Should readers care about the comics industry?

There's a compelling argument that, well, no we shouldn't - that the only people who should actually give a toss are the ones involved in it professionally.

Not surprisingly, I know a fair number of people who read comics. They're passionate about them, loving the artform and all the possibilities inherent in this medium. Their reading tastes are varied, from obscure self-published photocopied minicomics to big dumb superhero slugfests. And that's good. After all, a world where everyone read the same comics would be very boring indeed.

And these people are all in favour of diversity (yes, even the superhero fans - quiet at the back). Whatever their tastes in comics, they want to see the medium expand and mature. They want comics to thrive.

'What some see as apathy, I see as a sign of health.' But what do they do about this? Well, nothing. Hardly any of them are 'activists' in the sense that we understand it these days. They don't try to convert everyone they meet into becoming comic fans. They don't drop fliers promoting the medium all over town. They don't spend their own money helping promote the comic artform. Basically, other than buying the comics they like reading, they're not interested in 'activism' one bit.

(It's sometimes easy, especially when we're heavy Internet users, for us to forget that most people who read comics are like this.)

And you know what? More power to them.

I applaud their lack of caring. What some would see as apathy, I see as something that actually helps the industry's (and medium's) image. It's indicative of a healthy industry. And sometimes I wish that more people would literally care less.

Every day, those of us who frequent message boards and e-mail lists will see the same arguments and conversations crop up again and again. How Can I Improve My Comic Shop? Why Does Publisher X Suck? How Can We Persuade Creator Y To Do This With Character Z?

(Of course, it's not just online that we get conversations like this. But due to its community-orientated nature, the net sees more than its fair share - and by definition, the people who've made the effort to join online comics communities are a more dedicated breed of reader than most.)

'How many movie fans care about the mechanics of the movie industry?' Now I'm all for healthy debate, and interesting conversation. A good chinwag is its own reward. But all too often, these conversations turn into diatribes of 'How I think the industry should be run', or 'Why I think [insert creator here] should work on [insert comic here]'. Barely a day goes by without something like this cropping up on almost every message board or Usenet group, and it's starting to depress me.

It's indicative of an industry where the consumers are too close to those who actually run the business. A healthy relationship with your audience is one thing, but think for a minute how you'd feel if someone you'd never met turned up at your place of work and claimed they knew how to do your job better than you.

This is an old chestnut, but try to think of another industry which has to endure this, at all levels. How many people outside of indie filmmakers or die-hard fanatics, for example, actually know or care about the mechanics of the movie industry? Most people are more likely to care whether or not LORD OF THE RINGS is any good, or want to know if MEMENTO is out on DVD yet. Most media classify avid fans by how much of the medium they consume; how large their record collection is, how much their bookshelves strain under the weight of stacked-up paperbacks, whether or not they break a dinner date because they forgot to set their video recorder.

Not by how many pages of A4 they can fill with 'solutions' to 'fix' the system of, say, paperback novel distribution.

I can only guess at how frustrating it must be for comic publishers and creators to read something erroneous by one of these 'fixers', knowing damn well it's wrong but not being able to correct the error in public for one reason or another. And yet, this is the face we, as an audience, present to the world. One which implies that the people who run the industry are incapable of doing so without asking their readers for advice.

'The online community is only a small portion of the medium's audience.' Now, I'm not proposing the comic community should devolve into some bastard child of aintitcoolnews.com (though heaven knows a few message boards seem to be giving it their best go). I'm not suggesting ignorance is bliss. But a 'lack of caring' might work wonders for many aspects of comics.

It's good for the medium's image, for a start. It presents to the world the same signs as any other healthy entertainment industry; a state of affairs where the audience is primarily interested in the content, and arguments revolve around whether or not the last issue of COMIC X was any good rather than how lazy the [artist/writer/editor's dog] is.

It's a sign to ourselves, too. A sign that we're a medium that is diverse enough, with a good enough range of books and quality, to satisfy an audience no matter what their tastes. And in the present day, that's an argument that is very hard to refute.

Hard to swallow fact: The comic community on the net, large and vocal as it may be, is still only a small portion of the medium's entire audience. And what the people who actually make these decisions don't want to tell you is that it's them, and their businesses, that they're thinking of when they make what may seem to you and I a strange or foolish decision.

Seems obvious when you say it like that, doesn't it?

So sit back occasionally, and try to see how ridiculous we sometimes sound. And, especially, how silly we sound to people who are new to the medium. Think of it as activism in reverse; by concentrating on actually talking about the comics, rather than the industry, you'll be encouraging new readers to care about the content, and vote with their wallets.

Which is what most of us have been advocating all along.

Antony Johnston is the author of JULIUS, SPOOKED and THE LONG HAUL. His new ongoing series WASTELAND begins in July 2006.

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