The thing is no one reads anymore!! kids think reading is checking there cell phones for texts.....it's the digital age !!! people download comics

how do they know the characters nowadays?   they play the video game or see the movie there minds are way too lazy to pick up a book and read!!

i will tell you all alittle story real quick.....few months back our neighborhood

has a tag sale my wife was killing me to make some room so i had about 4 300 count boxes of reading stuff you know doubles and stuff bathroom material as i call it!!! i put them out there at 3 for a dollar i could care less as long as it was gone and good stuff too  like FF thor avengers all stuff from the 70's and such

kids were looking at it and scoffed at them saying nah mom i rather play the video games or they would say no mom i don't like them.....till this one kid who drove up with his family who looked like they could not afford the clothes on their backs came by the kid looked at the books and thought they were the greatest thing ever he went though the boxes in amazement all these wonderful characters his eyes ablazed!! pick out about 6 he really liked then asked mom for some money between the two parents and this is no lie they came up with .25 cents and there he stood trying to pick from 6 books! now i watched this whole process and he gave me the quarter and pick a book as his parents hurry him along......i thought to myself how is this kid who has nothing ever going to afford comics if he likes them...there is no way he can get video games? this one book is his start! i then ask him to have his father open the back of the beat up station wagon and put the four boxes of comics in the back...i remember what i said to him.....please take care of these the way they took care of me when i was a kid there are some great storys that will teach you much!   the kid thought it was chirstmas!!! and i felt good about at least someone will read i thought!!

my point ....yes the companys screw things up in the 90's and now its the screen play age..........but the biggest enemy ....is the times and advancements in the digital age!!  were all getting to lazy to pick up a book!!  

I think Marvel and DC need to get their comics on the shelf next to the Marvel and DC toys at Wal*Mart and stores like that.  I don't thinnk any parent would think twice about buying their kid a $4 comic - so they can read it - instead of $15 toy or $45 video game.

Yeah, they'd have to deal with returns again, but you know, sometimes you have to consider long range goals.  I think they should view it as "advertising" for their toys, movies, and games.

Robert,  that was a very nice gesture on your part.  I can relate and have a similar story of when I was a lad... my bro went to a garage sale at the end of the day in the early 70s and got a similar "deal," coming home with a small trove of vintage Marvels for a buck or two, including Silver Surfers 6 and 10, various Sub-Mariners and Hulks (including the famous Hulk / Subby battle in The Incredible Hulk 120-something), Amazing Spider-Man 26 (!), some Tales of Suspense and a pile of Marvel's Greatest Comics giants (reprints of early Fantastic Fours and other Marvels including FF#12.)   Though my brother kept them, he let me read them.  Up to that point I was a DC guy but I was totally blown away by those issues and my life was changed forever. If the guy at that garage sale hadn't basically given those books away, who knows if I'd ever have gotten as involved in the hobby as I did.  Hopefully the kid will have a similar reaction; the biz sure needs it!

Andrew Farago: I was a kid when sports cards took off and I remember picking up a pack of overstreet cards, thinking it would be like a buck or so and taking it up to the cash register and being asked for four bucks. For a ten pack of cardboard hockey cards. Four bucks (with tax). My allowance was ten bucks and I could either buy two packs of cards or five or six comics. So I bought the comics and have never bought a pack of sports cards.

The adults had the money, the companies realized the adults had the money, the companies raised their prices, the adults kept buying but the kids fell away (not all of them, but certainly a lot of them), and then a once prosperous and mainstream hobby became a niche. Wow, that seems really familiar.

Really good analysis, Andrew.

I imagine I was the exception, but the hobby didn't really start for me until I discovered a back issue comics shoppe.  Sure, I bought comics at the newsstand or grocery store, but I didn't really commit until I found a place that stocked EVERYTHING and had the back issues.   It was an hour subway ride to get to my shop and I could only go once a month, but I went almost every month or so for years.  I think it's important that comics be readily available for the casual young buyer and to initially interest kids who might otherwise never get exposed, but I don't think comics shoppes are in and of themselves a negative. 

Kids today have way more access to back issues via eBay than we ever did.  And comic book characters have never been "cooler" than now via the blockbuster high budget movies which have permeated the multiplex for the past decade plus.  The large attendance by children to these movies shows there is obviously interest in superheroes and their larger than life adventures.  It's not that kids have changed or wouldn't love to enjoy what comics can offer... clearly they still do.

The problem is finding a way to re-introduce them to the medium so that they'll get interested enough in the comics version, which propagated all the movies, after all.   With the non-returns issue, it's obviously not as simple as just putting comics back into the places where we bumped into them as kids unless there is some sacrifice made in the economic model by the comics companies.  To me there has never been a better time to reinvest in the comics side of the business with all the money the movies are making... but so far it doesn't seem DC or Marvel can see that.  If they want the movie blockbusters to continue to the next generation, though, they should really work on finding ways to appeal again to the young masses in comics form now.

The thing is no one reads anymore!! kids think reading is checking there cell phones for texts.....it's the digital age !!! people download comics

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If they don't read, why are they downloading comics?

Robert Oren & Rick Senger -

Great stories!  Thanks for sharing! 

Are there any superhero cartoons anymore?

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Off the top of my head:

Wolverine and the X-men
Iron Man
Spider-Man

Isn't there a FF cartoon?

And Boomerang/ Cartoon Network are always runnung the previous Batman show and various Justice League episodes.