Focusing on the big changes and developments in comics' first 75 years

1. 001
American
Comics:
Richard Bruning
Webvisions PDX
May 23, 2013
Portland, OR
History
Technology
Culture
Hello, everybody. My name is Richard Bruning and I am a writer,
designer and cartoonist.

2. COMIC
BOOKS
003Today I’d like to talk about how comic books come to be.
And I’m going to tell you exactly how this happened, whether it’s
the truth or not!
I confess, I’m a lifer. I grew up with comics. I learned to read from
them at age 4, was inspired to draw my own at 7, and eventually,

3. I became a professional in the business. My many mostly happy
years at DC were largely spent doing design and creative
management but,

4. I’m glad to say that, post-DC, I’m gleefully back to drawing my
own comics again. Full circle.

5. So, how did this uniquely American art form come to be? In the
brief time allotted I hope I can give you some sense about how
the big changes in comics occurred.

6. COMIC
BOOKS
006.1Given it’s 75 years to cover in 30 minutes, I won’t be able to do
justice to all the great things that also occurred, just the biggest.
Anyway, let’s begin…

7. Before the 1930s, newspaper comic strips were a big business,
unlike today.

8. People devotedly poured over their local newspapers to read the
adventures of TARZAN,

9. LITTLE NEMO, FLASH GORDON and the wonderful KRAZY KAT.

10. The Sunday Funnies of the day featured gorgeous color art in a
large format and lengthy, involved story lines.

11. 1933
The first things we call comic books originated in the early 1930s
when one of the newspaper printers of the day found he could
take newsprint stock and fold signatures up to easily create a
smaller side-stitched publication.

12. Originally these exclusively featured reprint material from the
newspapers and were often used as give-away premiums and
such.

13. $
These proved so popular that publishers tried to find a way to
produce even more, but pay even less money to create them.
Ah, publishers.

14. 1935
In 1935 one of the publishers realized they could commission
new original work cheaper than paying reprint fees on the
newspaper strips.

15. COMIC
BOOK
INDUSTRY
015Ironically, this led to the creation of the entire comic book
industry!
Unfortunately, in those days and for many decades to follow…

16. LOW
PAGE
RATESNo Rights, No Royalties
016virtually all the writers and artists worked for a pretty low page
rate with no rights and no royalties. And you didn't even get your
original artwork back, largely because no one thought it had any
value.

17. 017Originally presented in a 64-page, cheap newsprint format with
the distinctive 61/2 x10 inch configuration,

18. 10¢
25YEARS
018these were sold for a mere 10¢, a price they maintained for
almost 25 years! Don’t see that anymore, do ya?

19. This new form factor immediately appealed to young readers
due to the relatively cheap cover price, the portable nature of
them, their re-readability and…

20. …the largely juvenile editorial fare, such as humor, funny animals
and adventurers.

21. 1938
That all changed in May of 1938 when Superman appeared on
the cover of…

22. ACTION COMICS #1, and even though he was just a backup
feature in there, that's all he needed to fly high.

23. The creation of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, this
character was definitely in the right place at the right time.

24. America was finally recovering from the Great Depression (no,
not the one Dubya left us with) and the country was growing at a
fast pace.

25. Yet, the war drums were beating overseas with Nazi Germany's
actions looking worse and worse every day.

26. Still, even though he was of alien origin, the Man of Steel
somehow embodied America's new view of itself.
Truth, Justice and the American Way.

27. Little
Known
Fact#1
023That phrase actually originated on the Superman radio show in
1942.

28. Little
Known
Fact#2
026The Superman concept had already been rejected a number of
times when it was originally presented as a newspaper strip.

29. Its inclusion into this new comic book was quite a long shot.

30. His appearance created an explosion of popularity and product
licensing rarely before seen.

31. Though we take big popular properties for granted these days,
like STAR WARS,

32. this was one of the first to go Big Time. Seemingly overnight,
there were Superman pajamas, dolls, toys of all kinds, lunch
pails…

33. a movie serial, a radio show, a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade
balloon, you name it.

