These past few months, for the average person, it’s been hard to look at anything long-term. There are too many questions. When will COVID-19 stop being a controlling factor in our daily lives? What happens with and after the election? Was 22 chapters too much Sword Content?
Even within the smaller world of the comics industry, this year has brought a number of seismic shifts. DC laid off a fifth of its staff as part of a larger AT&T restructuring, parted ways with longtime distributor Diamond and ended the reign of co-Publisher Dan DiDio. Speaking of Diamond, the global pandemic laid bare its weaknesses as comics’ dominant distributor, shutting down the industry for two months. At the same time, we learned that comic and graphic novel sales through bookstores in 2019 outpaced sales to comic shops for the first time ever, the result of players like Raina Telgemeier, Dav Pilkey and even DC actively working to hook the next generation outside the form of traditional superhero comics. Even Marvel finally sat up and paid attention.
And then there are conventions, those events that kept us all connected from spring through fall, where Twitter friends who bonded over a shared love of comics met IRL, creators networked in hopes of landing a gig at the Big Two and bargain hunters looked for near-mint copies of bucket-list wall books. With each passing cancellation, cons seemed to fade into this relic of the past we’re afraid we’ll have forgotten about by the time they’re allowed to return. Instead, we get impersonal “virtual cons” that preserve the bit where celebrities talk at you about their upcoming projects and show trailers. Social media engagement data bears out how that model is not an effective replacement.
Given all this, inquiring Xavier Files editors want to know: What’s next? What does the comics industry need to do to continue to evolve and stay viable in a world on pause?
We don’t have the answer. Nobody has THE answer, but fortunately, if I’ve learned anything hanging out at XF these past few months, it’s that enough people from enough walks of life, coming at their community from different angles, can put their heads together and make something beautiful (or, at the very worst, do food crimes).
And so, we’ve created the 2021 XF Comics Survey. We’re asking writers, artists, editors, comic shop owners, PR gurus, letterers, critics, conventioneers and fans this question: With everything that’s happened this year, what is one thing the comics industry needs to do to evolve in 2021?
You can take the survey here. We’ll also be posting it around Twitter and emailing it to people in the industry.
Said responses will be used as part of a larger Xavier Files piece or series later this year. The more responses we get, the better. Let’s start a dialogue, roll up our sleeves like a politician at a New Hampshire diner, and get to work.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
