Comic Books

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Comic Books

INDUSTRIAL CODES

NAICS: 51-1120 Periodical Publishing

SIC: 2721 Periodical Publishing

NAICS-Based Product Codes: 51-112031511, 51-112031541, 51-112031571, 51-112031601, 51-112031631, and 51-112031661

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

A comic book is a periodical that contains a series of panels in the form of a narrative. A typical comic book is 32 pages long (10 of these pages being advertisements) and is printed on glossy paper; the average price in 2006 in the United States was $3.20. Comic books are typically in color and feature a single story. They tend to focus on one primary character or a particular series of them. The story and art in comic books have become more sophisticated as the medium has regained the popularity it had in its early years. The origin of the term comic books refers to the earliest comic books, which featured reprints of comic strips that had originally been printed in the newspaper.

The comic industry is organized around a number of historical periods known as eras or ages. The first comic book period was the Victorian Age, lasting from 1828 to 1883, according to the Overstreet Price Guide. The first comic strips begin to appear about this time. Word balloons were almost never used in Victorian cartoons. When they were, it would be for single panel cartoons. Narrative, not dialogue, drove a story. Swiss cartoonist Rudolphe Töpffer combined a narrative with multiple panels to produce the 40 page The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck. The story was published in Europe in 1837, and then published in the United States in September 1842. Töpffer's works are often called picture stories, but the sophisticated use of narrative and art is seen as the blueprint for the modern comic.

Lasting from 1883 to 1938 was the The Platinum Age. Familiar characters such as Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie made their first appearances in the late 1920s. Palmer Cox published a strip about a group of men known as the Brownies. Cox's Brownies are thought to be the first successful commercialization of cartoon characters. The elf-like creations were used to sell many products, including pianos, dolls, puzzles, and soap. A collection of their strips was printed in 1877. Cartoonist Richard Felton Outcault created the Yellow Kid, the first continuing comic strip character. When Outcault switched newspapers and took the Yellow Kid to the New York World, many readers made the jump along with him. A collection of Yellow Kid strips was published in 1896, the first time a collection of strips was published in pulp magazine form (other collections had cardboard covers, for example).

Comic strip characters were popular with both children and adults. It was becoming clear that comics wielded economic clout. They could help drive newspaper sales and could be used to sell products. At the turn of the century there were hundreds of comic strip syndicates with comic strips to sell and they were eager to license the stars of these strips to the highest bidder. The advertising market—largely a visually based medium like comics—was growing. Most of the licensed merchandise sales in the United States at the time came from comic book characters. Many of the Brownie and Yellow Kid based products sold had not been properly merchandised. Outcault secured the rights to his next character: Buster Brown. The famous face of the Brown Shoe Company, introduced at the 1904 World Fair, was the first fully licensed and syndicated comic strip.

The Golden Age of comics began in the early 1930s. As stated, repackaged comic collections appeared on newsstands from time to time. Famous Funnies #1 was first published in July 1934. It is the first regularly published comic on newsstands and lasted for decades. The comic turned a profit within six months and by 1946 was selling half a million copies per issue. The repackaged collections were popular, but the comic syndicates charged high fees for the rights to their strips. Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson decided it would cost less to simply hire writers and artists to produce new material. He assembled a staff of artists and writers eager for work in the midst of the Depression and published New Fun Comics #1, the first comic with all original material in February 1935.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster got their start in comics on New Fun Comics #6 in October 1935. The two men had been friends since their boyhood when they bonded over a mutual love of science fiction. They created a story called The Reign of the Superman in 1933, with Siegel writing and Schuster doing the art. The Superman was a bald, telepathic villain (who bears a passing resemblance to Superman's arch enemy Lex Luthor). The pair later reimagined their character as a hero. They decided to feature the character in the comic strip rather than comic book format. After several rejections, the Superman story was published in Action Comics #1 in June 1938. Many cite this comic as a starting point for comic's Golden Age.

The Rise of Superheroes

The Superman story appeared with reprints of other comic strips. It featured a one page synopsis of Superman's voyage from his dying home planet to Earth. The complete Siegel and Schuster story would not actually be printed in its entirety until years later. The construction of the Superman myth was an ongoing process. The Daily Planet newspaper and Perry White would not appear until Superman #4 and Superman #7 in 1940. The first names of the Kents, the couple who find the infant Kal-El, changed several times in the 1940s. Kryptonite first appeared on the Superman radio show in 1943 and did not find its way into the comics until 1949.

