What happened to Comic Books?

Like a lot of geeks my age, I had a substantial comic book collection in High School (the jewel of which has to be my nearly complete Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection). High school for me was 1992 - 1996, though I started collecting in 1990. There's a couple of hundred books in the back room, all bagged, boarded and never read.

When comics were introduced, they were marketed to kids and cost something like 25 cents a copy. They were printed on newsprint - sometimes in color and sometimes not - and children would buy them, read them and roll them up for easy carrying in their back pocket.

The dark ages for the industry had to be the early nineties when the "collecting" craze was in full swing. Somewhere down the line, the artist became the most important person in production and not the writer. Comics started to be printed on glossy paper with fancy coloring jobs, bagged with collector cards, and they displayed super holographic covers. 25 cents per copy was replaced by 2.75 per copy. Grocery stores lost their racks and specialty comic book stores jacked up prices. Collectors, like myself, immediately stuffed comics into plastic acid free bags and stored them dark closets while retiring rich in our minds off of selling our collections.

X-Force #1 hit the market like a freight train. Marvel printed more copies of that book than they could possibly sell. It was bagged in clear plastic with some sort of "rare" card. I have 3 copies of the book myself, seeing as how it was the book to have at the time. Recently, I opened one of them, introducing the comic to the air in my house for the first time. Tossing the collector card aside, I opened the comic and READ it. The artwork was blah and the story was worse.

I had lost my way, just like the comics industry had. Any time you MARKET something as collectible, it's not collectible anymore. If there's more copies of X-Force #1 than collectors to buy it, it holds no worth at all. Marvel and DC also alienated their core fans by delivering sub par stories and jacking the prices up 200 - 300%.

Comics need to return to their roots. Children can't afford to buy a comic that costs $3.00 per copy. Likewise, how does glossy paper (which drives up printing costs) improve the story and characters? Comics need to go back to newsprint and cost 25-50 cents per copy. Grocery stores need to get their racks back.

My friend Matt introduced me to a comic artist / write named Scott McCloud. There's a resurgence of comics happening right now on the internet, from Scott's work to the PVP comics. These guys are making comics for their enjoyment and for dedicated readers.

Will Marvel and DC ever return to the glory days? Unlikely. Seems as if they're making more money off of movie licenses than comic books, which is fine. Perhaps it's time to pass on the torch to a newer generation of creative minds.

PS - If you get the chance to read Scott McCloud's Understand Comics, I suggest you do. It's a fantastic read!