Ask some folks, and they might believe that comic books are dead. Those would be views that aren’t tapped into reality, unfortunately. The truth is, comic books are not only continuing to thrive, they are gaining market share. What surprises critics the most involves the fact that much of what represents the purchasable product still involves a paper publication.
In a day and age when much of what people read is now consumed through a computer or a mobile device, comic books stand out like an ill-conforming mohawk’ed teenager giving the digital world the middle finger.
A New Year & New Launch
The 2024 metrics continue to see new titles and collaborations already coming out, and the new year will also see the production of projects that have been underway and have now reached fruition as well.
One of those is a notable name Ghost Machine #1, being released by Image Comics, a well-known powerhouse 1990s upstart. Image has long been associated with seeking out and finding cutting-edge comic book titles, and Ghost Machine isn’t an exception to that strategy.
As a project that has brought together the talents of writer Brad Meltzer and industry experts like Geoff Johns in Ghost Machine, Image continues to find ways to move ahead versus being stagnant.
Digital Comics Do Exist
The idea that comic books are only paper isn’t true either. Digital comic books are doing quite well, and some titles have moved into the NFT world as well (non-fungible tokens) or are trying to cross into gaming.
They are traded and collected on secondary markets just like other visual art in crypto blockchain format. That avenue has been attractive to a great number of artists, as well as a lot of newcomers who don’t want to be tied down to a company and would rather be in full control of the art release and community. With the traditional publishing architecture out of the way, many upstart authors and artists are producing products online that would never have seen the light of day otherwise.
The same also brings in a greater amount of diversity. Let’s face facts; the characters produced by Marvel and DC for decades were essentially uber-maxed out muscley Caucasians with very little in the way of anything else, unless a cyborg or an alien.
By the 2000s the comic book world would have gotten a bit more varied. Spawn tried with an African-American main character, but even that in the 1990s was covered up as a burn victim first; it was not quite out there directly as Black Panther became in the movies later on.
Lots to Look Forward To
Ghost Machine and other new titles offer a lot to anticipate. The industry should approach these new projects as the wave of comic book evolution. After all, that’s why it has survived for so long already.
