Alan Moore and Frank Miller killed the comic book industry

***WARNING: Long disjointed screed follows. Continue at your own risk***

I'm actually quite excited by the recent news of Disney buying Marvel for $4 billion, which you can read all about here. Not because I own stock in both companies, hell I was going to buy more Marvel stock before the news of the sale broke, but because the sale of the House of Ideas to the House of Mouse means that all my favorite Marvel characters will still be around in some form hundreds of years from now.

Most people aren't aware at how close Marvel came to folding up shop back in the nineties when the comic book market exploded under its own weight and greedy speculators caused companies to make some really bad decisions. Wikipedia has a nice brief description of the debacle of the nineties. I remember when Marvel went bankrupt and seeing the price of their stock fall to 35 cents a share. I was going to use my credit card to buy $1000 dollars worth of stock, thinking there was no way Marvel was going to go away, but ultimately pussied out. Ultimately Disney is going to pay $50 per share when the deal for the buyout goes through. If I went through with my original plan, I would have made around $140 thousand. Oh well, the stock market is full of Monday morning quarterbacks.

So why do I think Alan Moore and Frank Miller have killed the comic industry? Both are perhaps two of the greatest comic creators to have ever come out of the eighties. Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns are regarded as milestones in comic literature. Time magazine even listed Watchmen in their top 100 Novels of the 2oth Century. Their works have gone on to influence a whole slew of artists and writers like Warren Ellis, Brian Michael Bendis, Garth Ennis, and Grant Morrison. Moore and Miller can be credited to making comic books leave behind the childhood fantasies of the past and finally grow up. That is the problem with the industry today.

What makes Disney so successful? Why do children and adults flock to every new Pixar movie? The answer is incredibly simple and something the modern comic book industry has seem to have forgotten; "ALL OF DISNEY'S MOST SUCCESSFUL MOVIES CONTAIN SOMETHING FOR BOTH KIDS AND ADULTS".

Go look at a comic from the sixties and compare it to today's books. Sure your going to get deep social commentary from books like the X-Men or tragic love stories in books like Amazing Spider-Man, but you are also going to get fast paced action stories that children can read without knowing or ever hearing anything about Plato or Nietzsche. Sexual tension took a back seat to action and pacing and the average story arc was about 2 books long. Dialogue was limited and simplified so it never felt as though you had to learn to read Shakespeare, even though Shakespearean themes were common in most of the popular books. In short comics, used to be quick cheap thrills that would help millions escape into an exciting world of adventure. Many of today's comics feel like overpriced four colored versions of Joyce's Ulysses.

I have no problem with adult themes in comics but sometimes it gets to be too much. Daredevil is a good example of this. While the adult in me enjoys the more serious tone found in today's Daredevil, I often find my self getting impatient with the pacing, waiting for DD to finally beat the snot out of the villain. Often times the fight is limited to a few panels. Daredevil has gone from being a colorful fun read to a dreary labor. Seriously, why do all the books have to feel so depressing and long? Why does it take the Punisher six issues to take out one mob boss? Why is Peter Parker getting drunk and having one night stands? Why is this stuff $4 dollars? Why is the average comic fan in their 30s?

People often point to the popularity of video games and movies as to why kids seem to be fleeing comic stores. Why read a story when you can watch it on a brightly colored monitor or 30 foot screen? While the addictiveness of video games factors in the the decline of comic book popularity with children it doesn't explain the popularity of Harry Potter . Kids will obviously read something as long as its easy to understand and it deals in simple themes they can relate to. Modern day comics are pretty much incomprehensible to kids under the age of 14. You cannot tell me a ten year old is going to understand the current plot of Daredevil or DC'sFinal Crisis, let alone afford to buy them. Yet, they still devour the Potter books, the Inkheart books, or the countless other children's books that are coming to a theater near you.

So is Disney going to help? Yes, they have the resources to increase Marvel's already impressive market share. Will they change the way Marvel tells stories in their most popular books? Probably. Look, there is no reason the mainstream books can't become more kid friendly while maintaining appeal for adults. DC comics seems to manage do this fairly consistently, the Blackest Night storyline that is currently going through the Green Lantern books takes me back to a simpler time when comics where just plain fun. Will the Punisher get a fresh faced, snot-nosed young punk kid sidekick? No, or at least not in the books geared explicitly towards adults. There is plenty of room for kids books and and adult books in the world of comics. However, I find this trend of having comics appeal more towards adults, instead of striking a balance between kid sensibilities and adult attitudes, does nothing but drive kids away from the wonders of the four colored world and towards the easy allure of the digital world. Hopefully, Disney can help Marvel return more towards their roots and finally make comics fun for all ages again.

Until Hannah Montana get bit by a radioactive spider make mine Marvel. Excelsior.

Keep watching this space.