Comics – A Changing Medium
Who doesn’t know comic book characters like Spiderman, Wonder Woman or Snoopy? Especially since the recent boost in movie adaptations, their logos can be found everywhere, from clothing to accessories and children’s toys. Given that most of these characters originate from the US, one could assume that they have an even bigger influence on the American society. But is that really the case? To get a better understanding of the American attitude towards comics, every student in the Seminar “Confronting Contemporary Culture” was given the possibility to skype with an American university student. Even though, each student had a personal opinion on comics and their development, one main message became apparent: While reading comic books is certainly not as popular as it used to be, comic book characters are still playing a big cultural role.
Most of the students we interviewed said that they do not read superhero comic books, some of them implied it is because they think comic books are outdated. However, it could be argued that in some ways comic books are more progressive than the movies. For example, regarding representation, Marvel strives to feature more characters of diverse racial and ethnic background in their comic books to reflect the diversity of the American society. This includes PoC taking up the names and costumes of already established superheroes, like Miles Morales, an Afro-Hispanic teenager as the current Spiderman, or Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American Muslim girl as the current Ms. Marvel, as well as Riri Williams, a black teenager who took over the Iron Man storyline as Ironheart. Furthermore, they introduced new characters like Cindy Moon alias Silk, who is an Asian-American superheroine as well as relaunching established PoC superheroes like Black Panther, whose place of birth is even further examined in the spin-off “World of Wakanda”. Meanwhile, the Black Panther movie (2018) is the first Marvel film centered around a PoC superhero since the last Blade movie hit the theaters back in 2004. Also, there are only two movies that are female-centric: Elektra (2005) and the upcoming Captain Marvel (2019). Whereas there have been multiple movies about Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk; the Doctor Strange and Ant-Man movie; as well as two Spiderman reboots.
It is likely that this progression of comic books has gone unnoticed by people who are not that interested in them so their outdated image persists. Still, the reason comic books seem outdated appears to be less because of their content but rather because of the medium itself or as one girl jokingly put it: “Americans do not read.” The sales statistics, however, do not support this as the comic book industry in the U.S. has been steadily growing in the past years (Miller 2017). Although, this could also be due to increasing comic book prizes and the considerable proportion of digital comics and graphic novels (Miller 2017). Furthermore, there could be a generational difference as some of the students suggested that their parents’ generation is more interested in comic books.
So what can we make of the fact that comics seem to diffuse into other kinds of media, most notably movies? On one hand, one could argue that while the printed comic book is slowly dying out, movies provide a space for the characters and stories to live on in. By bringing them to the big screen, they give the characters a life outside the comics. This is, for example, what both Marvel and DC are doing right now. They established cinematic universes for their characters and stories that are based on, but not bound to the storylines of the comics. This division between the two media makes it possible for people who haven’t read the comics to get to know the characters and stories nonetheless. As many of our interviewees pointed out, movies are way easier to consume, especially since comic books are considered expensive in the US. Thus, other media are a welcome way to come in contact with the matter without having to catch up with the comics or invest a lot of money.
On the other hand, however, by reducing decades of stories and characters to a few movies, there is a lot that has to be left out in the process. Admittedly, superhero comics aren’t always a prime example of diversity and respectful portrayal, but their universes are a lot more diverse than the recent movie adaptations let us believe. There are many female superheroes, as well as non-white superheroes that never made it to the screen, or were only given small parts. For example, there currently are multiple standalone movies for most members of the “Avengers”. Yet for some reason, there still hasn’t been a Black Widow movie. The likelihood of the new characters like Riri Williams, Kamala Khan and Miles Morales appearing in the movies is relatively low as well. Considering the fact that a new Spiderman movie was released 2017, it seems almost surprising that they didn’t choose Morales as the protagonist, but went for Peter Parker again. Why is that so?
This is a question that cannot be answered entirely, since multiple factors are coming together in this issue. However, one important aspect surely is the audience. For a long time, comics and superhero movies had the image of being “for men only”, which resulted in the characters to be mainly male and the female characters being stereotyped. Now, people are used to see the characters played by their respective actors. For many, Robert Downey Jr. is Ironman, which makes the idea of some other actor playing another character taking over the role something they reject. From the film company’s point of view, introducing new characters might be too risky whereas sticking with the well-approved contents is usually a safe way to success. Still, with more people taking an interest through the movies and the Internet as an easy way to catch up without spending a lot of money and time, there might well be a chance that more characters will make it to the screen in the future. Who knows, the “Black Panther” movie could be the start into a more diverse Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Having heard everything said above, one might wonder how the future of comics might look like. Can comic books even stand up against the ever-growing presence of movies? Are they going to be replaced by the movies and merchandise products? Or is a revolution of comic books going to start a new era? The Skype interviews revealed several options of how the future of comics could possibly turn out.
A first one that was repeatedly mentioned are the webcomics. These are short digital comic strips featured online that are usually humorous and funny. Everyone who is using Facebook or other social media has probably seen one before as their popularity on social networks is increasing. However, they can not be compared with comic books. Their message is usually rather shallow and instead of telling an entire story, they are mostly just meant as a short amusement or sometimes as a thought-provoking insight. Nonetheless, it is likely that comics might become increasingly digitalized as media makes the transition to the web (Cacares et al., 2001). An alternative to webcomics could be online comics, meaning that instead of printing comics as books they are published online. This way, comics could still be published in their entity but on a more appealing medium for the adolescent digital natives.
Apart from the internet, adaptions to the comic book industry have already been made. One example are graphic novels. These serve to address a different audience beside youth comic geeks and are to be understood as a type of literature. They often focus on more serious topics and are more extended than a normal comic book. They were introduced in the 1970s and have been held in high esteem in the last years. As they reach out to adults and as a result a bigger audience, a wider range of topics can be covered (Groenewald et al., 2013).
To conclude, comics have recently been undergoing a big change. As digital media is becoming increasingly important, comic and superhero movies enjoy rising popularity. The storylines of comics are becoming more diverse and thereby, address a wider audience to make them more accessible. That is why, even though comic books are on the decline, comic book characters are still an omnipresent phenomenon. With all the options, how the comic industry might develop in the future, it will be interesting to see, where it will be heading…
Works Cited:
Casares, Juan et al. “Redesigning Traditional Media and Assessing Entertainment Value with Online Comics.” Human Computer Interaction Institute - Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. 2001.
Groenewald, Michael et al. “Graphic Novels”. 2013. http://www.graphic-novel.info/?cat=6. Last accessed 06.07.2016.
Miller, John Jackson. "Comics and graphic novel sales up 5% in 2016." Comichron: Industry-wide Comics and Graphic Novel Sales for 2016. John Jackson Miller, 12 July 2017. Web. 16 July 2017.