34. 1939
Lightning struck twice, when a year later, The Batman first
appeared within…

35. DETECTIVE COMICS #27. Though a much darker, non-powered
character, he also proved to be a huge hit, both in publishing and
licensing and…

36. …became one of the most popular fictional characters ever.

37. Little
Known
Fact#3
030Now get this:

38. 031
Detective
Comics
The success of DETECTIVE COMICS spurred the National Allied
Publishing Company to rename itself DC Comics

39. Detective
Comics
Comics
031(for Detective Comics Comics - go figure) and, oddly, no periods
after the abbreviated letters. Whatever.

40. 32Superman and Batman were quickly joined by dozens of other
costumed characters,

41. 32.1from DC itself, Timely (the predecessor of Marvel Comics) and
many, many more. In the next three explosive years…

42. 32.2we saw the first appearance of many fictional characters that are
still prominent today. Why the immense popularity? Well, these
were compelling power fantasies, to be sure.

43. America thought itself special and these colorful adventurers,
who could solve all problems, served as great avatars for the
growing American confidence.

44. WW2
033And, as our involvement in the World War II got closer, we were
becoming used to the idea of being…

45. the world's policeman (or superhero, in this context).
Whatever the reason, they had a major impact on the
imagination of the American Public.

46. late
1940s
Still, it's not too shocking that, after the war was won and people
sought to settle down…

47. into more normal, peaceful lives, the Americans’love affair with
superheroes started to seriously wane.

48. True Crime
Horror
Romance
War
In its place, new genres arose to suit the new times. True crime,
horror, romance and war gained in popularity as the country
took a turn for the worse…

49. with the Red Scare feeding the anxieties of the day.
The Communists, bogeyman par excellent,

50. were everywhere apparently and political hay and careers were
made out of the pursuit of these godless heathens.
Maintaining high moral standards was the imperative of the day.

51. early
1950s
Unfortunately for the comics medium, some of the crime and
horror publishers,

52. who had no guidelines for what was acceptable, took some risks
and frankly, things got pretty gruesome.

53. This caused the infamous child psychiatrist, Dr Frederic Wertham,
to compile data (some flawed, some just plain made up) that he
said proved comic reading caused juvenile delinquency, drug
abuse…

54. and, Holy Batman, even homosexual behavior.

55. Senate hearings were held and comics were banned and burned
all across the country.

56. SCARCITY
=VALUE
One of the biggest reasons why old comics are valuable is
because they are rare. We will see more examples of this later.

57. COMIC
BOOK
INDUSTRY
015The only way the comics industry was able to deal with this
attack, and not lose control, was to, like the Film Industry, form a
self-regulating body…

58. which established some very restrictive guidelines. This was the
infamous Comics Code Authority and it sufficiently stifled any
maturing of the art form for the next 2o plus years, keeping
comics in America a predominantly child's medium.

59. 1953
One good thing came out of this. In the face of this witch hunt,

60. EC Comics Publisher William M. Gaines, who was known for
having produced some of the more lurid true crime and horror
books,

61. started MAD, originally as a comic book, but when it looked like
the material might be censored,

62. he wisely changed it over to a safer magazine format.
And humor in America would never be the same again.

63. Little
Known
Fact#4
048MAD is still being published today. So there.

64. Ironically, the comics storytelling medium was embraced by
numerous countries and cultures and treated as a very legitimate
art form, respected and enjoyed by people all around the world.
They employed the medium for a wide variety of topics, creating
material appropriate for adults and children alike. America still
has a long ways to go on this front.

65. 1956
Not to be forgotten, superhero comics experienced a revival in
the mid-50s.

66. In DC Comics’SHOWCASE #4, we saw a modernized version of
the Golden age character, the Flash.

67. This modernized version relied more upon pseudo-science than
the mystical mumbo-jumbo that powered many of the 1940s
characters.

68. Flash was soon followed by re-imaginings of some of the other
Golden Age heroes, such as Green Lantern, Hawkman and the
Atom.

69. This ultimately led to a superhero team-up, the Justice League of
America, which was similar to a group these characters had back
in their earlier incarnations.

