The recent post on who killed rock and roll attracted a lot of notice. It’s taken a while to gain traction, but it seems like every day more people are noticing Cultural Ground Zero.
As this theory’s name implies, the destruction wasn’t limited to popular music. Every form of mass entertainment in the West from movies to television to comics suffered creative collapse circa 1997.
Comic books seem like an outlier in this reckoning. After all, superhero movies so dominate Hollywood that it feels like cape flicks are the only films they make anymore.
But that’s a symptom of the larger issue. Sales of comic books themselves have imploded – and they did so decades ago. The only reasons they’re still published are:
a) Gen Y nerds wallowing in nostalgia
b) To maintain IP rights for big studios whose parent companies also happen to own the publishers.
Contrary to the veneer of popularity bestowed by Hollywood, American comics are dead. Today’s best sellers only move numbers of copies that would have gotten them cancelled back in the 80s. It’s not kids buying the new books, either. It’s Pop Cultists in their 40s.
So how did it come to this point? Who killed American comics?
As with every unsolved crime from the Lindbergh kidnapping to the Kennedy assassination, there are as many theories as there are people.
“It was the 90s speculator bubble,” some say. “When stunt marketing like variant covers couldn’t keep it pumped up, the bubble burst and took down the direct market.”
Others pin the blame on publishers axing veteran writers to let rock star artists helm top titles.
Yet others point the finger at the Woke Cult for subverting the Big Two comic book publishers.
But few notice that none of these theories are mutually exclusive. The American comics industry is like an elephant – a dead one – that fans are groping in the dark for a cause of death. Shedding a little light on the matter is all it takes to solve the mystery.
So here’s who killed American comics …
Longtime readers may remember friend of the blog Research Guy. While rebuilding his childhood comic book collection, he created an index of back issues spanning from the 1950s. He annotated the list, highlighting major events a given issue contained. First appearances of popular characters, introductions of key in-universe concepts, and the start of major storylines got pride of place.
All of that cataloging yielded extraordinary insights. Research Guy noticed patterns present in almost all comic books published within certain time frames. It was like American comics had an industry-wide meta arc that featured these well-defined phases:
- Growth (1960s): Iconic new characters debut regularly. Major concepts that will shape continuity introduced. Universe-defining events frequently take place.
- Maturity (1970-1980s): Introduction of new ideas tapers off as series hit their stride. Eventful individual issues still common.
- Stagnation (late 80s-early 90s): Writing quality declines. Increased reliance on gimmicks to drive sales. This includes replacing beloved icons with diversity doppelgangers and first signs of wokeness.
- Decay (Mid 90s-Mid Aughts): Narrative wasteland in which nothing of consequence happens for years. The worst aspects of sales gimmicks and nascent wokeness combine in the following pattern: Iconic character killed off, series reboot with new issue #1 often replacing venerable lead with diversity character, original numbering and lead character quietly brought back a few months later.
- Death/Shambling zombie status (Now)
It was Combat Frame XSeed concept artist ArtAnon who pointed to the web site of Fantastic Four superfan Chris Tolworthy. Quite independently, Chris gathered supporting evidence for all of Research Guy’s observations.
Check out this chart from Chris’ site:
The events noted on the timeline map almost perfectly to Research Guy’s comics meta arc.
- 1961-1967: Under the guidance of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the story lines in Marvel’s regular titles organically grow into the largest shared continuity in literary history. 1963 stands as the high water mark for the creation of new Marvel characters.
- 1968-1973: End of the Silver Age. Marvel sold to Gordon Gecko prototype Martin S. Ackerman. Number of monthly titles explodes. IRL time replaced with Marvel Time (Reed Richards said to have fought in Korea instead of WWII, Gwen Stacy killed to maintain status quo of Peter being single, Franklin Richards’ age fluctuates wildly, etc.)
- 1988: Lee’s misguided directive to give readers the “illusion of change” instead of real change renders dramatic tension impossible. Readers catch on that the status quo ante will always return. There are no more great universe-wide stories after this point, though great standalone stories are still being published.
- 1991: Character development rolled back and further character development forbidden by editorial fiat.
- 1996: The Heroes Reborn and Amalgam events kill Marvel’s 30+ years of continuity. Marvel goes bankrupt. New owners cement the shift in focus from publishing single floppies to movie licensing.
It’s rather eerie how two separate comics historians’ timelines jibe, no?
The one line of data Research Guy lacked was sales figures over the period in question, which Chris helpfully provided. As shown in the chart above, the overall downward trend is pronounced.
Comic book fans used to read Marvel books for their sense of continuity, high-stakes conflict, and relatable characters. The Marvel Universe was like a neighborhood bar where they could drop in and catch up with the regulars. They watched those characters’ lives unfold for decades. Then the building was torn down to make room for a corporate chain bar. Prices rose while quality dropped.
The downward slide was temporarily reversed during the reign of maverick editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. But Marvel’s recovery on his watch just proves Chris and Research Guy’s point. Shooter revived Marvel by sticking to continuity and shipping quality books on time. Who’d have thought?
Marvel began its transition from a comic book publisher to a brand management company in 1968. That shift in focus was cemented in 1996 and made irreversible upon the company’s absorption by Disney.
As for DC, they’ve operated as a brand management firm since the 1950s. Marvel just became their later-decanted clone.
That’s our culprit. The Big Two abandoned the comic book publishing business for the brand management business. The editors checked out, and good writing got thrown under the bus. Flashy art and sales gimmicks replaced big ideas and deep characters. Speculators drawn by the stunt marketing replaced readers. The subsequent bubble popped, and woke megacorps swooped in to pick the carcass clean.
Restoring the culture will take a new breed of creators committed to telling high-stakes stories about relatable characters engaging with big ideas. Not the type to expect from others what I’m unwilling to do myself, I’ve been working at just those kinds of projects for years.
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