By Richard J. Early
THE SPANDEX DILEMMA
So, last night I’m reading my comics and several things occurred to me. Luckily, I have this blog to blather about them.
First, it hit me how much I love comics and why. Look, it’s like this, so listen up for all you who don’t get it. You love TV right? You love movies, right? Well, if you answered yes, then you have no reason to not love comics. That’s yes to either or both. Comics are weekly / monthly / who knows when stories featuring all the things you love in movies and TV. You get action, drama, character, humor, romance, and so on. And you get them every Wednesday. You can buy as many as you want. You can buy stories that take place in one issue or that are part of a bigger plotline. You can buy stories that crossover with other stories or are self contained. You can get alternate stuff, mainstream stuff, licensed stuff, you name it. And again, you can do this any week you want.
I have never understood the disconnect between the number of people I see attending the midnight premier of a movie like Spider-Man or Watchmen or X-Men and the number of comic subscribers at my shop or shops around the country. I go to Century 10 and 8 theatres are sold out for the Spidey premier. That’s probably over 1200 people, right? Well, I sell like 50 copies of the new Amazing Spider-Man issue. I don’t get it. You love Spidey, you went to the movie, you bought the DVD. So here’s your chance to get new Spidey stories every week. I don’t get it.
Anyway, that was one thing that hit me. And one reason I love comics so much. I should clarify that a little. Last night, I had a stack of about 12 comics. So I read Green Lnatern #45 in x amount of time. I bag it up and put it away. Then next on my pile is Buffy #29. And so on. It’s great. I get diverse writing, art, and story. Where else can you do that? Yes, I know, the internet. That’s true, too.
Here’s the real deal: the spandex dilemma. As many of you know, comics, at least in the United States, are defined by spandex. Spandex is a generic catch phrase referring to super heroes as almost every super hero dresses up in spandex or makes a mark for themselves by specifically not dressing up in spandex. But it’s still a great one word definition of American comics. And it’s true that they sell better than anything else. And why shouldn’t they? They are the stuff primarily published by Marvel and DC Comics which means they generally have very high production quality in terms of paper, color, and such. But they also tend to have creators who get paid a lot. That doesn’t mean they are the best, but it probably means they are good. They are getting those bucks for some reason, after all. It’s a genre where Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Joss Whedon, and so many more great writers have taken their turns. Even Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore have ventured all the way into spandex in their own unique ways. But then there are titles like the one I hit last night. Ex Machina #46. It’s by Brian K Vaughan who many of you may not know by name but probably have run into. He’s been a writer on Lost for about two years after making an extensive name for himself in the comics world. Nearly everything he has written in comics is in production or preproduction to be a movie. Runaways, Y: The Last Man, and Ex Machina, his three main books, are all up on movie options. Crazy , huh? So I hit that book last night and it’s just a great issue. But here’s the thing. My GL #45 was good, too. And in both books, I got paid off for being a long time reader. All the lead up to the big GL Blackest Night story is hitting and the Ex Machina series is reaching it’s conclusion in #50. However, at Paradox Green Lantern outsold Ex Machina issue 8 to 1. It’s the spandex dilemma.
It’s pretty much the case in any industry. Transformers 2 makes $200 million dollars opening weekend, but that great indy flick you discovered barely made the rounds at your local theatre. It makes sense. Lots of people want to see big robots fighting. Lots of people want to see Green Lanterns battling massive intergalactic menaces. It’s the same thing.
I have no conclusion here. Other than to say that spandex is not always bad at all. In fact, there is a ton of good spandex. Not every spandex book is crap and not every indy is good. It’s just that spandex tends to dominate the marketplace at the expense of the indy stuff more often than not.
So that’s what I was thinking about last night. How awesome comics are, why they are awesome, and what they are about.
NEXT, PLEASE
Well, if you were sick of Star Trek, you got something new.
