I’ve had a long and varied association with the world of comics over the past, too many to mention, years. From being a devoted fan as a young kid, to hosting a successful local cable show called, way to on the point, The Comic Book Show, to starting a brand new comic publishing company called Future Comics with Iron Man legend Bob Layton, the path has been interesting to say the least.
When I was producing and co-hosting The Comic Book Show in the 90s, my nickname was Angry Allen. Fans of the show would look forward to me going off on things that were just not right, and puncturing the PR nonsense the companies tried to spoon off on the fans. To say I was a little difficult is probably an understatement though the work we did on the show not only got us picked up by Time Warner local origination, but also brought us a substantial fan-base among the actual creator community. Through the show, connections were made that enabled me to become an industry professional, starting with the aforementioned Future Comics. However, the growing cynicism in the comic books themselves, as well as off-putting business decisions, led me to step away from something that gave me great joy for most of my life. As Angry Allen would have said back in the day, they were just not doing them right no mo, except for one little publisher called Big Bang Comics. Who produce comics the way they outa be.
Not being one to sit back when I see something that I feel strongly about supporting, I reached out to the great guys at Big Bang Comics, specifically Gary Carlson and Chris Ecker, and offered my services. Not only was a nice little friendship developed, but I got to be involved in comic books, once again, that I actually care about.
The weird thing about the comic book industry today, is it is predominantly supported by something called the Direct Market (DM). Led by a monopoly distributor (don’t get me started on that topic), comics are sold non-returnable to comic book shops that are manned for the most part by aging fans who after decades of reading the books, want the characters to grow with them, effectively killing everything that caused them to be successful in the first place. This weird dichotomy between the comic book fan-base and the real world, has made it very tough for all-ages material (the books that used to bring in the younger readers to replenish the customer base), to survive in the insular Direct Market. Even though that very same material, when exposed to a mainstream audience, has phenomenal success. Properties like The Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, even the latest hit The Black Panther were failures repeatedly in the DM. Yet their universal stories, escapist qualities and even, dare I say it, humor, touches the mainstream audience, which is by definition all-ages.
Why the weird aside about the DM? It is because of Big Bang Comics that I bring this up. The characters at Big Bang Comics have tremendous mass appeal and some of their very pastiche qualities make their potential to tell really cool stories quite exciting. Which is why I support home wholeheartedly.
To learn more about Big Bang Comics, click the image below. You won’t regret it.
Use Facebook To Comment