Comics Should Be Fun

It seems a very simple premise, but for some reason an entire industry forgot the four words of the title of this post for the last 30 years.

I just watched an interview with X-Men creator, Chris Claremont, in which he laments the direction the comic industry’s gone. He regrets being a part of “the epic crossover” which turned books into marketing gimmicks for other books and away from their own individuality, their own storytelling.

This is something we’ve talked about a lot at Arkhaven, and also have endeavored to change in our own creations. Much like Claremont says, characters matter, caring about them is what hooks a reader on a book. They have to have some reason to relate or there’s nothing there but pretty pictures.

While pretty pictures are nice, they aren’t what make great comics. All of the older generation of great comic creators seems to know this, and sales are not anywhere now where they were when these legends like Claremont or Dixon wrote for these companies, so why are they continuing down the same path where they can’t create compelling stories?

The interview is worth watching: