The question: Here's a question - is it The Big Bang Theory that started this "geek chic" nonsense? Or were people with no interest in comics buying them as investments BEFORE that happened? Was it the success of the first X-Men movie that started it all up?
Question condensed - when do you think this big mess started?
Hold your breath for the reply....no, better not.
Well, a few extra people bought Batman comics after the Tim Burton Bat (Michael Keaton)Man movie in the late 1980s. BUT not that many because the comics were not like the movies and movie goers were interested in movies NOT comics (I doubt 90% of those who watched the movie even knew it was based on a comic character.
The Superman (Chris Reeves) movies ditto. Those mag sized Keaton Batman and later Cloony Batman movie comics? They were hanging around in piles for a long time and I even spotted some at a comic event going for £1 -one dealer grunted that no one wanted those comics -"Buy any comic and I'll throw that one in for nothing. I bought five comics but refused the offer!
X-Men movies the same. T-shirts and other merchandise yes -I've seen so many Captain America, Avengers and Thor MOVIES t-shirts but even last Summer they were getting fewer. Comics -nope. Think about it -Marvel and DC chop and reboot their books so frequently now even real comic fans have given up. And I talk to LOTS of people and when they have seen the movies and "I had no idea they made comics of the movies....huh? The comics were around over 40 years ago? The movies just came out--?"
And "Stan Lee -that character from the Big Bang series, yeah"
Movie goers do not buy comics. If they did Marvel and DC would love it. Fantastic Four being cancelled. THE flagship title of Marvel --that sound like movies drew in lots of FF comic sales?
The Big Bang Theory had nerd comic and gaming fans as main characters. First season reaction....okay, but then more comic stuff creeped in and then the comic shop and suddenly nerds were cool....which means they are, therefor, NOT nerds.
I have heard so many of these chic comic geeks who have no idea who Kirby is. No idea who Ditko is. No idea about anything before 2003 in comics --their blogs and video blogs are full of stunned discoveries -"I don't get this and I'm a died in the wool comic geek and I never heard there before: Ultron, who is in the next Avengers movie, created the Vision but now I read the Vision is based on the brain waves of Power Man?!" In fact, the brain patterns were used in the Vision (or were gods know what they say now)...the brain patterns of WONDER MAN not Power Man.
You also hear them spout what they have seen on The Big Bang Theory -"It's the one place you won't find girls!" WOMEN have been going into comic book stores long before these idiots read a comic.
I tend to be interested in people and how their minds work and in a previous existence I had to study incidents and see if they suddenly created waves of similar reports.
So I trawl the net and read what comic folk write on Google+ and I see that comic knowledge amongst these "nerds" does not go back further than 2007-2008 and they state they've been collecting 6-7 years now! The TV series began in...2007(?)
You then see the real comic fans/collectors who are in their 50s to 80s and their books go back to the early 1960s and some from the 1950s they later picked up. TRY to catch one of them out on comics history -and they are NOT in any way influenced by the movies (they like them "But they are not the comic universe") or TV shows and they KNOW women collect comics and go to stores.
A lot of cos-players have no idea about comics. Their eyes are caught by images and design and all that involves though, yes, there ARE comic reading cos-players as seen by the JLA-Avengers cos-play tribute to George Perez. There have always been cos-players back to the 1960s but now the materials and accessories are so far advanced they can do amazing things. Some of them are Big Bang Theory fans -and the characters in that are cos-players, too!- so its a mix-up of comic fans and people who like to design and wear costumes.
WEIRD when you hear cosplayers wearing super hero suitsand saying "I haven't read the book but the design and feel is so cool!"
So, yes, I think The Big Bang Theory made people think comics would make them seem cool -a perfect environment for people to feel safe in a "pack". I have known ten people on the internet who knew nothing about comics, collected them like crazy: "nice cover -why I bought it" -again, they buy books and comics with "cool" looking covers and obviously from what they said never read them.
