Like many of the baby-boomers who fueled its resurgence in the 1960s, the comics industry has been anxiously examining itself in the mirror more and more often lately. With sufficiently squinting eyes it was possible to report, as the Comics Buyers' Guide did in its Nov. 23, 2001 issue under the headline "The Great Comics Comeback," that business was on the upswing.

Such reassurances were welcome in the industry since it had tumbled in the mid-'90s, when plummeting sales and closing shops had struck like chest pains after an overly enthusiastic jog in the park. It had felt then like the beginning of the end and there were plenty who saw the comics form as an outmoded, soon-to-be-extinct medium. But seven years after the bottom fell out, it's a new millennium, and the comics industry survivors are trying hard to develop a new attitude. Everyone is sick of moping, and the feeling seems to be that if phrases like "comeback" and "turned a corner" are repeated enough, the comics market will reflect that optimism.

This mind-over-market strategy doesn't always work. CBG had also predicted recoveries in 1998 and 1999 based on momentary upsurges that had quickly faded back into desert sand. And the boost that CBG saw late in 2001 was undermined by the fact it was based entirely on comics direct-market preorders -- numbers that had been inflated by a change in Marvel policy that forbade reorders.

Hope nevertheless springs eternal. As the industry has resolved to stop sitting in the dark and brooding, recent anti-slump strategies have ranged from dying its hair and hanging with the young people at blockbuster movie openings to pursuing more mature courtships in the bookstore market. The industry's energies were brought into a tighter focus than ever in early June when publishers, distributors and retailers mobilized in concert, as though all recognized that if there was a corner to be turned it was now or never. The occasion was the nationwide Free Comic Book Day promotion May 3, which by no coincidence at all took place the day before the much-hyped premiere of Spider-Man the motion picture.

The offer of selected free comics was meant as a siren call not only to regular and returning comics fans, but also to the many non-comics-readers drawn to the hot event that the movie had become. By scheduling the Free Comics promotion in close proximity with the Spider-Man movie debut, retailers were able to gain the attention of news media looking desperately for any story with a Spider-Man tie-in. Some comics retailers went so far as to set up booths outside movie theaters and hand out comics to the attending throngs. It was a marketer's dream of synergy in action: a hit movie, local media and comics shops all happily linking themselves in the minds of the consuming public.

If ever a rosy picture could be painted of the state of the comics industry, there could be no more inviting occasion, and in the heady days following the Free Comics Day/Spider-Man premiere, the Journal spoke to retailers all over the country about how good or bad business really was, what survival strategies have worked or failed for them and about whether the big events seemed more like A New Hope or a last hurrah. The Journal also took a hard look at the facts and figures behind CBG's "Comeback" story with industry consultant Milton Griepp and John Jackson Miller, the numbers-cruncher for CBG and Comics Retailer who masterminded the article.

The goal here is to get past the hype and the wishful thinking to form a clear picture of what is really happening to the industry after the profound boom and bust periods of the 1990s. Is it time to break out the champagne or is the industry just making a fool of itself in the throes of a mid-life crisis? The truth appears to be somewhere in between. The picture that emerges from the many perspectives shared with the Journal is one of small but steady growth - not just the sales spike of a Big Event or the precarious expanding bubble of speculation, but a gradual improvement in the cash flow of comics retailers. As will be seen in the following comments, there are plenty of comics retailers who are still struggling and few who are confident of a smooth road ahead after all the frantic ups and downs they have weathered, but most report a gradual, relatively steady increase in business over the past few months. If the improvement is less than dramatic, it is at least a change from the months of decline that preceded it.

[To read the rest of this article, please see The Comics Journal #245.]

All site contents are © 2002