Change and Innovation

Okay, so I think I have an answer to one of my unanswered questions.

I seem to be bothered by the notion of the sheer amount of entertainment generated by our society. When if we just chose to thrive on the entertainment of the past we could read/watch/enjoy things for years without ever repeating anything. So why do we keep producing? When are we full? And what happens to those works of the past that no one cares about anymore.

I wrote about it in a previous post, you can find here.

I’ve been reading a book from TwoMorrows, an excellent company that publishes books and magazines about the history of comic books. The book is about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and about the creation of the Fantastic Four. The book is Lee & Kirby: The Wonder Years by Mark Alexander. I found the following quote from the book that really struck me:


“These were bland times for kids who loved action heroes. The new adventures of the Flash had begun promisingly enough, but now even the Flash seemed to be mired in DC’s outmoded notions of corporate super heroism. Creatively, everything was at a standstill. An acute state of inertia was rotting away at the very core of comics like creeping paralysis. Everything was frozen, everything was petrified. The time was right for a revolution. What the decaying industry desperately needed was something entirely new, a revelation, a spark, a rallying point; something truly atmospheric that would give the medium a whole new style and direction. Something had to change, and something did. The Fantastic Four were that something.”

I don’t agree with everything being said by Mr. Alexander. His view of DC Comics is dour to the point of being unfair. And his view of Marvel seems to be a tad overly inflated. But when his passion is boiled away, there are certain facts being presented that can’t be ignored. It’s well documented that the offices of DC comics in the 1950’s and early 1960’s were populated mostly by older, out-of-touch, white males in business suits who lived in an ideal world and they just didn’t want anything to change. They were producing material for kids. They had no vision, no passion, and competition. The Fantastic Four and Marvel charged into this situation, became comics number one publisher out of nowhere, and DC has never really locked down that number one slot since then.

This is one of the biggest problems that I see around me. People hate change. And it’s one of my biggest personality faults. I don’t want change, even when I recognize the stagnation that desire can bring.

The 1980’s were a huge time of change for comics, and personally I didn’t handle it well. I kept trying to contain the situation, as if I had any input at all. The Justice League changed so drastically that they were unrecognizable from the super-team I knew so well in the seventies. And I kept waiting; waiting for things to go back to normal. Waiting for creators to come to their senses and restore the status quo.


Marvel’s top selling book at the time was X-Men. And I read it and enjoyed it. And then came change. They splintered the team and went in a different direction. Either they were trying to turn one hit into several strong-selling books, or they recognized stagnation can kill a good thing. But… no one consulted me. And I didn’t like it. I wanted things back the way they were. So I walked away from X-Men.





I’m ashamed to say that still to this day I avoid the X-books. Some sort of hipster ideal that they’re not the ‘real’ X-Men, and I’m not giving up my money until Marvel realizes what a mistake they made and return things to normal. It’s foolish, unrealistic, and the reaction of a spoiled little child.

Complacency in art and entertainment, and certainly in the professional world, is not what’s going to make our society great. Never pushing our boundaries because what we have going on right now is ‘good enough’ should never be our goal. Turning away from technology because we didn’t need that stuff when we were kids is absolutely foolish. Deciding not to pursue that new way of programming, not re-examining that process you’re using and looking for flaws, keeping your creative output aimed at the same target it’s always been aimed at, and not reading X-Men because they aren’t the team you loved when you were 13; all these things are foolish in the extreme. I know this, and yet I keep doing it or seeing those around me do it.

So does that make my passion for old things wrong? Is it wrong that I would prefer to read Firestorm comics from 1983 than I would Firestorm comics from 2012? No, I don’t think so. I’m entitled to my personal preferences. It’s when I start trying to interfere with YOUR preferences that problems start up. And as much as I grump about it, I haven’t written a single email to DC or Marvel urging them to return things to the way they were in the 1970’s.





They have to keep growing, innovating, challenging. And they certainly have to keep looking for ways to reach new audiences. Whether that be through movies, TV, digital comics, or whatever the future may bring.

I wonder if they’ve tried radio dramas?

Thanks,
DCD