These people form internet groups, meet up, video blog and then, after a year or so....I bought this record player and I found some vintage long playing records (we'd just say "LPs")...that then shifts their focus and then, in one case, the guy "I've gotten into motor-biking" and then nothing more on comics. You can see they've gotten bored.
They then stop blogging. Gone.
And we are now seeing a lot of these people get bored -a lot of them getting hyped up about the next Star Wars movie -as sites are declaring now: "the new Stars Wars movie is more hotly anticipated than Avengers Age of Ultron!"
Get all your Star Wars stuff ready to sell.
It really is a trendy thing to look cool. Like that middle class trendy: "Oh yes, I've known him yonks now -he's a Gay" the month before it was "Oh yes, I've known him yonks now -he's a Black" and before that it was "Oh yes, I've been a UFO expert for yonks!" -like the "ghost expert" in Beetleljuice -"I'm also an interior designer"
I've studied these trends and even gathered data on them for researchers.
With comics the market is flooded and it can only sustain the interest of these people so long and then....collapse.
In fact, these comic trends come and go -the 1940s then it died down and picked up in the early 1960s and started dying off in the early 1970s and picked up in the 1980s.....went down and now picked up again. A lot of people are temporarily distracted by comics -something kicks a craze off...in this case Big Bang Theory.
And whether its interest in "ghost busting", "Mystery big cats", "UFOs" or other subject you get peaks of lots of people getting involved, identifying themselves as "investigators" and then they get bored and jump ship.
Question condensed = Answer Decondensed.....like that thick, overly sweet canned milk....
Question fully answered, thanks!
ReplyDeleteI remember the Batcraze of the early Nineties, with the bat-symbol all over the place, and this led to the Adam West TV series being repeated on Channel 4 (my first encounter with Batman - I was four when the Burton film came out). I remember my dad saying he was disappointed with the 1989 film, because before that all he knew of Batman was the TV series!
As for the fairweather comic "fans" - they don't really bother me. It's their time and money they're wasting, not mine, and their actions don't affect the pricing of the comics that I'm personally into (humour and horror stuff). It's whoever came up with the term "geek chic" that annoys me. People wearing T-shirts that just say "nerd" or "geek" on them, people wearing glasses without lenses. I'm a spectacle-wearer myself, out of necessity. I'd throw them away if I had perfect eyesight, why do people choose to weigh down their faces? Fashion, I'll never understand it.
Then there's the whole "geeks are cool!" thing. Words like "geek" and "nerd" used to be insults, then a few years ago it was applied to anyone with a more-than-passing interest in a given subject. Now it's people ASPIRING toward that label. They'll get some non-prescription glasses and put on a Superman or Atari T-shirt and say "Look at me, I'm a geek, LOL!"
I'm into ranting territory now. A friend and I were discussing vowels, when a stranger butted in and said to my non-spectacled friend, "Aren't geeks great? You're always learning things from them!". A girl I was going out with for a short time in 2013 told me she'd take things further if I changed my glasses for "some geeky ones". I was a fucking fashion accessory!
Summarised/tin of Carnation - people can enjoy whatever they want, just stop with the labelling. Estelle and Cosmopolitan and their ilk, FUCK OFF with your "geek chic"!
You were four years old? Thanks for making me feel even older!!! And, yes, a lot of non-comic people also saw the movie and said "Isn't it supposed to be funny??" I am afraid that "Chic Comic Geek" is a term I came up with. But Estelle and other mags -I saw one today with "How to be Geek Chic in 2015" WTF??? I DID wonder why all these young people were wearing spectacles with no lenses -some bought the plain glass lens spectacles. I HAVE to wear glasses to read and avoid my viewing glasses (I have "Great" distance and peripheral vision) but like you I'd dump them in a minute if I could. And es...I hate those t-shirts with "Geek" and "Nerd" on them. And I think a lot of women use men as fashion accessories....WE ARE THEIR MAN-DOLLIES!!!! ;-)
ReplyDelete