imagination have taken over and wreaked havoc).
Oh, and in case you're wondering what the hell Nick of the Woods is:
Here it is on Amazon. I'm not sure when this was originally published (couldn't find any reference to it on Wikipedia).
I take it that the Bronze Age began when relevance ended.
I wrote about 5000 words on Nick of the Woods in Victoriana. Revolting book--significant, but disgusting. Evil, even. I used the phrase "a paean to race hatred," which still strikes me as accurate.
Chris M--1837.
So let me see. Judging from the end-points, let me try and reconstruct what he might be talking about.
We have the creation of an exploration of the central premises of the characters in the Golden Age,
A period of wild creation of peripheries in the Silver,
An exploration of how those peripheries work in detail while keeping them static in the Bronze,
Taking all that as a starting point and allowing soap-opera-style dynamic stories to take root and grow in the Iron age*,
And then a re-invention of the entire thing from the group up, picking and choosing among the elements from prior ages to build something that works by design rather than by accident as a dynamic storytelling engine in the Renaissance?
Ended by a current age of deliberately re-introducing things that don't work or taking a sledgehammer to load-bearing elements of the setting in order to create and explore a dysfunctional version of the engines?
*Which probably ought to have started in LSH a couple years earlier than where he marks it...
Thanks, Jess!
Yeah, reading the reader review on Amazon, I get the whole identity-split thing (and that it's very polar dichotomy, and that one is a persona-of-action and the other isn't), but man, it does sound absolutely revolting. "Paean to race hatred" sounds about right.
This is the problem with trying to define terms like "Bronze Age" and "Iron Age." We're trying to impose boundaries where none naturally exist, and that inevitably leads to problems (cf. post-colonial Africa and the Middle East).
There is a clearly defined start to the Golden Age. Before Action Comics #1 -- no superheroes. After Action Comics #1 -- lots of superheroes. Easy, right?
There is also a somewhat clearly (although less so) defined end to the Golden Age -- superheroes went away. People differ on precisely when that happened (Last Justice Society? Last Captain America? Rise of EC?). But everyone seems to agree on the premise, which is that when superheroes went away, the Golden Age ended.
Likewise, when superheroes came back, the Silver Age began. Again, there's a dispute over when that happened. Was it the first Martian Manhunter? First Barry Allen story? Fantastic Four? Find two fans and you'll probably get three opinions on when the Silver Age started, but they will probably agree with the statement that the Silver Age began when superheroes experienced a resurgence in popularity.
After that, though, superheroes never went away again, so there are no more natural dividing points.
You can point to arbitrary dividing points, like Marvel expanding their line, or Jack Kirby going to DC, or relevance comics or the revisions to the Comics Code that allowed horror comics, but ultimately, there is a continuum that flows from the early Silver Age books of the late 50s/early 60s all the way through today's books.
Even the Silver Age definition starts to get hazy when you look at characters like Superman or Batman who were published continuously. What separates Detective Comics #326 from #327? The fact that Batman had an oval on his chest? Is Action Comics #241 really that different from Action Comics #240? I mean, sure, you can point Julie Schwarz and Mort Weisinger taking voer as editors, but would a kid who picks up the new issue of Action or Detective every month really have seen that big a difference? A big enough difference to make him say "A new Age has begun?" I don't think so.
Don't get me wrong -- there's nothing wrong with arbitrary line drawing. We need a common vocabulary to talk about these things, and sometimes that requires us to draw lines where there are not natural break points. I mean, a cold December 28 isn't that different from a cold January 7, but we have to stick New Year's somewhere, and so we call one 2006 and the other 2007. Likewise, maybe Tales of Suspense #98 isn't that different from Iron Man #4, but you've got to end the Silver Age somewhere.
So I guess I'm not too worried about where Pete has drawn his lines. If they are useful lines, they will stick. If not, we'll ignore them.
What separates Detective Comics #326 from #327? The fact that Batman had an oval on his chest? ... I mean, sure, you can point Julie Schwarz and Mort Weisinger taking over as editors, but would a kid who picks up the new issue of Action or Detective every month really have seen that big a difference?
