What's Wrong with Comics?

Recentishly, I came out and said that I feel in the long run the Western Sphere of comics will probably stave off the Japanese Comic invasion. Although this view is contentious I'll stick to my guns, because to adopt the contrary stand requires me to reject my first hand experience with not just Japanese comics and the fanbase that sustains them but almost all of Japan's post meiji history.

Having said that, there is a lot wrong with Western comics. So lacking time today to do any productive drawing I thought I'd slap together a bitch list of every trend I find disturbing and wish to see purged. I don't think this is necessarily a destructive process nor is it necessarily a constructive process. It was Johnny Rotten's hatred of Pink Floyd that inspired Punk Rock, was that a success or a disaster? I don't know. What I do know is what I like, and when I look at western comics I see a lot I don't like.

1 Universes.

This one goes way back and was observed by my brother. The problem with both Marvel and DC is that all their titles exist in the one Universe. Spiderman lives next door to Daredevil who both jump around in the shadow of the fantastic 4's tower.
So too is Gotham City up the coastline from Metropolis and somewhere to either side is The Flash's stomping ground of Star City.
In some ways the Marvel Universe is more understandable than DC's, as almost all their flagship titles were created by Stan Lee in conjunction with some other artists however it is arguably less cohesive than DC's having mutants, lab accidents and magicians populating this super powered world.
DC makes less sense, because most of it's big names came from completely different creators at completely different times (well it would have looked that way, at the time) and 'Detective Comics' just would have bought them up, one by one.
This tradition probably explains why comic culture influence is such one way traffic. To fresh eyes the Marvel and DC comic book universe must seem like one incomprehensible mess. Thus 'Dues Ex Machina' plot resolutions crop up that actually shouldn't be if you understand the tradition. But even to me who could probably pick out with a fair degree of success which characters are marvel's domain, which are DC's and whose are neither the appearance of 'people of the marvel world' in unexpected places just comes across as sloppy writing. There's just too much crammed into series that are running too long.
Of course this tradition also provides opportunities, and certain individuals can craft masterpieces out of it that you couldn't in another field. But as Watchmen proves, you can do this without actually using the pre-existing cast of some fantasy universe and parody/deconstruct it successfully.

2. Events, Events, Events...

Which follows on directly, there's no logical (from a storytelling point of view) to put Batman and Superman in the same little booklet. One's a spaceman with phenomenal powers representing truth justice and the american way, another is a billionaire playboy superspy waging a holy war against (traditionally) gimmicky criminals. Why mix sci-fi characters with James Bond? The answer is to boost sales. I'm sure this is the true origin of the DC and Marvel universe. (even Image do it). The other reason being that you invent a character as a villain to a pre-existing hero then when they get a positive reception you spin them off as an anti-hero with their own title.
But 'crossovers' are the true impetus (I feel, I haven't done my research) for the Marvel and DC universe. Largely so unpopular or new titles could piggyback off the flagship titles and furthermore to generate excitement that boosts sales.
I call these crossovers 'events' and they are dominating shelf space of western comic books.
I would reject the suggestion that events 'allow multiple writers to coordinate and plan long term plot developments that create new and interesting scenarios for the readers' because they A) seldom do and B) this is what writers should be doing anyway, regardless of whether an event is going on.
DC seem addicted to them, Marvel probably are as well. But alas they are just sales promotions, and these are fundamentally addictive. In Oz we have the popular department store Myers, Myers is addicted to sales, it has the 'permanent sale' and its a kind of trap retailers can fall into. That is if you have sales promotions too often you adjust your customers expectations upwards. Suddenly instead of experience short term boosts to sales, you experience short term drop-offs whenever you don't have a sale. Instead of experiencing any benefits, you are trapped into slashing your prices (margins/mark-ups) just to keep pace with business as usual.
Same same for comics, I'm sure when the crossover event was first concieved (crisis on infinite earths?) it looked like sales genius. I'm sure by now they are desperately trying to concieve of annual events that can hamstring all their writers into doing something big epic, messy and ultimately dissappointing.
That's what I dislike the most, I'm sure any artist or writer working on their own baby would still leap at the chance to contribute something to the legendary icons of the industry, if only temporary. But instead of having free reign to put their spin on things they have to have Batman fighting off an invasion of Magenta-lanterns from quadrent QZX because that is the big event of the year designed to peg a bunch of unpopular titles to the coattails of the popular ones.

3. Artist dominated/Writer unfriendly.

One of the few advantages of having DC and Marvel is that they can force young upcoming artists to actually let somebody else write their comics. As my brother points out (he aspires to write screenplays, movies... anything but comics) what artist wouldn't want to work on their own stories rather than something written by somebody else?
I mean it's understandable, but I think this attitude particularly in the independant scene keeps a lot of good writers out, in starbucks writing for overcompetitive media like movies and novels. This A) helps to illegitimise comic books as a medium and B) produces routinely terrible writing.
So in a rare reversal of institutional thinking, Marvel not wanting to let an artist write the plot of the next spiderman in favor of one guy who writes 12 titles a month actually sets up an economy of scale. One great writer can produce 3-5 times the great comics than fishing around for the rare combination of somebody who can write really well and draw real good too.
In theory at least. I don't like Mark Miller's stuff personally but maybe he will demonstrate that comic book writing can be a back door into the movie industry. He certainly demonstrates (to me at least) how easy it is to look like a writing genius in this medium. I would argue that Mark Miller is simply the 'tallest pigmy' right now. Again though it's hard to say how many of the writers that look terrible nd create the impression of low writing standards are actually just hamstrung by sales executive demands that they develop messy blockbuster crossover plots with as many cameos as possible.

4. Desperately seeking validation

The adaptation of movies into comic books makes sense, they have an existing fan base so its low risk. They come with the story board all worked out. They even have a large sample of audience tested plot variations for directors and writers to pick and choose from for their screenplay examples.
This has worked well for the Spiderman, Batman and Iron Man franchises (up to a point). But Sin City, 300 and Watchmen? These were pretty much 'faithful adaptations' with Sin City even giving a directors credit to Frank Miller since it was almost frame for frame copy of the original comic.
You could argue this makes sense too, you have the same pre-existing fan base and a tested comic. It's a no risk way to make a film.
But if that logic holds why not just produce a comic book of every proposed movie and release it to the public before greenlighting a big screen adaptation of it? Can you imagine pre-movie release comic book versions of Avatar and the Hurt Locker? Yes! Did they do them? No.
Arguably they should have. It's a low cost thus, low risk way to audience test the potential market for a film before producers have to fork over the money.
Precisely because this practice hasn't been adopted suggests a heirarchy. A heirarchy that says the ultimate achievement for the comic book medium is to be adapted into a live action film.
So many have been adapted though, that if you take the few commercial and critical successes you are left with a swamp full of bloated corpses. Punisher, Hulk, Batman's 3-5 (and arguably Batman Begins), the fantastic 4. Why do authors and artists aspire to have comic books made into movies?
I feel its because they seek validation, comic books are dorky, a subculture and they desperately crave approval from the broader public. Just because a lot of people went to see Sin City though didn't make it any less uncool.
So long as comic book creators keep this heirarchy in their minds, comic books will never be legitimate as a medium. The same is present in fiction writing, but it isn't as all pervasive. The same people who salivate over Harry Potter adaptations are probably the same people that salivate over a Watchmen big screen adaptation. Just unlike books, you don't have a corresponding group who bemoan something like 'Where the Wild Things Are' being made into a movie.