Month: February 2023

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But I’m Happy To Report

Yesterday evening, I accidentally found myself stepping into the perfect metaphor for the experience of this past week. It’s rare that life offers up such an encapsulating moment, such a perfect instant of As Above, So Below, but when it happened, I felt curiously grateful in addition to everything else going on in that moment.

It’s been, I should offer as context, a difficult week for me. Not for any one particular reason, and not for any reason that I’ll be sharing in depth here, because they’re really other people’s stories that I’m connected to in many cases, but the fact of the matter is, this has been a week where things just keep happening; a week where there’s barely been a moment to catch my breath without something requiring my attention, or my presence. There’s been a lot happening at work — of course, this was the week that DC announced movie plans, requiring quick news write-ups and subsequent analysis seemingly daily — but there’s also been a lot happening personally, or at least to those around me. No matter what is going on, and not all of it has been bad I hasten to add, there would be something immediately pushing into view right behind it, asking to be heard.

So, cut to yesterday evening, and my realization post-work that I really might have some downtime. Everything had been taken care of, everyone seemed good, and there was an hour or so before dinner. Great, I thought to myself, why don’t I take a shower and just try to relax? So, I do; I give myself that time to just take it easy and get clean, stopping myself from reacting even when I hear the dog running around and making noise outside the door. Someone else can deal with that, I tell myself, as much as my natural tendency has become to take everything on myself.

I finish my shower, taking my time doing so. I’m being selfish, slightly, but not too much; all told, it’s only been half an hour at most. Everything can take care of itself for that time, I tell myself as I open the bathroom door to leave the room, and immediately step into a pile of dog shit left right outside the door. Apparently, the dog wasn’t just running around while I was in there. Apparently, things couldn’t take care of themselves after all.

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I Thought They’d Never End

Over the past year or so, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the mainstream North American comic book industry peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That sounds like both hyperbole and curmudgeonly old man thinking, when put so bluntly, but the more I think about it and try to poke holes in it — think of the amazing comics available now or there wasn’t a robust book trade back then or whatever, both of which are valid points — the more I realize such arguments are beside the point. The mainstream North American comic book industry was in better shape 30-odd years ago than it is today.

On the face of it, that’s relatively obvious: both Marvel and DC were in dominant mode, in terms of both market share but also output: beyond their core superhero comics, both publishers had additional imprints or titles dedicated to promoting different material that just don’t exist at either publisher anymore; Marvel, always the more conservative company, had Epic Comics and the Marvel Graphic Novels line, which regularly featured creator owned new concepts from Marvel talent, while DC had the Berger books, Piranha Press, it’s own graphic novels line, and random, wonderful oddities like Wasteland or Angel Love or Outcasts.

There was also a far healthier indie scene than we have today, I’d argue, with publishers like First Comics and Eclipse Comics acting in a similar manner to today’s Image Comics but with less of a focus on potential media adaptation and more willingness to experiment and challenge its creators as well as readers. Companies like Dark Horse and Kitchen Sink Press were around to offer alternatives to superheroes in terms of action/adventure strips, and Fantagraphics, Last Gasp, and others (including, again, Kitchen Sink!) were there with more alternative, artcomix material, too.

And what’s more, what’s the thing I keep coming back to is, there wasn’t the naked, blunt focus on the bottom line — whether corporate parents or potential movie or TV deals — that feels omnipresent in today’s industry. Everyone had to stay profitable, of course, but there was still, almost across the board, a willingness — an eagerness — to play and occasionally make dumb decisions for good reasons that just feels absent in today’s market.

Like I said before; there’s probably some element of nostalgia present in all of this, and certainly there are audiences and demographics better served now than way back then. But creatively, I can’t help but feel that the North American comics mainstream was far better off in the good old days. Does this make me old, or just right…?