I generally don't post anything about celebrity deaths -- here or elsewhere -- because I typically don't feel I can add anything to the conversation. I can't add personal anecdotes; I saw and processed their work much the same way eveybody else did. Through their craft. I don't have any special insights into who they were as a person, and what I can say about what their work meant to me... well, others can say basically the same thing more eloquently. (Read Ryan Coogler's statement, if nobody else's.)
In the case of Chadwick Boseman in particular, I am by far not the best person to be ulogizing him. Honestly, I'm probably below at least 13% of the entire US population in terms of being qualified to ulogize him. Because I'm not Black. What I want to do, though, is tell all you white folks out there why Boseman's death is maybe a bit different.
The weekend Black Panther opened, it banked $242 million. However, the initial projections Disney was putting out suggested it'd be closer to $90 million. Disney started seeing box office receipts as they came in, though, and revised their estimates several times over the weekend; but even as late as that Monday, their estimates were still too low by $25 million!
Why?
I wrote about it more extensively here but basically they based their modeling on your typical white audeince member. What they didn't count on -- what their modeling did not take into consideration -- was that 40% of their audience would be Black. That's saying something given that they only make up 13% of the overall population. What Disney did not take into account was that they weren't just making another Marvel movie, but they were making a Black-written, Black-directed, Black-acted, Black-designed movie set in Africa about Africans. The representation across the board on this movie was phenomenal! So not only did the movie represent many versions of the Black experience, none of them were filtered through a white lens; everything remained authentically Black.
That was largely started by Boseman himself when he was cast in Civil War and protrayed the character as a native Xhosa speaker who spoke English with a South African accent. Both of these were his decisions to make the character more authentic. In one sense, he was one player in an ensemble cast movie, but it also followed his lead. Between his own contributions and the fact that he was playing the title character, Boseman was the literal face of Black Panther. He represented everything about that movie, including all the hopes, dreams, and aspirations that Black people everywhere placed on it.
Back in 2017, I said what Black Panther meant to Black people (even before it was released!) was roughly equivalent to what the Cubs winning the World Series meant to everyone in Chicago. Panther is a movie that celebrates Blackness at every opportunity, but it unapologetically celebrates it in front of everybody.
That roar you heard erupting in Chicago after the Cubs won? That was 2.7 million people, the population of the city. The roar you're going to hear when Black Panther comes out? That will be coming from the Black population of the US: 42 million people. And it's not just 100 years of not winning a game. It's 250 years of slavery, 100 years of formal segregation, and another 50-some years of less overt but still palpable discrimination.
Boseman was far more than King T'Challa, of course. Far more than Jackie Robinson and James Brown and Thurgood Marshall. By all accounts, he was a kind and decent man. Far more than a good friend to many, and more than a loving husband to his wife.
The Black community did not just lose another talented actor. They lost the living embodiment of everything Black Americans have tried to celebrate about themselves for generations. Boseman was able to do that in front of the world and everybody -- for once, everybody -- was able to celebrate that with him.
We're all agreed that Twitter is horrible, right? I mean, yes, I'm on there way too much, probably doing more doomscrolling than I should, but I do also use it to get actual useful information from comics creators and to keep up with some of my friends. But, even so, there's a lot of horribleness on that platform -- and I don't personally even experience all that much of it! I can't imagine being... well, anyone besides a cishetero white male and having to deal with all the bullshit that gets thrown around there!
The thing is, though, any open platform is going to have some major problems like that. Just by virtue of being open. I'm not saying that to absolve Twitter, certainly -- they aren't doing nearly enough -- but there's always going to be some contigent of garbage that wants to barge in and screw things up for everybody because they're just awful people.
Life is kind of like that, though. You meet folks -- through school or work or mutual friends or whatever -- and some of them just are bad people. The problem is that the internet speeds up and amplifies everything, so instead of the one jackass you have to deal with for eight hours a day at work, you've got a couple dozen jackasses to deal with 24/7 online.
The flip side to that is that you can connect with some pretty amazing people that you might not otherwise meet because of geography! I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that in the small town I grew up with, comics fandom consisted mostly of just me. (This was obviously pre-internet.) So I didn't really join a comics community of any sort until I was well into my 20s!
But let's say you're in a small town like that AND you can't stand being on Twitter because of all the bullshit. The thing is that you can still join a comics community. Maybe it's at the local comic shop. Maybe you don't have a local comics shop, so you meet with some fans at the local library. Maybe you're too isolated to get to a library, you can talk with people on venues OTHER than social media. There are still old school message boards out there! Hell, the one I helped moderate back in the 1990s is still around! You can build your own site and host your own community -- that's what most webcomikers do!
My point is that there are a ton of avenues to connect with other comics folks! That was something I didn't really understand as a kid. I didn't understand why that was important or how to even go about it. But today, in 2020, there are plenty of opportunities. Both in person and online! And you don't have to deal with all the bullshit on Twitter to connect with folks! But find your people! There's no reason you can't, and a million reasons why you should! If you can't find some folks in comicdom that don't share your particular enthusaisms, you ain't looking!
The thing about comic book collectors is they collect comics. I mean, that sounds obvious on the face of it, but what that means is that they go out and obtain comics, and then keep them. Maybe they buy new comics every week at their local comic shop, or they only go to conventions to pick up back issues, or they just order trade paperbacks from Amazon, or they back a lot of Kickstarter projects. However they get them, the point is that there's an ongoing influx of comics being added to their collection. And with that comes storage.
When I was eleven, I had a subscription to The Fantastic Four and that was pretty much the extent of my collecting. I got one new comic each month, and very, very occasionally a handful of others if Mom had a little extra pocket change and I was being really whiney at the grocery store. Between the two, let's call it 20 comics a year. Storing 20 comics is not a big deal. You could drop those as a stack on the kitchen table and it wouldn't cause too much of an issue.
After five years of that, though, you've now got 100 comics. It's not impossible to find room for 100 comics, but that's probably enough that if you tried just dropping them on the kitchen table, you wouldn't be able to just slide them to side a bit to have lunch. They could still pretty easily fit in a short box, but you're now starting to consider their space and size, and how much room they take up.
But hey, we added five years to an 11-year-old. That's a sixteen-year-old now. One who can drive and works part-time at McDonald's. That single title subscription is now six titles. And instead of begging Mom for pocket change, McDonald's allows for discretionary income, meaning more purchasing power and more regular trips to the comic shop. So instead of 20 comics per year, we're looking at maybe 100 comics per year. Under the original premise, it would've taken fifteen years to fill a single long-box. Now, it's down to three years. Three years to figure out where you're going to put another long-box isn't a terrible endeavor, but it's certainly more thought-consuming in terms of storage logistics than a single long-box over a decade-plus.