Siegel and Schuster may have been inspired by a number of sources. They were certainly influenced by other heroes of the day such as Flash Gordon, Tarzan, and the Phantom. The first costumed hero made his initial appearance in February 1936. Indeed, some publishers initially turned down the story because of Superman's resemblance to a character known as The Gladiator. It is also believed Siegel and Schuster might have at least been acquainted with Nietschze's Superman, a being of superior intellect and abilities that would be above modern conventions. Superman has been seen as a Christ-figure, the powerful being that descends from the heavens to help Man. As a being from a distant land, Superman has also been seen as a symbol of the thousands of immigrants that were transforming the American landscape in the late 1930s.

The comic sold nearly one million copies, and was followed by the first appearance of Batman in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. Artist Bob Kane is credited with creating Batman (originally known as the Bat-Man). Kane did indeed create Batman's basic look. But writer Bill Finger helped Kane refine the character's look, suggesting changes to Batman's cowl and cape as well as suggesting pointy ears on the costume to make the character more bat-like. Finger wrote the initial Batman stories, and was responsible for the brooding tone of the character, as well as the naming and characterization of both Bruce Wayne and Robin.

Dr. William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman, the first real female superhero. She appeared for the first time in DC's All-Star Comics #8 in 1941. In the origin story, Wonder Woman is an Amazon princess who falls in love with army officer Steve Trevor after he crashes onto Paradise Island. Wonder Woman joins Trevor in the outside world to help fight the Nazis. She is armed only with her magic lasso, which compels anyone trapped within it to tell the truth (clearly inspired by the lie detector machine Marston helped invent). Wonder Woman's first appearance was DC's second best-selling comic title of the day. At one point she had a readership of 10 million.

Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman were soon joined by other DC heroes: The Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman. Timely Comics (soon to be Marvel Comics) published the first appearance of the Human Torch and the Submariner. Captain America first appeared in 1941. Other publishers offered their own superheroes. Readership grew during this period with the popularity of superhero comics. Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay in 1946 ushered in an era of detective stories with a harder edge. Will Eisner also first published The Spirit, the story of a masked crime fighter, as an insert in comic pages. The Spirit would later make his way into regular comic book form. Writers and artists continually cite Eisner's storytelling techniques as inspiration in their own work. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby went after the older female audience with romance comics.

Comics found their way, along with chocolate and cigarettes, into the care packages sent to the soldiers that went off to fight in World War II. Average monthly sales, according to Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked increased from 25 million in 1943 to 100 million in 1953. By the early 1950s, according to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, one in three periodicals sold in the United States was a comic book.

Comic Censorship

As comics soared in popularity, they drew the inevitable concern from parents and church groups. The medium had very little merit; the stories were simplistic and the art crude. A 1940 Chicago Daily News article characterized comic books as poisonous. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover vilified them as well in 1947. There are reports of mass comic book burnings from the period. Dr. Fredric Wertham was a respected psychiatrist and director of several New York psychiatric hospitals. Much of his work involved how an individual's psychological development was shaped by his environment and social background, which, in the 1940s, was a topic that was just being seriously explored. In interviews with a number of juvenile delinquents, he discovered that all the young men were avid comic readers (as, of course, were most teenagers). Wertham published numerous articles against comic books and held symposiums on the evils of comics. In 1954 he published The Seduction of the Innocent, in which he discussed the negative influence of comic books on youth.

Wertham dismissed the entire comic industry in his book, using the most salacious examples from popular crime and horror comics. Wertham offered a number of assertions in his book. He suggested a veiled homosexual relationship between Batman and Robin. He characterized Wonder Woman as a poor role model for girls because she advocated power and self-reliance. And her costume made her too sexually suggestive. Superman was a fascist (Wertham would compare him to Lee Harvey Oswald after the Kennedy assassination). The book is full of Wertham's opinions; it is noticeably short on real data. Some chapter titles indicate Wertham's less than scholarly approach: "I Want to Be a Sex Maniac," "Bumps and Bulges," and "The Devil's Allies."

Wertham lobbied for government involvement. Comics were examined in 1954 during the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. The committee found that comic publishers did indeed need to clean up their act. Comic publishers had been watching this controversy unfold, of course, and took steps to police themselves rather than risk government involvement. Publishers formed the Comics Code Authority (CCA). The CCA is an independent board that evaluates each comic; comics bore this stamp of approval for decades to come.

The Comics Code created a set of guidelines for publishers. Criminals could not be presented in a sympathetic light. Police officers and other authority figures could not be presented in any way that challenged their authority. No police officers could die at the hands of a criminal. The word "crime" could not appear on the cover, nor could the words "horror" or "terror" appear in a comic's title. Other guidelines were issued on costume design and advertising. Wertham, it should be noted, never endorsed the code.

