Death of Comics

Do you have memories of running down to the corner store as fast as your short legs could carry you, eager to put all your allowance down on the latest adventure comics?\nIf you're currently of college age or younger, probably not. With the advent of Nintendo, DVD players and the Internet, most kids began leaving comic books on the shelves some time ago.\nIn a time where recording artists have to sell a million or more copies of an album to not be considered a failure, most comic books declare victory if they sell 80,000 copies. Yet ask anyone, anywhere who Superman is, and they will more than likely be able to tell you. "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" were the highest grossing films of their release years, but no one seems to want to read the comics that inspired the films.\nAndrei Molotiu, an IU professor of art history, says he has noticed the trend for some time. He currently teaches a class on the history of comics.\n"Cynically, they've not reached their end yet," he says. "Comics used to be a mass medium, but now they're part of the subculture. Even superhero comics have very low circulation numbers compared to say, a movie."\nBorn in Romania, Molotiu first saw Spider-Man on TV when he was 10 and was hooked. But it wasn't until he came to America for college that his love for comics really flourished.\nIn the 1980's, when Molotiu was in college, comics experienced a short resurgence. Frank Miller revived "Batman" with darker, more intense storylines, and "The Watchmen," a DC comic, reinvented the conventional superhero.\nUnfortunately generations X and Y were just being birthed when Molotiu and his contemporaries were getting their bachelor's degrees. So by sheer timing, today's youth missed the revival.\n"The fan base became more and more intense, and companies began pandering to them," he says. "Casual fans don't have anywhere to start and get left out."\nThis shift, Molotiu says, has lead to some different uses for the comic form.\n"More and more people are focusing on comics as an experimental, adult-oriented art," he says. "From that point of view, it becomes more or less an elite art, but without the elitism."\nAt this point, Molotiu says, Hollywood and other developers look to the comics companies as idea farms for movie and game material.\n"(Comics) are in danger," he says. "It's likely that at some point, DC and Marvel will just become owners of characters."\nMichael Uslan, an IU alum, is one of the people responsible for bringing comic book characters to the big screen. He, however, doesn't see comics as idea farms. For him, comics have helped define his life.\nUslan, in his capacity as a Hollywood producer, has produced all of the "Batman" movies and won an Emmy for producing "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" an animated FOX series.\nAs an undergrad at IU, he also created the world's first accredited college course on comics, the beginnings of the course Molotiu now teaches. \nUslan says comics are important because they are a reflection of human nature.\n"Comics are our contemporary mythologies," he says.\nTo get authorization to teach his new course, Uslan had to convince a panel of professors and deans of the importance of this mythology.\nThey didn't buy into his theory at first. Uslan then asked one to recount the story of Moses. The professor did, saying Moses was born, abandoned and rose to lead a people to freedom.\nNext, Uslan asked the professor to recite the origins of Superman. After realizing the two stories were one in the same, the board granted Uslan his class.\nAfter the course started, Uslan employed a bit of ingenuity to get publicity for his class -- he called United Press International (at the time, an international newswire service) and pretended to be a taxpayer complaining about the new comics class.\nUPI covered the class and the story went around the world, until it caught the ears of both DC and Marvel Comics.\n"It just went everywhere," Uslan said. "Then one day, I got a call from Stan Lee, and from DC Comics. They said this was the greatest thing that had ever happed to comics."\nDC offered him a writing job, and Uslan broke into the industry he dreamed of since he was eight.\n"I am working the only job that allows me to be 16 years old for the rest of my life," he says.\nUslan has since written on many DC books, and his most recent graphic novel "Detective No. 27," a re-telling of the Batman story, is a best seller. Uslan says he believes comics are not dying, but evolving.\n"Like never before, Hollywood is turning to comics for source material for video games and movies," he says. "That doesn't mean that's all they exist for. Comic art is better today than 70 years ago."\nBetter art, however, is of little comfort to comic store owners. If titles don't sell, stores don't succeed. Major bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble now carry graphic novels, and drugstores still carry some superhero comics, but the comic store is a dying piece of Americana. Vintage Phoenix, a comic store in Bloomington, has managed to buck the negative trend but the state of the industry is still a worry. Don Wilds, co-owner of Vintage Phoenix, says his store does well because they stock a little of everything.\n"From big companies, we carry everything they put out. We also track what sells," he says. "For smaller companies, it depends on who the writer or the artist is."\nWilds says it takes careful planning to keep his store afloat.\n"Compared to a few years ago, (comics) aren't that popular because you never sell more than a few issues of anything," he says. "The gross margin on comics isn't bad, if you're big enough to order a bunch."\nWilds also says the rising popularity of graphic novels has given business a boost. \n"Road to Perdition," a recent Tom Hanks film, was based on a top-selling graphic novel.\nMolotiu says graphic novels have given the so-called child's play world of comics an air of respectability.\n"The term ("graphic novel") has been useful to reconcile those who would have felt guilty saying they read comics," Molotiu says.\nIf there is a glimmer of hope for the traditional comic, it is that Molotiu's class is always full, and always has a waitlist of students ready to claim a spot in the class. Oddly though, Molotiu says he has seen an increase in people reading Japanese manga rather than American superhero comics.\n"I think that's an industry on the rise," he says. "People who publish manga are benefiting from a rising interest in Japanese pop culture."\nPerhaps it's because manga is relatively new to American youth. Manga tends to have stories rooted in science fiction and fantasy and less realistic but sharper art.\nMolotiu says he believes the comic form is worth saving, even if it might require some rethinking and innovation.\n"Sometimes it seems as if DC has run out of new Batman stories to tell," he says. \nUslan is attacking the issue head-on. He is producing two new movies which put new spins on the Batman story. "Catwoman," starring Halle Berry, and "Batman: Intimidation" starring Christian Bale. "Catwoman," is the story of the anti-heroine's flip-flop between villain and hero, as well as her love for Batman. "Intimidation" is a retelling of the origins of Batman. And almost as proof that the art of the comic book isn't dead, Uslan is also considering a sequel to his book "Detective No. 27." \nComics might not ever die, but they will most likely change with the times. People might not pick up a lot of Batman or Spider-Man books anymore, but just like real-life heroes, comic heroes are never forgotten.