Where I'm going with this is that the more comics you buy, the more storing them becomes a concern. Because not only do you have to consider where you're going to put all these new comics you just got, but that's in addition to the ones from before that you were already storing! If this keeps happening throughout your life -- you keep buying comics -- you eventually start run up against the financial constraints of storing them. You've bought as many bookshelves as you can fit in your home, the books on the shelves are all two or three deep, plus there's two or three more books lying horizontally across the tops of everything else too. You're now essentially running up against three options...
Create additional storage space in your home
Rent a storage unit at another location
Get rid of some of your collection
Me, personally, I have yet to intentionally do #3. I lost a long-box full of comics in a flood back when I was in college, and I've gotten rid of some duplicate books I wound up with, but I've never sat down and thought, "I should sell some of my comics to make more space." The first one I did once basically by selling one house and buying another; I didn't do it in order to get more storage space for my comics, but I did take advantage of that opportunity. I have tried renting storage space, as well, but that was a consciously temporary endeavor while I was moving.
What I don't know, though, is which of those three methods might be more common than the others. When folks run out of space for their comics, how do most people handle that? I see some people selling their comics online, often with a distinct "I need to make more space" type of message, but I have no sense of how common that is against other options.
Please do me a favor, and in the comments, let me know if/when you found yourself running out of space to store your collection, and how you tackled it. One of the three options here, or maybe a combination? Or maybe something else entirely that I haven't thought of! I'm genuinely curious what might be more/less common.
I don't know that I've actually mentioned it on my blog here, but shortly after I put it on hiatus back in 2018, I was hit by a car. I was just crossing the street on the way to work, and this guy zipped around the corner and plowed right into me. Shattered my left leg, and broke and dislocated my right shoulder. I was in the hospital for three weeks, and wheelchair-bound for another 7-8 weeks after that. I literally had to learn how to walk again.
Not surprisingly, that put a bit of a crimp in my ability to run as well. Before the accident, I would run a six-mile-run four days a week, and I trained for and ran a full marathon every year. That's well over a thousand miles of running every year. I'd have to replace my running shoes every 3-4 months.
Right now? With a lot of effort, I can do a three-mile-run three days a week.
That I can run at all is amazing, I think, but it's still frustrating not to be able to push myself in the ways that I did just a couple years ago. When I get to a mile-and-a-half now, I feel like I used to when I'd get to 10 or 12 miles before.
But, because I grew up reading superhero comics, I keep heading out. Running until my feet hurt, and my lungs can't take in any more oxygen, and I'm wring-your-shirt-out soaked with sweat. And I look at the road ahead of me, and I start moving again. Why? Because that's what The Thing would do. That's what Batman would do. That's what Monkey D. Luffy would do. They will fight until their literal last breath, and then summon the willpower to get up and keep charging ahead.
That's the beuaty of superheroes, of course. It's not the super-speed or flight or whatever other amazing powers they possess, but that they have an indominable spirit that challenges us, the readers, to live up to their example. You're never going to get blasted by cosmic rays and gain fantastic stregth. No matter what you do, you'll never be able to become Superman. Or Spider-Man. Or even Green Arrow. Those characters are all fictional ideals to inspire us to be better, not to aspire to become.
That's actually a curious notion, too. I have several superhero-themed songs on my running playlist, and I think about this every time one pops up -- all these superheroes that I use for inspiration? They're not real. Superman is never going to swoop down to save the day. Batman is never going to come to the rescue. Which means I have to be my own superhero. I can't rely on Spider-Man, no matter how friendly he is or who's neighborhood I'm in. He's just not coming.
So I'm looking to these heroes to tell me how to be better for myself, because they're fictional and will be unable to help me for real. There's a bit of irony in there, I think. Pushing yourself towards a fictional ideal because the proponents of that ideal are themselves fictional.
I read comics about superheroes as a kid because their adventures were fun and exciting, and showed the power behind the proverbial never-ending battle. I read comics about superheroes as an adult because their adventures are fun and exciting, and show the willpower behind humanity's never-ending struggles. And while that doesn't make the next three miles I need to run any easier, it does make them more attainable.
Let's say you had zero comics. Maybe you read them as a kid and gave them up years ago, but after seeing the Captain America movie, you decide you might want to see what they're like these days. A combination of nostalgia and curiosity. So you go into a bookstore and pick up one of the trades. Now you have one graphic novel. You'd hardly call that a collection, would you? You can't have a collection of one.
But let's say you really liked what you read. So you go back to the store and pick up another book. (That makes two for any of you who are mathematically challenged.) Is that a collection? Probably not.
You get a third book. Then a fourth. And a fifth...
At what point do these individual books become a collection? Certainly by the time you get to, say, a hundred. But how many define it as a collection?
Is it even a set number? Is it, instead, a percentage of the overall possible? It doesn't count as a collection until you have, say, 20% of all the Captain America books out there. If that were the case, would you count just Captain America trades or include the comics as well? And if you include the comics, would that be all of the series, including Captain America Comics from the 1940s?
And at what point does it go from a graphic novel collection to a Captain America collection? When you get a Cap action figure? Or a movie poster? How much Captain America stuff do you need beyond the comics to qualify as a collection?
Or, as yet another alternative, is it more of a mindset? Does it not count as a collection at all if you don't care about Captain America and just inherited a bunch of books from an uncle who passed away? Conversely do two items make it a collection if you're really, really, really, really into them? Is it more about intent than realization?
I think that's really the key: intent. Not everyone has the same resources to get all the same stuff. Consider what you were able to get as a 10 year old compared to what you can get now. You almost certainly have more resources now, and probably a much greater number of comics than you did then. But that doesn't make your 10 year old self's collection any less valid! Because you were still out there, trying to get what you could with whatever meager finances you had. Just like you're still trying to get whatever you can with whatever finances you have, meager or not.
Something to dwell on when you find yourself comparing your collection to someone else's.
Let's say you have a collection of comics. And let's say that it includes a mix of pamphlets and graphic novels and manga. And let's say you want to store it all in such a way that you can find what you're looking for relatively easily. So how do you organize all that?
At a basic level, there are three (somewhat) obvious ways to sort all these. First is alphabetical by title. Second is alphabetical by creators' names. I think these first two methods could work pretty well, and the only reason to prefer one over another is your personal focus. If you're a big fan of Batman, it probably makes sense to keep all the Batman titles together. If you're a big fan of Jack Kirby, it might make more sense to keep all the books that he worked on together. A third method would be to organize them all chronologically, but I think that would become awkward with more contemporary works where a single story might be spread out over several issues and, if you've got more than one monthly title you're dealing with, that could get challenging to keep straight.
Regardless, here's a quirk you immediately have to deal with if you're using long boxes to store your pamphlets: a lot of graphic novels don't fit in long boxes. Many do, and I've seen plenty of folks who store tradebacks in with monthly floppies. But many don't.