Comics and the 1960s

Some publishers ceased publication and others cancelled titles. Meanwhile a new generation of children came of age unfamiliar with comics. DC offered fresh takes on its characters and interest in comics was renewed. This period of the late 1950s marks the start of the Silver Age. DC Comics would have its popular heroes join up to form the Justice Society of America. The new superheroes proved to be very popular. According to legend, the publisher of DC Comics shared this news with the publisher of Atlas Comics (soon to be Marvel) during one of their regular golf games. Atlas Comic's then publisher Martin Goodman asked writer Stan Lee to come up with a team of his own. Lee agreed, and with his frequent collaborator Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four. The comic was successful, and the company returned to some of its popular superheroes from the 1930s. Lee persuaded Goodman to change the company name to Marvel Comics after one of the company's early superhero comics. Marvel created many of the comic industry's most remembered heroes and villains during the 1960s: Daredevil, the Hulk, Ant Man, the Amazing Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Doctor Doom, Galactus, Dr. Strange, and the Silver Surfer.

The major publishers followed the CCA during the 1960s, occasionally side-stepping it in clever ways the way Hollywood films got around the Hayes Code in the 1930s. Meanwhile, underground comic books, known as comix became popular in San Francisco in the 1960s. These comix (the x was used to distinguish these products from their mainstream brethren) were small press or self-published titles that took on the Vietnam War, rock music, the establishment, drug culture and, of course, sex. Companies such as Rip Off Press, Last Gasp, Kitchen Sink, and Weirdom Publications all operated without the Comics Code seal of approval. The movement got its inspiration in part from Harvey Kurtzman, publisher of Mad magazine and numerous satirical titles. Zap Comix is the most famous title from this period but a few other titles suggest just how far away underground writers were from mainstream comics and the Comics Code: Amputee Love (1975), The New Adventures of Jesus (1969) and Slow Death (1968). R. Crumb is perhaps the most famous writer/artist from this movement. His figure from the cartoon Keep on Truckin (a big-footed man caught in mid-strut) was a highly iconic figure from the 1970s. The figure and slogan appeared on everything from T-shirts to truck mud flaps. He went on to create album covers and Fritz the Cat, which was made into the first X-rated animated feature in 1972. As mainstream publishers began to challenge the Comics Authority with their own stories, the underground movement faded around 1980.

The 1970s

The Bronze Age begins in 1970. In the 1970s readership declined as comics had to compete with video games and other new forms of entertainment for children's attention. Marvel began to gain the upper hand over DC and started outselling DC in 1972. There are several reasons for this. One factor was cost. The two companies engaged in a price war, with DC titles selling for $0.25 and Marvel titles for $0.20 at the end of 1971. As well, the characters Marvel created in the 1960s (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk) were gaining devoted fans. Marvel also went after popular licensed properties, producing comics based on Conan, Logan's Run, Micronauts, and Star Wars. Taking its cues from Dirty Harry and other films from the period, Marvel introduced anti-heroes such as Ghost Rider, Wolverine, and the Punisher. Marvel was also publishing shocking stories and unconventional art. In 1973 readers of Amazing Spider-Man were shocked when the Green Goblin murdered Peter Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy. The murder of an innocent character was something readers had never seen before.

The industry began to introduce more minority characters during this period. Marvel introduced its first African American hero, Luke Cage, in 1971. Shang-Chi (clearly a nod to Bruce Lee and Kung-Fu) first appeared in 1973. DC introduced Black Lightning in 1977. At Archie Comics, Archie, Betty, and Veronica became friends with African-Americans Chuck Clayton, his girlfriend Nancy, Latino Frankie Valdez and his girlfriend Maria Rodriquez.

In the early 1970s, many people drew attention to rising drug use in the country. The U.S. Congress passed the Controlled Substance Act in 1970, seen as the basis for the modern war on drugs. In 1971 President Nixon referred to drug abuse as "public enemy number one in the United States." That same year, the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare approached Stan Lee about writing a story about the dangers of drug use. Lee printed the story in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 (May-July 1971). The CCA refused to approve the story because of the drug references, but Marvel ran the issues without the CCA stamp. The story was well received, and the issues sold well without the CCA stamp. The CCA (fearing irrelevancy or finally getting the point) eased some of its policies later in 1971. Drug references were acceptable as long as they were shown in a negative way.

DC Comics was also exploring more socially relevant material. Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams had a memorable run on the Green Lantern/Green Arrow title in the early 1970s. The comic was near cancellation and the team took on the title with a sense of nothing to lose. The title took on the civil and social issues that were part of the overall culture of the day: racism, poverty, and the power of large corporations. Writer O'Neill has compared Green Lantern to the good cop who never questions authority; Green Arrow, in turn, a character reminiscent of Robin Hood, was a cross between that famous archer and the left-leaning activists of the day. The most memorable issues revealed the Green Arrow's ward Speedy to be addicted to heroin.

