A quick-fix never works. The problem is quality.
That and the price. They also need to market it to children. Get some comics at Burger King or something.
Kids don't buy comics en masse, and the market has recognized this for almost 20 years now. The problem is that comics don't give good visceral value for a kid's entertainment dollar, compared to something like a video game. That is why mainstream comics today address an adult readership, with often adult themes and stories. There ARE mainstream titles produced directly for kids......but they don't really sell well and they don't see much distribution outside of comic book stores anyways.
The biggest factor is the cover price. With mainstream comics priced at $3-$5 or more for each issue.........there's no incentive to buy them on a regular basis, unless the kid ( or the casual adult reader for that matter) is just gaga about a particular character or title.for the cost of a comic or two that can be read inside of maybe 1/2 hour, a kid can rent his favourite video game from a local game/video store for a week. The kind of immersion a game provides trumps ANY comic, any day.
Gimmicks like a fast-food franchise tie-in......or "free" comic book day are just that..........gimmicks.....and they don't work, except in the very short term, meaning they spike sale only during the offer, and not that widely even then. Again the problem as I understand it is the cover price.
Offering a "free" or cheap 25-cent title is "deceptive" in nature, because the REST of the issues of a given series are NOT those prices...and sticker shock often sets in real fast with the unwary.
I have friends, associates, colleagues who have told me they have not read comic in years, have walked into a comic shop and then walked right out again because they saw that their "usual" stack of comics that they USED to buy 20+ years ago now cost about $60-$75 instead of $20-like they remembered them.
So the audience for comics today isn't growing much, and the mainstream medium isn't offering much expect the traditional ware that feed the staid appetites of comics ageing audience. Its a catch 22--comics won't change because their core dependable readership literally demands the same KIND of stuff year after year, and readers won't change because comics are too timid to risk really alienating their readership by offering much more than superheroes. The don't buy anything but the same old thing, because that's all that they really see most of the time.
I don't know what the solution is to this. I can see there's no neat/tidy solution and I cannot see comics surviving long-term without some really profound changes happening that will essentially change the physical form of comics. I suspect both a digital broadcast future for comics, and a "boutique" mentality with print comics becoming an almost purely nostalgic gimmick added on to other products. Mainstream comics have already transcended print--they did that years ago as most of their income comes from licensing the characters into other products.
What DC is doing with this reboot is an experiment to see if they can spark more sales with existing readers. I think they are fooling themselves if they think the reboots, redesigns and #1's will entice and hold onto any new readers. I think that all its going to do AT BEST is shuffle some readers from other comics ( other publishers and other titles within DC) in the short-term. The industry has acknowledged this "trend" happening in the past, and I think this is no different now.
