Are comic book fans privileged?

[shadowkat]

So, I found this blog post on my DW friends feed, and am curious as to how fellow comic fans would view it. The individual who posted it isn't a fan of comics, just the MCU films and games.

Comic Books Incorporated- Interview with Shawna Kidman

Shawna Kidman has written a book on "How the Business of Comics Became the Business of Hollywood". She's used to work in the comic book industry (specifically DC) and currently teaches media studies at the University Level.


My first encounter with comic books was as a worker, not as an academic, and not as a fan. Part of why DC Comics hired me was actually because I didn’t fit the profile of most of their job applicants; I wasn’t steeped in comic book culture and I didn’t have a typical fanboy/fangirl perspective. But I did have a media background—I’d had jobs in film development and film financing during and after college. That helped me to understand the Hollywood folk the company was interacting with, and that’s really what DC needed around 2005 when it was trying to improve its west coast presence. During the few years I was there, first as an assistant and later as a creative executive, I got a crash course in comics and read a ton. I spent a lot of time with editors, met a lot of writers and artists—it was amazing. But I learned more about the business side, since that was what got me the most excited.

I think this separates me from a lot of scholars in this space, who are drawn to comic books because they love the medium. It was the dynamism of the industry that I loved.


You discuss comics fans as “privileged,” which would seem to be the exact opposite of John Tulloch’s concept of television fans as a “powerless elite.” In what sense are comics fans privileged and how is their influence felt within the comics industry?

Yes, this is definitely true. I believe that comic book fans are privileged in many ways, so much so that I don’t really consider them to be a subculture at all. I’ll stick to just two points though, which I think most directly address Tulloch’s argument. First, comic book fans are very well represented in the film and television industry, disproportionately so. Comic book publishers estimate the comic-book-reading audience in the US at two million people, or less than 1% of the population. Now if you spend any time in Hollywood, you quickly realize that way more than 1% of the people are reading comic books. Sure, some of them are just looking for source material, and some of them may be overstating their reading habits, but even so, it’s an extremely well-regarded medium within that creative community. This is even more true when you look at the upper echelons of the entertainment business. A huge portion of the guys who have been dominating Hollywood for the last thirty years are lifelong comic book fans. Now this may be for good reason—comic book reading could theoretically improve creative thinking and thus statistically increase the likelihood of someone ending up with a career in media. Regardless, I think you would be incredibly hard pressed to argue that comic book fans are a population that lack access to cultural production or decision making.

Second, even comic book fans who are just fans—who have no role in the media business and don’t desire any—get a kind of preferential treatment in Hollywood that is, again, disproportionate with the community’s actual size. By this, I mean that media gatekeepers typically take the opinions of comic book fans more seriously than they do those of other interest groups or cultural communities. There are many reasons for this. For starters, comic book fans often fall into what some consider the “right” demographics—young, male, white, educated—so advertisers are willing to pay more for them. Many comic book fans have also been early adopters of technology. So a fan presence was established early on the web and remains highly visible. This is one of the reasons Hollywood flocked to San Diego Comic-Con in the early 2000s—they wanted online fan support (this has changed a bit in recent years, but that’s a discussion for another day).

Of course, comic book fans are not all-powerful and they are not one thing—this is a heterogeneous constituency that is sometimes heard, sometimes not. But if you identify as a comic book fan, you are generally far more likely to be catered to by mainstream media producers, and your criticisms are far more likely to be heard, than would be the case if, say, you identified as a hip-hop fan or a reader of romance novels. Relatively speaking, comic book fans are among the most powerful consumers of media out there. Which is part of why comic book adaptations are so incredibly prevalent across film, television, and gaming.

Thoughts? Because with over twenty some years of reading comics that's not been my experience at all. Also, I don't think she's broadly read in comics or knows that much about the comic fandom.

What do you think?

Comments

[lordultimus]

I won't say that fan entitlement isn't a thing, but it's kind of hard to think of comics fans as priviliged when every week we're here griping about what the editors are doing to our favorite characters.

