Interesting piece in Wednesday's Strib (yes, you have to register to see it %$#&^!) on the rebound at Marvel comics , fueled in large part by the recent string of successful movies based on their heroes.
After reorganizing in the wake of a 1996 bankruptcy, Marvel is at the top of the industry, followed by DC, Image, Dark Horse and countless independents. Recovering from a low point of barely 20 percent market share in 1999, Marvel's take has risen to about 40 percent.
In my younger days I was a Marvel guy so the news that Marvel is #1 warms my heart. But it's not just Marvel. The whole industry is enjoying a rebirth.
Partly because of the movies, comic sales are up 10 to 14 percent over last year.
I wonder how many times over the years people have written off the comic book industry only to be proven incorrect when it rises from the grave to reclaim a place in the popular culture. Now that kids have TV they won't read comics anymore. Now that kids have video games at home they won't read comics. Now that kids have computers and the internet they won't read comics anymore. Wrong wrong wrong.
I have very little interest in comic books these days. And it's not my lifelong dream to open my own comic book store and live the life of CBG. Besides I'm married.
Hibbert: My prognosis -- or is it diagnosis? Whichever. You need to avoid stress. What kind of work do you do?
CBG: I run a comic book store.
Hibbert: Oh, dear Lord! We call that profession, "the widow-maker." Or we would, if any of the proprietors were married.
And I know that this ground has already been well trod upon but when I was growing up you were either a Marvel reader or a DC reader. One or the other with very little crossover. Other than the intriguingly dark world of Batman I never understood the appeal of the DC comics. Well I guess I understood the appeal of Wonder Woman but that likely had much more to do with the positive association with Linda Carter's breasts than with good art or story telling.
The only other DC offering I can recall enjoying were the Weird War Tales. You know like the story of a German sub in the closing days of the war that is loaded with a coffin as cargo and ordered to make for Argentina. On the way crew members start dying mysteriously and finally the captain pries open the coffin to discover the Fuhrer. He's alive! And he's a vampire! The sinister supernatural and war. They knew the path to a young boys heart.
But, as I mentioned before, I was a Marvel man. Thor, Captain America (better without his annoying sidekick Bucky), Spider Man, and Iron Man were my favorites. I couldn't get into the hero/anti-hero types like the Submariner and the Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer switched from good to bad and back again more often than Hulk Hogan. Perhaps he was just misunderstood. Or maybe I already adopted my "simplistic" Bushian world view. You're either for us or again us. No half measures.
Same went for the Hulk. He'd go from saving an orphan from a burning building one minute to tossing cops around like rag dolls the next. Part of the pleasure of comic books for a kid is visualizing yourself as the hero. In the case of the Hulk I wanted no part of his life. Who would want so little control over your powers? One minute you're changing the tire on your car. The next you're flipping it over 'cause the lug nuts were rusty and you got pissed. Half an hour later you wake up in an alley shivering and shaking like you have the DTs, having no idea where your car is, and needing a new set of clothes (once again). No thanks.
What I find fascinating now is that when people write about their childhood comic preferences everyone acknowledges the Marvel/DC dichotomy yet nearly everyone claims to have been a Marvel loyalist. No one wants to cop to having had a preference for DC (excepting Seinfeld of course-Superman freak). And yet someone was buying the dreck that DC spit out in the 70's. Apparently since Marvel is now the "cool" comic it's just too embarrassing for people to admit that they favored DC.
It reminds me of the Members Only jacket mystery of the 80's. Today everyone says, "Yeah I remember all those dorks and their Member's Only jackets." But it's always someone else. No one I have ever spoken too admits to have been a member of the not so exclusive jacket sporting club. Well unless the MO crowd were all alien pods which have now been returned to the mother ship there are today, walking among us hundreds of thousands of people who once proudly donned their MO jackets. Fess up people. You were young and stupid. We understand.
One final comic book memory from my youth.
I was asked to feed our neighbor's cats and clean out their litter boxes (the cat's that is). Not a real fun job but when you're eleven money is tough to come by. On the first day of tending to my duties I found a carousel of books in the basement. Including some comic books. Apparently the people were selling them as a part time business out of their home.
Score! I'm going to be getting paid and I'm going to get to read comic books for free. Does it get any better?
I peruse the racks. Let's see what we got here. The Archies? Well definitely not my first choice but it's free so I guess I can't complain. Hmmmm.... The story line seems awfully bland even by Archie standards. What the!?! Oh no! Christian comics! They're all Christian comics!
For an eleven year old altar boy who went to Catholic school, was taught by nuns, and attended Mass at least twice a week (once at school, once on Sunday), I figured I already had plenty enough religion in my life without including it in my comics thank you very much.
Thankfully I still had a mint, unread Avengers comic waiting for me at home. Whew. That was close.
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