70. Little
Known
Fact#5
055The Justice League of America created the Marvel Universe.
Allow me explain.
The surprising commercial success of this JUSTICE LEAGUE comic
inspired Stan Lee,

71. a writer and editor who had been with Timely Comics since the
early 1940s,

72. to move away from the Comics Code-safe generic monster
comics they were publishing at the time and create new
superhero characters.

73. He applied his unique spin to the super group concept by using a
family structure to create the Fantastic Four in 1961, initiating the
nascent Marvel Universe. So there you go.

74. And, in 1963, he would even have his own Justice League,
when he and Jack Kirby created the Avengers.

75. These comics reflected the fears of America at the time,
such as the possibility of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.

76. Many of these modern comic characters, especially from Marvel,
had some kind of radiation as a source for their powers.

77. The brilliance of Stan's approach was that he created
superheroes who suffered from uncertainty, angst and poor self
image, things we can all relate to.

78. And this approach perfectly captured adolescent fears in general.
Thanks, Stan!

79. 1966
By the mid-1960s the average American still had a rather dim
view of comics.

80. This changed only briefly with the very successful BATMAN TV
show in 1966. The POW - BAM! show created attention and
increased comic sales for a brief while,

81. but it did little to garner respect for the medium.

82. Archie Comics, which had been around since 1941 (and
continues to today), offered something palatable for girls, and
other companies…

83. like DELL or HARVEY had comics for the very young.
Such youth-oriented fare hardly even exists today.

84. late
1960s
Everything was turned upside down in the late 60s with the
arrival of…

85. UNDER
GROUND
COMIX
064.1Underground Comix, what I believe was the most significant
event for the medium since its original creation.

86. For the first time, due to a (briefly flourishing) counter culture,
people felt they could to express themselves in ANY way possible.
It was a complete and total breath of fresh air…

87. — or something.

88. By creating and publishing a very exposed and unflattering
picture of himself and his attitudes,

89. For the first time, leading underground comix creator Robert
Crumb showed everyone how to let it all out, as it were.
No longer was there any doubt:

90. COMIC
BOOKS
003Comics were a valid medium in which to tell stories of ANY kind!

91. One of the first to create an original graphic novel was the
already legendary Will Eisner. Will was the creator of the very
popular 1940s character, The Spirit character.

92. His book, A CONTRACT WITH GOD, released in 1978, has stood
the test of time as a very accomplished and personal piece of
work.

93. 1970s
In this new decade, we saw a generation that had been raised on
comics, become professional writers and artists.

94. FANS AS
CREATORS
069These young people were looking to push the boundaries of
what could be done, having been inspired by the undergrounds
and some of the more unusual material produced in the mid-late
70s.

95. UNDER
GROUND
COMIX
064.1Unfortunately for the Underground Comix movement, their
distribution system quickly fell apart…

96. …when the head shops were closed and newsstand magazine
distributors avoided any explicit material in the comic format.

97. late
1970s
The comics industry barely survived the 70s,

98. largely due to the arrival of the chain stores, pushing out the
small mom-and-pop groceries,

99. which tended to sell comics to please their customers.
By the measurement of sales per square foot, comics generated
relatively little revenue.

100. Certainly compared to what a store could make from a PLAYBOY
in the same space.

101. One of the troubles with the newsstand distributors to this day is
their tremendously flawed system of returns. For instance…

102. 100
75100 copies of a magazine would be shipped to a distributor for
newsstand sales.
A month later, when the next issue came in,
whatever was left over from last month…

103. %80
usually the majority of the print run, would get trashed, with the
retailer getting credit for the trashed issues.
It was a system of tremendous waste and inefficiency.

104. late
1970s
As they say, necessity is the mother of invention and so,
the Direct Comics Market was born.

105. DIRECT
COMIC
MARKET
077Finding it ever harder to locate any reliable source for new
comics, a Brooklyn high school teacher and comics fan by the
name of Phil Seuling, came up with the idea of going directly to
the publishers,

106. $
78offering them less money for a box of comics but with the terms
that it was a final sale and the publisher would never have to
take returns. This turned out to be a very mutually beneficial
relationship.

107. Small comic shops were opening up around the country, usually
owned by a collector with excess comics and a passionate need
for new ones.

