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The comic book industry isn’t just about the funny books and colorful long underwear anymore.  The recent reorganization of DC Comics into DC Entertainment; rival Marvel Entertainment being bought by Disney; the financial success of comic book themed movies; the growing influence of manga and anime on video games, popular culture, and American comic books:  each of these events shows that comic book characters still pack a powerful punch across media… even when, you can argue, that their source medium has been in decline for decades.

In my E-Mail interview with Mitch Joel, I asked him some questions about the comic book industry because:

• I knew that he has read comics books
• because he’s hip to what’s happening in business and media.

He wrote the following answer to this question:

(Do) you think that the comic book industry is missing opportunities to use their characters and concept in different media and different settings? I think there’s intellectual property that could be used for than just entertainment, but I think differently about that kind of thing than other people do.

Brand extensions are always smart, important and critical. I think they’ve been making the right moves in terms of movies, toys, games, etc… I’m not sure I see that many bigger options that they’re not entertaining. Most of the comic book publishers seem to really understand the entertainment business. You would think that less and less kids are reading comic books simply because they are on paper. I don’t know/have the research behind this, but I’d be hard-pressed to think that these publishers aren’t looking at what a comic book will look like in the next decade.

I’m a lifelong comic book fan and I’ve seen a lot of changes during the past three decades:

• Comic books virtually disappearing from most traditional magazine/newspaper markets to a specialized distribution network (e.g. comic book stores), with some penetration back into bookstores and a mere fraction of their original outlets during the past decade.
• The collectors market boom and bust, when people were paying ridiculous sums of money to collect multiple copies and variants of original issues (imagine seven or more different versions of the same comic book, just with different covers) until most people decided they weren’t going to do that any longer, leading to lots of inventory that will never be bought.
• The rise of a few smaller comic book publishers that have managed to permanently steal market share from the Big Two publishers (Marvel Entertainment and DC Entertainment, who you might compare to Coke and Pepsi in terms of market dominance).
• The increasing rise and dominance of video games, TV shows and, most recently, movie versions of comic book characters which have done extremely well at the box office.
• The devaluation of the individual comic book issue by publishing story arcs (usually spanning 4 – 6 issues of a comic book) in trade paperback format or by printing anthologies with 10 – 20 individual comics collected together.
• Ads in comic books disappearing, then occasionally reappearing.
• Comics aimed at pre-teens and teens virtually disappearing, reflecting an aging demographic of comic book readers.
• Price changes, inevitably upward (most mainstream comic books cost at least $2.99 US today, but cost about one-eighth of that price 30 years ago)
• Meanwhile, comic book characters and logos are used to sell toys, clothing, backpacks, books, magazines, and occasionally food and toiletry items.
• The consolidation and rise of comic book conventions (the 2009 San Diego Comic Con got a fair amount of coverage in social media last year – not sure that’s every happened before).
• High profile stars like Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., and Hugh Jackman (his portrayal of the anti-hero Wolverine essentially established him as a box office star) have been featured in various comic book movies, providing buzz and a bit more credibility.

I think that, overall, Mitch’s assessment is correct:  the comic book industry has proven itself to be shrewd, or at least survival minded, through diversification.  Even though the core product is in decline in terms of sales (individual comic books used to sell in the millions back in the 1930s – 1940s; today they rarely sell more than 100,000 copies per issue unless they are the most popular titles), there is so much other content and product that the core properties continue to survive and thrive.

Some comic book fans will scream in denial when I write this, but, in my opinion, the comic book industry continues to survive because the DC and Marvel characters are intellectual property, or products, that have been leveraged beyond the original source material.  If it was just about the comic books, the publishers would have gone out of business years ago.  Maybe they know something that other old media could learn from.

What do you think about this?  Have comic books lost their purity by expanding out to other kinds of products?  Is it too commercial now?  Do you even care about comic books?  Were you bitten by a radioactive spider in your teens?  Are you an alien from another planet with the ability to move mountains?  What does this have to do with social media?  Do you think obsession with comic books is a sign of Peter Pan syndrome?

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