Quite a few folks who own a copy of Fantastic Four #1 responded to my public appeal. I think we have what we need and when this project gets closer to its publication date, I'll tell you what this was about. Thanks to all of you.
Last night, Turner Classic Movies ran The Hospital, the 1971 movie which starred George C. Scott and Diana Rigg…but really starred a killer script by Paddy Chayefsky. I meant to record it on my TiVo but forgot. I haven't seen it since it came out and I recall liking it a lot…so I wanted to see if I still did and I wanted to check something else out. The late/lovely June Foray told me that she was called in to do a fair amount of dubbing and looping on the film including a couple of lines for Diana Rigg. I wanted to see if I could recognize June at all in the film and especially impersonating Ms. Rigg, who was back in England and unavailable when dialogue replacement was needed. It's not a big thing but did anyone notice June?
My buddy Gerry Conway has written a lot of great comic books over the years and a lot of great other things. He recently penned an essay about what he thinks has to happen for the comic book industry to thrive or at least survive. The attention-grabbing headline says he wants them to "Cancel Every Existing Superhero Comic." Actually, he says he'd cancel 'em and reshape that genre as "a limited new line for a Middle-Grade readership" with simpler characters and storylines and…
Why am I summarizing it? You can read the whole thing in his own words here.
I don't disagree with any part of it unless Gerry thinks that (a) DC and Marvel are likely to try it, (b) that if they did try it, their sales forces would know how to begin reaching that yearned-for New Audience and (c) the companies would give this approach a fair shot at establishing itself before they panicked at the first sales figures, declared the whole thing a failure and went back to the old approach. And then if they behaved as folks running comic book companies have in the past, they'd (d) blame the writers and artists for giving them a non-commercial product, rather than their own inability to sell anything except what they're currently selling (not very well) and their hurry to surrender.
But Gerry's a smart guy. I don't think he believes (a) and he certainly knows how the rest of the story goes.
As long as I've been in comics, which is about the same amount of time as Gerry, I've heard endless discussions and panels and meetings about "reaching a new audience with different kinds of comics." The 2% of the time all that talk has led to an actual attempt, it's been half-assed…and you can kind of sense the sighs of relief when they get in some early numbers that justify saying, "Well, we tried and it didn't work so let's give up on this."
Also, no one is suggesting that if you put out different kinds of comics, the mere fact that they're different will in and of itself attract an audience. They have to be different and good…or at least different and compelling. Sometimes, it's like if you had a pizza business and I suggested you might be able to sell some other kind of food as well. Then you go and put Baked Gopher Guts in Hollandaise Sauce on the menu and when they don't sell, you say, "You were wrong. People only want pizza."