The 1980s

The Modern Age begins and carries on to the present day. The comic industry continued to go after more adult readers in the 1980s. Frank Miller took over Marvel's Daredevil comic in 1981, invigorating a minor character with dark stories and a naturalistic art style. Miller would offer a similar take on Batman in The Dark Night Returns in 1986. The story is set in the near future, with Batman pulled out of retirement to help fight crime in Gotham City, now overrun with crime and poverty. The dark, grisly tale is seen by many as the definitive take on the character, and was an inspiration for the first Batman film. Alan Miller released the limited series Watchmen the same year. The story details a group of past and present heroes who band together to solve the murder of one of their own. The story offers sharp characterizations, and also touches on the threats of nuclear war (a very real threat in this last decade of the Cold War) and Big Brother government. In 1989 the CCA modified the comics code. The new code allowed Marvel's Northstar to be the first openly gay superhero in 1992 (although Watchmen did have a few gay minor characters). A decade later Marvel developed its own rating system and now publishes without the CCA sticker (DC still does, however).

The growth of comic shops in the 1980s brought alternative titles to the attention of comics readers. Like comics from the underground period, alternative or independent comics are often written and drawn by one person. Harvey Pekar has published his autobiographical comic American Splendor since 1976, exploring the intimate details of his personal life and his job at a Veterans Administration (VA) hospital. Art Spiegelman's Maus told the story of Spiegelman's father's incarceration in a concentration camp. It won the Pulitzer Prize. Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth tells the story of three generations of men in the Corrigan family and explores issues of loneliness and family dysfunction.

The 1990s and Beyond

After the stock market crash of 1987, newspapers and financial journals began to report on an investment opportunity that appeared to be outside the volatility of the market. Comic books were seen as one area that offered attractive investment possibilities. Some comic books that had originally sold for pennies were selling in the 1990s for thousands of dollars. Most of the investment advisors touting comic books were responsible enough to note that these comics were from the Golden Age in which few copies have survived. Nonetheless, not all investors were careful to look for Golden Age comics or first editions of the #1 issue of a new comic strip.

Speculators moved into comic book stores and started snapping up copies, convinced the comics would appreciate in value. The major publishers responded to the increased demand with large print runs. Marvel famously resorted to gimmicks to keep sales going, releasing issues with different covers (rare covers would make the comic more valuable). X-Men #1 Vol. 2 is one of the most notorious examples of this trend; it was released with five different covers and had a print run of five million copies. Marvel and DC also flooded the market with action figures and similar merchandise. The industry pushed mylar bags and other products to protect a collector's comic book investment. DC then released its "Death of Superman" story (Superman #75) in 1992. The story generated national attention, and DC could not keep up with demand. Some comic stores had lines of customers; in Detroit, reportedly 175,000 copies of the comic were sold in one day. Many speculators expected to immediately sell the Superman comic at tidy profits. But the comic had a large print run; many copies existed, meaning the issues were worth only cover price. They soon found the other comics they had purchased could not be sold for high prices. The speculators left the market, and the comic industry collapsed. Sales fell from $850 million in 1993 to $265 million in 2000. The number of comic specialty stores (still a relatively new industry, it should be noted) fell from nearly 10,000 to 3,400 over the same period. Eleven of the twelve comic distributors shut their doors. Marvel filed for bankruptcy in 1996 after its too rapid expansion of Toy Biz, Panini, Fleer, SkyBox, and Heroes World Distributors. It continued to publish, however.

The success of the first X-Men film in 2000 helped stimulate interest in comics. Hollywood took notice of the film's box office, and recognized comics as good source material for films. Films starring Spider-Man, Batman, Superman and other comic characters followed the first X-Men film. The industry has seen sales increases in 2005 and 2006. The comic industry instituted a Free Comic Day each May to help lure young people to comic book stores.

MARKET

Comic books are sold through the direct market (comic stores) and mass market outlets. Comic book stores purchase most of their material for resale from Diamond Comics Distributors. These comic book stores typically do not have point of sale systems to track the sale of their products. What the local comic store purchases is non-returnable. In short, the industry tracks sales to the comic book store, not sales to the end user, and so this can make tracking actual comic sales difficult. Approximately 80 percent of comics are sold through the direct market. The balance of comics, graphic novels, and related materials are sold through retail chains. Bookscan tracks about three-quarters of this market. Historical data is even more difficult to track, and existing figures come from comic historians willing to assemble figures from old distributor reports. Clearly, figures in any study of the comic market are estimated, and any student of the industry may find contradictory figures in multiple sources.

According to a 1955 Senate report (part of the hearings on comic books and juvenile delinquency) comic book publishers were estimated to have been publishing 150 titles and generating annual revenues of $20 million in 1940. In 1950 there were 300 comic book titles being published with annual revenues of approximately $41 million. Average monthly circulation jumped from 17 million in 1940 to 68 million in 1953. In 1948 there were perhaps 400 comic publishers on the market.

