Post by Captain McKay on Nov 3, 2014 22:28:27 GMT -5
The comic industry is just fine. If anything, all of print media is being phased out slowly thanks to tablets, Kindle, digital downloads, etc. Border's and other booksellers have been losing out to online retailers for years now, this isn't a new thing. Brick and mortar book stores closing isn't a sign of books as a medium going away, since people are still buying actual books from online retailers like Amazon for cheaper than they'd find in actual stores.
The fact that comic books are on TV/Movies are proof that the industry is doing WELL, not abandoning the source medium for greener pastures, as was argued in this thread. My basis for this is that, while the TV series and movies exist, new comics STILL come out by the hundreds each and every month, featuring the same characters in new stories.
The fact that comic books aren't in every gas station anymore is more attributed to print media being more specialized. Why would a gas station sell comics when there's a comic shop five miles away that has the same things (and much more) to offer? Comics not being available in gas stations isn't necessarily a sign of their decline in popularity - the fact that comic book and specialty shops exist in the numbers they do proves the opposite.
Comic books in their physical form aren't going to be a thing of the past as long as people treat them as a collector's item. Same as old video games. Sure, you can download a Nintendo emulator and every game ever made for free. But if you're a Nintendo collector, that is totally meaningless because you want to have the physical game in your house on a shelf. Same thing applies to comics.
I'd be surprised if physical, printed comics ever go away. Like Stan Lee said, and I'll paraphrase, 'Comics are like breasts. You can look at them on a screen all you want, but there's nothing quite like having them in your hand.'
The fact that comic books are on TV/Movies are proof that the industry is doing WELL, not abandoning the source medium for greener pastures, as was argued in this thread. My basis for this is that, while the TV series and movies exist, new comics STILL come out by the hundreds each and every month, featuring the same characters in new stories.
The fact that comic books aren't in every gas station anymore is more attributed to print media being more specialized. Why would a gas station sell comics when there's a comic shop five miles away that has the same things (and much more) to offer? Comics not being available in gas stations isn't necessarily a sign of their decline in popularity - the fact that comic book and specialty shops exist in the numbers they do proves the opposite.
Comic books in their physical form aren't going to be a thing of the past as long as people treat them as a collector's item. Same as old video games. Sure, you can download a Nintendo emulator and every game ever made for free. But if you're a Nintendo collector, that is totally meaningless because you want to have the physical game in your house on a shelf. Same thing applies to comics.
I'd be surprised if physical, printed comics ever go away. Like Stan Lee said, and I'll paraphrase, 'Comics are like breasts. You can look at them on a screen all you want, but there's nothing quite like having them in your hand.'