Superheroes: How to break the stranglehold?

[nolan]

What do you guys suggest?

[jayvee]

First, get some of these guys to move out of their mothers' basements...

[davidaccampo]

These questions that Nolan poses are very good questions and also very tough. I know I go around in circles with them -- because ultimately, I'm not sure there's a good answer. The industry thrives on super-heroes and is alive because of them. The medium doesn't care one way or another. A lot of people buy comics because it's the predominant place to GET super-heroes. There are not enough on TV and movies only come once or twice a summer.

Movies, I think, are the model to go after. Movies seem equally spun across different genres: super-heroes, dramas, mysteries, sci-fi...genre doesnt' seem to matter to the public when they know it's going to be in a theater. It wouldn't be uncommon for a comics fan to say: "well, I like super-hero comics, but I don't really read pirate comics."

Yet, everyone I know wants to see both Superman Returns AND Pirates of the Carribean. And a lot of them also wanted to see the Break-up or An Inconvenient Truth, or Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Comics are closer to attaining similar to the bookstore market, but we should be aiming for film.

The book market has gone through a similar pattern as comics, though in a healthier and nowhere near as extreme manner.

Fiction in books is overwhelmed by "literary"-style fiction. Genre fiction tends to be relegated to a few small shelves. So while literary fiction as a "genre" appears to have a stranglehold, the whole notion of "literary fiction" means that YOU can have a lot more genre elements within the fiction and still say that it belongs in the main section and not relegated to Sci-Fi or whatever.

Comics need to be seen as a medium the way books and films are seen. We need people to say..."hmm, I'm in the mood for a good mystery today," and then to include a graphic novel among their possibilities for satiating that desire. To do this, we need diversity of content. To do THAT we need readership.

It's like that scene from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure:

- But Ted, without Eddy Van Halen, we will not have a triumphant video.

- But Bill, without a triumphant video, we cannot GET Eddy Van Halen.

;D