Another trip to the local Borders, another glimpse into the future of comics. As Amy and I looked through the one bookshelf dedicated to, well, every comic in America that isn’t manga–Boulevard of Broken Dreams next to Hellboy next to The Big Book of the Unexplained next to The Invisibles next to a Bendis Daredevil next to Dark Knight Strikes Again next to Blood Song next to a Mad collection next to The Totally Awesome Guide to Spider-Man or whatever–a teenage girl (and not one o’ them pink-haired Hello Kitty backpack-sporting teenage girls, but an Abercrombie & Fitch wearing POPULAR GIRL–drags over a guy friend and starts handing him book after book of manga series that she likes, which are found all neatly shelved on three bookshelves devoted entirely to Japanese comics. They were joking and laughing and getting all into it–“oh my God, no wonder you like this, it’s like porn!” or “Hey, don’t show me anything, I’m not up to that one yet!”–like it was a good movie or TV show they were into. It was just another form of entertainment that perfectly normal teenagers are into.
This is the future of comics. Why the big American companies are still letting, essentially, the fanboy culture of retailers and readers dictate business decisions like format and trade dress is completely beyond me. If you were DC, wouldn’t you just take volumes one through 15 or whatever it is of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, reprint them at manga size, give them nice uniform trade dress, ship ’em to Borders and B&N, and watch the money just roll in? This is such a no-brainer it’s absurd. And actually, it gives that (probably spurious) Felicia doomsday theory, in which Bill Jemas is said to be conspiring to fire all the big-name creators and replace them with talented nobodies, an element of common sense, if said firings were done in tandem with a wholesale switchover to the smaller, more readable manga format. This girl doesn’t know who Mark Waid is, and couldn’t care less. She DOES read comics, and lots of them. This is the market. If it takes a legion of new blood willing to cut ties to the industry’s past and tap into this audience of rabid, enthusiastic fans, then so be it.
Well, just to prove it ain’t all gloom and doom here at ADDTF, here’s a really cool article about creator Jai Nitz from CNN.com. I’m not familiar with Nitz’s work, but what’s great about this article is that it makes comics seem like a perfectly legitimate, perfectly respectable, perfectly interesting form of art and entertainment to be involved in. Go ye and read, and think about the future.