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Comic Writing Virtuoso Anticipates Industry Wide Crash

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 1 2006 11:00 AM

Submitted by Scopitone. Edited By Scopitone.

TAGS: Comics, geek, Hollywood

Acclaimed writer Mark Millar, famous for his groundbreaking works The Authority, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, recently wrote a piece detailing his interesting and eerily accurate prediction that the current comic book industry boom is headed for a cyclical bust.

I looked into the figures a little more, examining the market for the previous two generations and noticed that the peaks and troughs formed what was essentially a sine-graph going back to the dawn of the Golden Age in 1935. We had a peak in the 40s, a trough in the 50s, a peak in the 60s, a trough in the 70s and so on until we hit the worst trough of all in the mid-90s when the market suffered the nastiest collapse in our publishing history. The pattern seemed to be record highs (in terms of revenue and creator salaries) immediately followed by record lows where Chicken Littles everywhere predicted the death of the medium as a whole. And so, as the FINAL DEMANDS piled up on my desk and absolutely no work was to be found for long periods of time in the '90s, my friends and I consoled ourselves with the notion that we'd only have to tighten our belts for, er, a few years and things would be just peachy again when the pick-up of 2005 and beyond got into full swing.

Anyone "lucky" enough to have lived through the button-fly, Liefeld, gold lame'/foil sparkle covers of the nineties can flinchingly remember the most recent crash and perhaps even peer into their closet to find a dusty old box of shattered dreams splayed across five different covers all labeled #1. This time around we, again, have a number of incredibly talented people making some books that will hopefully be cherished decades from now and yet Millar believes a financial and creative crisis looms in the distance�

Like I've said many times, comics tend to move in twenty years cycles. Twenty years after Crisis and Secret War we have Infinite Crisis and Civil War at the top of the charts. Where were are right now, in market terms, is very close to 1986, right down to the numbers where the initial printings on Dark Knight and Watchmen are almost identical to our big books now and the frenzied re-order activity eerily accurate too. Like 1986, we also have a phenomenal number of talented people in the biz and I would say, especially among the writers, that we have MORE right now than we had back then. I don't think anyone's reached the giddy creative heights of a Dark Knight or a Watchmen recently, but some have come close and it's clear to see why the market (especially the big two) have made such significant gains in terms of growth year-on-year since the turn of the millennium. It's an exciting time to be in this business.

Everything may seem just fine and dandy now but Millar begins to pinpoint the impending Kryptonite-like killer of our present day comic loving orgy. He pinpoints both the rise and impending fall on the creatively ravenous vultures in Hollywood! Why are they always to blame?!

Good comics means good sales, right? But there's one factor I'd never taken into account. Something that just hit me a couple of days ago and that was that the very thing that helped us in recent years. The huge boost of money and interest injected into the comic-market is exactly what might prove our demise a little less than a decade from now.

And that, my friends, is Hollywood.

You will find no bigger cheerleader than me for the impact Hollywood has had on the industry. It's brought in a whole new wave of readers whose first experience of X-Men and Wolverine was Bryan Singer and Hugh Jackman. It's made it possible for comic pros to avoid mainstream superheroes if they desire and still make a good living with the number of indie books being snapped up and the symbiotic growth of their brands whether it's Hellboy, Sin City or Max Allen Collins Road to Perdition books. But the fact that Hollywood knows where we ARE now is both thrilling and terrifying: Because the poaching has begun and many of our favourite creators are going to be disappearing over the next few years.

Who can blame these creative bastards? Anyone with a wife, kids, and an addiction to bald eagle egg omelets would gladly take the once in a lifetime offers Hollywood is throwing at them. Instead of reaching thousands for tiny satchels of pennies, they�re able to inspire a handful of Hollywood types with storyboard sketches that will inevitably be altered to amuse the lowest common denominator of humanity!

22 Comments

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Max16Characters

Korea, Republic Of

March 2003

SEP 01, 2006 11:23 AM

I didn't even know there was a comic boom going on right now, but that's what living abroad does to ya. I've been thinking the same thing the author cited here has for a while: That the comic book movies are awesome and i love seeing them on the big screen, but it seems like every comic book out there is being optioned into a movie nowadays and i feel like it's going to hurt the industry. Fantastic 4 looked lilke such a piece of shit that i didn't even bother seeing it, yet it somehow made enough to warrant a sequel which will undoubtedly be worse. As the mediocrity of the movies goes up, the interest in the comics will go down.

I guess today's movie adaptations are somewhat analagous to the Super-Embossed, Chromium, Premium Limited-Edition, Spectacular 18th Issue, 3rd Alternate Cover of the 90s. The Ramy Spiderman Franchise is good as gold in my opinion, but i'm not too sure about Ironman or Ghost Rider.

endvic

Tempe, AZ

December 2004

SEP 01, 2006 03:09 PM

ehh the comics industry is as vulturous as the movie industry. someone hits on a new thing and everyone copies it. go to the racks and see how many zombie books are being published right now and youll be more than a little shocked and marvel flying high with gimmick covers on everything.

millar's the only guy keeping me in comcis, but once hes done with the ultimates, im through too, yet marvel will keep it going with jeph "hack" lobe and joe madureira, a guy who helped the mrket crash in the 90's with his shitty anime ripoff style.

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

SEP 02, 2006 01:30 AM

The only guy? I mean, Millar's an excellent writer and very talented, but amongst people like Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Kurt Busiek, and Alan Moore, well... he just doesn't stand out, at least to me.

yurei

Japan

June 2006

SEP 02, 2006 07:36 AM

I wonder if the influx of translated manga titles has had any significant impact...
maybe manga can be considered a part of the industry.

Spica

SUICIDEGIRL

Argentina

SEP 03, 2006 07:47 AM

Very inspiring to read.

TommyRocket

Philadelphia, PA

August 2006

SEP 12, 2006 09:32 PM

the last hero books i got into were the whole age of apocolypse spinoffs that marvel did. because it was fresh, and with a purpose. but marvel specifically keeps trying to rehash their old hero books and are sort of treading water with interesting plot. part of what made the golden age...the golden age...for me is the new titles that popped up. the "universe" wasn't this thing that had spiraled out of control, not even all the books were connected.

vertigo always seems to have interesting books out, because dc lets them try something new. marvel's "new" is just rehashing the old characters in a slightly different way AND trying to adapt to movies and other merchandising. but it seems ever since they filed for chapter 11 some years back it's been one sheme to make a quick buck after another. nothing new and nothing that's really pulling people in to read.

as far as i'm concerned comics aren't dying, they're just tired.

indies keep pushing! and some new titles are working their way up...there's hope!