Would a kid, any random kid in 1964? I don't know. Maybe? Maybe not.
I have read Batman #163 and #164 (as an adult), and I can say there's a really big difference. It's more than 'just' the oval, there's a shift in tone, and the art, despite being done by Sheldon Moldoff, looks different. To my eye, it looks like he was directed to make it look more like Infantino than the old "Bob Kane" look.
PS - Batman #163 is notable for being the last 60s appearance of Bat-Girl (and Batman II and Robin II).
Even the Silver Age definition starts to get hazy when you look at characters like Superman or Batman who were published continuously. What separates Detective Comics #326 from #327? The fact that Batman had an oval on his chest? Is Action Comics #241 really that different from Action Comics #240? I mean, sure, you can point Julie Schwarz and Mort Weisinger taking voer as editors, but would a kid who picks up the new issue of Action or Detective every month really have seen that big a difference? A big enough difference to make him say "A new Age has begun?" I don't think so.
Superman's harder to track, admittedly, but Batman is said to enter the Silver Age at such a late date (May 1964) because the contrast from one issue to the next is so marked. I haven't read Detective #326, but a look at the cover over at the Grand Comics Database tells us all we need to know. "Captives of the Alien Zoo!" is the story it teases, and that's light years away from the street-level crime Julie Schwartz returned Batman and Robin to with #327 (which I have read).
But if I'm taking Batman away from your example, I'm more than happy to replace him with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, or Green Arrow.
Hmmm, disagree quite violently...
I am not a comic book historian, of course, but what I can say from what I *read*...
X-Men and New Teen Titans are *clearly* Bronze Age, to me. It was also the age of 'relevance', and thingsl ike the Green Lantern/Green Arrow run, Batman stories of the time... they are certainly not Iron Age.
Crisis is still Bronze, but I believe most of what follows(not all, as Teen Titans is still Bronze for quite awhile) is Iron - he lists Justice League as Renaissance... but is that Giffen's? If so, it was knee-deep in the Iron Age. In the first story they have some trouble fighting *terrorists*, then the Suicide Squad, then the Meltdown in Russia... it was very terrorists, real-world, and very down-to-earth and weaker superheroes, which is very Iron Age(If it was Morrisson's renaissentist JLA, half of their challenges would be gone through effortlessly, and they'd never panic on the nuke plant meltdown. And with the same members.)
And to say the Sentry begun the Marvel Rennaissance is just plain wrong and I have proof! It might have begun earlier, but Kurt Busiek's Avengers vol.3 was clearly renascentist. Hell, all of Captain America / Iron Man / Thor / Avengers was, post-Heroes reborn. Complete with undoing all that has come before for a timeless feel.
... and I may be coming as too much of a Busiek fan, but I think one can probably try to argue that Astro City started the renaissance, then Kingdom Come on DC(but no idea if Waid wasn't doing something like in Flash... maybe since his fake 'return of Barry Allen', bringing back the old guys?), then the post-heroes-reborn stories...
Ah well. One Lurker's opinion, but it clashes so much against my views I had to post >.>
Oy!
A few points.
First, I am discussing the ages of superhero comics, not the ages of comics.
Second, my analysis is based upon Thomas Schatz's scheme laid out in Hollywood Genres--if you aren't familiar with Schatz's genre cycle argument (which I lay out in my book), then you'll raise all the points that were raised here. If you're familiar with Schatz, most of this discussion goes away. And it's important that theory back conclusions. A statment like "NTT is one of the stalwart runs of the Bronze Age" (Chris M.) needs to be backed up--what theory stands behind the placement of NTT in the Bronze Age? Schatz's theory of genre evolution is grounded on other studies and other theory and is applicable across genres--it works for the Western, romantic comedy, gangster, etc.
I discuss the arbitrary nature of the texts I pick as emblematic of the shift from one age to another in the book, which I don't want to recapitulate here. I also discuss the range of dates for the beginnings and ends of the ages. So, please read (and buy) my book because I think I address all the questions raised in.
