The Difficulty In Reaching Audiences
Originally published at jaredaxelrod.com. You can comment here or there.
Here’s where I put on my buzzkill hat for a minute.
You may have seen this comic by David Willis, as it has been floating around Tumblr and sci-fi sites and what have you. It is, as all of Willis’s work is, humorously drawn and sharply funny.
It’s also a little disingeniousness.
DC did publish a comic with the TEEN TITANS cartoon version of Starfire, called TEEN TITANS GO. It was written by award-winning writer J. Torres, and illustrated by several talented artists, including some of the show’s designers. It lasted from November 2003 to May 2008, chalking up 55 issues and outliving the show by 2 years. This was DC seeing they had a hit property on their hands, putting the best and brightest behind it, and giving it plenty of time to find an audience.
It also never sold more that 15,000 copies an issue. Despite those 2 million viewers Willis talks about.
As easy as it is to shake our fingers at DC for their horrible attitudes toward women-and they deserve it, as Laura Hudson eloquently points out-let us not kid ourselves. The big two comic companies treatment of women is risible, but do not pretend that if DC or Marvel would simply put these books out, they would sell more than the ugly, exploitative dreck that’s being published today. Because that just isn’t the case. We can shame DC all they want, but you better believe that if 2,000,000 people bought TEEN TITANS GO, their and Marvel’s business plan would look radically different* (I can’t even comprehend what all an all-ages book selling more than a million copies would do the industry).
Because what we’re dealing with is a symptom of a much larger issue. There are series of adventure comics for girls-ALISON DARE, COURTNEY CRUMIN, RUMBLE GIRLS come immediately to mind-that are not put out by the big two, put nonetheless would appeal to Michele Lee’s daughter now that Starfire no longer does. Why aren’t these books best sellers? Why aren’t the 2 million viewers of TEEN TITANS snatching those books up? You can’t tell me that someone who identifies with Raven in TEEN TITANS wouldn’t devour COURTNEY CRUMIN in a hot second. These books exist, but are not the best sellers they should be. Certainly not at the level of Willis’s math.
The problem, really, is not that DC and Marvel aren’t appealing to a market that doesn’t buy their books-though wouldn’t hurt them to stop actively discouraging women from buying them, as Hudson says. The problem is that there are books for these girls, but these readers, for a variety of reasons, are not buying them.
I don’t have an answer. I wish I did, as I have a graphic novel coming out that I believe would appeal to the girls corporate comics are leaving behind. I want to reach these readers, and put my book in their hands. It’s clear that the usual pathways, the pathways in which TEEN TITANS GO was sold in, do not work. Because the problem is not that the books aren’t there.
The problem is that the books are not reaching their audience.
*Or maybe not. Each successive volume of ONE PIECE sells over 2 million copies, but no one seems to be jumping on that train.