Ian:

Even in the titles you mention, the heroic ideal has been deluted to the point of almost non-existence.  Astonishing X-Men is a good read, but I certainly wouldn't give it to a "younger" audience, to be sure.

Matthew Hansel
matthewphansel@mac.com

See, I don't find AXM to be any more extreme than the comics I read when I was a lad. More slow-moving, but not more 'adult'.

Joe S. Walker wrote:  Ian Muir wrote: As a 'cool brit', I must say I'm looking forward to my invitation to revitalise and re-imagine something soon. Anyone have any plans for Millie The Model? A certain British comics writer once floated the idea of doing MTM as a period piece set in 1968, with Millie and company as part of the Andy Warhol set. The dreadful thing is that you could imagine Marvel letting him.

My idea of her as an drug-taking anorexic suddenly sounds less unlikely... 

Matthew Hansel wrote: If the majority of the audience changed over, like it is supposed to damn it!, then we would probably not even have a need for reboots?  Would we?  Or would they be of the "subtle" variety because we would have a majority of readers that have no experience with the characters other than the basics?

More than likely they'd be of the "soft variety," ala Batman in the old days, based on the market of the time.  If "cheerful" superheros are the order of the day, then he's more cheerful.  If "grim and gritty" is popular, the stories will be darker.  Stuff like that.  If we need a Batman who has never fought aliens to fit the tone of the book, then we don't mention the times Batman did.

QUOTE: I fear that for as long as we have those who insist on "growth" in characters that they've been reading since they were kids, that we will have to endure reboots at the expense of the character and at the will of the ego of the "cool brit" that has been brought to "revitalize and reimagine" the franchise.

Who knows?  I think the main difference between now and the time of the dominance of the casual fan is that "transitional" stories tend to be more common.  Rather than just, "okay, now we don't talk about this anymore," there's an explanation as to why we don't talk about it anymore. 

Regular fans are a mixed bag - there are those who like the idea of "Spider-Man vs. Doctor Octopus Round 17" (as long as it's a good story) and there are those who think, "Not again!  It's been 17 times already!  Just kill Ock off already!"  Casual fans may be the same way. 

Joe S. Walker wrote:  Ian Muir wrote: As a 'cool brit', I must say I'm looking forward to my invitation to revitalise and re-imagine something soon. Anyone have any plans for Millie The Model? A certain British comics writer once floated the idea of doing MTM as a period piece set in 1968, with Millie and company as part of the Andy Warhol set. The dreadful thing is that you could imagine Marvel letting him.

Then they were going to make her a tennis pro...

Steadily declining sales would seem to indicate that "grim and gritty" is far from "popular". More like a fad that has run its course, but has sufficient adherents in the people producing the work that it is not likely to change too soon.

John Byrne wrote: Steadily declining sales would seem to indicate that "grim and gritty" is far from "popular". More like a fad that has run its course, but has sufficient adherents in the people producing the work that it is not likely to change too soon.

I'm surprised that Comics haven't followed "Horror" and "Teen" movies that appear to have been envogue for the last three of four years...maybe they have and I've just missed them!

Films that poke fun at themselves seem to be quite popular too, something that JB's run on the She-Hulk seemed to touch on with the humour angle John used. More of that could be quite fun.

Just like you mentioned that Spider-man had gone through a reboot, ...
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I would dispute this - he seems to be the same character to me, albeit he has aged. If this is rebooting, we have all been rebooted since none of us are going to be the same as when we were 15 or 16. Heck, I've been rebooted at least 3 times since I was 16.

Superhero comics, like much serial fiction, wer created with the assumption firmly in mind that the audience would "turn over" every five years or so
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Why (and when) did the audience (or part of it) stay and not leave as they were supposed to? Did comics change to meet this older audience's needs or did comics change first which attracted an older audience? It generally seems to be regarded on this board that it was a bad thing for superhero comics to have an older audience/be more grown up in content. Personally I just think it is neither good or bad, that's just what happened.

Also, does anyone actually know if the audience did turn over as the was assumed? What if the assumption was wrong? Maybe a whole bunch of business decisions were made on the basis of faulty information.

 I have searched high and low on Google to see if I can find out about average age of superhero comic book readers through the years and can't find anything. My own gut instinct is that the assumption was correct to a point but that the superhero comic book reading audience had a lot more older readers then is commonly believed.    

Back in the day, it was pretty popular.  (Ah those carefree innocent days of "Lots of Action and Death!!! HOT!!!") I agree that folks behind the comics haven't realized it's time to let go though. 

I don't know what the current fad to get ahold of is.  In the media, the big thing these days seem to be police procedurals and reality shows.  Not sure how to translate those into comic form.  At least not the latter type.

Introduce a series of love interests for Batman and have fans vote on which one they like best?  Strand the Secret Society of Super Villains on a desert island to fight for a million dollars?  Send the Doom Patrol on a race around the world?

Batman as a police procedural might work, though.

Steve Jones wrote: Why (and when) did the audience (or part of it) stay and not leave as they were supposed to? Did comics change to meet this older audience's needs or did comics change first which attracted an older audience?

There were always some fans who stuck around and never went away.  Heck, that's how we ended up with "Flash of Two Worlds."  The question to ask is when those fans became the apparent majority.

I'd say part of it was from increasing "entertainment competition."  Only so many dollars available for such things, so the more options you have, the more options you discard.  When comics first debuted, they were the only "home visual entertainment" available.  No TV, much less VCRs, DVDs and video games.

Then there's the shrinking of variety.  If you're under 18 and don't like superheroes, there isn't much material commonly available for you (outside of Manga - and we're generally talking "comics mainstream" here).  Yeah, there are some great all-ages books out there published by the little guys, but good luck finding them unless you know enough about them to preorder them.

But what really hurt was the Speculator Boom.  The material released at the time (regardless of opinions of quality) seemed intended to milk the cash cow until it bled.  Casual fans who just wanted something to read got deluged with premium covers, 19 part mega crossovers, etc.  As a result, we ended up with a "generational skip."  Comics were no longer something "everybody" bought for a time, whether they stuck with it or not. 

(And while this was going on, the non-Direct Market all but went away.  So the only place to buy comics are places that only fans really know about.)

To rebuild the casual reader market (which Manga seems to be doing, albeit without much apparent spillover to the American produced side), you need to have material that appeals to casual fans and is available at a place they can find them.  Trades in the major bookstores and such is a good start, but more needs to be done there.  Hopefully the Marvel deal with 7-11 will help. 

But you also need the right material.  I don't know what that is.  My opinion is that it needs to be something kid will find interesting (when it comes to super-heroes*), and needs to be a variety of material.  Not just including non-superhero books, but also variety within the superhero genre itself.  Normally when I DO see a rack of comics, 90% of them are Batman or X-Men related books.  Not good.

So all I need is a few million to burn...

*Regarding kids and superheroes.  Yeah, I'm an adult and I like some of the "adult superhero" titles (Supreme Power is a good example).  But expecting adults to be the bulk of your audience and writing accordingly is a bad idea when trying to get new readers.  Kids will likely be bored (only Stan Lee could make "this issue - Aunt May talks to a shrink for 22 pages!!!!!" seem interesting to a kid) and adults will think "Spider-Man?  That's kid stuff!"