"Endnote #3 doesn't have much discussion, and "end of relevance" is the only comment on his Bronze Age claim"
Yes, but it's not my endnote. My book contains plenty of discussion of all these things. I've had this discussion many times and I find that it has quite a different character if the people I'm having it with have read my book (the same is true of the definition of the superhero).
Teen Titans, end of relevance--that's the end of relevance for the TT, not for the end of relevance at DC, but the end of relevance does mark the end of the Silver Age whenever it occurs (and it occurs at different points for different series). Mostly I picked this issue because it's a convenient issue representing 1970 (cover date Jan-Feb 1971, but released in 1970), which is the end of the Silver Age for a number of non-textual reasons. But the Silver Age runs as late as the death of Gwen Stacy and the end of the Secret Empire saga in Captain America (1974).
New Teen Titans, Iron Age--I picked this because of an argument Jacobs and Jones make regarding this series (the details of which escape me at the moment), but you can check Jacobs and Jones book. "The Comic Book Heroes."
Kingdom Come is a narrative argument that parrallels my analytical argument, so it's a useful formal statement of the shift between the Iron Age and the Renassiance Age (or at least it's a useful call for the end of the Iron Age).
The Mylar Age (basically the Image creators, both at Marvel and Image) can be seen as the rococco end of the baroque stage of the Iron Age, but it doesn't mark a break with the barouqe stage but fits in with the formal opacity Schatz sees characterizing that stage.
My argument for a Renaissance Age (and a reconstructive stage) is grounded in a comment Kurt Busiek made in a letter page in Astro City #5 regarding moving away from deconstruction (ala Watchmen and Dark Knight) and toward reconstruction. Also, and I don't discuss this in the book but I recently refead Moore's Supreme series. In his first issue, the new Supreme encounters several other Supreme's, one of whom identifies the new Supreme's psychology as that of a 90s hero, but the new Supreme moves past that psychologizing (and the death-focus of the Iron Age is satirized in the "Death of OmniMan"), indicating that Moore was working on a new model (or a new age), and Moore's Supreme seems very reconstructive instead of deconstructive.
"So let me see. Judging from the end-points, let me try and reconstruct what he might be talking about." --actually, just go read Schatz's Hollywood Genres to get a sense of how his theory of genre evolution works.
"This is the problem with trying to define terms like 'Bronze Age' and 'Iron Age.'" Bronze Age and Iron Age obviously come from the Greeks (Hesiod, IIRC--though they had Brazen Age). Bronze Age started out as a dealers' term that was picked up in pro-zines like Comic Book Marketplace. Iron Age follows from the Bronze Age because of the Greek origin of the terminology. But it all depends on the theory behind the naming. I noticed that Schatz's stages of genre evolution neatly fit the Ages of Superhero Comics (and I don't think there are ages of comics beyond the Silver Age, and the Silver Age is mostly a superhero designation anyway--I don't think there's much use in discussing ages of comics).
"First Barry Allen story?" Fairly widely accepted and it was the one that stuck--the revival of the Atom and Hawkman followed from the success of the revival of the Flash. The Martian Manhunter wasn't revived but was a new character (the revivals of Captain America, Namor, and the Human Torch didn't take, but the revival of the Flash led to reviving Hawkman, Atom, Green Lantern, and ultimately the Justice League, which led to the Fantastic Four, so that's why the Silver Age starts with the new Flash and not Martian Manhunter).
"After that, though, superheroes never went away again, so there are no more natural dividing points." There are no natural dividing points (except Action #1, the start of the superhero genre). That's why theory is important.
"A big enough difference to make him say "A new Age has begun?" I don't think so." Creators didn't think in these terms. The Ages were a product of naive fan criticism (naive = non-academic, non-theory) that happen to fit neatly with Schatz's genre theory. They show that fans had an intiutive understanding of genre. The term Silver Age didn't come into wide use in the fanzines until late in the 60s (before then it was called the "second Heroic Age"--I was unable to track down the first use of Silver Age. I'd be very interested in seeing it).
