Matt Linton:  Feel free to rant about writers and artists you don't like, but blaming them for the current state of the comic book market just shows an absolute disconnect from the reality of the situation.

Which is why I think Mig's just a persona.  He's role-playing a character.

"Feel free to rant about writers and artists you don't like, but blaming them for the current state of the comic book market just shows an absolute disconnect from the reality of the situation."

The one area writers and artists (and editors) can be blamed for is the quality and nature of the work currently being done.  Make no mistake about something, there's a feedback loop between the work that is promoted and championed by creators and publishers and the work that is desired by the audience.

The question to be asked is - If you could fix the distribution problem, is the work currently being produced in the Direct Market stuff that would appeal to a broader audience anyway?

Mike

Mike Bunge:  The question to be asked is - If you could fix the distribution problem, is the work currently being produced in the Direct Market stuff that would appeal to a broader audience anyway?

No, I don't think so.  It's aimed at hard-core fans who buy a LOT of product.  For the "mainstream" to become mainstream again, it'd have to change its ways.

Matt Linton wrote: Feel free to rant about writers and artists you don't like, but blaming them for the current state of the comic book market just shows an absolute disconnect from the reality of the situation.

I don't think that's necessarily true, Matt. There are tons of reasons why the industry is in the state it's in right now; the direct market, high price of comics, more entertainment choices taking up a kid's life, etc.  But I also think that some of the blame can and should be put on fans turned editors and/or writers/artists. Instead of doing what was right for the character, they often did what they always wanted to read their favorite character doing.  Now that's not a terrible thing if they create their own characters and explore the same themes, but where I think the industry turned in upon itself was creating more and more fan-driven comics to the exclusion of continuing in the all-ages tradition.  For instance, you've got a bunch of talent who read a ton of comics when they were kids, stuck around for a long time, and eventually wondered why Peter hadn't told his Aunt May about being Spider-Man, or wondering how cool it would be to see Luke Cage take a woman from behind, or curious about why mainstream superheroes don't question their secret identities because they, the fan, don't think they're "realistic".  Flash-forward a few years and those fans are now writing and editing mainstream superhero comics.  So what do they do?  Address a lot of the questions and fantasies they had about their heroes growing up.  See, just as much as I see the DM screwing with the availability of comics by making them specialty store exclusives, I see fans turned pro (not all of them, mind you, as JB is one of them) taking a lot of the fun out of comics, forgetting what it was that they enjoyed when they were kids.  In that light, I don't think there's a disconnect at all re: the current situation with mainstream superhero comics from DC and Marvel and how talent has, at least partially, played a part in the sorry state they are in.

Who and what's to blame is pretty much established, though.  We've had variations on this same conversation for years now.

Can it be fixed?  How can it be fixed without driving away the current audience before gaining enough of a new one?  Is it even worth fixing at this point?