When was the last time you read, or even thought about, a comic? Odds are, you probably haven’t in a long time, if you ever have. Why is that? It certainly wasn’t like that for our parents, so why are these books so uncommon now?
Well, mainstream comic makers like Marvel and DC have moved into movies and shows, mostly neglecting their origins. It’s a lot easier to sit on the couch, turn on Disney+, and watch Doctor Strange’s latest exploits from home than to go to the store and buy a book, and it makes a whole lot more money for the companies involved.
The way comics are made also takes a lot of people. Just one issue requires a writer, artist, inker, letterer, editor, and much more. The shift away from these traditional comics and their workloads means that companies are less willing to invest the time into quality comics, when a TV show would do better anyways.
Comics are expensive nowadays, with DC changing its standard price to $7.99 a book as of late. The average comic is around 20 pages long, so, if you were to buy one of these new, more expensive comics, you’d be spending about $0.40 a page! At least for me, as a person who dabbles in the occasional issue, the cost is simply not worth it, even if it is a great story.
When making this article, I asked my friend what he thought about his experiences with comics and whether he would buy them. He responded with conviction, saying “It’s such a hassle to find comics, especially since they’re short. And, in retrospect… it’s just not worth it.”
He told me about his trip to Chicago and the difficulty of finding anything from the series he wanted there, “I went to three different stores, … I couldn’t find any of the comic book series I wanted…. And it was just really annoying, because I’ve been looking for a long time, anytime I see comics, … but [buying them] will probably never happen.”
The constant reboots and retcons of popular comic series like The Amazing Spider-Man and the Hulk can shut newer fans out of trying a series. Personally, I would love to read about a few of Spider-Man’s exploits, but I have no idea where to start. Instead of being provided with easy access to a good story, I’m left feeling a little lost.
The format of most comic series means that I can’t just walk into a comic store and buy a completely separate and self contained story either, as the medium usually splits larger stories, or arcs, into individual issues, completely dependent on the previous installment to make sense.
Comics aren’t on every street corner anymore, that’s for sure. They can be obscure, hard to find, and too short to justify. Without the pop culture to support it, the industry has been declining, slowly losing money and slipping out of the mainstream. But, for those who enjoy them, comics are worth the cost. The art-form is beloved by many people, and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.
