Former Batman movie producer getting a doctorate degree

The Washington County News reports that Michael Uslan, one of the producers of the first Batman movie in 1989, is getting what they describe as the first doctorate in comics research. But there's plenty reason why what they're doing may be coming too late:

It’s a long overdue recognition for an industry that was derided and vilified for decades, says Uslan, who wrote about his comic obsession and its positive effect on his life in his memoir, The Boy Who Loved Batman (www.theboywholovedbatman.com).

“This will have a tremendously positive impact on the industry, the fans, the artists and writers,” he says. “With the recognition by academia of comic books as expressions of fine art, we’ll see more talented people going into the industry, and they will continue to innovate, refine and redefine this art form and the art of graphic story-telling.”

It may have a positive impact on the medium, but it won't have one on sales, and the irony is that, when you have terrible examples of storytelling like Identity Crisis, Avengers: Disassembled, Spider-Man's One More Day, Geoff Johns and Brian Bendis' alienating methods of storytelling clogging up the medium, overly political storylines, not to mention Dan DiDio, Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso's terrible approach to editing and publishing, it shouldn't be surprising if comics will still end up villified in much the same way as the movie industry is for similar reasons. There are more positive examples in the independent companies, but even there, some of the same problems the majors have exist too.

And as mentioned, there's the sales: when some comics begin to cost as much as 4 dollars, that's one more reason why fewer people will be encouraged to try out pamphlets, even if they do agree that the medium has an upside.