[shadowkat]

LOL!

Also, when you consider how long it took to get a good Marvel movie -- I mean Marvel was doing comics in the 1960s, we didn't get a good Marvel movie until roughly the 21st Century.

And, it's telling that the woman is not a fan of the medium and hasn't really read any comics outside of DC. Her experience with the fandom is San Diego Comic Con.

[zachbeacon]

Don't mind me, I'm just thinking about all the times TV executives brought back failed properties because fans whined about it on the internet.

[shadowkat]

LOL!

Well, it does depend on the fandom. Angel did not get brought back when fans whined. Also may be depend on the network.

It was harder to bring back series in the 20th Century than it is now. Why? We have over 2000 distribution channels. If one distributor drops it -- it's not that hard to get someone else to pick it up. (See The Expanse and Lucifer as examples). All you need is enough fans, and enough interest on the distributors side.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we live in an age where you can pretty much write, film, or create any piece of art and distribute it to millions of people instantly. But this is true of anything.

[junipepper]

Not always a bad thing. Star Trek TOS was brought back for a third season because of a successful letter-writing campaign. This was literally before the Internet existed. It made all the difference in the world, because if there had been only two seasons instead of three it would never have been picked up for syndication, which is where it found its larger audience—and the rest is history.

[janegray]

I mean, in general, I think she is right. These days, the biggest issue in general comic fandom is which acclaimed Hollywood actors are going to play our favourite characters in mainstream movies with a budget of 100-300 millions. Merch has been completely normalised, and nerds are almost always the heroes in fiction.

It's been a good ten years since being a nerd, in and of itself, would get you bullied. For all intents and purposes, we comic book fans, as a general category, have won.

Of course, once you dig deeper, you see a ton of issues with racism and sexism. Idiots who cry that Black Panter is a hate crime and Captain Marvel stole their lunch money. It took ten goddamn years for Black Widow to get a movie because the guy in charge was convinced nobody would watch a female hero.

But, overall, comic book fans do have it a lot better than other categories.

[mazway_75]

If you want a good contrast, just look at video game fans complaining on how you can count on one hand the number of decent (not even good, just decent) movies based on video games have been made as Hollywood constantly treats that huge culture with disrespect.

[shadowkat]

IDK -- I've been bullied most of my life for being a comics nerd. Although less now than previously.

Also she's not really looking beyond the Marvel films, nor is she looking at the fact that we have a situation now that is unprecedented in history -- which is there are more movies released each year and distributed than any one person can possibly see. Same with television series and books. And in every genre imaginable. Which is partly why we have the Marvel films, well that and Disney bought the franchise -- before Disney, it was hard to get many made. And comics fans didn't have much say in it. We still don't.

Granted the Marvel films made the most, but not all superhero flicks do. Some lose millions.

And it's been a rather recent development.

[shadowkat]

Of course, once you dig deeper, you see a ton of issues with racism and sexism. Idiots who cry that Black Panther is a hate crime and Captain Marvel stole their lunch money. It took ten goddamn years for Black Widow to get a movie because the guy in charge was convinced nobody would watch a female hero.

Not to mention LGBTQA -- we've finally got a heroine that is a lesbian (points to icon). But she doesn't have a prominent role as yet, and that's been underplayed.

While Black Panther scored higher than just about any other superhero flick at the box office and got nominations -- it's not getting a sequel until 2021 or later.

And Black Widow is getting a movie after they killed her off.

Plus, look at DC, which keeps remaking Batman movies and Superman movies, and Joker...but has only one Wonder Woman film, and no films on any of the other female heroines. It wasn't until recently that we got Supergirl, Batwoman (this year), and White Canary leading DC Legends of Tomorrow. Mostly it was Batman, Superman, and the Flash.

While the comics are far more diverse than the movies are.