And going in the opposite direction isn't easy either. Sure, your typical manga can fit in a long box, but they're so short and narrow comparatively that you wind up wasting a ton of space. Not to mention possible damage to your floppies if they're pushing up against and start bending over the smaller manga.
I think many fans come to the same conclusion: that you just have to store them separately. Oh, sure, you could put your pamphlets on a bookshelf in and amongst your graphic novels, but it's much, much hard to sort through them since they (generally) don't have a spine thick enough to include any identifying information.
OK, so long boxes for your comics, and bookshelves for your grapic novels. Maybe a separate bookshelf for your manga, as you run into that wasting space issue on the regular bookshelves as well.
But then we have another concern: what to file each book as. Even within the idea of "alphabetical by title" sometimes that can be challenging to determine. For example, I've got twelve ElfQuest graphic novels. The first four books are from one publisher and the next eight are from another. Furthermore, the second four were issued a full decade before the third four and came out under a slightly different set of branding. So if I listed them in strict alphabetical order, I would put the books containing chapters 5-8 first, then the books containing chapters 1-4 before finally getting to chapters 8a-11a. (The numbering there poses yet another problem!)
And here's another issue: oversized books. I've got about two dozen books that don't even fit on my largest shelves! Am I supposed to build shelves big enough for those books simply in order to have them alphabatized with my "normal size" graphic novels?
I was cataloguing and storing some books over the weekend, and I bemoaned on Twitter that I wish I had a library sciences degree to help sort everything. Carol Tilley (you know, the woman who debunked all of Wertham's bullshit last year?) engaged me a bit about how I could still go back for an MLS degree. She actually has a PhD in Information Science and, on top of her teaching duties, has a pretty active hand in library science journals and such. All of which is to emphasize that she knows more than a thing or two about library sciences. Do you know what she said when I noted I was having trouble with some obscure titles?
@skleefeld I think very little would help you in that quest. Ppl who do serials cataloging and management are wizards of the highest level.
This coming from a librarian who loves comics and wrote her doctoral dissertation on "How Youth Services Librarians Responded to Comics Between the Years 1938 and 1955"!
You know, I used to scratch my head over comic shop owners who sorted their long boxes, as near as I could tell, by alphabatizing whatever the largest word on the cover of any given issue was. Action Comics would be listed under "S" and Detective Comics was under "B." After getting pretty sick of sorting this past weekend, I realized that I threw Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination Volume 1 right next to The Complete Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. And both of them are listed under "S" despite the word "Complete" and Bester's name being part of the formal titles. I kind of don't wonder about those comic shop owners any more. After all, if folks with a doctorate in sorting exactly this type of stuff out can't figure it out, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to solve the problems any time soon.
Yesterday, I was looking at C2E2's increased attention to traditionally marginalized groups. In looking through the material they have on that, I also came across this description for another panel...
A Data-Driven Comic Universe
Ghostery users have a unique visibility into the data collection technologies that are spread across the web. For independent/digital comic producers, these technologies are essential tools to supporting their art; but for privacy-minded users, they can raise serious concerns. How can comics live on the web without killing reader privacy?
The presenter is the "Senior Product Strategist" for Ghostery. Who or what is Ghostery, you ask?
Ghostery is a browser tool available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, as well as a standalone app available for iOS. It scans the page for trackers - scripts, pixels, and other elements - and notifies you of the companies whose code is present on the webpage you are visiting. Usually, these trackers aren’t visible, and they are often hard to find in the page source code. Ghostery allows you to learn more about these companies and their practices, and block the page elements from loading if the user chooses.
A big part of convention panels is to help promote whatever it is you're doing, so I've got no qualms there. It's no different than any of the Marvel or DC panels in that regard. But what I find interesting is that 1) there was at least one guy who thought that data privacy was an issue/concern for comic book/pop culture fans enough to warrant pitching the panel idea, and 2) the ReedPop folks agreed.
So what does that say about the state of comic fandom?
Well, the most obvious thing is that fandom is decidedly more technological than it used to be. Back in the day, data privacy (not that the phrase was even used) meant that you were mildly concerned if you had a letter printed with your address in the back of a comic. These days, of course, even the most oblivious comic fans know that you need to supply more personal information than that to get an account with Facebook or comiXology. The issue of data privacy is much greater than that, of course, as you can tell just from reading that Ghostery description.
But there's also greater engagement with both other fans, as well as the sites you frequent. These corporations (they're usually corporations) can follow what you're doing online, but they can also help tailor your overall experience. Did you know, for example, that if you and I do a Google search on the exact same word or phrase at the same time, that we'll get different results? Because Google knows what you've searched on in the past and, more significantly, they know what you've clicked on in the past. So they present results that try to address what would best answer your specific search query, based on your historical interests.
So what that means is that you should have at least some greater sense of awareness of what's being tracked, by whom, and why. Frankly, that can be said of everyone these days, not just comic fans, but there are specific relevancies to comic fans that might warrant closer scrutiny. What's comiXology tracking? And Amazon? And, for that matter, ReedPop?
I don't know if this one panel will be useful or not, but I do find it fascinating that we're at a point in fandom's overall history where this type of thing is being discussed openly and to a broad population. In any event, I'm going to try to attend the panel, and see what I can learn. More knowledge, even if it does skew towards a single company, isn't a bad thing.
This past weekend, I attended Aw Yeah Comics' (the store) Second Anniversary Bash. A month or two back, a cousin of mine said that he had noticed this kind of new comics shop open near him and was wondering if I'd ever been to it. I hadn't -- it's just out of the way enough to be a little inconvenient for me -- but I was certainly aware of it and wanted to at least stop by to check it out at some point. Then he suggested that if/when I decide to do that to let him know, so that he could check it out too. He appreciates local shop owners and wants to help support them, but he hadn't been in a comic book shop for a couple of decades and wouldn't know where to start. Well, since I knew their anniversary party was coming up, I suggested we target then.
So we met at the shop around 8:00/8:30 in the evening, a good hour and a bit after things kicked off. My cousin kind of got wrapped up into a conversation with Marc Hammond (who co-founded the place and I think handles the day-to-day management) as he was walking in. Then we grabbed a couple drinks and started looking around.
They had pushed the center shelves that housed some toys and a few long boxes to one wall to allow for a little more movement, but you could still tell that it was a generally open atmosphere most of the time, even with the coffee table and comfy chairs in the center. The place was packed with people, though, and they seemed to have a great turnout. Which made for a great atmosphere, but a tad difficult to do a whole lot of browsing. From what I could see, though, it was a really nice shop with a good mix of material available. Very friendly and inviting layout and colors and such. If it were closer, I could easily see myself being a regular there.
