The Old Man Speaks of Funnybooks Beneath Gray Tuesday Skies

Yeah, I know, I know....

I think it’s interesting that the most lucrative fantasy films such as this year’s Avengers: Endgame are based upon a medium that’s already good as dead. We’re all familiar with “comic book movies” but comic books themselves are no longer sold in supermarket spinner racks. They’re sold in specialty stores that sell more Funko Pop! bobblehead dolls than actual books. In a nation of 325 million people the bestselling comics title can’t even come within shouting distance of one million units in sales. 

It’s been noted the bestselling titles now sell at levels that would have gotten them canceled in the 1980s heyday of direct sales comics. I laugh thinking of that infamous “Milkshake Crew” photo taken of the all-female Marvel Comics bullpen at behest of the female editor. The girls had taken over the boy’s old treehouse and were now mocking them for being irritated by the petty desecrations the girls were gleefully inflicting upon the place.

In memory of the House of Ideas, as built by Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Steve Ditko, Jim Steranko, Marv Wolfman, Berni Wrightson, et al. The big boys have moved on into legend. The little girls laugh as they color on the walls of a long-abandoned structure. 

It was supposed to be an insult. All it served to show is that comic books are nearing extinction as a medium. As a smarter blogger than me noted—albeit speaking in more general terms—once the girls start moving in and taking over, the smart money has already left the building. The clever boys have moved on to other treehouses while the boys sticking around to complain look foolish because, honestly, you see girls are all up in this stuff now, right? There’s nothing here for you. Walk on.

Yet the characters owned by Marvel Comics do well at the box office. Other movies based on other companies’ characters do well enough to keep getting made. All based on what amounts to cultural memories of characters from a medium that’s basically an intellectual property placeholder and tax write-off for the mega-corporations that own Marvel and DC Comics.

I suppose they’ll be calling them comic book movies long after comic books cease to exist entirely. It will be interesting to see if the superhero genre as motion picture fodder doesn’t end up fading away itself by the middle of the century. It would be worth living thirty more years to find out. I’m mostly curious to see what’s replacing all these relics of the 20th century that are slowly falling away from the culture like old, dead skin.

Blue skies on the horizon.