[sara]

She's making good points. Nerds and geeks used to be oppressed; we grew up and took over. Now we're really no better or worse than any other dominant group.

[shadowkat]

IDK. Most of the fans of the films aren't comic fans.
And she's ignoring other reasons Hollywood is doing those films, such as the fact that comics lend themselves to film -- you already have a storyboard. And a script. It's not that hard to adapt. It's actually a whole lot easier than a book or play. The only thing that held them back was technology.

And, the material is still tweaked to appeal to the broader mainstream audience, it's not kept intact to appeal to us. Fans were upset at how they changed Captain Marvel. Also in Stumptown, the lead character isn't shown as bisexual but heterosexual (unless that changes).

I think she's ignoring a lot of crucial bits here to make a point. Such as the fact that we have over 1000 television series and films released, that Hollywood is no longer the main game in town, and that the other films are doing just as well and getting as much attention.

Also if you look at streaming -- there really isn't more comic book related series than romance and others.

Or that the people Hollywood is catering to aren't necessarily comic fans, but fans of the movies and superhero action, science fiction, and fantasy films and shows. Not the same. Just as an "anime" fan isn't necessarily the same thing as a "comic fan". Think about it -- I know more fans of the movies than of the comic books.

[alicemacher]

I don't think Kidman realizes just how recent this "catering to" comic book fans by "mainstream media producers" really is. Sure, as early as the 1940s there were Superman animated shorts, as well as Superman and Batman live-action serials, in theatres. But there wouldn't be a full-length, big-budget, non-parodic (the latter two categories thus excluding the 1966 Batman film tie-in with the TV show) comic book superhero film until 1978's Superman. And even then, such films would appear three years or more apart -- and much longer than even that when a particularly bad sequel (Superman IV, Batman & Robin) killed interest in a franchise. Then there were films that didn't even get to be a franchise because they flopped so badly (1984's Supergirl, 2004's Catwoman). Not until the MCU's launch in 2008 -- three decades after Superman -- and the DCEU's in 2013 would comic-book based films appear on a yearly or even biennial basis.

Much the same goes for live-action TV. (Sure, from the late 60s onward there was nearly always some superhero animated series on the air, but until 1992's Batman: The Animated Series these were pretty much all limited-animation, poorly-written "tiny tot" shows which today we enjoy ironically at best.) The 1950s Superman series, the 1960s Batman the 1970s Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk, and -- what else? Apart from a few subsequent flops like 2002's Birds of Prey, not much until today's constant output of Marvel and DC shows, many of them possible thanks to streaming services, either Netflix or the parent company's own.

In sum: Kidman's claim is correct only for the current decade. Before that, mainstream media comic-book adaptations were more of an occasional treat than an ongoing "catering" to comic fans.

[shadowkat]

Thank you.

I was thinking much the same thing. I mean when I started reading comics in the 1980s, it was an art form that was highly stigmatized and outside of the ones you mentioned, no films or television series that people took seriously. The Superman films for the most part, were rather campy -- and focused more on humor and romance. It wasn't until Tim Burton's Batman, that we got a pseudo-series film, and even those were rather campy. No -- we had to wait until 2000 for the first X-men film and Batman Begins was in 2005. Spiderman was also in 2001 or thereabouts.

The X-men didn't get anything until roughly the 1990s, and it was an animated series. The film franchise started in 2000.

It really wasn't until the 21st century that comics got popular and that's over 60 years since their inception.

And part of the reason they took off in the 21st Century is technological advancements, and increase on the variety of distribution channels. We didn't get good Marvel series or DC series until Cable and Streaming services took off. If it weren't for Netflix -- it's highly unlikely we'd have Daredevil or the other shows. And Disney Plus is the only reason we're getting all the Marvel comic characters.

She doesn't appear to be taking this into consideration. Also, she's wrong about romance. Romance sells more than comics does, and there are a lot of comic properties that are "Romance" and have been turned into films (in Japan and elsewhere).

