It’s been a while since I’ve written a piece on this blog, mostly because I try to keep the blather down and the usefulness up – and there’s a recent debacle that I’d like to throw my two cents at.
That is to say, Gary Friedrich vs. Marvel vs. convention sales.
Now, the court case has been settled wherein Gary Gary
Now, the thing is, Marvel is not legally in the wrong for doing this. That’s where the trouble begins, as these large corporations turning a blind eye to this sort of thing has just... been the way of things, up until now.
The entire game has changed. Marvel Comics is owned by Marvel Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. And I think we all know how the Walt Disney company treats infringement cases, going as far as to sue a childrens’ nursery for painting Mickey Mouse on their walls without licensing it first.
To me, it’s very obvious which companies own which characters. DC and Marvel own a joint copyright on the term “superhero”. Comic conventions revolve largely around this, celebrating this genre above all others. The need to protect this property seems like an asinine endeavor; no-one will mistake me for the creator of Spiderman, or Wonder Woman.
I know I’m still technically in the wrong, but I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the legal grey area. Hear me out for a second;
Comics shops are niche, places where male privalege is so engrained in the culture of the mainstream product that many women who enjoy comics, and any other potential comics-loving women, tend to steer clear of them altogether.
Women like comics. Manga’s popularity in North America is due to diversity in story, content, style, and character, with many females in the lead/titular role. This is in direct opposition to the Big Two’s business model, and where DC’s oldboys club is shooting itself in the foot – re: the new 62 and their reputation for misogyny – but I digress. Feminism and comics is something discussed more eloquently, and at length, by others.
Back to Marvel.
Marvel is shooting itself in the foot here by enforcing legal restrictions. This seems counter-intuitive, but turning a blind eye has been benefiting the Big Two for a long time without them even realising it;
Adobe’s business model goes something like this; ignore art students who use pirated Adobe software, and sell the Adobe software product to companies. The companies purchase the software because – lo and behold – since every artist out there has pirated and used the software, they know how to use it! Photoshop is the industry standard graphics program, with their entire Production Suite in hot persuit! Turning a blind eye to the piracy is beneficial, because since those students are too poor to have paid for the fucking thing in the first place, it’s not like they’re losing sales! If they had cracked down on this? That paves the way for competition to become the new standard. If you hire employees that already know the programs, you save in time training them, which is just sound business.
Now; if artists at conventions aren’t allowed to sell prints of licensed characters, what are you going to see at Artist Alleys? Original content. The Big Two no longer become the industry standard, as the industry artists are now in direct competition with them.
With these recent blunders of the Big Two, it is becoming more and more obvious that these companies are in their final death throes. They are killing themselves because they are unable to adapt to meet a more diverse, multimedia, instant world. If they don’t, others will come along and fill that need.
As the Big Two scramble to keep themselves on top, the more they drop in popularity by alienating their clientele. I look forward to the industry when it realises that it does not have to cater to corporate interests to make a living, allowing creative, original content to become the new industry standard when you think of the word “comics”.
Things will never go back to the way they were.
