BW Vs ICv2: Geek Culture’s Future

The title isn’t quite correct. This is an op-ed piece on ICv2 that we’re looking at, by Rob Salkowitz, not necessarily the opinions of the website. This makes a better versus title than “BW Vs. Rob Salkowitz”, though, doesn’t it? 😀

When a new year begins everyone usually gets all thinking about the previous year to prepare for the next year. Rob took that to geek culture, which seemed to have a boom in 2014. Superhero movies are on the rise, digital is finding its place in the marketing and purchasing world, there are conventions every week practically–it’s a good time to be a fan of fiction. Salkowitz, however, brings up four concerns that I would like to address, because some I agree with, and some I don’t.

Can publishers turn fans into readers? And how much do they really want to?

Lots of people have noted the gap between the crowds surging at conventions and movie theaters, and the relatively modest growth in the publishing side of comics. If you are a retailer or a traditional comics fan, this looks like a problem needing a solution. After all, what good are all these new fans if they don’t buy the cornerstone product on which the whole creative ecosystem is based?

Sometimes we have to face the fact that our favorite medium isn’t playing with everyone. There are people who don’t like books, including comics readers. Should we be disappointed that more people didn’t read Harry Potter after seeing the movie, or playing Resident Evil after seeing the movie? People do, but sometimes they’re happy with what they see. It would be nice if it led people to try comics but I never had any belief that people would try something new, nor that they wouldn’t.

But that is almost certainly not how the content owners see it. Putting out comics is a relatively costly and troublesome process with limited revenue potential relative to other ways of exploiting the intellectual property. A fan base that buys licensed merchandise and watches entertainment programming without needing a monthly fix of new art and story is probably considered a feature of the new comics economy, not a bug.

Somebody has to care somewhere. If the goal of maintaining comics is retaining IP rights it will be gone if there isn’t some new blood reading those comics. What they should be doing is promoting comics as a medium to as many demographics as possible and build their IP holding rights. But when even the comic companies themselves seem to be catering to a movie mentality instead of proving they’re just as good and diverse as novels, or other visual mediums that they’re being adapted to, they’ll see more money and a new avenue for financial gain. Marketing tends to think too short-term.

Are mainstream audiences as interested in “cinematic universes” as producers are?

With the unparalleled success of the Avengers franchise, universe-building is all the rage in Hollywood these days. And there’s a certain marketing logic to escalating from sequels, spinoffs and franchises to an entire interconnected matrix of transmedia content.

Is this really what audiences want? Comics fans have a nearly endless appetite for continuity. But comic fans from the 1970s through the 1990s, when sprawling interconnected storylines really took over the superhero publishing world, became a niche market for a reason.

What is this hatred for continuity lately? DC tossed their aside for the second time in 3 decades. I’ve heard rumblings that Marvel should throw its many years out the window in favor of what the movies are doing, which would turn everything into tie-in comics that may not always match the new source material. Instead of promoting comics, people keep looking down on them in favor of the movies, and I ask for the second time this week why is the live-action, feature-length movie the ultimate goal of everyone? It’s not even the oldest medium, and you can debate if it’s the superior one or not.

As for whether audiences are ready for a huge continuity movieverse, it already exists in smaller doses. The Star Wars universe, for example. James Bond has met enemies more than once. Aliens is a franchise. And I don’t think you need to have seen every Marvel movie to know what’s going on. I haven’t seen either Thor movie and have no plans to see the next one, and I only just saw Captain America: The First Avenger recently and I still have yet to see The Winter Soldier. I didn’t have trouble understanding the general idea of the Tessaract in The Avengers. (And as a comic fan I recognized it as the Cosmic Cube.) While the closing credits (and even now I wonder if everyone stays until the end of a Marvel Studios movie credits) hints at the next movie, that’s all it does. If someone didn’t want to see The Avengers they don’t need to.

Each movie is part of a different genre and only Iron Man has been close to a pure superhero story, and even then it’s as much science fiction as The Avengers was. The Hulk movie was more science horror to a small degree. The first Captain America movie was a war story that just happened to have a superhero in it. The continuity is rather ignorable and if something comes up they want to see, there’s home video, pap-per-view/on demand services, and TV (and Disney/Marvel still gets money from all of that one way or another) to get caught up. Again, continuity is not the threat. Terrible movies are. (Cue WB/DC joke.)