108. 079.1Now, for the first time, the publishers could tell what was actually
selling and why, something almost impossible with the news
stands.

109. DIRECT
COMIC
MARKET
079.1Also, by knowing more about the customer’s buying habits, new
comics could be created just to appeal to those fans and
collectors.

110. Good
News
080This is a critical junction for the medium in my eyes.
On one hand, it created a greater success for sales and it
strengthened the overall business.

111. Bad
News
080.1Unfortunately, it had the stultifying effect of predominantly
creating one flavor of ice cream, as it were. The fans mostly
wanted more superheroes and so they got them. Lots of them.

112. GoodNews
BadNews
080.2Other genres and more personal work struggled to gain traction,
though some saw a measure of success.

113. DIRECT
COMIC
MARKET
081The publishers also discovered that people were willing to pay
more…

114. Better
Production
083.2for better paper stock and production values, full-color art and
hardcover editions.

115. New
Formats
083.3New formats also rose up, such as graphic novels, collected
editions and limited or mini series.
These were all essential in establishing comics…

116. Beginning
Middle
End
083.4as a long-form storytelling medium. This gave creators a new
venue that was not endless, month-after-month serialization.

117. Also back then, some brave creators formed their own small
publishing companies,

118. now that they had a reliable means of distribution.
Titles like CEREBUS, ELFQUEST,

119. 083Star*Reach plus later comics like LOVE & ROCKETS and RAW
flourished.

120. 083They used the freedom granted by the undergrounds to explore
a wide range of genres.
It was also a time when creator’s rights became a forefront issue.

121. The Superman – Siegel – Schuster ownership debacle tainted
comics forever as a less than savory place to work. Eventually the
larger publishers were pushed to deal with the situation

122. $
115by returning original artwork, offering better page rates and
even royalties or bonuses, in some situations.

123. But the one thing they were reluctant to do was to share
ownership.

124. Little
Known
Fact#6
084.1Back in the Bad Old days, after the comics were printed, the
original artwork was conveniently chopped up for scrap paper by
the big publishers. How considerate.

125. 1986
The business though, was turned on its head with the arrival of
three game-changing publications:

126. 083Firstly, from DC was Frank Miller's the Dark Night Returns and
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen.

127. 083The creative ambitions of these books and the fresh attitude they
took towards the long underwear crew proved a tremendously
successful formula.

128. 083The other publication of importance during this time was Art
Spiegelman's Maus. This was the story of his father's life during
World War II and surviving the concentration camps.

129. 083It earned him a Pulitzer Prize and gave the medium a legitimacy
that it had rarely been granted. Thank you, Art.

130. COLLECTED
EDITIONS
105The aforementioned titles did a lot to help popularize the
collected edition format. The overall goal was to take as much of
the good material that had seen print in disposable periodical
form and give it a permanent position on bookshelves.

131. 1990s
At the turn of the decade, Marvel Comics had some very
successful young artists…

132. working on new series that featured marvel’s most popular
characters… and these books sold like crazy.

133. $
For the first time in decades, the industry started to see million
plus copy sales. Figuring that these“special”books would be
worth a lot of money someday,

134. investors, fans and comic shop owners alike decided that buying
these new comics in large quantities would be like printing
money, the theory being that these books were so hot,

135. $1x1yr=$10!
092.1you could sell a dollar comic for $10 in another year. We’ll see
about that.

136. 1992
The high sales figures inspired these popular artists to leave
Marvel altogether and form their own publishing collective…

137. called Image Comics. They sought to publish their own work
while maintaining ownership. The first issue sales were off the
charts, creating comics’earliest overnight millionaires.

138. But, like many things too good to be true, over time, Image
stumbled.

139. WHY?
097Numerous reasons. Once these new creators became wealthy off
of a top-selling first issue, they had much less impetus to work on
the second issue or third, thereby negating the value of the first.

140. WRITER
ARTIST
098The quality of the material varied widely. It was a very artist-
driven set-up and the lack of emphasis on good writing showed.

141. SCARCITY
=VALUE
098.1But, most importantly, investors found that since there were now
millions of copies out there of these books, nobody was paying
top dollar to buy back issues of a one-year-old comic.

