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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thormagni" data-source="post: 2046246" data-attributes="member: 13637">I think there has to be room for all sorts of storytelling under the comics umbrella -- from the kiddy/kiddy TV show based comics, to the teen melodrama to the cutting edge adult-targeted comics to the XXX adult sex comics. Personally, I am looking for more complex, darker adult stories with complexity and character development. I'm really not too fond (anymore) of the bash-em up, fight of the day superhero comics of my youth, instead preferring more story- and character-driven narratives.I do get a little concerned when they mix the types of storytelling within the same general comics line. For example, Marvel has come out with an Ultimate series of comics, where they restarted all their characters back at the beginning and are telling their stories in a 21st century way. Ultimate Spider-man (by Brian Michael Bendis) and Ultimate Fantastic Four (by Warren Ellis) are both aimed firmly at the teen market, complexity wise and are outstanding books. I think they have been great successes. However the Ultimate X-men and Ultimates (the rethinking of the Avengers) are substantially darker comics, with the Ultimates being one of the darkest superhero comics out there with themes including sex, alcoholism, domestic abuse, murder and government conspiracy. Why mix those together in the same line? And I do think the problem with comics artist-wise is that it really is one of the few media where an artist gets to really engage in sequential story-telling that the public can see. A movie storyboarder gets paid better than a comic book artist, but no one gets to see his stuff outside the movie studio. In fact, I really can't think of any field outside of comics where an artist gets to develop a theme for dozens or hundreds of pages. For them, comics are their only outlet.All that being said, I do think comics sales are slipping for several reasons:1) As IM said, most really aren't aimed at kids anymore, they are aimed at adults who want an adult spin on the things they enjoyed as children. Thus there is no real easy entry point for new readers.2) They are too literate for the average man on the street. Look at the million copy sellers of the 1940s and 1960s and you will find that they really are poorly written and poorly drawn, as a general rule. Yes, they were inventive, but they contained nothing resembling a logical plot. Today's best comics contain themes and content that is not pure pablum, so it is less attractive to the "ordinary" reader.3) There is incredible competition from television, the Internet and video games that didn't exist when I was a kid. Why read a flat, two-dimensional comic when I can read a comic on the Internet that has been enhanced with sound effects and rudimentary animation?4) Comics are stuck in a superhero rut and, really, movies and animation can portray superhero action much better than the printed page. The Teen Titans cartoon is a good example of this. You get so much more energy from the cartoon than from the comic. 5) The comic book companies used to be all about making comics, now they are simply idea factories for the movie studios and their larger corporate owners. I mean, if I rememeber correctly, Marvel made more profit from the Spider-man 2 movie and toys than from all of its comics sales in the past few years. DC Comics are one tiny arm of Warner Brothers. I don't know what Constantine will make on its opening weekend, but it will probably be substantially more than all the Hellblazer comics ever sold, I suspect. Their primary value to an investor is as the holders of the rights to hundreds of marketable characters you can sell in movies, cartoons, lunchboxes, toys, trading cards and sticker albums.This last reason may be the most devious really. As IM said, nothing really changes in the comics anymore. Why is that? In part, because the companies want to keep the characters marketable for future ventures. The only place you find real invention any more is outside of the company-owned character lines. So they want to find writers and artists who can keep the characters alive and interesting without changing them too much. It is a tough line to walk and I think it is usually easier to just come up with the "fight of the month" and save the real creative energy for the outside projects.</blockquote>

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