Highway 62

For one thing, the physical object that we call a comic book has undergone immense change since the 60s (though really the big changes started to happen in the 90s). Cheap newsprint, flimsy covers, STORY CONTINUED ON 2ND PAGE FOLLOWING, Bottom-feeder advertising (KIDS LOVE GRIT! and Hostess Fruit Pies!), and newsstand distribution all made for a very different comics world.

And you know what else was different? Bullpens for one thing. You know, whole floors of publishing houses taken over by freewheeling lunatics creating the comics that you loved every month. My understanding of them is sketchy at best, so anyone Who Was There is welcomed to correct me and put me in my place. But it seems to me that when you were in a publisher’s stable, there was a degree of loyalty in place (something that’s not nearly as much of an issue in the mainstream these days, with notable exceptions, mind you). The writers wrote, artists drew, and the lion’s share of them were based in New York, as these were the days before fax machines and FedEx, much less the Internet (which has allowed for distributed partnerships like nobody could imagine.)

And oh yeah, creators’ rights were basically unheard of until the 80s. Creators didn’t worry about whether or not they were going to get any bonuses for creating The Best Superhero Ever or their piece of the pie for the toy rights. No, I’m not saying that they do these days, either, but you have to admit that the big two aren’t really pushing for folks to create new characters. The publishers want the stuff that they already have the rights to to be the big movies, the big merchandise, the big face on the lunchbox. It’s in their best interest (and a lot less legal headache) for franchises they own to be those that catch fire.

This, in conjunction with the fact that companies depend on freelance talent (aside from the big names that they go to great lengths to secure for short-term contracts) creates conditions in which we’re going to see a lot more retreads and not see new characters being created. And who can blame them? As a creator, I’m not sure that I want to sign over rights to the stuff that I’m creating for a page rate. Nuh-uh. I can, however, see refining old characters or updating them for a mercenary wage.

I know, easy for me to say since I’m just a wannabe and not an actual bona fide Comics Creator. Dismiss me if you wish.

You’re not going to see too many memorable characters created in the mainstream now. There may be some awesome reinterpretations or recasting of old characters (Swamp Thing, The Losers, Challengers of the Unknown all come to mind on the DC side of things; and depending on who you talked to, Marvel was trying to make a business of Epic by means of a parade of recycled characters.) But I seriously doubt you’ll see characters that can stand the test of time coming out of the pages of the standard Big Two offerings. The last character that I can see fitting in with my own personal definition of this is Hellboy, and he was born out of a creator-ownership (at least partial) deal at Dark Horse. None of the Image characters really reach that plateau in my view. Sure, Spawn is something of a cottage industry (but that’s more for toys than the comics these days, well that and the odd headline at Newsarama.) Savage Dragon might, but it doesn’t seem to have grown past its relatively dedicated readership.

There isn’t really an impetus to create something new and stunning at the Big Two. Vertigo offers unique flashes of brilliance from time to time, but that’s always been a smaller market and one that doesn’t often cross out of its own readership. Marvel has a chance to do so with Icon, but the way things look, it’s a plum assignment that gets handed to particularly favored creators, and probably won’t draw too much new talent in to Marvel. I’d love to be wrong. I’d love it if Icon became a nucleus around which a creator-owned renaissance spawned at Marvel and made everyone involved fabulously wealthy and gave the execs there enough money to fill olympic-size-pools with benjamins.

I’m not, however, going to hold my breath on that count.

One thing that you’ll notice, at both Marvel and DC, is that if you’re going to be offered any kind of shot at even partial ownership of your ideas, you’re going to have to be a heavy hitter. There’s a couple of exceptions there, but very few. One of them that I can think of is Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra of Y: The Last Man. Other than that, it seems like only creators like Howard Chaykin and Grant Morrison and a few others rate ownership, partial or otherwise.

Seems like a recipe for disaster for me. Sure, great in the short term, as you get top-name talent on your books and once in a while they get to hold onto what they’ve created. I guess it works for them (and by that, I mean on both sides of the equation.) I suppose if the talent gets too uppity and demanding, the publishers can just tell them to go the Other Team. That’s been a long and hearty tradition for nearly the entire history of comics, and still gets play today.

The other problem with this arrangement is it works great, so long as you have a backlist of characters to work with. Of course, not every character you, as a franchise intellectual property holding company, hold is going to be worth taking a shot on. Let’s face it, demand for a Matter Eater Lad series/TV show/lunchpail is pretty freaking limited. Same for the Great Lakes Avengers. Ultimately (heh, I made a funny) only a few of these franchises are going to survive translation and be something that people want to actually track down and read.

Until then, the new stuff is only going to be found outside the Big Two. And there’s plenty of it worth tracking down (and more importantly, it needs your support.) Oh, you want suggestions? Haven’t you been paying attention?

The Goon
The Marquis
Invincible
The Walking Dead
Sleeper (technically a big two book, though, but still AWESOME)
DEMO
The Red Star
Scurvy Dogs

That’s just a few.

Sure, there will continue to be well-crafted superhero adventures (and a few other weird offerings) from the big two and their imprints, but until they concentrate on content creation instead of recreation again, the other publishers will have a huge opportunity to get readers. Assuming that potential readers even know they exist.

Sigh.

Next week, my San Diego survival guide. Written by a native, even!