My cousin and I spent about three hours there. Mostly chatting with each other about various aspects of pop culture. Everything from the general badassery of Batman to economics of serialized pamphlets relative to bound collections. We chatted with a few of the other patrons, one of whom may have convinced my cousin to attend a con. And before we left, he browsed around to pick up a few things. (He ended up with a Walking Dead TPB to see how it stacked up against the show, a Wonder Woman issue for his girlfriend who's a big fan but mostly by way of Lynda Carter, and a signed G-Man posted for a co-worker who's nicknamed "G-Man." I picked up a stack of TPBs for Christina Blanch's current SuperMOOC.)
Hammond checked us out, and we chatted a bit more with him. About the signed Kristen Bell photo he's got on the back wall, the other shop who was stocking up on various issues of Aw Yeah Comics (the comic book) while we were there, their mailing list... But what stood out to me was Hammond's response to our saying that we had a great time and it seemed like a great place. He said that they try to hold parties like this pretty regularly and make it just a fun place to be. And that most of the people who were there that night -- the ones who were casually chatting and drinking like old friends -- most of those people didn't know each other six months ago. These parties not only were there to drum up new business, but also to help create and cement relationships.
What kind of goes unsaid with that is that they're working to make Aw Yeah Comics (the store) a destination in and of itself. Sure, you can buy the latest issue of Action Comics there, but they're establishing the store as a place to go. You can get your comics from any of a number of places, but you go to Aw Yeah (the store) so you can hang out with the other people who go to Aw Yeah (the store), some of whom are comic creators in their own right. The shop isn't a means to an end, it's its own end.
I don't know how much money the laid out for this party, but they seemed to have plenty of drinks and snacks for everyone. And I expect most of the people there would come to the store regardless if they had parties or not. So it wasn't really a "necessary" business expense, and one that I haven't seen too many shops employ. It costs money, and probably doesn't show any direct returns. But it goes a long way to fostering a community. A group of people who come together, not just as comic fans, but as fans of the shop itself.
And even though it's a business decision here, it's one based on a very genuine sense of kinship and getting in touch with their audience. That leads to a kind of shop loyalty that you don't see in many other industries, and probably very few within comics. I've been arguing this comics-shop-as-destination model for several years now, and it's great to see it executed so well and working exactly as it should.
I was recently pointed to this article on How to Avoid Becoming a Weeaboo and thought I should point out the utter horseshit of it.
Let's start with a little background. The definition, according to Know Your Meme, is "a Gaijin (foreigner in Japanese) displaying a heavy bias towards everything from Japan or virtually exiling oneself from the indigenous culture (also known as “outside”) in pursuit of the “superlative.”" It's a little different than "otaku" in that otaku tend to be more focused on a certain aspect of Japanese culture (e.g. anime, manga, etc.) whereas a weeaboo is more indiscriminate, taking an extreme interest in all-things-Japanese. Basically, a weeaboo is a person who is such a fan of Japanese culture to the extent that they regard everything else as inferior.
I don't know that I've ever met anyone who might be considered a weeaboo. Stu Levy is probably the closest, but while he has a clear appreciation for Japanese culture, I don't know that I've seen him eschew everything else as inferior. But I'm sure there are people out there who would generally be considered weeaboo; I just don't travel those circles very regularly.
So why is this "Avoid Becoming a Weeaboo" horseshit?
Well, first, there's nothing wrong with liking Japanese culture. Beyond manga and anime, they have deep, rich culture with a history at least as fascinating as anyone else's.
Second, there's nothing inherent in one's own culture (whether you're from America, France, Egypt, or anywhere else) that's necessarily superior to Japan's. We're generally taught a sense of patriotism, or even jingoism, wherever we grow up and it's infused so pervasively at such a young age that we rarely have the wherewithall to step back and recognize it as the propaganda that it is. There's no fundemental reason that says we have to accept that at face value or, for that matter, that we have to accept it at all.
By calling someone weeaboo, you're effectively saying that their value judgements are fundamentally wrong. That they're not allowed to consider Japanese culture, traditions, language, and mores better than their own. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with that judgement, but we're not talking about anything quantitative here. It's no different than claiming someone's an idiot because they prefer vanilla over chocolate. If anything, it displays more small-mindedness on the part of the insulter because it shows how they can't accept that anyone might have a different set of values than they do.
Take a look at that How to Avoid Becoming a Weeaboo piece again too. Most of the "rules" center around not being a newcomer. If you want to actually learn Japanese, don't you have to start with just a few words? Don't many cosplayers start with relatively easy costumes using store-bought products? Doesn't everybody adopt different styles from other people as they're discovering what works for them? Don't many authors consider using Mary-Sue characters as a viable way to train yourself to write better? This list of Don'ts that we're presented with essentially says that you're not allowed to start becoming interested in Japan; you have to skip over the education portion of becoming a fan and simply be an expert without any learning curve. They're basically laying down club rules that say you can't be a member of the club unless you're already a member of the club.
And what a shitty way to treat fans! Look, I've gotten annoyed with comic fans who asked very obviously newbie questions. I used to moderate a Fantastic Four message board, and I got really tired of answering the same dozen FF questions every 6-8 months for the new guy who just discovered how awesome the comic/cartoon/movie was. But I still recognized that I had that level of excitement when I first discovered the comic as well, and I didn't want to potentially kill that excitement and sense of discovery for this new person. That's not fair to them, and it robs fandom of someone who could have a lot to contribute.
You want to roll your eyes when somebody online tastes Pocky for the first time? Fine. But don't try kicking them out of the club before they've even had a chance to see what it has to offer!
I know of several people who have been deliberately thinning out their comic book collections over the past six months or so. The two most recent are Mike Thompson and my dad. Both have said that they basically have a bunch of old books that they haven't looked at in years and are unlikely to look at again, so they're just sitting in the basement taking up space. Why continue holding on to them?
This is actually my father's second comic purge. He gave me most of his long boxes of comics back in 2008 when he realized he'd been retired for five and still hadn't re-read any of them. When I talked to him on the phone this weekend, he's decided the same about his graphic novels. Both times, he's opted to pass them along to me, believing that I would get something out of them. (While I haven't read each and every pamphlet comic he gave me yet, I've read and referenced many of them. So, yes, I did get something out of them!)
To some degree or another, this type of thing has gone on as long as there've been comics. Someone who collects them for years and decides to get rid of them. Sometimes they get passed on, sometimes they're sold off (as Thompson is doing). Sometimes it's a combination.
But does this collection purging mean they're ending their life in fandom?
In more cases than not, I suspect no. I think there are two types of people who get rid of their books en masse like this. First is the person who still actively enjoys comics but simply needs to clear out some physical space and/or needs a short-term cash influx. Essentially, practical life-getting-in-the-way-of-a-hobby concerns. Second are people who actually lost interest in the medium some time before and just didn't get rid of their comics, either because they simply forgot they still had them (stored in the basement or attic somewhere) or they didn't want to let go of the time/money they'd invested in the hobby.