Incidentally, I'm a fan. I started reading comics when I was 8. So nothing I say should be taken as negatively critical of fans or fandom. But I wrote my dissertation (which my book is a version of) so it had to follow the conventions of academic discourse.
"So I guess I'm not too worried about where Pete has drawn his lines. If they are useful lines, they will stick. If not, we'll ignore them." Thanks. Again, though, I point you to Schatz. If his theory is valid for genres generally, and if the superhero genre is a genre (and I argue that it is), then it should be valid for superhero comics. Geoffrey Klock argues that the Silver Age extended into the 80s and only ended with the emergence of the revisionist superhero narrative ("how to read superhero comics and why") because he uses a different theory and we write for different purposes (though he does note a shift occuring right about 1970 and another one in the early 80s, i.e. at exactly the points I end the Silver and Bronze Ages).
"he lists Justice League as Renaissance... but is that Giffen's? If so, it was knee-deep in the Iron Age." Here's the thing about the new Giffen/DeMattias Justice League. The JLA that ended with the breakup of the group clearly fits into the breakdown of conventions common to the baroque stage across genres. Giffen and DeMattias rebuilt the Justice League and made it work again. The cover (and I only discovered this recently while teaching a class on the superhero--but that's why it's good to teach a subject you know well, you discover new things and gain new insights). The cover of JL #1 is a visual argument about the Justice League and about superheroes. I won't go into it too much, but the characters represented in the new JL embody the post-crisis ideology of the DC Universe (though much post-Crisis stuff is still Iron Age). The new JL includes the whole range of the new DC Universe, and the characters represent the many universes that were collapsed in the Crisis. But after a time, the reconstructive spirit was replaced with a parodic and deconstructive appraoch. So it may be that the new Justice League is only a prescusor of the Renaissance Age (as the Phantom Magician and Dr. Occult vs. Koth for the Golden Age; Martian Manhunter for Silver; Bronze doesn't really have a solid precursor); and new X-Men for Iron).
At Marvel, Busiek and Ross' Marvels is probably the first Renaissance Age text, but it didn't kick in fully until later. Sentry #1 is just a convenient starting point, since it's really Quesada taking over that solidified the shift into the Renaissance Age (which has been darker at Marvel than at DC, even in the Ultimates stuff, which could be regarded as Marvel's Earth 1/"Flash of Two Worlds"), and that's not to say that there weren't Renaissance Age approches to specific series before the year 2000. At DC, Kingdom Come is a convenient point (the Animated Batman series is Renaissance Age as well and it started at the same time as the Death of Superman and the start of Image Comics).
If you read my book, you'll see that I use Busiek's Astro City as the primary text for establishing the Renaissance Age.
But the main thing is look at Schatz and then read my book.
And don't let's talk about the definition of the superhero (or at least, don't any one bring it up until we've all read chapters 2-3 of "Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre")
Or come to San Diego and argue with me about it at the Pickwick (but you're buying!)
Pete Coogan
Hi, Pete; at the time I wrote this post, I had barely begun reading the book, which is why I say there's no discussion of endnote 3 in endnote 3; obviously, the rest of the book discusses all of these topics quite thoroughly, and if that implication wasn't clear, that's my error.
I will say that one of the reasons that I'll push back on some of your age definitions is that I'm not convinced of the universality of Schatz. Indeed, as you yourself note, Schatz has to be fixed up to account for the presence of parody superheroes at the dawn of superheroes, when Schatz holds genre parodies to be a late development.
I'll admit that I haven't read Schatz, which is why your mostly-quoted definition of the Bronze Age is basically baffling. I'll have a look back at Jacobs/Jones' discussion of the NTT, but I lay out a description of what I'd call the Bronze Age up above: "a mature but non-senescent continuity, post-Marvel characterization, and very high end Adams/Giordano-derived art".
The art component description needs some fixing up to account for post-Kirby Marvel house style. But the point is that I'm not completely without theory.
Thanks for commenting!