The industry would slowly decline as it faced competition from television, movies, video games, and other entertainment. In the 1970s the industry struggled. Archie was the best-selling comic at this time, selling 500,000 copies. The growth of comic book stores in the 1980s helped save the industry. The speculator market also boosted the industry to amazing if unsustainable levels. In 1996 the industry saw monthly print runs of 120 million. After the market crash, the industry canceled titles and trimmed expenses. In 2006 a comic is considered successful with a print run of just over 100,000 copies. The Amazing Spider-Man, for example, which had a circulation of 234,290 monthly readers in 1995 had a circulation of only 112,564 readers in 2005. The overall comics market, including direct sales, newsstand sales, and trade paperback sales was worth between $475-550 million in 2006. The entire industry employed approximately 12,000 people, according to Matthew McCallister's Comics and Ideology. Figure 62 offers industry estimates of the annual sales in this industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Comics are popular outside the United States as well. Manga is immensely popular in Japan, and the art form has spread to the United States and other countries. While manga literally means amusing drawings in Japanese, the term is used to refer to all Japanese comics. The phenomenon began with the works of artist Tezuka Osamu, who created famous characters such as Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor Leo, and Princess Knight. He is also the artist behind the distinctive large eyes style of Japanese animation.

In 2004 total sales of manga in Japan reached ¥504.7 billion based on 1.38 billion publications. Manga represents 40 percent of book and magazine sales by one estimate. In the United States, sales of manga grew from $5 million in 2000 to nearly $200 million in 2005, according to Web site Icv2. In South Korea, comics and manga represent a quarter of all book sales, according to a Business-Week article. The comic market grew 12 percent in France in 2005, according to Syndicat National de l'Edition. The number of manga titles published in Europe jumped 45 percent to 754 in 2004, according to the Association des Journalistes et Critiques de Bandes Dessinées.

Comic Book Collecting

The first comic book conventions were held in the middle 1960s in Detroit, New York City, and San Diego. Comic book collecting as a legitimate industry took a major step forward in 2000. In 2000 the Comics Guaranty Corporation began to professionally grade comics, much like sports card and rare coin collectors get their collections professionally graded. Graders inspect the comic and then it is sealed in a hard plastic shell with the grade posted on it. A comic that goes through this process is described as being slabbed. With this process, a collector now knows the real value of the product he or she is purchasing. A graded book might rise in value from a few dollars to a few hundred.

KEY PRODUCERS/MANUFACTURERS

Two firms dominate the comic book publishing business in the United States. They are each profiled below, as are two other companies that are having a growing impact on the market in the 2000s. Figure 63 presents a picture of the market share picture of this industry by key players in 2006.

Marvel Comics

This publisher began as Timely Comics in 1939. Timely released Marvel Comics #1 in October 1939, featuring the Human Torch and the Submariner, ruler of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. The issue featuring these two heroes (still popular characters in the current Marvel universe) sold out the 80,000 copy print run. A second printing sold 800,000 copies. When the company returned to superhero comics in the 1960s, the company would rename itself after this best-selling title.

Stan Lee is the company's famous face, a writer and current Chairman Emeritus for Marvel. With his frequent collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko he created the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, and countless other supporting characters and villains. Lee wanted to bring a sense of realism and a psychological richness to comics. Science and atomic radiation figure into the origin story of many characters; in the 1960s; the country had only just entered its Atomic Age, and was uncertain about the possible ramifications of this new power source.

The first issue of the Fantastic Four appeared in November 1961, featuring Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the new Human Torch, and the Thing. The foursome received their powers after being bathed in cosmic rays during a space flight. There are some subtle politics in the story, for the rocket voyage was an effort to reach outer space before the Soviet Union (Yuri Gagarin was the first man to orbit the Earth in April 1961). Comic readers had never seen anything quite like this foursome. They were superheroes yet they had no secret identities. For several issues they had no costumes. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Sue Storm (Invisible Girl) were in love and would marry; yet Ben Grimm (the Thing) had once been in love with her. The team bickers constantly, and often seems on the verge of disbanding.

Lee and Kirby created the Incredible Hulk, who first appeared in May 1962. The first issue details how Dr. Bruce Banner is struck by gamma radiation and then transformed into the Hulk. Certain story elements changed in early issues. The Hulk was first gray, then he was green. Banner initially changed into the Hulk each night; later, Banner's rage was the trigger to the transformation. The image of a man with a monster within is a classic motif from literature, and the comic has gone on to explore this theme in many ways.

