In Your Face Jam - Aug 29, 2012

[CBR News]

There's a new generation of comic book fans coming of age and they aren't getting their superhero fix in traditional ways. Brett White explains (with the help of his nephews) what this means for the future.


Full article here.

[PwrdOff]

This thread brought to you by Charles Barkley.

[sandwich eater]

I'm an adult, but I also started out with cartoons instead of comics. Around 20 years ago the TMNT, X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman (the animated series) cartoons and video games got me into comics. When I started getting comics (my first was an issue of Untold Tales of Spider-Man), I felt like I was graduating from the cartoons to the "grown-up" stuff. Still, my childhood occurred in between the era of superheroes being a niche product and the mass acceptance of today. Eventually I stopped reading comics, but I came back to it a few years ago after loving several Marvel movies. When I talk to people my own age, I observe that most of them have never read a comic, but many of them have fond memories of the cartoons that I mentioned.

Kids today are so lucky. I remember when I was a kid reading comics there were rumors of an X-Men movie that didn't actually come out until years later. Basically all we had when I was a kid were TMNT and Batman movies. We didn't get the relentless onslaught of superhero movies that we get yearly these days. I told my buddy after we saw the Avengers that this movie was the movie that I had wished for since since I was a 8.

I'm not too worried about the future of comics; I think they'll endure in some form even if they become exclusively digital. I suspect that comics will always be a niche product, though.

[Sighphi]

Yeah, im not as old as this dude for sure cause my first comic book experience came from The Incredible Hulk TV series, the Superman film, Superfriends, etc. There has been stuff around outside of comics for some time.

[Brian from Canada]

An excellent article with one forgotten fact: cartoons and video games have existed before the present generation. What's different about the kids today is that comics — just like cartoons — are not limited to Saturday mornings and spinner racks. There are cartoon channels that run the material constantly. There are purchasable DVDs, and not just of selective episodes either. We can buy the episodes on iTunes and watch them anywhere, and in some cases watch them free on demand on the Internet. (My next door neighbour gets his kids' Spider-Man fix with the free streams on Marvel.com).

All of this means that the superhero fix can escape the comics because the comics are the ONLY part of the material that's not regularly accessible. You need the Comixology or Marvel apps to get The X-Men comics, but you don't need another app for the TV show or movies on your iPad. Even the best stories are far more accessible than the pamphlets: libraries and book stores now carry trade paperbacks in their own section, something that was rare in the 90s and even start of the 00s.

Where Marvel's really succeeded with the author's nephew, though, is branding: they've learned at long last the message of Superfriends and used one franchise to springboard into another. DC got plenty of traction with its core in the 70s and 80s because they were always together — especially Aquaman. "Aquaman sucks" is a punchline on Big Bang Theory — another great way for comics to get noticed — yet even on Robot Chicken, his identity is integrally tied to the team.

By the same token, all the cartoons have had guest stars recently: Wolverine appears in all four anime series on G4; Iron Man and Wolverine have shown up in Ultimate Spider-Man; Avengers has had Spider-Man on it. For those fans, there is no separation between titles, and a book like Uncanny Avengers will seem completely logical just as it's logical for the studio to make the comics match the movies. Comics are not just the print media, they are a source of branded icons — and nobody knows that better than Disney, since it's why Disney dropped $4.2 billion on Marvel's acquisition.

[Brian from Canada]

Yeah, im not as old as this dude for sure cause my first comic book experience came from The Incredible Hulk TV series, the Superman film, Superfriends, etc. There has been stuff around outside of comics for some time.

All of those predate the X-Men, incidentally. Which would make a great study amongst comic readers: what TV/movies got you into comics, and did it translate into your first regular series?

Because I know lots of people who got into Superman in the 70s, Transformers & GI Joe in the 80s, X-Men, Spider-Man & The Tick in the early 90s, Justice League in the mid-90s, and so on, all because of what was on the air to get their attention. Hell, Jim Shooter freely admits Marvel would be gone in the late 70s were it not for Star Wars, and it's a well known fact that Batman would have left print were it not for the (accurate to the comics) TV show starring Adam West & Burt Ward.

