Of fandom and contribution.
Yesterday I was reading up on DC's Countdown series, a weekly serial riding the coattails of its highly successful 52 series about an untold year in its sprawling continuity. I found an interesting post on a fan message board continuing discussion about the production of Trek fan episodes:
But what DC has tapped into with its weekly comics is an increasing American appetite for serials (Heroes, Lost, 24) and an Internet-fueled urge to feed the need for fresh content. They have worked out a process that creates a project that takes chances, but comes out on time and gets fans into specialty stores that have struggled since the collector's market bottomed out in the 1990s.
Eventually, though, the company is either going to run out of buttons to push, falter to the books of the competition or, as the poster predicted, not be able to produce enough big, plot-heavy books to satiate its content hungry fan-base. And superhero readership is hungry and, as always, ornery whenever a story is told about their character that they don't agree with.
And while fanfiction and mass production is nothing new, when do we reach a point to where that content hunger and contribution media like Second Life and even Facebook get so big that fans control and contribute to the medium? How does a concept like that take off? And what would provoke a company that makes billions off a fistful of trademarked concepts to let those doors swing open?
I'd be more disappointed if they stopped taking risks. Everything is becoming more real-time, and with comic book universe RPGs on the horizon it's going to be more important to have people that understand what it means to have real time publishing be consistent with/not spoil/be in continuity with slower, monthly publications. I'm sure when that day comes comic book fans will begrudgingly say, "aw, another $8.95 a month on top of my comic book purchases" -- and those that do, to be rewarded.Comic books, as an industry, are subject to flawed scheduling. When you have a product that is scripted by a writer usually juggling many other books (or, increasingly, TV or movie projects) and then hand drawn (for the most part) by a highly-skilled but still highly-fallible human beings, it's hard to make sure each 22-page pamphlet gets out on time. Especially when the best artists are as slow as glaciers. It's one of the contributing factors as to why the market for collections and graphic novels has taken off in recent years.
I hope DC learns from Linden Labs' Second Life etc -- you don't have to soak your fans all at once, you give them a little bit, but give them the ability to make contributions to the vague new world/Brave New World we're starting to create, even with these messageboard posts.
But what DC has tapped into with its weekly comics is an increasing American appetite for serials (Heroes, Lost, 24) and an Internet-fueled urge to feed the need for fresh content. They have worked out a process that creates a project that takes chances, but comes out on time and gets fans into specialty stores that have struggled since the collector's market bottomed out in the 1990s.
Eventually, though, the company is either going to run out of buttons to push, falter to the books of the competition or, as the poster predicted, not be able to produce enough big, plot-heavy books to satiate its content hungry fan-base. And superhero readership is hungry and, as always, ornery whenever a story is told about their character that they don't agree with.
And while fanfiction and mass production is nothing new, when do we reach a point to where that content hunger and contribution media like Second Life and even Facebook get so big that fans control and contribute to the medium? How does a concept like that take off? And what would provoke a company that makes billions off a fistful of trademarked concepts to let those doors swing open?
Labels: Comics, Fanfiction
posted by Nick Beadle at 11:41 AM
1 Comments:
I've been very happy with the 52 series but I do agree that there does exist a danger in people demanding constant media stimulation. Just look at some of the internet based comics particularly Megatokyo which started out brilliant but ended up in the artist getting burned out and using lazier plot devices and later and later artwork.
Plus there';s the risk of overexposure. Just look at Marvel's utter failure to correctly balance the insane amount of characters they have. Marvel doesn't have nearly the continuity problems that DC does as Marvel's heroes have always existed in the same universe. However, Marvel simply tries to do too much so that you have 4 Spider-Man books, 5 X titles and large crossovers which always defy any sort of previous characterization and do huge things which end up having zero consequences (Disassembled, House of M, Decimation, Civil War).
Basically we live in a world where people wear out their F5 key refreshing Deadspin and Perez Hilton and any other blog they might read and have on-demand movie echnology, access to any song in the iTunes library instantly. It will be tough for ANY medium to meet those demands and we're going to have to see how it is handled. 52 should be recognized as lucky to end up with any quality publishing on a weekly schedule and no one should ever expect that to happed again.
Post a Comment
<< Home