Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
("... the ER looks like the inside
of a charnel house; the patient is flatlining; and the priest is slouched against
the far wall, mumbling something about 'Extreme Unction'...
... but: never mind. Let's
call it a 'miracle,' anyway.")
On Watching a Train Wreck. In Slow
Motion.
(PART FIVE)
... and consider this, in turn, more along the lines of a life-saving,
D.A.R.E.-type intervention. 
What follows is (in brief) a concise, unsentimental explication of The Way Things Really Are, Comics-Wise... shorn of all willful fanboy obscurantism and metronomic fanboy cant.
... because: we can't decently decide on where we all want this medium's
rhetorical "GnomeMobile" to go, until we're all dead clear on where it
is we've already been.
1.) A BRIEF, UNHAPPY, DOWNHILL HISTORY OF THE MAINSTREAM AMERICAN COMIC BOOK:
a.) The "Golden" Age: The comic book industry is in nothing less than stupendous shape, fiscally-speaking.
Comics are read and enjoyed by their natural and intended "target" audience (i.e., kids) AND adults (i.e., American G.I.'s, looking for fast, enjoyable and disposable reading material; "pulp magazine"-weaned adolescents; etc.) in roughly equivalent measure.
There is no organized "comics fandom," as such. Only several million comics fans. (e.g.: CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES -- during this "peak" period of its sales heyday -- sold two MILLION copies per month.)
The men and women working within the comics industry, during this epoch, are not "fanboys" or "fangirls," graduated from the ranks of the readership. They are, simply speaking, little-hearalded craftspeople and artisans (Carl Barks; C. C. Beck; Jack Cole; Reed Crandall; Will Eisner; Lou Fine; Jack Kirby; Mort Meskin; Mac Raboy; Joe Simon; Wally Wood; etc.), moving from title to title and company to company at the behest of whim; personal preference; and The Call of The Great, Wild Paycheck.
No one cares whether (say) ALL-STAR COMICS #3 "ties in," continuity-wise, with ACTION COMICS #27 or not. Conceived of; crafted; and produced as the guileless and readily-accessible entertainments they (again: by design) ARE... the simple, unassuming comic book is as vital; energetic; and healthy as it ever has been, and ever will be.
b.) The "Silver" Age: ... i.e., the second (and -- as of this writing -- still unsurpassed) "flowering" of the mainstream comics medium, in general...
... and of the "super-hero" adventure genre, in particular.
Comics are, once again, devoured in great, whopping job lots by wave upon crashing wave of eager pre-adolescents and adventure-minded teens.
Readers with a leaning towards plot-driven "science fiction"-y heroes and the stately, measured artistic craftsmanship of a Gil Kane; a Carmine Infantino; or a Murphy Anderson could (and did) hone in on the excellent line of DC comics of the era (Green Lantern; The Flash; Hawkman; Justice League of America; etc.)...
... while those with a decided preference for the more sprawling, Jack Kirby-fueled, and wildly overblown (though not one whit less enjoyable, certainly, for all of that) soap operatic histrionics of the Marvel titles of said period could (and did) lose themselves, happily, within the pages of such wondrous fare as Fantastic Four; Tales of Suspense; The Mighty Thor; and The Avengers.
Again -- as in the Golden Age, previously -- "continuity" (as the fanboys employ the bruised and unhappy term today: i.e., "all comics published by any given company 'tying together' into one vast and seamless 'whole' ") is rudimentary, at best. Marvel's own (until the later arrival of the first "wave" of fans-turned pro, such as Roy Thomas) is of a desultory, catch-as-catch-can stripe; and that of rival DC Comics (still the undisputed sales leader, at this point) is all but non-existent.
... and, again: the actual comics, themselves -- still readily
accessible, sans layer after layer of "mandatory" backstory -- sell great.
c.) The "Bronze" Age: Now... here's where events begin to take several (demonstrably, in retrospect) turns for both the sales and storytelling worse.
As the grand old men (and women) who'd shepherded and safeguarded the mainstream comics medium throughout its previous heydays began to retire and/or were replaced by an ever- increasing number of creative tyros from the fannish ranks:
1.) Marvel Comics, Inc. finally outpaced long- time sales colossus, DC; achieving a marketplace primacy which would not again find alteration for several decades; and --
2.) Mainstream super-hero comics shifted their storytelling emphasis, overall, from that of a (Julie) Schwartzian mode ("Every Comic Is Some Reader's First Comic") to a more aggressively exclusionary fanboyish, Marvel-style one ("First and Foremost: We Cater To Folks Just Like Us -- i.e., the 'Hard Core' Fans").