The team turned to Norse mythology to develop Thor, who appeared in August 1962. That same month Amazing Fantasy #15 was released, featuring the first appearance of Spider-Man. The series was about to be canceled, and this last issue was used as a showcase for the character initially dismissed by Lee's boss. Again, Lee broke standard comic conventions. Peter Parker was a teenager; teenagers were sidekicks, not the heroes on their own. Peter had a real life: dating problems, a sick aunt to care for, lost loved ones, and trouble paying rent. Spider-Man's own comic began in 1963 and the character is perhaps Marvel's most popular.

Iron Man first appeared in March 1963. The first X-Men comic appeared in September 1963. The X-Men are a team of mutants, which are people born with their super powers. Mutants are feared in society because of the abilities with which they were born. This idea of being born different and special (and to be feared for it) allows the comic to be seen as a veiled commentary on racism and homophobia.

DC Comics

This company began in 1935 as National Allied Publishing and was founded by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a former U.S. Army major and pulp magazine writer. Wheeler-Nicholson launched comic titles that featured original material instead of reprinted newspaper strips. One of the titles published was Detective Comics, which first appeared in 1937. By 1940 the letters DC began appearing on the company's comic covers. Readers would soon start referring to the company by these initials.

DC's characters are some of the most well-known in popular culture, including Superman, Batman, Robin, the Joker, Green Lantern, and Aquaman. DC created the first superhero team with the Justice Society of America; later, the Justice League of America was formed. The company controlled the superhero comic market in the 1950s and 1960s, then lost its number one position to Marvel. In the 1970s it competed with Marvel for leadership in the shrinking comic market. Both companies expanded too quickly; DC and Marvel published approximately 100 new titles between 1975 and 1978. DC launched 57 of these new titles. The expansion soon caught up with them and they canceled 31 titles in 1978. This event is known as the DC Implosion. The company restructured and recovered, and tried to tell more engaging, provocative stories. They went after new writers and artists, some of whom worked for Marvel.

DC publishes approximately 80 monthly comics and is highly involved in product merchandise. The company is owned by Warner Brothers. Other operations include comic imprints WildStorm and Vertigo, book imprint Paradox Press, and MAD magazine.

Dark Horse Comics

This company found success in part by the birth of the direct sales market in the 1980s. Some of the company's popular characters include Concrete, also known as Ron Lithgow, whose brain was transferred into his concrete body by aliens. The title has won several Eisner awards, one of the most prestigious awards in the comics industry. Dark Horse also publishes Hellboy, Sin City, Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dark Horse, like Image, shares more of its profit with creators.

In 1992 Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, and others were working on some of Marvel's top titles when they went of to start their own independent comic. The group created Image Comics. It is the most successful independent publishing venture to ever be launched from the comics industry. The small firm found success in part by new production techniques, such as digitizing its coloring process and raising page rates for creators. Marvel and DC would adopt a similar policy, paving the way for more creator owned titles. The company also found success by producing compelling titles, including McFarlane's Spawn. Spawn #1 is the best selling independent comic as of early 2007. It has a cover date of May 1992 and sold 1.7 million copies.

Manga

Two firms are gaining market share in the United States by publishing Manga comics, the fastest growing type of comics in the world. Tokyo Pop is one, founded in 1996 and VizMedia is the other.

MATERIALS & SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS

Comic book firms struggle to maximize profits. Some of this profit comes from a sensible approach to the manufacturing process. The production of a comic includes computers, inks, and adhesives. The major factor of course, is paper. It is unclear how much paper the industry consumes, but they have embraced some "green" elements in the production process.

Archie Comics was the first publisher to use soy inks and print on 100 percent-recycled paper in the 1990s. DC reports using soy ink on 90-95 percent of its titles. Dark Horse prints some of its line on recycled paper as well. Marvel does not make such production figures available.

Production materials are important but good comic books need good stories and good art. Good writing and good art are the keys to good comics. Comic books are often a collaborative effort, with a writer or writers working together to outline a story. Writers also collaborate closely with artists. The next step is the creation of a script. Comic scripts may be very specific, with descriptions about the number of panels per page and what should occur in each panel. Scripts from Marvel Comics tend to be much less structured, often not containing dialogue or complete breakdowns of panel by panel action. A lot of the pacing and panel content is left to the artists, also known as pencilers. The artist will then do some preliminary sketches to get a sense of how to best tell the story. Artists generally work on an 11×17 inch page. The best artists are those that can tell the story in a compelling way: a close-up on a character's face to find the story's emotional center, or an unusual angle to create dramatic tension. An artist typically spends six to seven hours on one page of the 22-page story he or she must produce.