I think this last group is worth exploring. The people who don't actively read/collect comics but refuse to get rid of their collection out of some sense that doing so would invalidate it. Or, more precisely, that it would invalidate the emotional investiment they put into it. They put their comics away in storage, come across them every few years, and say to themselves that they ought to get rid of them. But they don't because... well... They might trot out some excuses for a significant other, but they're flimsy at best.
This approach strikes me as something akin to nostalgia. Even if they don't read the comics any more, they like what they represented. They liked the fun or excitement or adventure, and the great times they had alongside Spider-Man or Scrooge McDuck or whomever. And getting rid of those comics might mean they're rejecting those great times.
What seems to be lost on them is that the comics are not the great times themselves. They're just pulped wood that have been ascribed some emotional value. The great times aren't inherent in the comics; they're in the reader's head. Getting rid of them has no impact on what went on in the reader's head when s/he was first reading them. There's nothing to invalidate, unless the reader her/himself wants to invalidate those feelings or memories.
I hold on to my comics because I continue to research and write about them. There are many that I haven't read in years, I'm sure, but I never know when I might need/want to reference them. I wrote a piece just this past weekend where I pulled out a dozen books I'm sure I haven't looked at in ten or fifteen years, some of those I even forgot I had! But they were relevant to the piece I was working on and their quick and easy access made the writing go by very smoothly.
But if you're not doing that -- if you're holding on to them because you're afraid of what it means to get rid of them, it might be time to truely look at why you're keeping them around. I highly doubt anyone reading this has that concern (if you're reading this, you're likely still pretty engaged in your hobby) but it's something to keep an eye out for in others.
And, hey, if you're able to show those people what they're doing, you might get some free comics out of it to boot!
I was never a big fan of Wizard Magazine. I picked up an issue or two, but it didn't seem to have anything I was especially interested in and I largely ignored it for most of its run.
The magazine debuted in 1991, when I was in college. My disposable income was pretty limited, so I focused on getting the few comics I could afford. So I didn't really take a look at it until it had a few years under its belt, and by then it had pretty well knocked all of its competitors off the market. And while I taken up a full time job (with the requesite increase in disposable income!) I had also gotten access to the world wide web, and any sort of news-type magazine seemed date to me even then. They had previews of books I'd already read about, creator change-ups were long-since confirmed or debunked, and even the snark/comedy was well-trod territory in various message boards. Just by the nature of printing a monthly magazine, they had very little that wasn't already out of date by the time an issue hit the stands.
I have a cousin, though, who did buy the magazine pretty regularly starting around 1995 and ending a decade later. And, of course, being a comic collector, he held on to every issue. A couple years after he stopped getting them, he offered them to me. (Mainly at the insistance of his mother, I think, who was trying to clear out her basement.) Which I happily accepted with the intent of using them for fandom research. Each issue provides a snapshot of not only what was going on in the comics industry, but how fans reacted and felt. It was barometer of comic fandom for twenty years.
(Weird aside: I just realized that I have now had about half of these issues in my possession longer than my cousin had them.)
Having recently gotten my comics library set up, I took some time to organize all my comics magazine. I've got a smattering of Comic Book Marketplace, CBG, Heroes Illustrated, etc. plus a good collection of Alter Ego but the ten years of Wizards outnumbers everything else combined. And while I haven't read the vast majority of them, I have pulled an occasional issue out while researching various projects.
And you know, they work exactly in the way that I had hoped. They stand as time capsules for whatever was going on in and around the industry at the time. I chose not to buy them originally because they had old news, and yet it's old news that is precisely why they hold value now.
I caught this article about North Jersey comic book stores, and it had a couple of interesting figures I'd never seen put together in quite this way before. First, "North American comic book sales reached almost $518 million in 2013" -- nothing particularly noteworthy or new there. They even cite Comichron.com as the source.
But the other significant number they throw out is that "People who buy comics tend to have a $40 weekly budget." Now, I'm sure this is not an exact number and it's more anecdotal than not. But it is coming directly from a comics retailer, so I'm sure it's more accurate than any survey someone like myself might conduct.
Now, before I start doing anything clever, one of the questions the comic industry has wrestled with is how many comics fans are actually out there buying stuff. The closest we have are the monthly sales numbers, but there's no way to tell from those how much overlap is between titles. How many of the people who bought Uncanny X-Men also bought Action Comics? And how many of them also bought Amazing Spider-Man? We have no way of knowing, so we can't say if the number of fans is simply the cumulative number of all of those sales or (more likely) some percentage less than that.
But if we have an overall sales number and a corresponding sales average, we can apply a little back-of-the-envelope math to get close to the number of people regularly buying comics in North America. So...
$518 million divided by 52 weeks in a year = $9,961,538.46 spent at comic shops every week.
$9,961,538.46 divided by $40 average weekly spend per customer = 249,038.462 customers.
Rounding off (because we've got some fuzzy math going here already) that's 250,000 people buying comics in comic shops. Now, let's compare that against January's sales numbers. The top three publishers in terms of sales were DC, Marvel and Image. Their top-selling titles sold 115,492; 86,727; and 65,286 respectively. I'll save you the math and tell you that adds up to 267,505.
That's a difference of about 18,000. Which suggests that there's not a whole lot of overlap between publishers' readers; if you read DC, you probably don't read much Marvel or Image.
There are of course some caveats here. First, this is only the direct market we're looking at. This doesn't include bookstore sales, digital sales, etc. This is basically only people who walked into a comic specialty shop to buy stuff. Second, that $518 million is comic book sales, but the $40 number also includes action figures, t-shirts, bags & boards, etc.
But, that said, I think this is pretty close to what people are talking about when they're talking about "comic book fans." That's a small enough number -- especially split among multiple publishers -- that I should think that any opportunity to expand on that would have publishers salivating at the opportunity to get more people interested in comics. I see very little of that, though. The latest Ms. Marvel is probably the biggest/best attempt in recent memory, but even that remains restricted by the distribution channels and still seems a little more like shuffling the deck than dealing in new players.
250,000 is the roughly the population of Fort Wayne, IN. Compared to, say, the first Hunger Games book which sold 800,000 copies. Before it was even released in paperback. That's closer to the population of San Francisco.
I don't know that I have a real conclusion here, other than "250,000. Huh. That's a really small number." But it does make me wonder why publishers aren't scrambling to be more aggressive in expanding their reach.
Today is Valentine's Day. And exactly one week from today marks the eighth anniversary of my comics blogging. Because I love you guys, I thought it was high time I had a contest to give away some books. I'm a big fan of comics contests, and have gotten many comics and graphic novels for my own collection. But it's time I gave something back.
In getting my library in order, I discovered that I've got a few duplicate copies of some books I can use as a prize package. So one lucky winner will walk away with ALL of the following books:
Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot
Bakuman vol. 18 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Beyond Wonderland by Raven Gregory and Daniel Leister
Kirby Five-Oh! edited by John Morrow (and featuring a piece by me!)
