Broadening the Circle

A popular parlor game among comics fans is speculation on what could make comics become more successful. Sales of comic books are far below what they were in either the '40s or the '90s, and most comics readers suspect that there's a lot there many nonreaders would enjoy if they just had the chance.

A perennial suggestion is a fairly obvious marketing one: If comics had a higher profile, they couldn't help but be more popular. But how much can their profile grow? Comic book movies can't get much bigger. This year already we've had Ghost Rider, 300, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and we're all sitting around waiting for the new Spider-Man in a few weeks. I'm not sure we could get much of a higher profile, but all that's seemed to do is hold off the slide in favor of more of a plateau.

A recent article in the Toronto Star has another suggestion: more diversity. That's certainly something that mainstream comics lack these days. Writer Brad Mackay theorizes that 2 percent of Marvel characters are black. And unless I'm missing a short-term miniseries somewhere, exactly one of them currently headlines his own title. But while I think comics could certainly benefit from a greater diversity, I'm not sure that this is the secret ingredient that might edge comics closer to again becoming a mass medium.

If you want to read a bit more in-depth on the subject, Mackay posts his original piece on his own blog. He wasn't entirely happy with how the Star edited his article, so he's giving us a chance to see the whole thing here. There's a bit more from movie director and writer of Black Panther Reginald Hudlin as well as the inclusion of Black Lightning, who was written out of the main piece and relegated simply to sidebar status in the Star.