Copyright © 2023 Rick and Ruth Coy

This is my page to rant and rave about comics. Being a preson whose fondest memories of comics come from the Silver Age, I have a lot to say about the state of comics today.

The cost of comics were 10¢ and 12¢ when I was young and didn’t get to 25¢ until I got to college.  In college I could pick up 20 comics for $5.00, that same $5.00 today will not get you two comics. The price we could accept this, if you got the same thing you got for 25¢ back then which was one or two complete stories. (When I was younger you could get two or three stories for 12¢).  The comic companies had writers that knew how to write short stories. When I was young a three part story was one story in a single comic. Once in a while you would have a story that would be in TWO comics, much like the JLA/JSA yearly team-up, but the rest of the year the JLA would have one complete story per issue. Now a single story can cover more than a years worth of issues - and they can lead into a new story without a new beginning.  You no longer has readers, just fans and collectors.  Collectors after getting burned on new comics in the 90’s they stick to older issues so the comic companies don’t make money off of them.  And the fans get smaller and smaller every year

In both the Golden and Silver Ages most comics were bought by readers, not fans.  Some of those readers became fans. This is the only way to get new fans...get them as readers first.

DC and Marvel want to increase your readership? Divide your line into three groups. For example I will use DC. ACTION COMICS - two complete short stories every issue. SUPERMAN - one complete story every issue. ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN - three or four issue story arch. On the covers let it be known what it contains. Two stories, one story, or part of a story.  Run ads letting people know like they did for their reboot. New readers can pick up the complete story comics and get to know the hero's, and if they become a fan of the hero they might buy the third comic (they might not, because the price per story gets rather high).

DC has tried a reboot they called The New 52  The following was written shortly after they did”- I picked up Supergirl #1. I read it like I was a new reader and had no idea about the Supergirls of the past.  It made no sense at all, a lot of fighting, was she a good person or a bad one. And at the end this guy fly's up that looks sort of like superman, but it couldn’t be Superman because the costume is all wrong.  Any thing that would make you pick up the next issue? NO nothing. Bad writing, characters that look wrong...(Everyone knows what Superman looks like). No new fans for this comic. Will it get any old Supergirl fans? Maybe, but not me. “  

Since then they did another reboot called “Rebirth” – should have been called correcting a bad mistake – the rebirth mostly took things back to the way they were, including the numbering of both Action and Detective Comics. (come on, yea numbers ones grab people, but a number 1000 is something to be proud of – what were they thinking of starting Action and Detective at #1 ) Superman looks like Superman again. If only the movies and TV get his costume back to normal.  Most of this rant was written back around 2012 with this last little bit updated in 2021.  I still think comics need to change their format back to the way it was. It’s ok to have something that goes from issue to issue within the story – but we should have a story per issue. I picked up at Ollies a Silver Age World Finest vol.2.  It was great – yeah the stories are a little far out with pop SF of the age – but they are still entertaining. And isn’t that the idea – that they should be entertaining. With the so many Superhero movies coming out – it would be a great way to get more readers.  But you have to give them a story in one issue – they will not come back if they only get a chapter. Ollies is doing more for DC and Marvel than they are.  They are getting in older graphic novels and omnibuses for a fraction of what they sold for when the came out.  The World Finest omnibus was only $4.99 with a $20 price on the book.  Now this will get people reading again – but it will not help DC or Marvel bottom line if they can’t get people reading the new comics.