[mindsweeper]

The biggest difference I see is the need for video content. It’s massive now. Comics are a huge and unique repository of storyboards that can be transformed into that content. The cost of effects is comparatively lower than it was and the quality is higher. Even obscure comics are being licensed now as intellectual property. For example, Umbrella Academy was hugely successful on Netflix.

So there’s a ton of comic book content being created, which I think naturally puts fans in a good position as fans, but I don’t know if that translates into power or real influence. I still see a lot of negative stereotypes in the media and derision expressed towards comic book fans.

[arilou_skiff]

I'm not sure that neccessarily disproves her point though?

What you can see there is that there is a fairly constant attempt at "doing comic books", not always well, not the deluge we have now, but a fairly low-level drumming of attempts.

Compare this to other fandoms. How often do we get even semi-faithful adaptations of say... SF novels? (plenty of the "Big Names" has never got any kind of adaptation at all, as far as I can tell!) romance novels get a few, but they are pretty much as segregated as comic-books. (Hollywood Romantic Comedies tend to be their own thing, and not adaptations of novels, though there are exceptions)

What she is saying is that *compared to other fandoms* comic fans are fairly privilegied *in the specific milieu of Hollywood*. There's definitely a demographic feedback thing going on (IE: The same kind of people tend to be comics fans tends to be Hollywood Important People to a greater extent than they are fans of romance novels) and I think an ease-of-adaptations thing (comics and films are both visual medium in a way eg. novels aren't, so they are often easier to adapt, even if they obviously still have their formatting issues)

[laughing_tree]

Well, both those two points she makes are undeniably true, I feel (though as some have pointed out, it's a relatively recent development). What's the counterargument?

[shadowkat]

My take is that she's looking at it from an narrow perspective, and only a recent one.

From the full article, it's clear that she's only focusing on DC and Disney, not anything else. She misses completely the Japanese Magna, where there are comics in literally every genre. And she seems to think Hollywood caters mainly to comic fans -- when that's not necessarily true. Sure, it may be if you only look at box office figures or the number of comic films produced. But, if you look at the number of films, television series, etc produced annually, and the sheer number of distribution channels...that changes.

Let's look at Disney + as just one example? Disney + is not featuring any comic related television series until 2020 or 2021, the initial offerings are from other franchises. Granted you could claim that The Mandalorian is comic related, since Star Wars is also a comic franchise, but it started out and is still mainly a film related franchise. And most of the subscribers to Disney + aren't comics fans per se, they are MCU movie fans and fans of the other franchises, such as the animated films, Star Wars films, etc.

And...keep in mind that the vast majority of MCU fans never once looked at a comic book. How do I know this? Because I had to hunt the actual comic book fans down. The people I know who loved the film franchises, do not read comic books. They aren't fans of the medium. The person on my Dw friends feed who posted the link to this article -- doesn't like comic books, but watched all the films.

So, I see a lot of holes in her argument. If her argument was -- Hollywood is catering to fans of action films -- yes, she's right, but that's been true for a while now. Superhero films? Yes, but it depends, and not all superhero films or television shows.

[thezmage]

But if you identify as a comic book fan, you are generally far more likely to be catered to by mainstream media producers, and your criticisms are far more likely to be heard, than would be the case if, say, you identified as a hip-hop fan or a reader of romance novels.

Where, exactly, has this happened? Ever? I can’t recall a single times fan complained about things and weren’t just shouting into the void. Not by the media at large or the comic book industry as a whole.

And that’s before parsing the nature of “comic book fan” as an identity. Are minority fans of comics seeing the same privileges that white male comic fans are? What about comic fans that are more into indies and Saga than Justice League and Avengers?

As others have pointed out, I think she’s conflating fans of superheroes as an esthetic with fans of comics as a medium.

[tcampbell1000]

Well... (gestures at the periodical racks at his local comic-book store).

And see also The Walking Dead and Riverdale, just for a start.

[ap0cryphal]

This is a mess. An interesting mess, but still.