Pete, thanks for taking the time to come and post. I have a few thoughts in response.
"Second, my analysis is based upon Thomas Schatz's scheme laid out in Hollywood Genres--if you aren't familiar with Schatz's genre cycle argument (which I lay out in my book), then you'll raise all the points that were raised here. If you're familiar with Schatz, most of this discussion goes away. And it's important that theory back conclusions."
I've read Hollywood Genres (I've also read some Focillon and some Metz, whom Schatz was influenced by -- in fact, he got his genre stages from Focillon if I'm not mistaken), and reflecting upon it I don't see how this discussion goes away at all, really. (Caveat: I have not read your book. I certainly look forward to reading your book at some point soon, but, alas, it won't be soon enough to help right now. If you don't wish to reiterate or summarize arguments you make in your book here, that is your right, although if you have the time I hope you will -- at least enough to illuminate why I'm wrong.)
I like Schatz's model, and I think applying it to comics is interesting, but I think that superheroes, as a genre, are messier than any Hollywood genre and I don't think things fit together as neatly (although overall I think it makes a fair amount of sense). The danger with any theory is that if you like it too much it can be difficult to resist the temptation to argue that evidence supports the theory when maybe the reality is that it does not. The impression I have is that there's some shoehorning going on here.
"A statment like "NTT is one of the stalwart runs of the Bronze Age" (Chris M.) needs to be backed up--what theory stands behind the placement of NTT in the Bronze Age?"
I don't have a theory, but I do have the work itself.
If we accept that there was a Silver Age distinguishable from the Golden Age, and that there are any ages that come after the Silver Age, then superhero stories in those post-Silver Age ages must, in general and in the majority, be distinguishable in some recognizable fashion from the Silver Age. If we are calling the age after the Silver Age the Bronze Age (for whatever reason), and the New Teen Titans is not part of that Bronze Age, then that means there's an age between the Silver Age and the age the New Teen Titans properly belongs in that, comprises most of the 70's with superhero stories that are, in general and in the majority, distinguishable in some clearly recognizable fashion from both the Silver Age superhero stories and the New Teen Titans and similar stories (as an example of whatever age they are in). I don't think that's the case. In general, the vast majority of superhero stories in the 1970's read like Silver Age stories or they read like new X-Men, Iron Fist, Wolfman's Fantastic Four, Champions, Michelenie/Layton Iron Man, New Teen Titans, Second Levitz on Legion, and so forth.
It feels to me like either you're attempting to wedge in an extra age where there isn't room for one, or you're attempting to fit the New Teen Titans into the age that follows the Bronze Age when NTT more properly belongs in the Bronze -- or maybe that you're wanting the Bronze Age to end earlier than in fact it does.
In mentally reviewing what I recall of Schatz's writing, I don't see how it negates these concerns.
"New Teen Titans, Iron Age--I picked this because of an argument Jacobs and Jones make regarding this series (the details of which escape me at the moment), but you can check Jacobs and Jones book. "The Comic Book Heroes.""
I love The Comic Book Heroes, and since it's sitting next to my desk I went ahead and took the time before posting to re-read everything they say about the New Teen Titans, and I don't think they say anything at all that would lead one to conclude that the NTT belong in any age other than the Bronze. What am I missing?
Here are some of my own final thoughts on what I recall from Schatz (for what that's worth). I like his idea about the four stages a genre goes through, but I don't like them as "ages" in the sense that we're talking about here. To me they make more sense as periods of time where that stage has a lot of impact on genre/medium/whatever and after that things are back to their usual messy, creative selves, now informed by all the stages that the genre/medium/whatever has now gone through. Applied to superhero stories in comics, the stages make more sense to me as creative periods or artistic movements that may instigate new "ages," but might not.
