Also, they’ve been milking the white-male-power fantasy teat for so long that they’ve driven away most of the other readers who just outgrew those kinds of ideas and went in search of more satisfying and edifying fare. So now when they experiment with better and more diverse content, there is no audience left to support it, so they go back to WMP fantasy. (For comparison – Rap music is black male power fantasy – note the similarities to the way it treats women and the ease of non-black artists to penetrate the genre)

This is the same problem that comic books have with minorities. I read a lot of comics as a kid, but should I ever have kids myself, what exactly would I want them to read in comic book stores? In the 80′s there was Milestone…now there’s what exactly? That is not to say that the only books I read had black characters in them, but there were a few. Now between the sexism, the faux-morality, and casual racism, why would I want my kids to read much of what is made in comics these days? There are of course some great books. There always are, but those would have to be selected on an individual basis.

So to Dave, I would say that they haven’t ‘forgotten’ how to get more readers, they just can’t. They can’t expand without an outcry. “What! Superman (the illegal alien born on another planet) doesn’t fight for the AMERICAN way!?! – That’s the liberal media agenda!!” or “Men are sexualized too, so it’s not sexist that wonderwoman fights half-naked!” or “Spiderman can’t be black!! This is Affirmative Action and Political Correctness run amok!”

This goes on and on…

So much so, that those of us who care about the content we ingest, tend to just leave rather than fight a losing battle. So sadly, my kids will read far less comics than I did as a kid. They’ll have real books in their bookshelves.

I really just have better things to do than fight over comics. As a customer, if a store doesn’t have what I want, I go elsewhere. If that store cares, then they’ll stock what I would buy, if they don’t then I wish them good luck on their journey.

SG

Are you saying that the analysis did not go beyond stating the obvious? (I don’t bother following links to other sites, I expect Mr McMillan to include all relevant information in his quotes.)

That’s the most idiotic response I’ve seen to the honest analysis of a problem in a while.

Of course this industry knows that more readers is better. They’ve just forgotten how to get more.

How would YOU attract readers?

Can’t believe the comics publishers did not already know that the more readers the better.

And if not, what does that say about fatherhood these days?