Never As Bad As You Think by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen
Snarked! vol. 2 by Roger Langridge
Triton of the Sea vol. 1 by Osamu Tezuka
It's a bit of an ecclectic mix of styles, certainly, but it reflects my personal interests. I figure it you're a regular reader of mine, then you might well have some interest in these types of things too.
So, what are the rules? All I need you to do is leave a comment here that provides:
A suggestion for me and/or my writing. That can be topics you think I should cover (or avoid), improvements to my writing style, other venues besides my blog you'd like to see my work in... In short, what would make me better and/or more successful writer of comics related stuff?
An email address where I can get a hold of you if you win. If you're concerned about spam bots scraping the comments, feel free to write it out however you like as long as I can figure out how I can contact you.
I will choose one of the comments randomly and then contact that person for a snail mail address. The contest will be open for exactly one week -- from Valentine's Day through my Blogiversary -- so you've got until February 21, 2014 at 9:00 am ET to enter. At that time, I'll select a winner and try contacting them. If I don't hear back by Monday, February 24, 2014 at 9:00 am ET, I'll draw another name.
Now, because of the number of books I've got here (which are heavy) I can only afford to open this up to U.S. residents. Sorry to all my non-U.S. readers.
So throw me some suggestions, and you might walk away with a nice pile of comics for yourself! Happy Valentine's Day!
For at least the past decade -- probably a bit longer than that -- I have wanted to build a comic book library for myself. A room that housed not only my comics and graphic novels, but also all of my books and resources about comics; and also have the room serve as a workspace. I wanted to be able to write and research back and forth without having to do any more than take a few steps across the room.
I'd tried doing it on the cheap in my last house, and I was able to make my collection more personally accessible, but I was still resigned to doing my writing elsewhere. In my new house, I've been able to really design it to suit my needs and it's already working exactly how I hoped it would. This week, I've gotten all the major components in place, and I thought I'd share something of a tour.
First, here's my main workspace. I've got my computer and microfiche reader side-by-side, and all of my reference books about comics and comic creators right there. (They still need to be alphabetized, though.) Right underneath my microfiche reader is a portfolio of original art that I don't have room for on the walls. The smaller bookshelf on the right has books on comics fandom and my meager collection of comic strip reprints.
On the other side of the room is the bulk of my comics collection. The graphic novels are stored in standard Ikea bookshelves, but I had a carpenter build specially designed shelving units for my long boxes. It's a pretty straight-forward cubbyhole type of design.
And in the middle is a custom-built daybed sitting atop more longbox shelving. There are some more 'regular' shelving units on one end with some floating shelves on the wall above for my manga.
I put together this video of the progress I made in building my library. At the end, you can see a single, continuous pan of the entire room.
There's still some work that needs to be done, primarily some rewiring for the lighting. But I have really been enjoying it so far, almost to the point where it's difficult to get any actual research or writing done in there! But I'm sure once I get used to having it -- it has been something I've been wanting for over a decade as I said -- it will function exceptionally well for me. But yeah, those random posts and Tweets and such over the past year or two where I've talked about wanting to do this? This is exactly what I was hoping to accomplish!
In honor of his birthday yesterday, I thought I'd take today's post on fandom to talk about the first BNF that I became aware of: Fred Hembeck.
Some of the earliest comic books I had were some mid-1970s era DC books. Mostly featuring Batman and/or Superman. I loved those stories. But in the back of some of those books, by all that editorial nonsense that I never read, was a small comic strip. It was formatted and drawn like a strip you'd see in the newspaper, but this one was sitting by itself in a comic book. They usually featured DC heroes in doing some silly gag or pun. I thought it was a great feature. But it was evidently gone by the time I started actually buying my own comics.
But a couple years later, at a local convention, I stumbled across a magazine featuring much the same style of artwork. It was a collection of full-page strips by Fred Hembeck. (Fred, as you may well know, has a particularly distinctive drawing style, and he was probably one of the first artists I came to recognize by their artwork.) Rather than just featuring DC characters, though, Fred himself was the main character as he went through various comics universes interviewing all sorts of characters. Or sometimes, he'd just talk about some wacky comic book stories of the past. And I knew just enough comics history recognize he wasn't just making jokes about those old books. He clearly loved them and thought they were a lot of fun but, while he also clearly spent a lot of time studying them, he didn't take either them or himself too seriously.
Fred's work continued popping up throughout my life in comics fandom. He popped up pretty regularly in Marvel Age and even got to write several one-shots, including the why-hasn't-it-ever-been-reprinted Fantastic Four Roast. All of his work, regardless of how/when/where I encountered it bore that same sense of both reverence and whimsy. He loved all comics it seemed, but he wasn't above poking fun at how absurd they could sometimes be.
Any you know, from my fairly isolated fannish life as the only comics fan I knew, Fred was the first one to show me what fandom was like. That you could bury yourself in these arcane histories, but still have fun doing it. That you could interact with the medium on multiple levels. And it could really be a hoot!
At some point, too, I realized that he was getting paid for the work he was doing. At the time, I still had this vague notion of the old Marvel Bullpen and drawing Amazing Spider-Man was a 9-to-5 job, but Fred's work was the first that really registered as freelance gig. (Obviously, all those comics jobs were freelance gigs, too, but it didn't seem like it to my 8-9-10-11 year old brain.) I can't say exactly how/why I understood Fred's role to be as a freelancer, but he seemed decidedly more like free agent compared to, say, Curt Swan or John Romita. They were company men, but Fred was his own man, talking about the comics he liked, and getting paid to do it.
What a fantastic idea!
I eventually learned that Fred managed to carve a truely unique path for himself, and he holds an equally unique spot in comics fandom. And while I've studied fandom more estudiously over the past decade or so, I still try to keep Fred's basic idea at the forefront. These are comics, man, and they're a hoot!
Over the past week, I've been watching We Are Wizards, a 2008 documentary about Harry Potter fans. Despite only being 78 minutes long, it took me quite a while to watch it because I had to keep turning it off and walking away for an extended period. The documentary itself isn't that bad, but the film-makers chose to focus largely on fans that had formed Harry Potter themed bands. And the bands were... not good. Really not good. I had to keep stopping the movie because I couldn't listen to their music any longer.
Now, I don't care for the Harry Potter stories personally, but I can appreciate that a lot of people get a lot out of them. And that it got so many kids to read is absolutely fantastic! And while comics, for whatever reason that I haven't quite fully understood, hasn't generated many themed bands, I get why a group of folks would get together and express their love for a story or character through music. My buddy Ray Wall has done exactly that, in fact, and is one of the few comic themed musicians out there.
One of the cool things about fandom is that it encourages outlets for people to express their creativity. Even if you have a day job that feels monotonous or boring or unchallenging, you can use fandom as a release by writing or drawing or sewing or whatever. You don't have to be formally trained. You don't have to share your work if you're not happy with it. You don't even have to complete anything. It's just a form of expression that you can utilize however you like. You can create exclusively for the sake of creating, or you can create in order to share and connect with others.
