Daily Comics Digression #37: The Undead Industry

Daily Comics Digression #37: The Undead Industry

Ever hear of a Marvel zombie? It's a type of comic book fanatic that is obsessed with what Marvel puts out. In comic book stores, this term applies to those customers whose blind adherence to certain characters means that they will buy every comic with a specific superhero in it for completion's sake. For years, there have been Spider-Man fans who buy every issue, no matter who wrote it or how good it was. Nowadays, the Marvel zombie has transmogrified into the MCU zombie, blindly fanatic about the new Marvel movie.

However, there's another type of zombie that I wish to speak to you about today. I believe that perhaps the entire comic book industry is a zombie, an undead abomination that no longer lives as normal companies do. Many a comic book fan has puzzled over the nonsensical decisions made by the big-two companies, DC and Marvel. The evidence is staggering: hiring people who publicly deride customers and even hate the projects that they're on, marketing schemes that alienate retailers and drive stores out of business, over shipping product that will surely never sell, the list goes on. Nothing makes sense.

Until you stop for a moment and reflect upon something that Chuck Dixon said. Chuck alluded to the idea that the higher-ups, not the editors mind you, but the WAY-higher-ups, didn't really care for the comic books and that some wanted to close down publication and focus on film making. If you assume that the parent companies that own the big publishers do not care about comics and merely care about the money that can be made from the properties through film and merchandise, the decisions of these companies make much more sense.

Longtime fans of Marvel like Diversity&Comics, Douglas Ernst, and others have wracked their brains trying to figure out why the company would openly make decisions that are hostile to people who buy comics. But if my theory is correct, Marvel is no longer in the business of selling comics, not really. The staff at Marvel comics does not have profitability as its main goal, that much is clear from the sales figures. Instead, Marvel publications exists to grow the popularity of the brand so that the public at large will watch the movies and buy toys. A long time ago, executives must have decided that the comic book side of the industry was a necessary loss leader, an entry fee you paid to unlock all of that sweet movie and merchandise money. You can't really blame them. Superheroes are on everything from stationery to underwear, yet these companies seem to know better than to try and keep selling the books in major stores nationwide. They know its a niche industry. Therefore, while placating the core base of comic book readers is occasionally necessary (this is why I think Axel Alonso was fired at Marvel), pleasing the old-time fans isn't really in the interest of the major companies.

I think this theory even explains the major push for diversity at the big companies. What makes more money, pandering to a small base of diehard comic book fans, or raising brand awareness to all people in the country so that they're more likely to pony up cash for a funko pop? This theory explains each and every decision to hire and continue to keep on writers who despise the fanbase and have dismal sales. It's because they represent a new marketing demographic.

It is a sad conclusion to reach, but comics aren't dying; they're dead. They've been dead for years. I'll leave it up to the comic book historians to pinpoint the exact time of death. But like The Walking Dead, the industry limps on, a lifeless corpse that exists to suck the lifeblood of the living...well at least it's cash.