[CptCourageous]

All of those predate the X-Men, incidentally. Which would make a great study amongst comic readers: what TV/movies got you into comics, and did it translate into your first regular series?

Because I know lots of people who got into Superman in the 70s, Transformers & GI Joe in the 80s, X-Men, Spider-Man & The Tick in the early 90s, Justice League in the mid-90s, and so on, all because of what was on the air to get their attention. Hell, Jim Shooter freely admits Marvel would be gone in the late 70s were it not for Star Wars, and it's a well known fact that Batman would have left print were it not for the (accurate to the comics) TV show starring Adam West & Burt Ward.

For me, Superfriends and Justice League of America. What I find ointeresting is that even as a kid watching the show and then reading the comics and thinking while reading "Wow, these are the REAL heroes" with no prompting from anyone. It just seemed natural that the comic book was the real characters, just as it seems natural that the Nu52 are cheap imposters.

[Songbird/Diamondback]

This was a good article. I like it.

[Shingen]

I liked this piece a lot. It is a good reminder that the best way to bring in the next generation is to be open to their preferences and experiences, and that companies need to find a way to transition these fans in to buying.

[midnightshrink]

I don't know why so much surprise over alternate media having more reach than comics. That has ALWAYS been the case. I was born in late 1981. I am 30 now. When you are a kid there is virtually zero access to a comic book store unless it is close to your home or you know someone who is into it. I grew up in Manhattan in NYC and there were tons of comic book stores yet I never set foot on one until I was a preteen. But I knew who all the characters were way before that. I remember as a child they had the Secret Wars toyline. And by the time I was like 4 I already knew of Dr. Octopus, Dr. Doom, Kang the Conqueror (my favorite toy), Cap, Ironman, Spidey, Wolverine (who I thought was a villain). I didn't know who the x-men were despite the toys until the pilot for "Pryde of the X-men" and my first X-men comic book was UXM 300 I think after watching x-men the animated series for the first time back when the X-men were more popular than the Avengers will ever hope to be. But also in the early 90's marvel had those "marvel universe" trading cards that were huge in my school and it was my best friend who got me into collecting them and eventually that took me to the comic store. My first comic was off a newstand way before that though and it was GIJOE special missions 24 (which I wouldnt know about if not for the gijoe cartoon and also I remember they used to have gijoe comic book comercials) and amazing spiderman 266 was randomly brought to me by my mom one day for no reason. I was also hugely influenced by batman because of his movie in 89 and that stupid old 60's show. And my favorite superhero changed every year. I was dressed as superman for one of my earliest halloween's as a child so he was first, in fact back in my day Superman was the most popular superhero ever, even if he was bland everyone knew who he was and I think that will always be. Then I liked the flash. Then GL. Then Batman. And so on. And then the TMNT. And the thing is I never saw any of these characters in their comics until I could read yet I knew who they were before I could form coherent memories. And hell I devoured anything superhero, thundercats, silverhawks, heman, cops. I grew up in the golden age of cartoons and recently I have seen a little bit of a comeback in that department. But the truth is that with Jeph Loeb at the helm and his ridiculously stupid decision to end EMH and make it Avengers Assemble I know those days are over as soon as they started. Look at ultimate spiderman, I dont remember watching dumb cartoons as a kid. Well as dumb as a cartoon can be when you are a kid. I wanted action and drama. Which is why Batman the animated series was so groundbreaking. It took me a while to adjust to the style of animation due to the 80's being so well, 80's, but now that is the golden standard of cartoons. I also watched Voltron and anime before it was cool. And that's without counting nintendo and all that stuff. Dudes mass media is what gets the kids not the comics. The comics are the "Oh so that's where that came from" and then you start to follow it if you care enough about it.