Another one of the cool things about creating within fandom is that it gives people something to build off. A lot of people are intimidated by a white page or a blank canvas. By starting within a fandom, you've got a built-in set of tools to work with. You've got a cast of fleshed-out characters, you've got a story (if not several), you've got a theme (if not several). It's much easier to get to a completed project if somebody starts by giving you "Harry Potter in a good versus evil battle against Voldemort."
But that bit about not needing training? That means that a lot of fans who create stuff just aren't very good. Their language may be clumsy, or their linework is sloppy, or they don't know enough about the materials to know how to work them properly. And that's okay. Because it's (usually) not about trying to be a professional; it's about expression. It's not the end product that really matters, it's the emotions that are poured into it.
Which means that, for however many bands that are out there based on Harry Potter (or comics or whatever), a good number of them are going to be bad. And that is totally cool. Like I said, it's about the expression.
But damn, if you're going to make a full documentary and focus on bands like that, couldn't you pick one that was, you know, decent? I'm trying to watch and learn about Harry Potter fans to see what might apply to comics fans, but I keep getting wrenched out of the narrative by this terrible music. I mean, just musically, it wasn't very good. Maybe a few licks of a bad song here and there might be tolerable, but geez, there's only so many can't-carry-a-tune singers I can listen to.
I checked out some reviews of the documentary afterwards, and it seems to fall into a general "meh" category. Not a great documentary, nothing really insightful, but not terrible either. I saw one commenter who noted that it was okay, but he felt the film-makers didn't really have anything to say; there was no real take-aways from the movie.
But as I sit here and think through it, as much as I couldn't stand listening to that music and kept wishing they would've pick at least one band with some talent, it occurs to me that maybe that's exactly the point. Maybe that was what the film-makers were trying to say. That these crappy bands were doing what they were doing out of love for Harry Potter, and they weren't polished or professional, but other fans loved them anyway. Because they were on stage sharing their passions.
And even if that wasn't a deliberate messages on their part, it's not a bad message for fans of all sorts. Whether you're into Harry Potter or Batman or My Little Pony or Naruto, you need to get out there and find how to express your love for it. Use that to connect with everyone else who feels the same way. Maybe it's through writing or art or cosplay or juggling or poetry or sculpture or music. Regardless, go take your place on the stage.
I am 41 years old. Depending on who you ask, I'm either at the upper end of comic publishers' target demographic, or a bit beyond it. Well, at least those publishers who make the most money in comics. If, then, I'm outside comics' target audience, am I still relevant?
If I go out and buy the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, I don't doubt that Marvel would be happy to take my money, but if I choose not to buy it, isn't their opinion going to be, "Meh"? They're not trying to sell Amazing Spider-Man to me; it's not written and drawn for a 41 year old who's been reading comics as long as he can remember. It doesn't speak to me because it's not supposed to. It's geared towards a younger crowd, and it's their opinion, as shown through their dollars, that Marvel is interested in.
Some could argue that a 41 year old is still relevant if s/he can influence the target demographic with, say, a blog. But then the question is: how much influence would even a popular blog have relative to the marketing campaign dollars of a large corporation?
I read a book a little while back on the failure of the John Carter movie from 2012. As the movie launch neared, the existing John Carter fans -- the ones who'd read all the books a dozen times over, and were genuinely excited to see the character succeed as blockbuster movie -- put together a pretty massive (as far as coming from fandom is concerned) campaign to promote the film. Fan-made trailers, fan-made screen wallpapers, fan sites extolling the characters' history and lineage... But Disney's marketing machine behind it did a phenomenally poor job, seemingly completely oblivious to both the film's story and the potential audience.
I haven't seen the movie myself, but reviews seemed to be generally okay. Not great, but not bad. But the marketing did such a poor job of selling the movie, that it's generally considered a massive failure. The fans simply could not overcome that. It's not that Disney was trying to market a bad movie, they were trying and failing miserably to market an okay one. And the die-hard fans who wanted John Carter be successful enough to warrant at least a sequel, if not a franchise, could not move the needle no matter how hard they tried.
And, hey, look at that! The same company that made John Carter also happens to own Marvel!
It's not that fans have zero impact, but their influence only extends so far. And the influence of folks outside the target audience is even more limited. Why should a 25 year old care what an old geezer like myself thinks after all?
A-ha, but can I be relevant somewhere else? Like maybe a publisher whose target audience is middle-aged? Someone who is making comics that are aimed at someone just like me? Now there's some opportunity for influence!
So if your interest and concern in comics is having your voice listened to, keep in mind who the target audience of your favorite stories actually is. If you, as a 41 year old, are trying to tell DC that they're not doing a good job with Superman, they're probably not going to hear you. But if you tell them that as a 25 year old, they'll at least listen.
I mentioned over the summer how I've been adopting a style of dress that wouldn't be out of place in an Indiana Jones adventure. Not quite to the extent of the artwork here, but still reminiscent of the style. And while I like that it's been a very practical wardrobe, I'd be lying to myself if I said there wasn't a nostalgia factor involved.
Indy never quite rose to the level of hero status for me in the way that some of my favorite comic book characters did, but I definitely gained an appreciation for the adventure genre he embodied. When Tales of the Gold Monkey and Bring 'Em Back Alive tried to ride Indy's coattails, I was right there. My interest lessened a bit over the years, but that appreciation still remained. Later, despite having some issues with the way Lara Croft is frequently portrayed, I did break down and pick up a couple Tomb Raider games. And heaven help me, I even forced myself to sit through several episodes of Relic Hunter.
Now, with my wardrobe perhaps not complete but well enough along that it's an ongoing look for me, I find myself eyeballing comics touching back on that genre. The Indy comics, naturally, but things like Relic Wrangler and Temple Run (which I know is based on the game which, yes, I have downloaded and play frequently) as well. I haven't actually purchased any of these recently because... well, why would I? I mean, the genre as a whole is only of a mild interest to me and there aren't many of these types of stories in the comic format that have any particular significance for the medium; I'd be better off spending my money on a set of Jack Kirby reprints or a manga like Attack on Titan which I've been hearing so many good things about.
There's some part of my brain, I think, that exects that reading more about those Indy-style adventures helps me to embody the lifestyle that represents. After all, part of what led me to adopt the clothing style was the notion that I was digging around in obscure places looking for rare treasures like Indy. And that while it was ostensibly for academic purposes, a lot of it was driven by personal satisfaction, also like Indy. Of course, I'm not exactly fighting Nazis for the Ark of the Covenant, but I still liked the idea of getting my hands metaphorically dirty teasing out comics history using a smattering of half-documented clues.