Is the current industry capable of producing a new franchise?

Despite the occasional big media success of creator-owned work like The Walking Dead, most of the comics-entertainment complex of the 2010s is built on the exploitation of corporate-owned IP. And can anyone name a marketable corporate-owned character developed after 1990?

I just posted one right up there. Static was created in the 90s and I’m sure if they followed the cartoon they could make a good movie. Movies like The Purge and The Woman In Black are getting sequels. Pixar has done as well with new creations as they have sequels. The Saw franchise is up to seven movies. Using existing properties is easier, but also limiting if they don’t want a fan backlash. (Admittedly they don’t seem to care.) The question isn’t whether the industry can create a new franchise but whether or not movie, TV, comic, and video game studios are willing to take the risk in this economy–or the public for that matter. A lot of good properties get lost because people don’t take a risk…and then complain that the same old thing is coming out every year.

It may come down to a section of the industry that is gaining ground thanks to the internet, the independents. With crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter or Patreon (BW has its own Patreon account, if you saw the top of the sidebar), people are able to get their fans to support their work, which would (if they’re smart) include promotion either through YouTube ads, forums (which are usually free if you know how to do it without ticking off the forum users and administrators), conventions or other tabling shows, or something like Project Wonderful to increase their fans and increase their numbers. There are publishing on demand services in both DVD and comic circles, and ways to distribute your video game through Steam and other services. Even toy markets are creating smaller, yet profitable avenues thanks to 3D printing.

These are people creating new IPs out of sheer love and an idea they want to see turned into a movie, program, comic, game, or toy, and embracing older format, like the serial in modern form or audio dramas. This may be the future of innovation since they aren’t as worried about shareholders who have no vision and only want to make money on their investments, who listen to the marketer and his or her chart that doesn’t highlight the flaws in statistics as your only source of tracking fan interest. Crowd-source investors believe in someone’s dream and want to invest in it in exchange for early and special rewards but also to see that vision come to life and hoping it was worth it. This may be the future of the storytelling industry if the major studios don’t wake up before it’s too late and take the occasional risk.

Can geek culture transcend nostalgia?

The Millennial generation (b. 1980-2000), is now the vital economic and creative center of pop culture. They have many positive attributes, including an embrace of diversity, eclectic tastes that encompass a broader range of styles and genres than just superheroes, and far greater gender parity. But they are not nostalgic in the way Boomers and GenXers were, don’t have the space or inclination to store physical media and don’t have disposable income to spend on collectables.

As Millennials continue their advance into both fan culture and the creative side of the industry – and Boomer influence recedes – the traditionalist and historical-minded aspects that made fan culture so cohesive and attractive in the past will start to look more and more old-fashioned. We’ve already seen those conflicts arise in the context of convention exhibitors.

Really? The only convention conflict I’ve seen lately are some creators who have issues with cosplayers blocking other fans from getting to their table to have their picture taken, with the extreme solution being “end cosplaying”. That’s stupid but what other conflicts have you seen?

I’ve never really been “nostalgic” because the things I’ve enjoyed have followed me from childhood in one form or another, and are just coming back thanks to home video–while also being ruined by movies and (to a lesser extent) TV. Boomers and GenXers are nostalgic because we’re old. Millenials are not old yet, and whatever label is following them are just finding things to be nostalgic about later. Also, things they grew up with are coming back much sooner, like the Ninja Turtles, or haven’t gone away, like Power Rangers. (And yet there is still nostalgia for the original Mighty Morphers.) The wave of nostalgia is like an ocean wave, it has peaks and valleys. We may be heading for a valley but at some point the Millenials will long for the version they knew as a kid and the wave will be fine for surfing childhood memories again. How nostalgic were the 90s?

But what do you guys think of these issues? Leave a comment about where you think geek culture, and it’s growing place among other societal cultures, will change in 2015 and beyond.