Both of these two bellwether events were achieved, primarily, by means of the exact same storytelling conjuration: namely, that of exalting the concept of the "shared universe" (i.e., "continuity") to the status of True Fannish Writ -- an underlying (and inviolable) "first principle," as it were.
Note this, however:
Comic books of the period (as well as those of the aforementioned Silver Age) were required, by federal law -- in order to maintain their eligibility for Fourth Class mailing privileges (necessary, in turn, to ensure the profitability of subscription copies) -- to place annual "Statements of Ownership" within the actual, printed comics themselves.
Said "Statements of Ownership" detailed (among other points of historical interest) both the total number of copies sold, monthly, for any given title... and: the total number of copies later returned to the publisher (i.e., NOT sold) by the distributors of the day.
As even the most cursory examination of these makes readily manifest: the more slavishly "continuity"-minded Marvel Comics -- at the same time they were passing DC Comics in market share -- did so during a period in which sales for both companies were dropping at an alarming (and precipitous) rate.
In other words: the total number of comics readers was spiraling steadily downwards (as the increasingly "continuity"-laden comics became progressively more and more inaccessible to the "casual" and "newbie" readers)...
... thereby casting the much-bruited sales "success" of the Marvel-style storytelling method in a far, far different light than that which is generally assumed as gospel by "continuity" adherents.
[EXAMPLE: in the Statement filed for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN at the tail end of 1965, said title enjoyed a total paid circulation ("copies sold") of 636,000 per month. In the Statement filed for the same title ten years later, in 1975 -- when Marvel was "out-selling" DC -- the total paid circulation was 356,000; nearly one-half less, in other words, than it had been before the sales "success" of the "continuity"-driven approach to storytelling (!!).]
Similar and proportionate sales declines are readily apparent (and -- as mandated by federal law -- acknowledged) in ALL of the Marvel titles of this period.
Clearly; inarguably --NOT the sorts of numbers one typically associates
with the term "successful."
Where did all of those former readers go, in the interim?
[SIDE NOTE: "continuity" apologists are always quick to knee-jerk, in response, that declining comics sales during this period were the end result of "increases in the cover price" for comics. However: the cover price of an issue of SPIDER-MAN in 1965 was twelve cents, American; the cover price in 1975, on the other hand, was a gargantuan, whopping...
[... thirty-five cents.
[Oh, yeah. That probably wiped out a full half of the
previously (one presumes) loyal and contented comics readership base, right
there.]
Again: where did all of those (former) readers go...
... and: why did they leave in the first place?
The actual characters were still the same crime-busting, long underwear-clad ones that had been so popular and accepted as before, after all.
The artwork certainly wasn't appreciably any worse, at this juncture...
... and -- as should be patently obvious to any but the most wilfully Pavlovian
and obstinate of nay-sayers -- the cover price of any given comic was
still well and truly within the easy reach of any but the most grasping and
penurious of adolescents.
So: what was the real difference, then, between the comics of '65 and '75...?
Obvious (and undeniable) answer: the method in which the actual stories were being told...
... or -- in the case of the increasingly alienated (and despised) "casual" comics readership; a readership inherently far larger than that of the comics die-hards; a readership which neither needed nor desired to be lumbered with bushel-lots of "continuity," in order to decently comprehend and enjoy a simple, bloody comic book -- the method in which said stories were not being told.
Not any longer.
d.) Today: ... and it's the Bronze Age, all over again...
... only magnified to the umpty-gazillionth power.
Today: no one writes or edits mainstream adventure comics who hasn't first been inculcated in the increasingly arcane lore and minutiae of decades upon decades of "continuity"; who hasn't first had it bred into the very bone marrow of their belief system(s) that "this is the way comics have always been"; who hasn't first accepted the baseline premise that adventure comics are -- first; last; and always -- conceptualized and crafted with the similarly obsessed fanatic in mind.
This, of course, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, of sorts.
Plotted and executed in such a fashion that they can only be readily decoded by nit-picking, microscope-wielding fanatics...
