The State of the Economy and the State of Comics

So, I've been thinking...a dangerous pastime, you say...about the economic situation and what this may mean for comics as a whole. Obviously, things are pretty much in the crapper at the moment. The stock market is in freefall along with the value of our homes. People are losing their jobs, so they cut back on their spending. Cutting back on spending, means that nobody is purchasing all that stuff on the shelves, so the stores are cutting back, and laying people off. It's a bit of a vicious circle.

Meanwhile, Marvel has decided that now is a spiffy time to raise the price of their books from $2.99 to $3.99, an increase of some 30% or more. That's one heck of a jump! It's as if they tied the price of comics to the price of gas! I would imagine that this move may backfire, since people don't have as much disposable income at the moment, and I would think that eating and paying the mortgage is just a tad more important than buying comic books.

But that's not really what I was thinking about. Not the price of comics, but the TONE of comics. I think that the era of grim and gritty, and of dark dark comics may be on its way out. If you go back and look at the general entertainment forms of the Great Depression, movies and yes, even comics, the general mood was of light-heartedness. People were pretty depressed by all the gloom and doom of their real lives, and sought out a form of release and escapism in movies. This was when you had all of those huge musicals and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies.

Perhaps this wish for a little bit of escapism will be expressed in comics again. I've always liked humor in my books, such as the old JLI and Damage Control, and Groo, and Mad, and Ambush Bug to name a few. I think that a lot of people like a little silliness, but the prevailing wisdom was that "funny" books didn't sell. But with all the gloom on the economic front, is it possible that fun could make a come-back?

We've finished up Final Crisis, so let's sit back, take a deep breath and hope for a bit of...dare I say it...happiness for a change. Look, Barry is back! Aquaman is back! Ted is back (I think) Scott and Barda are back! This is GOOD news. We need good news. We need good stories. We need talking gorillas and kicks to the face. This is one of the reasons that I believe the new cartoon "The Brave & the Bold" is doing so well with fans. It's just plain FUN.

It is a lot easier to look at the dark and dangerous side of things, when life on the whole is going well. You don't risk becoming consumed by the darkness. If we look at the 90's as a whole, the economy was doing well, but the general mood of comic books was pretty depressing.

Or, I could simply be deluding myself.



But we could all use a little bit of fun.