So, at some level, I think that taking in more of those types of stories would bring me closer to being that type of character. Of being an Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. That bringing more of those superficial elements of style into my own life would bring me closer to living the kind of lives they live.
Which is nonsense, of course. Those stories are fiction, generated by writers and artists sitting in comfortable studios, extrapolating whole adventures out of the merest nuggets from the biographies of Roy Chapman Andrews or Giovanni Belzoni. What matters in those stories is what looks or sounds entertaining, not what's useful or accurate. Particularly when the stories range into the mythological or spiritual. Logically, I know this and yet I still find I'm having these pangs of interest...
Knowing more of these stories almost certainly won't help me to understand anything about comics research, or even adopting a style for comics research. Knowing more of these stories will simply be an exercise in seeing variations on a theme.
But that nostalgia continues to tug.
The challenge is continuing to recognize that nostalgia does nothing but replay what you already feel. It's really just a memory of a feeling. And that is a far cry from gaining insight, wisdom or knowledge. Nostalgia isn't just looking back; it's feeling back at the expense of seeing what's coming. What I want to do is look back in order to understand what's in front of me, and perhaps even predict what's further out than that.
Although you don't see as many of them since the advent of the internet, comic fanzines used to be one of the primary ways fans communicated. I wanted to take a moment to pull out a few examples and show how that communication evolved, and where it got to by the time fans started migrating online.
Let me start by throwing these four examples out there...
You're looking at Comic Fan #1 from 1962, Comic World #18 from 1978, Comic Reader #215 from 1983, and Hero Illustrated #17 from 1994. I don't know that I'd necessarily call these perfectly typical of their times, but I don't think they're at all atypical.
What you likely noticed first is an increasing level of quality as time goes on. Comic Fan is mimeographed on cheap paper using decidedly amatuer artwork, while Hero Illustrated has four-color offset printing with art by one of the most professional comic artists of all time. The single staple holding Comic Fan together is replaced by two spine staples for Comic World and Comic Reader and eventually a perfect binding comfortably snug in a sealed polybag for Hero Illustrated. A lot of that, not surprisingly, has to do with the technology that was available, but more to the point, it was the cost of the technology. Offset printing was around in the 1960s, but it wasn't commercially viable for the type of work being done on fanzines. And while it was still probably too expensive for a single individual in the 1990s, it had lowered enough that a small group could pool their resources and put out a very professional looking magazine.
That part seems pretty self-evident, I hope.
But there's another aspect you can't really see just from the covers. Comic Fan was almost completely original comic and prose stories. Comic World was more of a retrospectives zine focusing on beloved (but by then mostly forgotten) characters, but it also rans some small classifieds. Comic Reader was more of a news and interviews thing with both classifieds and full-on ads. I believe they also had a few comics pieces as well. Hero Illustrated was a combination of news, interviews, speculations, commentaries with a good number of ads, as well as promotional items that might also be included in the polybag.
What you see if you were to flip through these different pamphlets is a change in perspective. While the earliest zines focused on sharing the publisher's interest and/or utilizing the format as a creative outlet, the notion of subsidizing the costs took greater and greater focus. A few classifieds at first, then regular advertisements, and then promotions that are effectively out-of-scope for the production of the magazine itself and require a solution like polybagging to be included. The very reason for the magazine's existence shifts from a simple love of the medium to an ongoing financial concern.
You can see this played out in other venues as well. Cosplay, conventions, filking... they all started exclusively from a love of comics and are all now used as money-makers. People now have "earning a living from cosplay" as a career goal.
Comics isn't the only environment this plays out in, of course. The same thing has happened with science fiction, fantasy, rock and roll... heck, sports is the very definition of turning a fun pastime into a hugely profitable business.
But I think that it's not always evident to the fans themselves. They complain about how San Diego Comic-Con is so commercialized now, or how they miss the letters pages of old. These things don't suddenly change overnight; they all evolve gradually over the course of years. It's only by paying attention to the small aspects of commercialization that you see the slow shift from a "more pure" love of the medium to an effort to earn a living that extends from that love.
I'm not passing judgement here; you can plainly see I've got a few ads running down the side of my site after all! But I think it's worth pointing out so that you can be more aware of that shift, and decide for yourself whether the love that was there at the outset is slipping away or not.
How many comic fans do you know? How many do you chat with via social media? How many of them are close enough friends that you might attend each others' weddings? Everyone's going to have different answers to those questions obviously, but it makes for an interesting thought experiment about the connections within fandom.
There are easily a couple hundred thousand comic fans in the U.S. There's no way you can know all of them. And of the ones you do know, it probably wouldn't be easy to rattle off their names. First off, just about every comic creator these days is/was a fan first. As is pretty much every retailer. And the comics news folks. And the bloggers. It would take you a while to create a list of all the ones you're familiar with.
Of all those people, you probably only chat with a relative few on any sort of regular basis. The nature of the human brain is such that we can only sustain about 150 concurrent ongoing social contacts. Our neocortices don't seem to have the capacity to keep up with more than that many people. (See chapter four of my book on comic fans for a more extended discussion on this.) So this group of 150 is a distinct subset of all the comic fans you know.
But one of the cool things is that each person's 150 are different. The 150 people I know in fandom might include you, and the 150 people you know might include me, but the other 149 we each know could be entirely different.
Years ago, I moderated a Fantastic Four message board. Not surprisingly, I got to know many of the board regulars. In the course of chatting about the FF, there'd frequently be tidbits of personal information, and we got to know each other over time. But as a moderator, I also got to know the other mods. We had a separate moderator message board, partially to discuss technical and policy issues but also to just chat. Jump to today, a decade or more later, and a few of the people I first met on those boards I'm still friends with. But I'm pretty confident that those people haven't even talked with one another, much less are friends.
But what's also interesting is that I've met other comic fans through those people, and have become friendly with them. And those people I've introduced to still other comic fans that I knew, and they've since become friends.
Now you might think that would lead to an ever-increasing group of friends within fandom, and we'd eventually all know each other. But this is where that 150 person limit comes into play. While we might still know and remember all of those people, we can't keep up with all of them. We can keep up with that 150 or so. As we get more interested and engaged in other fans' lives, we let other friends' acquaintance fall to the wayside.
Think back a bit. How many people did you used to be friendly with that you haven't spoken with in a couple years? Maybe you moved and don't visit your former local comic shop any more. Maybe they had a baby and they didn't have time to visit the message board any more. Maybe your phone died and you got out of the habit of checking Twitter regularly. Life happens, and people move in and out of your field of vision.
But I find it fascinating that those connections can remain in place. So that circle of 150 friends is no longer a subset of all the comic fans you know, but a subset of all the comic fans you're on friendly terms with, which is then a subset of all the comic fans you know. Then mix that with the circles of friends that your friends know, and you've very quickly gotten an excessively complex and hard to read Venn diagram! It'd be curious to try to chart one out at some point; anyone want to give it a go?
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