Wired News has a pretty good, if general, Q&A with Scott McCloud about the current state of comics, the rise of manga, and the economics, and evolution, of webcomics:
Wired News: How are comics evolving in the 21st century?
Scott McCloud: Right now, the direction of the evolution is outward. There are three big changes going on: the influx of Japanese comics, which is resulting in a tremendous number of younger readers, especially younger females; graphic novels, which are expanding the literary ambitions of comics; and the webcomics explosion, which is the great wildcard in all this. There are a lot of mutations in that territory.
I’m about ready to identify a fourth (trend). There’s a new embryonic movement of all-ages, family-oriented comics from North America: books for tweeners and younger kids and mainstream fantasy books like Bone.
WN: A decade ago, comics were largely geared toward adults. Why did that change, and how is that transformation reflected today?
McCloud: It wasn’t that they were really geared toward adults. It was more that we lost the kids. The superhero fans were just getting older, and we woke up one day and realized the kids had all left. That’s why things likemanga are so encouraging: We’re starting to get the kids back.
Most of the interview, of course, is devoted to webcomics, but I think I’d like to read more of McCloud’s thoughts on the all-ages/YA market.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:48 am
So would I, and I’d almost be inclined to transpose webcomics and the all-ages trends. I feel like the movement towards ready availability of those kinds of young-reader and all-ages books seems to have gone beyond the embryonic stage, while McCloud’s assessment of the webcomics sector might be on the optimistic side.
I don’t doubt that it will catch up at some point, and there are certainly examples of successful web and web-to-print properties. But it just feels like there are more concrete, high-profile examples of major publishers with strategies in place to reach out to younger readers… Scholastic, HarperCollins and Tokyopop, etc.
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:48 am
With webcomics though, getting published in print or making money off the strip isn’t always as much as a priority as simply getting it out there (depending on the creator involved).
The primary appeal of webcomics to kids is that a large number are done BY kids (as well as tweens and teens). That sense of “I could do this too” and the community that springs up around people with similar tastes and skill sets is very appealing in a way that the big two’s “members only” nepotism just isn’t, especially to “younger folk”.
That said, I think we’re about 10 years shy of seeing what webcomics can really become once the current crop of creators either refine their ablities or drop out.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:16 am
WN: A decade ago, comics were largely geared toward adults. Why did that change, and how is that transformation reflected today?
one day
August 10th, 2010 at 5:39 am
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November 7th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
thank you job