The writer and penciler may collaborate on the sketches, refining the panel content or the flow of the story. An inker will then refine the drawings. The inker uses black ink to produce refined black outlines over the rough pencil lines. Inkers may also create shadows and black space to help create mood in a story. The letterer is responsible for the insertion of dialogue balloons. DC still has dialogue pasted onto the art boards; Marvel typically uses a computer for this process. Colorists colorize the black and white using Adobe Photoshop or some other digitized media; before the creation of such programs colorists used printing plates.

DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL

Until the 1970s, comics were sold through the newsstand market, which included drug stores, grocery stores, and toy stores. Magazine and book distributors could purchase comics directly from publishers on a fully returnable basis. Comic distribution changed in the 1970s with the creation of the direct market, or the local comic book shop.

Phil Seuling of East Coast Seagate and Bill and Steve Schanes of Pacific Comics approached comic stores about buying comics from them rather than periodical distribution firms. They would service comic stores directly, and offered financial deals not met by mainstream periodical distributors. Retailers could preorder comics and keep extra to sell in the store. New comics were offered at a 40 percent discount rather than the 20 percent offered by mainstream distributors. This allowed greater room for profit for the retailers.

The direct market owes some degree of debt to the underground comix movement, which had started only a few years before. Independent writers/artists such as Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb produced work explicitly for this direct market. The first 3,000 copies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984 offered more validation of the market. Marvel and DC moved into this market with some trepidation. Marvel released Dazzler #1 as a test case in 1981. Unavailable on newsstands, the comic sold 400,000 copies in the direct market. With the two major players on board, the direct market grew. There were 200 to 300 specialty comic shops in 1974; by 1980 this number had grown to 1,500 specialty stores. By 1993 there were approximately 9,000 such establishments in operation. After the market crash in the 1990s, fewer than 4,000 comic stores remain.

The direct market is credited with helping to save the comic industry in the seventies as readership sagged. It also proved to be a vital source of revenue for Marvel. The direct market was 6 percent of Marvel's gross sales in 1979, according to company and Mile High Comics estimates. By 1987 the figure was 70 percent.

Diamond Comics Distributors dominates the comic distribution market, with 85 percent of the global market in 2005. In the direct market, major comics publishers provide Diamond with a list of titles for which they solicit orders. These orders may not be returned, so the retailers must order wisely. Retailers place their orders with Diamond. The major publishers take the distributor orders and print enough copies off their comics or graphic novels to satisfy the orders. There may also be reorders in the rare case of a title selling out. Solicitations by the publishers begin three months before comics arrive in stores; retailers' orders are due roughly two months ahead of time. Comics are shipped to stores each Wednesday.

Melchior & Associates estimated that new comics represent 60 percent of market sales. There were approximately 2,500 specialty comics retailers. The top 700 stores placed most of the comic orders. There were another 1,000 to 1,500 stores that sold comics along with other merchandise (sports card and hobby stores, for example). These stores averaged sales of $70,000 to $100,000 annually.

The largest comics retail companies in North America have between six and eight stores with gross annual sales of between $2.2 and $3.5 million. No large chains exist for several reasons according to Melchior & Associates. Most storeowners lack the capital and business expertise for such an expansion. Problems with the industry include the typical store. Stores may be small, crowded and dimly lit. Some have argued that stores would benefit from becoming more user friendly: comfortable seating, and better lighting, and organization. Others feel this corporate approach might drive away the comic industry's major customers.

New comics can represent anywhere from 25 percent to 70 percent of a comic store's product mix, while graphic novels represent 5 to 15 percent. Games and other collectibles are also a part of the store's merchandise.

KEY USERS

Comic books are often seen as a product for children. But industry estimates show that the average comic book reader is a 28-year-old man who spends $1,300 to $1,500 per year on his hobby. There is a certain cycle at work here: writers tell sophisticated stories that appeal to adults. Adults keep buying comics, so publishers keep writing for them. Marvel has acknowledged the mistakes it made in the 1990s when it aged its heroes along with its readers. Spider-Man went from high school to college, got married and started a family—issues obviously beyond a young reader. Marvel estimates 70 percent of its readers are male, a figure about the same for DC. But 60 percent of Archie Comics readers are thought to be female.

Marvel and DC both started titles aimed directly at young readers. Marvel has found great success with its Ultimates line, which feature very contemporary takes on its classic characters (Spider-Man, for example, is back in high school). While the superhero genre is still dominated by male readers, girls and women do read them. In the manga category, readership may be as high as three-quarters female.