... naturally: the comics sell only to nit-picking, microscope-wielding fanatics.
Which (in turn) "justifies" and makes ever more adamantine the (patently) anti-historical belief that nit-picking, microscope-wielding fanatics are the true, "natural" audience for said comics in the first place.
As opposed to... you know... kids, I mean...
... or teenagers, looking for a quick, enjoyable, disposable adventure story...
... or even the occasional curious aand/or nostalgic adult, seeking same.
None of them count any more, you see.
They aren't "true fans."
"And here we neatly sum up what I see as the inherent selfishness in the demands of these people that the characters “grow and change”. Apparently they were introduced to characters they thought were pretty neat at the time -- but they do not want others to have the same pleasure. That would interfere with their own “enjoyment” of the comics!" [John Byrne; 1998; AOL message boards]
2.) ASSIGNING THE APPROPRIATE PORTIONS OF BLAME; AND THEN BRINGING THINGS TO A CLOSE:
Look.
People.
I really, truly, honestly know what it's like.
The Real World is an increasingly scary and inhospitable place, for all too many of us.
The politicians we elect to (purportedly) look out after our own best interests turn out to be basket cases; snake oil salesmen; or both. Everything costs more than it did, just the day before... and (in the meantime) we have to scrimp and save and "make do" with the same old subsistence-level paychecks. Some school kid or postal worker or somedamnthing, somewhere, is losing whatever vestigial "grip" they may presently possess, and is just a day or two away from doing something unspeakable in a crowd of total strangers with a mail-order Uzi. A friend will disappoint; a true love, lie. And the only good-sized patch o' land which doesn't boast of its own accompanying nuclear arsenal is DisneyWorld.
The Real World -- in short -- just plain ol' doesn't make sense,
often as not.
Faced with a prospect as humbling and unwelcome as that: the notion
of a "world" in which everything has to "make sense" -- and the "rules"
therein assume the status and inviolability of Biblical Inerrancy; after having
been mutually "agreed upon" by those seeking a similar sort of refuge -- is
(I'll readily grant you) a sweet and reassuring one.
It's a "world" in which stories and characters all tramp, tramp, tramp with resolute steadfastness, in neat, tidy little double columns through the fictive thickets...
... and none of them can ever really surprise you in A Really Mean Way; or let you down; or make you feel, y'know, badly about them (or yourselves, for that matter). Because the "rules" have already long since been agreed upon and concretized by you... and a few thousand other people who all (YESSSSS -- !!) agree with YOU.
Yeah.
Yeah. I understand it. Honest to God; I do.
I can even empathize, to a certain extent. (Maybe even more than I'd care to admit, in all painful auctorial honesty.)
But.
But: it's not a "world" which can sustain itself any longer.
One of the two "worlds" which refused to see that -- the one which catered the most nakedly and relentlessly to that special sort of storytelling "need" amongst the faithful and the annointed -- is gone, now, for all practical intents and purposes.
It belongs to a toy company, now.
(Sure... sure: the owners of the "world" in question made some bad mistakes, economics-wise...
( ... but: said mistakes were rendered all the more assuredly fatal and final by the fact that the world's "owners" in this instance, couldn't attract enough r-e-a-d-e-r-s to their b-o-o-k-s in the first place.
(Because: they weren't in the business of attracting "new" readers, anay more.
(Just satisfying the increasingly marginalized and recondite demands of the older ones. The ones they already had.)
The sole remaining "world" of any consequence "boasts" -- as its best-selling title, mind -- a series [JLA] which moves a pitiful 100,000 units per month. Tops.
Twenty-five years ago -- during a period in which (or so the Anti- History Crowd continually asserts) "comics weren't nearly as well-done and wonderful as they are nowadays" -- that same comics title sold 500,000 copies per month.
Cold, Hard Fact: if the mainstream adventure comic becomes any more "wonderful" than it is Right Here, Right Now...
... then the mainstream adventure comics genre will become as dead as the once all-but- invulnerable romance comics genre. AND the crime comics genre. AND the war comics genre. AND the western comics genre.
All of which -- screw your eyes shut and shake your heads back and forth as much as pleases you -- are storytelling genres which appeal to an inherently, infinitely larger number of folks out there (in the "real" world) than do super- heroes.
I've explained this before.
I'll explain it again, this One. Last. Time.
