What has gone wrong within the comic book industry and can
it be fixed? The rape and pillage, in the eyes of some, may
have left the comic book industry gasping for life support.
It seems that for an industry that has seen so much
success, the history of comic books, has apparently been
confounded by seemingly dumb mistakes.
The first could have very well been the coining of the name
“comic books”. The earliest versions of the so-called
half-tab (for half tabloid) reprints of the Sunday funnies
(the comics) became known as “comic books”. This led to the
thinking in general, that comic books contained comic or
funny material, which we all know, is a far stretch from
reality. Comic books can be very somber, dark or
adventurous magazines. It has often been suggested that
there should be another term coined to better describe this
literary package we all know as comic books. To date, no
other user-friend term has been suggested for use in the
comic book industry.
A second misdirection came when magazine prices started to
rise. Instead of increasing comic book prices, like other
successful magazines did, the comic book industry decided
to cut pages to keep the then current price tag of 10
cents. This brought on the impression that comic books were
“cheap” by definition, and neglected the fact that a dime
was a lot of money at one time (steak & eggs cost 35
cents). This presented the image that comic books were just
for kids. It also made the product increasingly less viable
for retail merchants to stock. Why take up the same shelf
space, when a higher priced magazine would do more nicely.
Again the perceived value of the comic book was loosing
credibility.
Then as the 1950s rolled around, an individual by the name
of Dr. Frederick Wertham, published a book entitled
“Seduction of the Innocents”. Through the use of
unscientific research and assumptions, he stated that all
the nation”s ills were directly related to kids reading
comic books (ah hmm, what?). Central to his thesis, was the
misassumption that comic books were strictly for kids. The
more adult material, it was irrationally assumed, was aimed
at our sweet, na?ve innocent children. Yes, we do have to
protect our children, but it still bothers me to no end,
that certain self-righteous individuals believe their lot
in life is to make the rest of the planet adhere to their
own personal beliefs. If this were the case, then our great
country would have never been founded.
With this wildly irrational attack on the comic book
industry and many congressional leaders jumping on the
bandwagon, comic books were gaining a bad reputation. The
comic book industry publishers at this point, could have
banded together and declared that comic books, like movies,
were not “just for kids”. It should have been stated that
the wide range of comic book genres represented was target
to as wide a range of readers. All but one of the
publishers (William Gaines, publisher of EC Comics) buckled
under to this Congressional Investigation and the Comic
Code Authority was created. This governed the content of
comic books and ensured that for the next 15 years or so,
the literary content would not rise much above that of
pablum for the mind. Therefore another slide into
incredibility for the comic book industry took place. Can
the comic book industry be saved? Very possibly, but when
the individuals in charge of the saving are as eager as
ever to make the same mistakes all over again, what will
the outcome be? They don”t even appear to be cleaver enough
to make new mistakes.
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