ADJACENT MARKETS

Comic characters have been licensed to sell products since the early days of comic books and strips. Marvel Entertainment was the sixth largest licensor of merchandise in 2006, according to Licensing Magazine. Each year the magazine ranks the top licensors based on global sales of licensed merchandise. Marvel generated an estimated $4.8 billion through its movies and other products; Disney was number one with $23 billion. Marvel plans to move beyond simply licensing products to actual film production to generate even greater revenues. Marvel beat out Major League Baseball and the National Football League on the list. Warner Brothers, the owner of DC Comics, generated $6 billion and was number three on the list. However, this figure includes revenues generated from non-comic book properties owned by the company as well, such as Harry Potter.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

With the rise of the Internet and the increased availability of broadband connections, various analysts have promised us a paperless society. It was once broadly assumed that documents would one day all be sent online; people would read their newspapers online rather than over their cup of coffee. While we are far from paperless, technology has certainly changed the way we shop, listen to music, and gather news information.

Technology is also changing how comic books are distributed. Some comics are solely available online. Top Cow announced in early 2007 that many of its titles would be available online. Marvel and DC offer a few titles for viewing on their Web sites. Some comic fans are waiting for comics to be downloadable, as songs and movies are on iTunes. Industry leaders have many issues to work out, such as just what the comic might look like on an iPod and how to properly compensate creators. The key to online downloading is the demand for such an option. The first steps have already been taken in Japan. According to Japanese research firm Impress R&D, Japanese consumers spent $20 million to watch manga on their handsets in 2006.

CURRENT TRENDS

Since their creation in the 1930s, comic books have used war as a dramatic device. Indeed, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America were off fighting Nazis before America entered World War II. Comic books were read by soldiers and used as instructional tools by the military. The comics from this period offer simple, moral visions of the world. There are two clear sides in a conflict—good guys and bad guys. Freedom is worth fighting for.

But as the conflicts in the world became more complex and in some cases ambiguous during the early 2000s, so too did comic book treatment of war. Comics began to face war and terrorism more directly. Spider-Man, who makes his home in New York City, visited the ruins of the World Trade Center in a special issue with an all-black cover. Writer Sid Jacobson, creator of Richie Rich, created a graphic novel version of the 9/11 Report. Jacobson describes his August 2006 work as graphic journalism. Archie Comics printed patriotic hymns and songs in the pages of its various titles.

Captain America, the symbol of American patriotism, made his comic debut in March 1941 (he was shown punching Hitler in the jaw on the cover of Captain America #1). The character has been popular since; more than 210 million Captain America comics have been sold worldwide. He played a major role in the Civil War miniseries Marvel launched at the end of 2006. In this miniseries, the government began requiring superheroes to register their services and secret identities. The registration polarized the superhero community, and the heroes found themselves falling into two camps. Iron Man led the group of heroes who favored the government regulation and control. Captain America led the group of heroes who opposed the government registration and control.

The story found much of its drama in Spider-Man, who initially sided with the pro-registration Iron Man. Iron Man persuaded Spider-Man that revealing his secret identity to the public would be a compelling way to persuade other masked heroes to register with the government. Spider-Man pulled off his mask and revealed himself to be Peter Parker at a press conference. Spider-Man would switch sides after he learned that Iron Man and the government were capturing heroes who refused to register and imprisoning them indefinitely in a secret prison.

The Civil War story played out as the United States neared the fourth anniversary of its invasion of Iraq. The parallels between the real life war and Marvel's story were clear. Many Americans fell into pro-war and anti-war groups as the war progressed, and the country could find no middle ground in the contentious debate. Indeed, the question posed on the cover of Civil War #1—Whose Side Are You On? could easily be asked by those who loved and loathed the Bush administration. The story touches on the need of the government to balance national security with the privacy of its citizens. The Superhero Registration Act feels very similar to the Patriot Act. The public debate in the story compares superheroes to weapons of mass destruction. The indefinite imprisonment of the superheroes deemed a threat by the government conjures up the image of Guantanamo, the Abu Ghrab scandal, America's secret prisons, and policies surrounding torture generally.

The grim story concludes with Captain America assassinated on his way to a courthouse to legally fight the registration act. The death of Captain America was covered in the media in March 2007, much as the death of Superman was reported on in 1992. Readers found rich symbolism in the story, in light of America's damaged reputation in the global community. Few characters in comics stay dead, however, and readers expect that Captain America will soon reappear.

TARGET MARKETS & SEGMENTATION

The comic book industry continues to try to gain more readers beyond its typical base of young men. Comic publishers are making a concerted effort to produce more titles to appeal to children. Many Baby Boomers remember learning to read with comics. Recognizing this, Marvel announced plans in early 2007 to release comics based on classic literature. As a visual medium comics remain useful teaching tools. Comics have been used in the military to educate soldiers on combat, personal health, and military policies. They have been also used as propaganda tools. UNICEF has used comics to teach children about land mines, AIDS, and sexual abuse. Cartoon and comic art have been shown in museum exhibitions. The first museum devoted solely to cartoon art opened in 1987 with an endowment from Peanuts creator Charles Schultz.