142. $
99People were going broke from over-ordering and tying up their
money in dead inventory. The Big Two helped things along by
also jumping on the“32 variant, gold embossed, holographic
covers”bandwagon, which had flooded the market.

143. Hundreds of comic shops shut their doors and all but one large
Direct Market wholesale distributor went out of business.
Although some of the smaller publishers held fast, the bigger
publishers were the ones with the corporate resources to ride it
out.

144. Countless freelancers were out of work and dozens of staff
employees lost their jobs. It was a very bad time for the entire
industry.

145. 1993
One of the few bright spots from that time was the launching
of…

146. the Vertigo line from DC Comics. In contrast to Image, Vertigo
was largely built on the strength of its writers.

147. Prominent were numerous British writers that DC had brought
into American comics. Many had great success with this mature
readers imprint.

148. late
1990s
The business slowly reestablished itself with more secure means
of growth this time.

149. COLLECTED
EDITIONS
105And that was the Collected Editions format. The compilation of
existing (hopefully) quality material into an evergreen format did
much to both dispel the idea of all comics as disposable,

150. $
while providing royalties to the creators, for work done in the
past.
Publishers of all sizes benefitted as the cost of the creative
material was been written off with the original serialized
publication.

151. COLLECTED
EDITIONS
105The value of this approach cannot be overemphasized.
It truly changed comic publishing in a major way.

152. ORIGINAL
GRAPHIC
NOVELS
107Later, traditional book publishers got into the original graphic
novel game in a serious way,

153. resulting in some significant and very personal work,

154. such as Persepolis, Blankets

155. and Fun Home, to name just a few.

156. Little
Known
Fact#7
109I know I’m misapplying this header,

157. but I had to make sure to point out this fantastic book. If you
don’t already have it, buy a copy TODAY! Seriously.

158. COLLECTED
EDITIONS
105Another fortuitous factor was that bookstores, always struggling,
were looking for a hot new category and were more than happy
to finally welcome comics, in book form, into their stores.

159. 1989
The other big impact on the industry came from the movie
business. The tremendously successful launch of…

160. the Tim Burton BATMAN movie created a heretofore unknown
desire in the public for these larger-than-life characters on larger-
than-life screens.

161. Still, it was a while until moviegoers were being fed a steady diet
of this adrenalized material.

162. 2000s
& beyond
So, where do we stand today? Well, unfortunately, as we all
know, bookstores in America are falling left and right,

163. and a number of the larger chains have already bit the bullet.

164. For better or worse, Amazon is a major player now and has
become the largest US retailer of graphic novels.

165. Needless to say, the competition for eyeballs has gotten
exponentially worse for comics.
TV, movies, video games and the Internet all offer louder, more
visceral entertainment.

166. $
115And at their current cover price, periodical comics aren’t
considered a cheap entertainment medium anymore.

167. 2000s
& beyond
In general, the comics industry has been a slow business to
change but, in the last decade we’ve seen a steady growth…

168. DIGITAL
117in the digital arena, with many different forms of graphic
storytelling being put on the web.
Some are simply postings of the traditional forms of strips or full
pages but there's a lot of experimental work going on also.

169. MOTION
COMICS
121There's been some rather ambitious explorations into the
concept of "Motion Comics" in recent years.

170. When I was at DC, we did some rather extensive experimenting
with this new approach to the medium.

171. Still, we couldn’t get anyone to buy them though.
Many have tried their hand at this…

172. with varying degrees of success. owch!

173. A company called MADEFIRE has developed fairly easy-to-use
software that allows creators to integrate art, motion and sound
in new ways. Only time will tell if this new form of comics proves
to be a successful commercial model.

174. There’s also been a lot of interest in programs such as Kickstarter.
A number of creators are now going there to seek financing,
without any interference from a publisher or editor.
And it seems to work for some.

175. COMIC
BOOKS
121Doubtless some of you in this room are currently cooking up the
next Great American Comics story. The medium itself and the
digital landscape offers endless possibilities but remember,
always:

176. It’s all about
the Story.

177. 177
American
Comics:
Richard Bruning
History
Technology
Culture
richardbruning@mac.com
Thank you for your attention.