Stan the Man?

Speaking of being a comic book geek... and I always am... how 'bout that Stan Lee? When I look at our insular and ever diminishing reader base, I come to the conclusion that Smilin' Stan was both the savior and the harbinger of doom for the comic book. Granted, it's not really Lee's fault that the industry imploded upon itself, it's just the way things worked out.

Stan was the man that realized the value of "adolescent male power fantasies" and combined them with a sales element that hadn't been exploited before... the soap opera for the disenfranchised male. Stan wanted to write "realistic" comics about surrealistic characters, so he brought levels of pathos and self-loathing to comic book heroes that appealed to thousands of teenagers and college students who just didn't quite fit in. A new era of popularity for four color pulp heroes was born! Stan had stumbled on a magic formula that captured the imaginations and wallets of a whole new breed of comic consumer.

Look at almost every character that Stan helped create, and they all have some element of being an outsider. Up until 1963, most every hero you saw on the comic pages was an all-around swell guy, usually good lookin', often independently wealthy and usually accompanied by a hot bettie - they had it all and then some.

Perhaps only Batman had any kind of mental foibles, but even that had been watered down dramatically from his early incarnation up to the 60's (where Bats had become a kind of dopey Scout Master, rather than an embittered and vengeful vigilante). So Stan's efforts to make more believable heroes brought tons of new readers into the fold: these new readers were the great American geeks! And times were good! Comics weren't just for kids anymore, they were also for the dorky guys who couldn't play sports or get a date on Friday, so these cats had plenty of time and money to invest in their new love, and thus fandom was born.

Did Stan know the repercussions that his approach would bring? Of course not, no one knows what the Hell's gonna happen until it happens (although plenty of dumbasses gladly drop bazillions of dollars each year on "psychic friend" hotlines).

The blame can't be placed entirely on Stan, as the direct sales market (i.e. alla the indy comic book shops around the country), didn't come into existence until a decade after Lee had made his impact and influence felt. I can't blame the retailers either, because the direct sales market has been forced, from its inception, to follow the money. When you're buying books on a non-returnable basis, you will consistently order only what sells. If the only thing selling well enough to pay the bills are the super hero comics, well... then that's all you're gonna order if you need to pay the bills... and last time I checked, we all need to pay our bills. This, of course, lead to the death of most other genres within the direct market and eventually, the loss of readership as a whole.

Comics aimed at disenfranchised male teens and young adults were paying the bills while Archie and Harvey were not... so kid's comics pretty much ceased to exist in most comic book shops. This wasn't so bad in the 70's and 80's, when kid's comics were still available in grocery stores and the local Mom 'n' Pop Five and Dimes... but once big money and big distribution took over the American economy, "low return" magazines (i.e. comic books), were banned from valuable shelf space. Thus the new generation of children were no longer aware of what a comic book was because they didn't see 'em anymore. As the sayin' goes, outta sight, outta mind... and outta mind, outta business.

Comic publishers raised the Hell out of their prices in the attempt to maintain valuable newsstand shelf space, but comics have long been viewed as "cheap" entertainment by the masses, so Mommy didn't buy the "over priced" comics of the 90's. This left no market remaining to sell youth comics in... which was a very bad circumstance. Without the youngbloods to keep the industry growing and thriving, we were destined to ride off into the sunset. Comic book specialty shops weren't even carrying comics for children... so there was basically no place for kids to find comics... not even in a comic book store! Ye gods! Besides that, renting video games had become cheaper, more exciting and far easier to do. So our beloved comic book industry became a dying thing, putting out more and more titles for fewer and fewer adult readers who are growing ever older and will eventually die off, like the dinosaurs that we are. Gronk.

Without new readers, we're the oroboros, and eventually, the head will swallow its tail and comic books will join penny dreadfuls and hero pulps as museum curiosities.

So did Stan dream that his vision of more adult oriented comics would eventually kill off the art form?

Nah, nobody did... and therein lies the rub.

If only our psychic friends had warned us back in the 60's.