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The U.S Comic Book Industry
1. Department of English and American Studies
Seminar: The Graphic Novel
Summer Semester 2012
Lecturer: Dr. Alexander Dunst
Submitted by Eric Heiden
Mat.-Nr. 748655
eheiden@uni-potsdam.de
07/15/2012
The U.S. comic book industry
One of the most influential aspects of book production in general is the source of
capital that supplies publishers with investments. Matthew P. MacAllister
dedicated a chapter of the book “Comics and Ideology” (Peter Lang, New York
City: 2001) that he wrote together with E. H. Sewell, to “Ownership
Concentration in the U.S. Comic Book Industry”. In the following, I selected
some of his statements to draw a picture of the U.S. comic book industry and its
influences.
The comic book industry is economically significant (approximately $850
million of comic book sales in 1993), about 12,000 people are employed in the
comic industry and it influences the motion picture and television productions
that generate revenue in the billions of dollar. 1 Thus, the political economic
behavior of the industry plays an important role with respect to canonization in
the comic book genre. In the U.S. the “Big Two” in the comic industry are the
Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. and DC Comics. Together, they controlled
over 60% of the sales in 1996.2 Also Image Comics and Dark Horse are among
1
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 17.
2
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 19.
2. Eric Heiden (Mat.-Nr. 748655)
the top-four in the business. Only 16% of the sales were generated by other than
these publishers, which was divided among 496 smaller publishers.3 As a result,
the dominance of Marvel, DC, Image Comics and Dark Horse heavily
influences the contents of published comic books in the U.S.
Besides this direct influence of the big players, their collaborative works
are important as well, when it comes to publishing aspects of U.S. comic books.
Sometimes, these dominant companies work together and do collaborative
investments in strategic alliances.4 The results are inter-publisher cross-overs,
like Superman versus the Hulk and Captain America versus Batman.5
The influence of the dominant companies on smaller companies can also
be found in informal organization, which means that comic artists that formerly
worked for the big companies and now work for the smaller companies can have
an impact on the company’s publications6. Typical features of the work of the
big companies can be transferred through their former employees.
At a higher level of publishing, larger collaborations between a publisher
and other companies, as for example the collaboration between DC Comics and
Time Warner, have to be considered with respect to the comic publishing
process. DC is part of Time Warner, a motion picture company with over $24
billion in combined revenues in 1997, which supplied DC financially in the
times of the economic crisis.7
Indications of the impact of the oligarchic structure of the publishers on
the content of U.S.-American comic books can be found in the dominance of
superhero comics.8 Due to the market concentration of the Big Two that focuses
on the entertainment of teens and younger children, which is characterized by a
steady demand, superhero comics are a sustainable source of income for the
3
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 19.
4
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 20.
5
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 20.
6
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 21.
7
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 21.
8
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 21.
2
3. Eric Heiden (Mat.-Nr. 748655)
comic book market and other markets, as, for example, movies, TV-productions
and merchandise. 9 Having this power of DC and Marvel in mind, the
marketplace predictability of comics with certain properties, such as superheroes
fighting the evil, makes smaller publishers adapt to the DC/Marvel definition of
comics. 10 Under these market circumstances, genre innovations are hard to
establish and even non-superhero comics may find no support from distributors.
The distribution of comics in the U.S. is, in contrast to the oligopolistic
control on the level of publishing, rather monopolistically shaped. 11 The
Diamond Comics Distributors Inc. is said to have controlled over 90% of comic
book distribution12 and has contracts with DC, Marvel, Image Comics and Dark
Horse. This extreme dominance weakens smaller distributors and gives
enormous power to the employees of Diamond who have enormous control over
the American comic book canon. Miscalculations of Diamond can therefore
have an enormous impact on the whole industry.
All these aspects of American comic book production lead to the fact that
American comics are under an enormous mainstream-pressure. The more they
differ from the superhero-mainstream and its themes, the higher is the risk of a
financial disaster for investors, publishers and distributors. In the end, the
readers decide which books they want to buy, which movies they want to see
and which products they want to buy. But, regarding the tremendous success of
the latest Batman movies and other comic book adaptations like “The
Avengers”, even at the European market, the American influence on the comic
genre seems to remain substantial, or to rise in its potential. As long as the
collaboration between the comic book industry and the other media, such as
motion pictures and video games, continues its recent level of commercial
success, superheroes will never die.
9
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 22.
10
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 22.
11
cf. MacAllister, Matthew P., 2001, p. 24.
12
Miller, J. J., The year in comics,. Comics Buyer's Guide: 1998, p. 30.
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