I mean - the multimedia IP generated using comic book characters did gangbusters money, but the feedback loop hasn't really made gangbusters money for comic books as a medium for marvel or dc. DC's doing YA tie in novels, and Marvel's doing - actually, I don't know what Marvel's doing.

If anything, there's been a feedback loop where the the movies distil the characters to a few traits, which are then editorially mandated to be reflected in the comic books to align better to New Fans who are coming in after having seen the movies. SYNERGY, folks.

I don't get how you can talk of comic book fandom being attractive to advertisers because of skewing white / male / 20-40s / college educated and then simultaneously talk about comic book fans being catered to without making the OBVIOUS connection that the specific fans who are being catered to the most are: white / male / 20-40s / college educated folks.

Ultimately, there's less catering to comic book fans and more catering to fans of comic book derived multimedia properties that have demonstrated successful value, in the box office or elsewhere.

[shadowkat]

I agree. Add to this - that she has determined comics equal only Marvel superhero comics and DC superhero comics, not the romance magna, the graphic novels, the web comics, Sandman comics, horror comics, etc.

So, what she's not addressing is that Hollywood is skewing towards the 18-45 year old white male demographic. Occasionally it breaks away from that with Black Panther -- which got a lot of push back from the industry, because Hollywood didn't expect Black Panther to do very well and released it in a time period where box office gains don't matter that much for that reason. When it outsold films that had been released during prime movie seasons -- and garnered an Oscar nomination, Hollywood had to rethink it's game plan.

Also, it's more about cross-marketing or multi-media properties. Not all comics get the Hollywood treatment. Only those comics that can be mass merchandised. For example - we're not going to see a film of Maus or say, Paper Girls. Because you can't do action figures, amusement park rides, toys, video games, etc from those properties. And they don't appeal to that specific demographic.

Even in regards to superhero films -- the X-men films focused on Xavier, Magneto, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine...they killed off Mystique, who was naked any time she changed form. (Note Mystique is not naked in the comics.) And the Avengers focused on Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spiderman, and Ant-Man. We didn't really get any films on the female Avengers until Captain Marvel and she wasn't considered an Avenger. The main focus of the films was on Steve Rogers, a WWII white boy vet, who became a super solider.
Which is hardly representative of the majority of comic book fans.

Shawna Kidman is making the same assumption the media makes which is that all comic book fans are white males between 18-45. That's not true. We all know that.

[leahandillyana]

I don't agree with the author's conslusions. Firstly, talking about Hollywood only is not a good estimation of priviledge. Secondly, even in Hollywood comic book movies are made for non-fans (I can only think of Captain America movies as exceptions) and are only very vaguely based on characters and storylines. This is not what comic book fans would want, meaning that film makers don't really listen to them. It's big studios adapting their properties for general audiences. And anyways, any sort of media is more likely to be read by media creators. I bet film makers read manga and read/watch media not originally made in English much more than average American.

[arilou_skiff]

I think it actually predates the internet, and goes back to the old-style fan culture (of letter pages, bullpens, etc.) comic-book fans/audiences were participatory in a way that many other forms of media weren't, in that sending in letters (or at least reading the letters others sent in) was a part of the image the creators wanted to present. (look at how many "famous creators" that you'll find getting a letter published somewhere, for instance)

This of course overlaps with literary SFF and that community (which also shares a lot of demographic overlap...)

There's probably some degree of influence down to the serial nature of comics (I think the closest thing you can get here is daytime soaps) which means there is a lot more option of fan-feedback-and-response than in more "Made, released and finished" types of media.

[arilou_skiff]

Also, I'd *highly* recommend reading the entire article, and not just the snippets Shadowkat posted. People seem to misinterpreting her statements a lot.

[shadowkat]

True - the article shows that she is really just focusing on DC, and to a lesser degree Marvel. Also that she doesn't see comics as subversive at all.