If today's comics really and truly were "better" than the comics of yesteryear...
... and if the mainstream comics industry hadn't really lost its collctive creative "way" decades ago, by catering exclusively to the most rigidly dogmatic; parochial; and self-obsessed faction of the (once) larger comics readership, on the whole...
... and: IF the "continuity-or-bust" cabal truly were correct in their single-minded assessment that -- the sales history of the medium aside -- multi-decade cross-hatchings of backstory and character restriction truly were "the way comics are supposed to be, dammit"...
... then: the comics of today would sell BETTER than those of twenty, thirty years ago.
The crackpot "we've never had it so gosh-darned wonderful" theory simply doesn't make coherent sense, any other way.
(Yeah, yeah: "comics are too damned expensive, nowadays." So are movies. So are "real" books. So are "real" magazines. So is pre-recorded music. So are baseball games and football games and basketball games. And yet, none of these are coughing up fiscal blood, in the meantime. Go figure, huh...?)
(Find a new excuse, people. This one wouldn't even fool
your mom... and your mom loves you, f'chrissakes!)
No other storytelling medium in the history of this country has ever -- EVER -- dwindled to irrelevancy (if not virtual extinction) by dint of having improved itself a (putative) thousandfold.
Jesus. Does an observation that bloody obvious even need stating, outright...?
For what it's worth: I honestly believe there's still a joker left in this particular deck o' cards.
Remember this...?
"The millenium is approaching, and there is probably no better time to just toss out the old and bring in the new." (Joe Linehan; 1998; Tales From the Front)
... and this...?
" 'No Man's Land' [the year-long, multi-title story arc currently taking place in DC's various "Bat"-titles] is but the prelude for a millennium- timed comics makeover. 'We will relaunch the entire DC line in 2000,' says Denny O'Neil, Batman's majordomo." [ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY; 12/4/98; Page 33]
Well... here's what I think:
I think that the men and women employed by (and in charge of) DC Comics, Inc. are (fundamentally) normal human beings; who enjoy being able to eat three square meals a day, and afford decent roofs over their creative and/or corporate heads.
I think that -- sooner, rather than later; much sooner, in fact -- the painful, ongoing example being provided for them by the pared-down-to-
the-bone Marvel Comics is going to seriously frighten someone over there. If it hasn't already, I mean. (God alone knows but that it should, at any rate.)
I think it more than passing likely that most of the decision-makers over at DC know that the millennium is fast approaching, just as we do.
I think it highly unlikely that a polished, well-spoken veteran of so many countless interviews as is Dennis O'Neil -- himself, a former working journalist -- was so drastically (not to mention inexplicably) "misquoted" in any way; shape; or form by a reporter from the normally cautious and impeccable ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY.
I believe -- hell; I know -- that DC knows how much fannish screeching and caterwauling they'd be letting themselves in for, should any plans they did/do have, millennium-wise, get out to the hard-eyed, hard core, fanatics more than a few months ahead of schedule... tops...
... and (finally): I believe that said ineffectual weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments just might be taking place sometime around the tail end of the year 2000, after all.
Never -- ever -- underestimate the subtle, inescapable allure of the promise of three square meals a day, folks.
Unlike the nightmare scenario expostulated on the previous page of this site
entry: fanboys don't really Rule the World, after all.
I've heard more than one fanboy petulantly aver (back when the O'Neil quote was the "hot" online topic of the moment) that: "If DC does boot their current continuity out the window... then I'm leaving comics for good, by God!"
("Important, too, to remember that [DC Comics'] CRISIS [ON INFINITE EARTHS] was made 'necessary' by just this 'realistic' mentality." -- John Byrne; ibid.)
(The millennium is just over twenty-four months away.)
(The people working for DC Comics like to eat on a regular basis.)
It is with an ember of hope yet ablaze in my heart; a small, insouciant smile at play on my lips; and all the sweet sincerity I can readily muster that I respond before the (hopeful) fact, in kind --
-- and no offense meant, of course --
"Bon voyage."
"The Operation Was a Miracle of Modern Science...": PAGE ONE
"The Operation Was a Miracle of Modern Science...": PAGE TWO
"The Operation Was a Miracle of Modern Science...": PAGE THREE
"The Operation Was a Miracle of Modern Science...": PAGE FIVE
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