comics renaissance

Someone finally figured it out. How to get comics to break through to a more generalized audience. They've always been a kind of creative ghetto, and partly because of the places they've been sold. The comic book store. The 7-eleven spinning wire comics rack. Hey Kids! Comics! and a picture of Jughead. That's the problem. Not so much a problem really (i love comic book stores, but you know, not everyone does), but preventing their widespread growth. Well, that and the stories and art, but Sturgeon's Law- Ninety precent of everything is crap.

Ninety percent of movies are crap, but that doesn't stop little kids, old people, soccer moms and all kinds of people from going to the theater, does it? So where's the problem? It's the delivery system. It's the way they are sold.

There's a new channel for comics now. One that everyone has access to and no one's afraid to go in. Bookstores. Big bookstores. Bear with me for a minute-this is important. Once comics got made into books, bookstores would carry them. That simple. Once they're no longer these floppy cheap things with only 20 pages in them, they now have access to the high-end delivery channels. And that will change people's opinions about them. Seeing them in that place.

Comics have been seeking a wider audience, seeking respect for years now, but they never really got it. In the 80's they tried something called 'graphic novels' (actually, they started calling big regular comics 'graphic novels'). The idea was sound- more mature stories, better art, better paper to put the art on. The problem was they were still selling them through comic book stores, and so the wider audience they were trying to reach never encountered them in the first place. Distribution channels.

Someone figured it out. Who? Viz comics did it. Tokyopop, Dark Horse, those guys. See, here's how it happened. Over in Japan, comics really do have a widespread acceptance. And so there's all these different kinds of comics, some of which would probably go over pretty well in the States. So they want to bring them over. But the distribution system is different in Japan, and because of this, the books are in different formats. Usually they're longer (as a result of this, they have become better- having more space means you can have deeper stories. You don't have to wrap everything up in 20 pages) Also, usually in Japan, comics are written and drawn by the same person as opposed to a writer, a penciler, an inker, a colorist, and a letterer. Can you see how this would make for better stories?

So at first the importer-publishers were trying to sell the Japanese comics in an American format. They've been trying since around the early nineties. The first one i remember seeing, Mai the Psychic Girl, came out in 1989. But they never really made it big. The stories were chopped up. They were published monthly, so you had to get all of them to have the full story, crap like that. So they started publishing them in a sort of small book, about 200 pages, nice paper, color cover, but bound like a book. (not like a movie by the Wachowski bros.) Like they originally appeared in Japan. The format the stories were structured around. So now they could sell them in bookstores. And they did.


And they sold really well. Here's the proof- the diversity of their line. The fact that there are girls comics. Comics for girls, think about that. There haven't been comics for girls since way back in the first flowering of comics, with the teen romance and Millie the Model type stuff that Marvel Comics started out publishing. (oh, dirty secret!) And then they disappeared. But look at all the girls comics there are now:
Peach Girl
Sailor Moon
MARS
Rev. girl Utena
Magic Knight Rayearth
All the Clamp stuff
Flowers & Bees

And that's just looking at my shelf.
There were always girls comics in Japan.

You may not like these comics, but that's kind of the point- there's enough diversity out there for there to be stuff that's just not your bag. This is great. In creative endeavors, you need as much diversity as you can get. Keeps you from getting stagnant.

Here's the sad part. It's all Japanese comics. Much as i love Japanese comics, i'd like to see more American creators get widespread recognition. American comics artists are doing incredible stuff, but not really seeing big success. It's the distribution channel that needs to be fixed.
First American company that does this- Well, think about it. It'd be like opening up a whole new market. Liscence to Print. Money.
And i like to think that with more space for deeper stories and better paper for nicer looking art, that the stories would get better. Then we'd have a true comics renaissance.