My difficulty with her assertions is that instead of saying "superhero comics created by DC", she's lumping all comics into it. And she doesn't seem to understand that comic books are a medium not a genre -- which I find interesting considering she's a media studies professor.

But I may have missed something.

[tcampbell1000]

I find her take basically correct; I've thought pretty much the same for a long time.

I remember when it was treated as common knowledge that filmmakers (and to a lesser degree, TV producers) who adapted any nerd-beloved property would just utterly butcher it, dumb it down, make its original fans regret even being associated with it. Around the early 2000s, a string of box-office successes seemed to counter that: X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Rings trilogy (not a comic-book property but certainly one with an overlapping fan base). There had been some precedent, of course, but those movies really seemed to be the examples that taught Hollywood that fidelity was profitable.

Somewhere around the middle of watching Justice League Unlimited and the arc revolving around a romance between the Huntress and the freakin' Question, I looked up and thought, "This is more centered on my interests than anything I ever expected I would see in cartoons as an adult. I'm going to remember this in ten years and try to be patient when the movie and TV franchises are all about Pokemon and Warcraft."

And ten years later...

[thezmage]

Ten years later the only superhero cartoons were Teen Titans Go and a handful of Marvel comics trying to cater towards young fans of the movies that were specifically pissing older comic book fans off. None of the cartoons were catering towards comic fans. Young Justice, having been cancelled for appealing to the “wrong kind” of fans, was announced to be coming back for a niche subscription service (other such services focus on similar “privileged” groups as horror fans, Bollywood fans, theater fans, etc). A handful of live action superhero shows existed that did only the most shallow continuity pills they could

Also the Warcraft film debuted and the Pokémon franchise was still going strong.

[lordultimus]

I think what keeps me from buying this is the fact that corporate synergy has always been a thing, but it's at it's most felt right now, and it's always the comics bending to the movies, never the other way around.

[arilou_skiff]

I mean, her point is that corporate synergy is something that the comic industry has... If not lead, at least been a pretty early adopter of. That they were transmedia businesses before that was even a term.

[bravest_spinja]

I mean, yes? No?

A "fan" is not really equitable to any group based on race, gender, sexuality, etc. as it is. The closest possible comparison is maybe religion, (and I would argue most first word religious discrimination is merely an outlet for ethnic hostility) and can't be applied to systemic measures any more or less than a Goth, Red Sox fan, etc. Having a surplus of non-essential consumption options isn't an indication of "privilege" either way. (In terms of media and representation, the issue isn't about who the films are "for", but that *employment* corresponds with the demographic average.) I guess people in Joker shirts are maybe being profiled now, but that cops wear Punisher shirts probably means it all evens out.

It probably is technically true that the makeup of comic book readers is a inordinately straight white cis male, (though it may have higher proportion of Jews or differently abled, who are marginalized groups but have, shall we say, a complicated place in the intersectional web.)

That said, I guess it's a good splash of cold water to comic fans who themselves try to equate themselves with actual minorities.

[shadowkat]

I don't know. The thing of it is, I've known too many comic book fans that aren't straight white male cis-gendered. I'm a comic book fan and I'm not male. And there are a lot of comic books out there that are not geared to them. It's sort of like saying film fans are privileged. Or audio book fans are privileged.

You really do need to be specific about this. Superhero comic book fans -- yes, I'd agree, they are generally speaking being catered to.

But only a subset of that group is -- not the entire group. And yes, the superhero comic book industry is predominantly white male cisgendered. That's DC and Marvel.

But in this day and age, you can't get away with lumping all comic book fans together and assuming people understand your meaning.
Not when there are over a million comics produced annually that are not targeted towards the white male cisgendered demographic.
And not when Universities are now teaching graphic novel compilations of comics in school, or you have a Broadway adaptation of an LGBTQA female comic book writers psuedo-biography, "FUN HOME".

In addition not all superhero comics are created equal or the same. Like I said, you can't generalize about comics any more than you can generalize about film.