What you say is like a nice idea, but you have to remember that this is a business. These kinds of comics line the shelves, because they're the ones that sell. Of course, it could very well be that if we had more comics that were more moderate they would sell also, but nobody's willing to take the risk. On top of that, you also require an author that is interested in that - you can't just suck this stuff out of a pen to make money (although often this does happen, they tend to end up being less interesting though).
If the comic is printed out then somebody has to buy it. If the comics aren't bought enough then it just won't work. It doesn't matter whether our ideal society would have us have more moderate comics or not, because it seems that in reality that's not the case. Of course, you can always prove me wrong (and the comic industry) by creating your own comic that does adhere to the criteria you enjoy. You would probably be rather successful if people truly wanted it, because it seems like there is no competition for them. But it seems unlikely.
This is definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many other nations have a wider audience for comics, but in the US we've followed your advice so long that all the audiences that aren't adolescent males have been pushed away. Which leads to where we are: comic book companies chasing after a tiny fraction of their potential audience, because they can't make comics for anyone else, because not enough others are hbothering to look for comics anymore. They'd have to rebuild other audiences from scratch, having burned through them all.
It is not the males pushing people away from comics. It's exactly the opposite. This is a group engaged in an activity which has long been looked down upon. Reading comics was seen as merely childish. Men embraced it, get called basement dwellers and just go on enjoying the things they enjoy. Then someone sees they are having a good time in spite of decades of being called childish and now suddenly they are sexist for excluding others. These were commonly the guys getting excluded and the comic book store has been their refuge.
That's an interesting point that shouldn't be lost in the discussion. Men who read comics have long been ridiculed by the mainstream. Even the Big Bang Theory, which inspired the blog authors' trip to the comic store, plays to that stereotype of it being an activity for the socially inept. And now, 20 years later, the industry doesn't serve any other market and is being criticized for it. Interesting.
> But I guess it's easier to draw more boobs than to invest in quality writing.
Aargh, you're reminding me that I really need to get back into reading that series. When I could buy comics from inside the Comixology app, it was really easy to keep up, and I haven't read any new comics since they pulled that out.
You can still buy from within the Marvel and DC apps. I've never tried it, but it looks like comixology has a tool to sync your comics between accounts.
Your talking about the tail wagging the dog. Comics are how they are because the market imploded and they have to appeal to the niche of of niche that is their customer base.
When I was a kid in NYC, I remember going to the newsstand with my dad and they had a few racks of the mass market comics. I'd get spider man and superman, my younger sister would get Donald Duck and similar things. Today there's no newsstand and paper media is imploding, so it's a completely different market.
I don't get manga at all, but it's a different phenomenon that doesn't have mass appeal, and girls aren't in the niche.
Yeah exactly, it's very hard to find comics like this anymore. I had a friend who used to love Archie comics for example. Good luck finding those anywhere these days.
Archie remains popular (inexplicably, to me) and Archie anthologies are available in most supermarkets I've been in (in the US) and at least some of the several comic books are found in almost every comic shop. For a casual fan, I think Archie might be the easiest comic to get a hold of. Just FYI.
Except they didn't follow my advice because I or someone else thought it would be cool, it bedmates of the market. People just weren't buying enough comics do they had to target a niche more and more. You say there is some kind of hidden audience that would buy comics if they just stopped portraying female characters the same way they portrayed spiderman? In sure there are some people that feel that way, but I don't there would be enough of those to support the industry, because, again, the internet and other mediums are just wrecking their business.
Also, what other countries really have a healthier comic industry than the US of you exclude manga and manhwa? Not to mention that a huge portion of manga actually is the same as US comics. There are just a bunch of others as well. Not to mention that in Japan you have to tie in the merchandise, light novel, and anime industries to manga as well. There are no popular equivalents for some of those in the US.
> You say there is some kind of hidden audience that would buy comics if they just stopped portraying female characters the same way they portrayed spiderman? In sure there are some people that feel that way, but I don't there would be enough of those to support the industry, because, again, the internet and other mediums are just wrecking their business.
You don't need to listen to me—read the responses in this very thread from HN readers in other countries, which have a much more broad comic book readership. It's filled with them! Just from a cursory glance, we have responders from France, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, as well as yes, Japan—and the enormous webcomic industry. The idea that nobody would ever buy comics except for adolescent males is both foolish and false. The evidence against it is tremendous.
But HN is a tiny minority. It is barely a drop in the ocean. Printed media is losing a lot of market (except books globally and comics in certain asian countries). Look at how manga works - most manga don't get that many sales. They rely entirely on their niche. There are just a lot of authors of them and a lot of buyers. However, in the western world comics seem to be dying like newspapers. The Internet just stomps them, so comics are trying to hold on to the niche they do have as hard as they can. You have to realize that this is afterall a business - the fact that there are very few comics that do portray what you're talking about disagrees with your "tremendous evidence".
Also note that I do not care for these types of comics you describe or even the "sexy" ones. I do not like western art in comics at all. I just think that people who say "oh, but I would read comics if only they had X" talk a lot about it, but not enough of them follow through for extended periods of time when offered the chance.
> But HN is a tiny minority. It is barely a drop in the ocean.
It is, although the comments aren't HN readers talking about themselves—the comments are HN readers talking about what comic book readership in their country looks like. To pick a random example, see https://hackertimes.com/item?id=8898345. Pay attention to what the author is saying: not "I read X", but "the best selling comic in Norway for decades was Donald Duck", "The best selling French-language comic is usually Spirou".
> You have to realize that this is afterall a business - the fact that there are very few comics that do portray what you're talking about disagrees with your "tremendous evidence".
The fact that there are very few comics in the US. There are very many such comic books outside of the US, and they sell well. My point is, the way the US comic book market looks is not inevitable; instead it's a result of many years of poor decisions by the US comic book publishers to appeal to a single niche.
Or to turn your phrase back on you: it's a business for comic producers all over the world. However, elsewhere they have found success selling to audiences that US comic book producers have long neglected. I know given how popular US cultural products are, it's easy to assume that things outside the US look just like things inside the US, but that's not always the case. HN has an international readership; check out what they say to see what things are like in other countries.
If the comic is printed out then somebody has to buy it. If the comics aren't bought enough then it just won't work. It doesn't matter whether our ideal society would have us have more moderate comics or not, because it seems that in reality that's not the case. Of course, you can always prove me wrong (and the comic industry) by creating your own comic that does adhere to the criteria you enjoy. You would probably be rather successful if people truly wanted it, because it seems like there is no competition for them. But it seems unlikely.