Salkowitz - Comic-con and the business of pop culture : what the worlds wildest trade show can tell us about the future of entertainment

Copyright 2012 by Rob Salkowitz. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN 978-0-07-179702-3
MHID 0-07-179702-5

e-ISBN 978-0-07-179703-0
e-MHID 0-07-179703-3

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

For Eunice

INTRODUCTION

Y oure a futurist, and you love comicswhy dont you write a book about the future of comics?

Over the years, a lot of people have asked me that question, but this time it carried special weight, since it came from Denis Kitchen, the respected former comics publisher turned literary agent and a longtime personal friend.

It seemed like a casual suggestion, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a serious, even essential, project. Not only are comics a personal interest, but the industry and its current problems illustrate a theme that has been at the center of my work: how advances in digital technology, globalization, and changes in audience demographics are disrupting old business models. The tribulations of this one sliver of the pop culture world also exemplify the biggest challenge facing all creative enterprises in the twenty-first century: how to balance the trend toward consolidation and centralization in the business with the radical democratization of access toward creative tools, media, and audience engagement.

So I took up Deniss challenge and began the most intense and demanding project of my career so far: an effort not only to make sense of a complex and dynamic business when everything seems to be changing moment by moment, but also to bring my personal and professional interests together in a way that would appeal to business readers and comics fans alike.

The motives for undertaking this quixotic project are simple. Comics are fun. Ive loved them since I was a kid, and I have amassed quite a collection, along with a ridiculous amount of trivia knowledge that comes with the obsession. Writing about them barely seemed like work.

Comics as a medium solve a vexing problem of the information age. At a time when so many shiny things are competing for our attention and demanding our time, comics hit fast and hard. Their design is unique and compelling; the copy is brief; everything is there on the page in one view. Comics excel at telling certain kinds of stories that have proven especially durable and engrossing, but they are handy for delivering all sorts of content and information. They are a big part of the future of communications and a key ingredient in the twenty-first-century media mix, though they often escape our notice. Issues that are now being resolved within the small and insular comics industry will ripple through the global entertainment world and affect the way billions of people consume content.

And comics are big business. They sit at the crossroads of art and commerce. Their unique style and subject matter power Hollywood blockbusters and New York Times bestsellers. Scan the lists of all-time box office champions, all-time bestselling video games, top-rated TV shows, and best-trafficked blogs and websites. Comics are all over them. But as an industry, they face many of the problems of the twenty-first-century economy: how to mobilize a massive fan base with diverse and sometimes contradictory interests, how to negotiate the transition to digital distribution, and how to translate the magic they muster on the page to new and disparate media channels.

If any proof were required, just look at Comic-Con International San Diego (hereafter , with millions more following the proceedings online or through news reports.

My wife, Eunice, and I have been going down to San Diego since the late 1990s, first as attendees and then as part-time event staff. We dont wear costumes or speak Klingon, but we love the craziness, the spectacle, and the energy of so many people all in one place having the time of their lives. Weve seen Comic-Con mutate from a gathering of tribes into a pop culture singularity: an electrifying, exhausting convergence of comics, movies, TV, video games, fantasy art, fashion, toys, merchandise, and more.

In addition to being an entertainment spectacle and a complete madhouse, Comic-Con is a laboratory in which the global future of media is unspooling in real time. While I was attending the 2011 show, it occurred to me that there could be no better framework for discussing business issues affecting the multibillion-dollar entertainment industry; the various fields of publishing, technology, communications, and distribution; and the changing relationship between pop culture and the global audience than simply walking around Comic-Con and reporting on what I saw.

It turns out that this is an ideal time to shine a spotlight on these issues. The summer of 2011 will go down in history as peak geek: the moment when comics and nerd-based culture reached a point of total saturation. Characters in CBSs top-rated sitcom The Big Bang Theory proudly sport comics-themed gear, hang out at their local comics store, and banter about comics-oriented themes. DCs relaunch of its comics line in September 2011 created a buzz around superhero comics that brought new fans into the fold and jumpstarted the nascent digital channel. The announcements of new movies, TV shows, and web series with ties to comics and comics-based genres are ongoing. Graphic novels continue to win awards and flood the shelves of bookstores and libraries. As 2011 gave way to 2012, there was a palpable quickening on the technology front, with new long-anticipated breakthroughs and convergences occurring almost daily. Just about all the changes that industry watchers have been predicting for years seemed to be manifested simultaneously, while the past melted inexorably away.

Comics are the hamster running in the wheel at the center of this gigantic media contraption. Once despised as subliterate and corrupting, they now command the money and attention of some of the largest corporations on earth. But the hamster is sickand the symptoms are probably familiar to any content- or marketing-based business that is trying to succeed in the new media environment. Sales have been in free fall, but digital distribution risks cannibalizing the industrys retail channel. Piracy threatens the value of intellectual property assets. Consolidation is changing the traditional management structures: the biggest comic book publishers are tiny divisions of media conglomerates, while independents struggle to survive and wait for their properties to be optioned in other, more lucrative media formats.