Posted on 09/21/2010 5:56:35 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
[T]he Aug. 2010 comic sales were down 17 percent from one year earlier, the steepest year-over-year sales slide since the 19 percent drop in May 2009...Only time will tell if this is an aberration or the sign of a steepening slide for the sequential art industry....the most popular comic book in the country sold a little over 90,000 copies nationwide. That's a smaller circulation than many regional newspapers.
As many people know, comic books used to have sales figures in the millions. Even as late as 1996, an issue of X-men had a circulation more twice what it is now.
I'm sure there are many reason for the decline. Still, I have to wonder if the mainstream companies' strong pro-Obama, pro-liberal, bias isn't a contributing factor.
Since 2009, mainstream comic books, especially from industry leader Marvel, have gone out of their way to laud the president and attack his detractors. The company even went so far as to publish a story where Captain America all but declared the Tea Party to be a group of racists.
At any given time, approximately one-third to one-half of the country supports conservatives and/or republican policies. With this in mind, any sane business would have to stop and consideration whether alienating half their potential customer base is a good thing.
It's entirely possible that, as the bloom comes off the Obama rose, entertainment companies that continue to try and shove the president's policies down the throats of their audiences may see their fortunes fade just as quickly as those of the Democrat party.
I would love to see that. If you ever come across the issue number or a scan of it, let me know;-)
I know of former collectors who ended their collecting as the bias became worse and worse.
Found it, Uncanny X-Men 201. January 1986.
I only collect pre 1979 comics and the majority I have are pre 1970. The Bronze, silver and gold ages of comics. My pride is my Iron Man collection and “Tales of Suspense”, minus the first Iron Man appearance #31 and a handful of others.
Lots of good buys on EBay. But if you are selling, woe is be.
The guy who did the Spider-Man cover is gay (no joke).
Fer Chrissakes! I’ve known for decades that Jughead had to be gay!
Bring back, Bugs, Daffy, Mickey, Pogo, Lulu, Lone Ranger, Scrooge, etc, ad infinitum, and price them where YOUNG kids can develop a real love for the fun and the funnies. Today's tv cartoons are gross, ugly, politically correct, and lame. Let the kids see Wile E. and the Roadrunner, Casper and Wendy, Richie Rich, and the old, original Archie.
Gotta stop...makin' myself all sad here...
I agree with you vis a vis the old Warner Brothers cartoons, but we are talking about superhero comic BOOKS here, not animation.
Interesting...
Which is a pity in itself. Sad.
Back in the day I collected comics. I was quite a nerd. However, I remember what Stan Lee said many years ago: “We’re competing with the movies. They have better actors, but we have an unlimited special effects budget.”
Well, those days are over. Computer-generated effects can now outperform pencils and paper. The liberal bias of the comics has been there for quite a while, ever since Northstar from Alpha Flight came out of the closet in the mid-1980s, and even before that. We can certainly blame a lot of things on the progressive impulse, but the death of comics isn’t one of them.
LOL
Comic books?
Oh, you mean like Time and Newsweak.
Ye Gods! In that second pick Spidey looks more like the Red Skull than “your friendly neighborhood Spiderman”.
Yes, today’s comics have gone completely bonkers in favor of radical left, pro-gay, pro-lesbian, pro-Obama propaganda. Hope the artists enjoy their stay in the unemployment line.
Remember how cool it was when drawn by Todd McFarlane?
They wonder why sales are down ?
Terrible content & terrible art
Probably a contributing factor but I think that people who DON’T HAVE JOBS DON’T HAVE MONEY to spend on luxuries like comics.
A couple of years ago, I was disappointed to read how lefty-trendy (and sometimes openly homosexual) comic book artists were gloating among themselves at their having liberalized their strips and books to the point that they were becoming actual propaganda organs. I see now my pessimism was ill-founded.
I wonder how many of their remaining readership are diehard comic-book fans who are following their favorite characters while grinding molars together at the creators' political preachiness and bias? IOW, how much more of Dell's, etc., circulation is still at immediate risk because of their liberal/gay prating?
Second point: Popular culture, precisely because it comes from the People, is inherently Jeffersonian and therefore (in today's terms) conservative. For Marxianized artists to try to "get over" on the public is a fool's errand, in this reading, since they are trying to use their position as privileged talent in politicized enterprises to preach to the People and tell them things the People know aren't true.
Third point: Perhaps the cultural Marxists thought they could "corner" the public by monopolizing the medium, and bring them around by main force of eliminating alternative views. It seems instead that readers are willing to sacrifice a favorite pastime and reject the medium entire in order to escape the political hectoring.
This story needs to go wide.
The place to find innovative comics these days is on the internet, not the bookstore. That's where all the conservative comics are.
I remember boycotting them when the price hit $.25. I think I was 11 :-)
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