Posted Friday May 29th 2009
by Nikesh Shukla

Last weekend, I walked out of the cinema after forcing myself through X Men Origins: Wolverine, or X-Men: Origins- Wolverine or X-Men (Origins): Wolverine or whatever punctuation they were using, and felt a little numb about the portrayal of the character I’ve followed since I was 13 years old on the screen. I didn’t feel that ire, that fire in the belly, that nerdish fastidious dissection of every continuity error or tick that contravened years and years of issues of 32-page garishly painted yellow costumed superheroism. Because, sadly, the future for characters like Wolverine is on the screen and as a ghost in the shell (this is an obscure Manga reference, I mean as a computer game).

Every Thursday, I make that same excited journey to the comic shop to pick up the week's new comics. I’ve been making this journey for longer than I haven’t now. I’ve seen the glory days of many tie-ins and one-shots and cheap cover prices and collectables and stories that darkened with our ages and tastes. I’ve watched the prices inflate, the stories reflect whichever film was about to come out, the number of titles thin (in addition to numbers of pages) and the events get BIGGER, BADDER, LONGER... Marvel now has to have a major event title every year that spans its entire universe of characters as they ‘team up’ to kick alien butt or each other. DC has been running its Infinity Crisis and Final Crisis series into infinity, just to keep the diehards coming back through the momentum of a long large story that they simply can’t miss. Amping the thrills up every year is the only way they can keep exciting or tantalising comic readers, or dangling enough mystery in front of them that they'll continue to read every week despite constantly moaning online.

Six months ago I came to Booktrust and it meant my travelling timetable didn’t allow me to head to my local shop every Thursday. It was too out of my way. And this was the shop I’d go in for a minute and spend an hour, dissecting, nerding out, discussing, debating, having an intense burst of a social life with fellow like-minds, engaged in conversations about our passions, about things that were important to us – about, essentially, reading. But I left, for convenience, to a shop near Book House.

As I wrote down my subscription list (Amazing Spider-man and all tie-ins, Deadpool, Wolverine, Daredevil, X-Force, Kick-Ass, Uncanny X-Men, Batman, Detective Comics - for those who care), the curmudgeonly old man behind the counter sighed and said, ‘I’m grateful for your custom mate. But this is symptomatic of the death of the independent comic shop. One shop gaining a customer means another shop has lost one.’

We embarked on a discussion of ‘the problem.’ Why did people not read comics anymore? His theory was: comics have to broach the uneasy gap between encouraging new kids to part with their pocket money and build a lifelong obsession and keeping old kids reading out of lifelong obsession. But, as the last five years had heralded many darker more adult themes in the pages of these pictoral tales of superheroes and villains, losing that innocent streak of the 40s and 50s, kids couldn’t get into it from any early age. And when they were old enough to appreciate the more adult-themed stories, they had committed their spare cash to other things.

I agree with him. It was easier to watch films, play games, surf the web. The films, the computer games all warranted their disposable income, rather than reading comics. And the internet...

‘Ahh, the internet,’ he smiled knowingly. ‘Yes, where conversation goes to die.’ I laughed, asking what he meant.

‘Well, independent shops are dying out mate. They lose their premises and go online and the only shops left are the big business chains. We independents suffer. I sell more online than from the shop, which I only open four days a week now. No point otherwise. And the sad thing is, I miss the conversations. The social aspect of buying comics, digging through the racks, making discoveries, chatting to the know-alls behind the counter, arguing, debating... this may sound sad, but I made some of my closest friends over the years through arguing in comic shops. And now they just argue online. For hours.’

‘Well, doesn’t that bring everyone together? Isn’t it exciting that you could be in Mumbai arguing with a kid from Rio about who the best Hobgoblin was or why the Skrull invasion was awful.’

‘I suppose. It just felt so electric... you know... when it was happening here... in my shop. I could see with my own eyes that I felt part of something.’

I could go on for hours about the dying comic industry, but I’d rather just briefly say why I read them and why I’ll continue to buy them till I die (unless they discontinue Amazing Spider-man – he’s my ACTUAL hero): even in the simplest showdown between hero and villain, with every BLAM-KAPOW-SPLAT-CHUKKACHUKKA-TSK sound effect bubble, there’s always a bigger theme and the theme usually centres on a character that is you in wish fulfilment mode. People chose their comic character obsessions over recognising the traits within themselves and allowing their imagination to run wild with it. Whether you’re the downtrodden bullied Peter Parker, or the outsider Superman or have a disability like Daredevil, it’s the ultimate wish fulfilment and fantasy, with some butt-kicking thrown in.

Find your local comic shop and every May 1, pick up your free comic books, and hopefully you’ll grown your own obsessions and the industry won’t die out. Because, what else will I do with my Thursdays?