Comic books making a stand in popular culture
Comic Books making a stand in popular culture
One of the great benefits of working in the newsroom is being able to talk with different people and to share with them similar interests.
On my first day at the office, I was assigned a story about Jonathan Sullivan from Bloomfield who recently opened a comic book store with his fiancé, Andrea Dillman in Avon called the Android's Dungeon.
Being a fan of comic books, I was very excited to talk with Jonathan about his dreams being realized on opening his own storefront and also the current news within in the comic world culture and how it has blossomed over the recent years.
As we began talking, Jonathan brought up a very interesting point stating that when he was in high school, comic books were not so readily discussed and it was rarely mentioned it openly.
I graduated in 2005 and much of the same could be said among my graduating class.
It was due to Jonathon and my dialogue that I thought back to my youth and remembered that when I was child , I would often dress in a black cape and would wear a Batman mask.
Many summer nights I would be off amidst the shadows to fight off invisible foes that plagued my neighborhood, and would deem myself a vigilante saving my neighbors from a danger they never knew existed.
During my high school years I left my cape draped on a hanger in my closet and left the my invisible foes in the back recesses of my imagination, but I always retained an interest for the comic book heroes of my youth.
It was not until my years that I spent at Indiana State University that I began to listen to lectures modern literary criticisms to graphic novels, that my interest was once again sparked in the genre.
The roots of comic books can be loosely traced back to the first recorded cave depiction's in the ancient world, where many of the early men and women would depict what they saw around them, often in the order of a story.
This trend continued in Greece where an artist would carve out the story of mythological heroes and gods in Grecian urns and on the buildings where they often conducted their business and held council. The trend continued through the Middle Ages and now into the Modern Age.
The real beginnings of both popular and pulp comics commenced in the 1930's and this is where some of modern comics greatest hero's emerged: Superman (Action Comics #1,1938) and Batman (Detective Comics #27, 1939).
This era of comics was known as The Golden Age, where many companies were just beginning to publish their works including DC (initially the letters stood for Detective Comics after their most popular series) which today is valued well into the billions.
I remember talking to my grandfather many years ago and he said that comics were the main source of entertainment when he was younger. He also told me that at one point he actually owned the first issue of Superman (which recently sold at auction for $2.6 million dollars).
When I asked him why he didn't hold on to it, he said it was just common practice. During the Great Depression it was common practice among children to trade their comic books amongst each other so that they could read every issue that was for sale.
Comic books continued to dominate the youth culture for many years and this trend lasted through the early 1990's.
It was not until the first year of the 70's when many comic book conventions also began to be organized and amassed a following.
In 1970, the first San Diego Comic-Con was organized and though it had its humble beginnings, today it has grown to over 130,000 attendants.
Today Comic-Con has become the source for all things related to Hollywood and movements within the comic book culture.
During the early and middle 90's, when I was a child, I also owned a plethora of comic books and was always in the theater whenever a new Batman movie was set to debut.
But, I remember a time (roughly five to ten years) when there was a lapse popular movies based on comic books.
In the year 2000, the first X-men movie hit the theaters and was a major success.
This was the first comic book adaptation in years that shown that these movies were viable in the box office.
From there the first Spiderman adaptation hit the theater in 2002 and grossed $114,844,166 in its opening week.
Both of the aforementioned movies are both from the comic book manufacturer Marvel.
DC took little time to reboot its previously successful franchise, Batman, and from there, comic book adaptations have dominated the box offices in the years to come.
What these movies in the early and middle 2000's demonstrated was the availability of a market assessable to major studios to opt to produce more comic-themed films.
After going over many of the financial successes of these comic book movie adaptations the trend for the last three years holds that the top grossing movie has been comic book based.
Within these last three years it comes as little surprise that when walking out public, people both young and old are often wearing their comic book hero whether it be Superman, Batman, or any member of the Avengers.
Also with a rise in merchandise sales, the actual comic books and graphic novels have seen its highest sales mark since 1993. In 2013 the Comic and Graphic novel market topped at $870 million dollars which has annually seen a rise in all categories from comic store orders and digital orders.
Most importantly, comic books are also recruiting an generation of new fans much like the original Tim Burton Batman films did for my generation.
The Avengers, The Man of Steel, the new Spiderman reboot, and the recent success of Guardians of the Galaxy, are movies that are not only frequented by adults, but have a huge following among many of the children today.
Comic books and graphic novels help to inspire imagination and entertainment for its readers.
In many campuses across the United States, more and more college English Departments are instating classes geared towards the criticism of graphic novels, raising these texts to literary status.
Every year for the last decade, comic books have risen in popular culture and are also beginning to share shelf space with the great literary classics of the past.
- -- Posted by tferry1075 on Fri, Aug 22, 2014, at 2:06 PM
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