The Four Color Media Monitor

Entertainment Weekly wrote about what the state of the industry could look like following the Covid19 pandemic quarantine:

The coronavirus pandemic has inaugurated a time of chaos and change, for the comic book industry as much as anyone else. Comics culture is centered around specialty comic book stores, which acquire their products from the monopolistic Diamond Comics Distributors — so when Diamond announced back in March it would be shutting down operations as part of widespread government orders, the industry came to a screeching halt.

As pretentious as EW can be for a showbiz magazine, it's incredible they're willing to admit what's wrong with Diamond. Yet they don't comment what a shame it is almost no one ever tried to open a competing distributor. If that had happened, let's not think it wouldn't have been a success, or that it couldn't at least have given the industry an extension on life to keep from collapsing so quickly.

Two months later, things are starting to move again. As restrictions begin to ease across the country, many comic stores are open again for at least limited business. Yet it's hard to imagine that the comics industry will ever fully return to the way it was before the pandemic. The two biggest comics publishers, Marvel and DC, have shifted some of their planned upcoming comics to digital-only releases in a move that at least one comics retailer is taking as a sign that perhaps the single-issue format is not long for this world. Though surely the most recognized incarnation of comics, single issues have very slim profit margins and only limited usefulness; if customers don't pick up an issue within a week or two of its release, they likely never will.

The end of single issues would be a big change for comics, which begs the question of what other big changes might be on the way in the future. Though the past two months have been a trying time for everyone, they also highlighted the importance of alternative ideas for making comics and getting them into the hands of readers. EW interviewed multiple comics creators and publishers about their pandemic-era innovations.

Well how honest of them to admit what's long become apparent, and for years, nobody was interested in modifying. I guess the pandemic is what finally convinced them to acknowledge single issue pamphlets weren't viable in the long run. But what do these comics conceived during the Coronavirus pandemic, some of them digital format, consist of? Here's one example called "Youth":

Comixology is owned by Amazon and mostly functions as an iTunes equivalent for comics. Almost every comic put out by major and minor publishers is available there for a consistent price — typically $3-5 for individual issues and $10-15 for collections — along with periodic sales on select items. But Comixology isn't just a way to access material from DC, Marvel, Image, and the rest. The membership program Comixology Unlimited also grants access to their line of Comixology Originals, digital comics made exclusively for the site. Youth, the latest comic in the line, happened to make its debut earlier this month.

Written by Curt Pires and illustrated by Alex Diotto with colors by Dee Cunniffe, Youth is a new take on adolescent rebellion. It focuses on two queer teenagers in love, Frank and River, who decide to run away from their dead-end job and abusive stepdad. Their grand plans don't last long, however. When their stolen car runs out of gas, the boys find they don't have the money to refuel it, and things take a different direction. Frank and River team up with other rebellious youths and soon find themselves coming down with superpowers.

Youth isn't just radical in its content, however; the book is also innovating in its release format. Unlike most comics, but reminiscent of Ice Cream Man's Quarantine Comix, Youth has been releasing new issues on a weekly basis. The first arc is being described as "season 1," blurring the lines between comics and TV. Helping in that regard is the fact that Youth's TV adaptation is already being developed by Amazon Studios. In an era when TV is the dominant form of entertainment, perhaps the future of comics involves a similarly serialized model of storytelling.

“I pitched lots of places and everyone wanted to tell me how 'important' the book was, but no one wanted to put their money where their mouth was and invest in the book and our approach. No one except for Comixology,” Pires tells EW. “The accessibility of digital is a huge plus. Anyone with a Prime or Comixology Unlimited account can read this for free. That’s tearing down the walls between the readers and the story. It’s time comics moved into the future, and Comixology feels like they’re leading the pack in that regard.”

I think this is more like an admittance the story content and premise aren't very profitable at all. What's so "radical" by now about LGBT storytelling? It's all over the place these days, ditto the whole superpowers premise, hence it's grown old pretty fast. Yet there could be a bit of irony here. If the publishers the writer approached were run by leftists, that shows they're not very dedicated to LGBT propaganda at all, despite what they'd have you think.

At least EW's willing to admit the whole problem with Diamond. But judging from some of the content they're citing in the article, including one by the pretentious Jeff Lemire, that's why they aren't really telling us anything significant at all.

Labels: indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics, sales, technology