I Coulda Told You That!
Hey.
My rather belated exploration of the history of the comic book continues apace. Once initiated, the path that curiosity takes you can spread far and wide. And so tonight I was looking over articles, some from Fanzing, about where the lords of four-color went wrong and went right--in the business if not artistically.
Premise: in the late 1970s, the big two were both experimenting with new titles in a race of "throw everything to the wall and see what sticks"--an experiment that turned up more turkeys than eagles, and cost them dearly.
My experience: I was there to see it happen but avoided the shrapnel.
The reason why?--the market outlets. I never saw a store that specialized in comic books till well into the Eighties. I lived in western Pennsylvania at the time, and if you wanted comic books, your options were limited to convenience stores and supermarkets--whose selections were hit and miss. Or maybe there was one or two on the table at the barber shop, but those weren't for sale.
Most of the comic books I read in childhood came in multi-issue "value packs", the issues themselves being months old by the time they got to me. If an issue in the pack was from a multi-issue story arc, and you wanted more, you were out of luck. I had that problem with a "SpiderMan" from back then...it was in the middle of the arc, backstory wasn't adequately explained, it ended in a cliffhanger--and there was no place around where I could get the issues that preceded or succeeded it!
Hey, before comic book shops, just finding decent information about the comic books was tough...at least where I was. No trade magazines.
Anyway, if I represent the typical comics consumer from the late seventies, then I also represent a disconnect between the publishers and the consumer at that time. It took the rise of the Direct Market to bridge this disconnect.
In the meantime, I wasn't buying what they were selling. Looking back, that should surprise nobody.
FP
My rather belated exploration of the history of the comic book continues apace. Once initiated, the path that curiosity takes you can spread far and wide. And so tonight I was looking over articles, some from Fanzing, about where the lords of four-color went wrong and went right--in the business if not artistically.
Premise: in the late 1970s, the big two were both experimenting with new titles in a race of "throw everything to the wall and see what sticks"--an experiment that turned up more turkeys than eagles, and cost them dearly.
My experience: I was there to see it happen but avoided the shrapnel.
The reason why?--the market outlets. I never saw a store that specialized in comic books till well into the Eighties. I lived in western Pennsylvania at the time, and if you wanted comic books, your options were limited to convenience stores and supermarkets--whose selections were hit and miss. Or maybe there was one or two on the table at the barber shop, but those weren't for sale.
Most of the comic books I read in childhood came in multi-issue "value packs", the issues themselves being months old by the time they got to me. If an issue in the pack was from a multi-issue story arc, and you wanted more, you were out of luck. I had that problem with a "SpiderMan" from back then...it was in the middle of the arc, backstory wasn't adequately explained, it ended in a cliffhanger--and there was no place around where I could get the issues that preceded or succeeded it!
Hey, before comic book shops, just finding decent information about the comic books was tough...at least where I was. No trade magazines.
Anyway, if I represent the typical comics consumer from the late seventies, then I also represent a disconnect between the publishers and the consumer at that time. It took the rise of the Direct Market to bridge this disconnect.
In the meantime, I wasn't buying what they were selling. Looking back, that should surprise nobody.
FP