I just tweeted about the idea that modern comics have been a "ghetto" and that ghetto is now being "invaded" by new readers with different expectations, resulting in a pushback from revanchist elements within the existing readership.
Let's develop that idea.
What do I mean by a comic book readership ghetto? Historically, ghettos are assumed to be small communities of persecuted or marginalized people of a common social origin.
Have comic book readers historically been persecuted? Depends how you define "persecuted"-- before the prior two decades, we were teased a bit, joked about, mocked. Is that persecution? Depends on how thin your skin is, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But "marginalized"? Oh yeah, definitely. When your total membership is in the thousands in a country of millions, you're definitely on the margins of the general culture. So, yes, in terms of marginalization, comic book readers/fandom was a ghetto.
Was.
A funny thing began to happen around the year 2000, though. People who had grown up reading and enjoying comics began to arrive in positions of authority in the entertainment business. They began to make movies based on what they loved.
X-Men, Spider-Man...they were hits. Iron Man, another hit. Suddenly the TV and movie floodgates opened and comic book culture became popular culture. People who'd been shut out of the comic book ghetto by price and access issues discovered our world.
(For the price and access discussion see my previous thread.)
These new fans aren't part of the ghetto. They have no previous experience with comics, no interest (as yet) in the more arcane and inside baseball aspects of our ghetto culture. They come to our world with a different set of expectations.
For them, comics aren't a marginalized experience. They don't have to dedicate time and money to enjoy a comic book story -- they can watch it on TV, in a theater, on Netflix, or enjoy it on Xbox or Playstation.
Their "cost of entry" into our culture is minimal--similar to the original cost of entry into comic book readership during the Golden, Silver, and early Bronze Age. Their comic book experience is easy and relatively cheap.
I can see why someone who's dedicated considerable time and money into maintaining their comic book fandom might resent this. It's a little like reverse gentrification. Cultural property values are going down.
Today, anyone can be a comic book fan--even if they don't actually read comics. That's gotta hurt. My daughter is a "comic book fan" and she's never read an Avengers comic, probably never will, but loves the Avengers as much as I do.
So, when these new potential readers arrive in our cultural ghetto, how should we receive them, and what should we expect from them? Do we throw up barricades, call out their ignorance, demand they accept our preconceived ideas of what makes a comic book?
Or do we recognize that our ghetto was never going to last forever? Do we recognize the only real alternative to expanding the ghetto is collapsing it?
From a business point of view the current publishing model for comics is financially unsustainable. If we try to maintain ourselves as a closed ghetto unavailable to a general, new readership, we're doomed. That's an unassailable fact.
So, comic books as a business needs new readers to survive-- and for the first time in decades, there's a large potential new readership available, thanks to our popular culture arrival. And what do these new readers expect?
I'm not sure. But I know what they don't expect or want: barriers. Walls. Obfuscation. They don't want stories that require decades of prior familiarity to appreciate. They don't want to feel belittled. They want to have fun with characters and myths they're just discovering.
We've enjoyed our stories for so long we've forgotten how it felt to discover them for the first time. Comics should be welcoming to the newcomer. Familiar to readers of all backgrounds and genders. Remember, that's why WE fell in love with them.
Our time in the ghetto is ending. That's frightening for some of us. It was safe in the ghetto. We didn't have to explain ourselves. Living on the margins means we're invisible, unnoticed, u threatened.
I think leaving the ghetto is a good thing for comics and for comic fans. It's a big world. Lots of room for everyone. And if you want to find a niche for just your thing, there's room for that too.