I think that this whole discussion is missing one of the most fundamental criteria and as a result is both overcomplicating and oversimplifying the entire issue. For my money, the key factors delineating one 'age' or 'era' from another are changes in editor-in-chief of the major lines. It doens't take a rocket scientist to realise that what one major company does impacts on the other. Editors on a particular series or collection of related series may alter the tone, look, or style of the series under his control, but has to work within the editorial policy guidelines layed down by his editor-in-chief. Certainly, there are watershed issues that change comics in their entirey to a greater or lesser extent by redefining what is permitted and what is required and what is expected (by the readers).
The silver age, for example, marked an era in which a greater standard of psuedo-scientific rationale and internal logic had to exist in order for a character, an event, a circumstance to be credible. Continuity of stories from one issue to the next was extremely limited - stories were 'episodic', not 'serial' in nature. Social relevance, which had its previous high-water mark during WWII, was minimal; comics were escapist in nature. At most, a 2-part story would spread over 2 issues - and this was true even of Marvel at the time. Marvel then introduced subplots and a heavier emphasis on continuity ) starting with an epic plotline in Dr Strange I believe, though I might be wrong), and this eventually became the standard throughout the industry. By making the stories more serial in nature, and not wrapping up every loose thread in the plot at the end of each story, a new standard of credibility was introduced.
The next major revolution was the introduction of 'socially relevant' plotlines in Green Lantern / Green Arrrow. Not every strip had to be socially relevant, but they all edged away from the purely escapist to providing an escapist perspective on, or allegory of, a realistic situation. The point is that while these events took place in a given watershed issue of a given comic, the influance took time to spread; the distinction between eras within comic books in general was usually a fuzzy line, not a sharply-defined boundary. Each marked a change in terms of the criteria that I specified earlier - credibility, expectations, and/or what was permitted.
And usually, the changes were taken too far, or applied to series to which they were not relevant, ie there was an overreaction in exploring the new landscape. But, after a while, things would stabalise, there would be a slight retreat from the initial levels of excess, and the new 'era' would trudge along, awaiting the next watershed event. After the 'relevance' era, in which a dominant house style was put in place in virtually everything, came an era in which different series were permitted to adopt a more idiosynchratic style, and then came the era of the Graphic Novel and Limited Series, followed by the era of the Mega-event.
This marked the point at which massive marketing to a minority fan-base became the norm, and comics began retreating from newstands and newsagents. Production values and costs began to rise, and many comics fans became financially alienated from the medium (I'm one of them - I stopped buying comics in the early 90s [about 2 years after Crisis On Infinite Earths] because they priced themselves out of my reach). I like to think of the Mega-event era as 'the time of bread and ciruises', the equivalent of the collapse of 'civilization', and the collapse into the Dark Ages. The old comics companies began to disintigrate and splinter into warring states (Image comics et al).
This was a time in which the comics companies began cutting off their noses to spite their faces - the 'reinvention' of the LSH for no good reason, the deliberate disenfranchisement of a series existing fan base in a failed attempt to attract new readers, which culminated in established series restarting their numbering at "issue 1" and the deliberate revamping and retelling of stories that had already appeared in that series, rather than the generation of new material. So far as I am concerned, comics are still in the Dark Ages, and the current "Mega-events" are symptomatic of a Dark Ages mentality, with violence and violent reinventions of characters for its own sake. This was the inevitable consequence of a shrinking market, pandering to a steadily smaller segment of the population, a niche medium being fed to a small 'elite'. Without the need to cater to a broad community base, comics have lost relevance to the ordinary purchaser.
They are no longer aimed at teenage kids, they are aimed at a minority of adults. For my money, comics won't enter a rennaiscance era until they find a way to truly mass-distribute once again - and tat means a reduction in production values, a retreat to lower-quality paper, a 70% reduction in price, and a new marketing and distribution methodology. The most viable solution that I can percieve is the internet, which does away with the paper and distribution costs altogether (I would also contend that the music companies have made the same mistake, but that's another diatribe).
Until they can attract sales and distribution in the 6- or 7-figure units per month, as comics were achieving before the 'collapse', and appeal to a broader audiance, comics will continue to flounder and thrash around, irrelevant to the world at large. It's better to make $1 each from 1,000,000 customers than it is to make $10 each from 10,000.
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