[Dog]

For me, Superfriends and Justice League of America. What I find interesting is that even as a kid watching the show and then reading the comics and thinking while reading "Wow, these are the REAL heroes" with no prompting from anyone. It just seemed natural that the comic book was the real characters, just as it seems natural that the Nu52 are cheap imposters.

It would seem that the pendulum has swung the other way, though, and now the movie characters are "real" and the comics are an afterthought.

[chastmastr]

Very cool article! :)

I do note with sadness that, at least currently, a lot of this is limited to Marvel--and I think DC really needs to take a good hard look at how they're approaching their own heroes. If someone gets into the Marvel characters from the movies or animated series, the current mainstream Marvel Universe is relatively similar and much more open to a wider age range than current DC has become. If someone gets interested in the DC characters from the recently-finished Brave and the Bold, the current Young Justice or Green Lantern series, the upcoming Teen Titans series, anything on DC Nation, the DCAU which still shows up in syndication, and so on, they're going to be in for a very disappointing rude shock.

[stesu1920]

I'm an adult, but I also started out with cartoons instead of comics. Around 20 years ago the TMNT, X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman (the animated series) cartoons and video games got me into comics. When I started getting comics (my first was an issue of Untold Tales of Spider-Man), I felt like I was graduating from the cartoons to the "grown-up" stuff. Still, my childhood occurred in between the era of superheroes being a niche product and the mass acceptance of today. Eventually I stopped reading comics, but I came back to it a few years ago after loving several Marvel movies. When I talk to people my own age, I observe that most of them have never read a comic, but many of them have fond memories of the cartoons that I mentioned.

Kids today are so lucky. I remember when I was a kid reading comics there were rumors of an X-Men movie that didn't actually come out until years later. Basically all we had when I was a kid were TMNT and Batman movies. We didn't get the relentless onslaught of superhero movies that we get yearly these days. I told my buddy after we saw the Avengers that this movie was the movie that I had wished for since since I was a 8.

I'm not too worried about the future of comics; I think they'll endure in some form even if they become exclusively digital. I suspect that comics will always be a niche product, though.

There was no internet or comic shops.........and no superhero cartoons over here in the UK in the middle 60`s.......ive only ever collected comics...i was to old when the cartoons did arrive, saying children today are lucky is an understatement but i have to say if movies and cartoons serve there purpose and gest the children into comic shops then even the old gaurd have to be happy with it...........

[Sewersaint]

I understand the response to this article that superheroes have existed for a very long time in multimedia outside of comics but I think this articles deals with the change in level of superhero exposure and what it means to the younger generation. Even though the non-comic sources of superheroes may have been what drew us (the older generation) into the world of comics I'm not sure watching those shows or playing with those toys defines us as superhero fans. In fact I believe that most people diverge from that as they get older and no longer have a strong affinity for superheroes. I know a lot of people who know who Bill Bixby is or when a Justice League movie is mention ask if it's going to have the Wonder Twins in it but would not consider themselves superhero fans. I think this article does a good job demonstrating that people nowadays can be superhero fans without comics. I believe that earlier generations of superhero fan had to eventually become involved with comics to maintain and support their interest in superheroes.

Oh and my favourite lines of the artice
"I now understand, in 2012, it is entirely possible to be a comic book fanatic without actually reading comic books. This is a scary thought to the old guard, who worry about sales and the future of print comics (I am with you, old guard). But truthfully, it's about time that comics stopped waiting for people to come to them and started being proactive."

First, a little correction, even though it is a poetic line you do have read comics to be a fan of comics. Just because you love movies like Red, the Losers and Wanted doesn't make you a comics fan. Secondly, the part about the old guard...YES! We need to be proactive about bringing people into comics. I've been guilty of not doing that but that'll change with Marvel Now since it looks like they're all coming with those codes for free digital versions.

[DrGregatron]

An interesting article but the author seems to use "superhero fan" and "comic book fan" interchangeably. Is a person who goes to the theater to see Tomb Raider automatically labeled a "video game fan"? If the writer hadn't confused the two we probably wouldn't be posting about this article.