The State of Creativity in Comics
It is hard not to wonder what is happening to the state of creative freedom in comics, particularly at Marvel and DC, especially in light of two pieces of news this week.
What news you ask?
Well first up, if you have missed it, Paul Jenkins very publicly stated in an open letter published through Comic Book Resources (CBR) which you can read in it’s entirety at CBR.
I’m going to remove myself from working for the foreseeable future with Marvel or DC, and I’ll be working exclusively from now on with BOOM! Studios. I’m finally going to make myself happy again in the process.
He goes on to point out something that I have been noticing as a reader and reviewer for a little while, and to be honest I had been hoping it was simply my imagination but when you have a writer of Jenkins background stating:
I feel that we are once again moving in the wrong direction, creatively. I’ve been down this road before, and it’s a road we can and should avoid. I don’t need to tell you what Greg Rucka and numerous other respected creators have already told you – that the Big Two have removed their focus away from the creators and towards the maintenance of the characters. I don’t blame Disney or Warner Brothers. After all, Avengers made a lot of money, didn’t it?
He doesn’t stop there as he goes on to say:
But honestly, the entire medium deserves more than we are currently giving it. So do the fans, the people who currently shell out four dollars for each comic that they buy. We have taken away the consequences of the stories we present to them, and I feel the mainstream product is becoming a homogenized puddle of “meh.” I have no desire to appeal to a reader’s indifference, nor be involved in a final product that I do not fully support.
There is much more that he states in his letter, so if you have not yet read it I suggest you read the letter in it’s entirety at the CBR site.
I wish Jenkins well and hope that he does find the creative freedom and collaboration that does so much to bring happiness to the creator. When the creators on a project truly enjoy what they are doing, they tend to create from the heart, it shows in the work. This in turn tends to translate to books that the readers enjoy.
The second piece of news was an article in the New York Times focusing upon Karen Berger, the former executive editor of the Vertigo imprint at DC Comics, who this past December shocked many by announcing her impending departure from a 30 year career at DC Comics. For an imprint that focused more on the unusual, non-mainstream type of books the observations made by Berger as well as Dan DiDio, co-publisher of DC Comics seem to reinforce some of what we have been seeing and hearing (and at least to me echo a bit of the message in Jenkins’ letter.)
Ms. Berger said she noted changes in DC’s priorities in recent years. “I’ve found that they’re really more focused on the company-owned characters,” she said. DC and its Disney-owned rival, Marvel, “are superhero companies owned by movie studios.”
Dan DiDio, the co-publisher of DC Comics, said there was “some truth” to these feelings of a shifting landscape, which he said were industrywide. For comics published by Vertigo and by DC, he said: “There’s not a challenge to be more profitable out of the gate. But there is a challenge to be more accepted out of the gate.”
Mr. DiDio said it would be “myopic” to believe “that servicing a very small slice of our audience is the way to go ahead.”
“That’s not what we’re in the business for,” he added. “We have to shoot for the stars with whatever we’re doing. Because what we’re trying to do is reach the biggest audience and be as successful as possible.”
While I agree they are in business and thus need to be as successful as possible, it does leave one wondering what the future will look like if they continue down a path that could lead to all the books being bland, boring and repetitive? What of creativity? What of telling stories that are crying out to be told, with either existing characters or new ones? If the focus is kept on what has worked in the past and thus staying safe and simply retelling the same story over and over with minor twists, why would the fans keep spending money to support these?
I will confess that I have been considering for a few months now dropping the books that have one of my favorite characters in them. Not because I no longer enjoy the character, but because the books have become, for lack of a better word, “meh.” Like most people I have a fixed amount of ‘disposable‘ income that can be spent on comics, movies etc. So if the books are becoming ‘meh‘ why would I keep buying them, when that same money can go to something exciting instead?
As with Jenkins’ letter, if you have not yet read the New York Times article, Comics’ Mother of ‘the Weird Stuff’ Is Moving On, I definitely recommend reading the full article.
And now for a parting thought…
Roughly twenty years ago we saw the rise of Image Comics when seven creators got tired of the status quo and walked away to set up a new future for comics. Perhaps we are starting to see a bit of history repeating itself as creators walk away from, what to many would be dream jobs, working on established superhero books, to go with what is still considered by many to be the “independents” as they search for the creative freedom to (imagine the audacity) …. CREATE!
