Idioticomics
How piracy could make the entire industry stupid.
We’ve all heard about how much piracy hurts the comic book industry. Creators must struggle to get by. Companies will collapse under the weight of their own minimum sales requirements. All because it’s so much less expensive to find scans on the internet than it is to buy from your local comic shop. There is yet another danger inherent in piracy, one that many do not foresee until its too late.
In order to pirate comics, one must first know how to use a computer. While this may seem universal to anyone reading this article, please keep in mind that there are still many people in the world today who are not computer literate, for a variety of reasons. You also need to know how to use the internet. Yes, there are some who use computers regularly but are unfamiliar with going online. You need to be aware that there are pirated comics on the web. I used the internet for several years before I found out about it’s potential for theft. Finally, you need to be able to locate the websites that have those comics available for download. The onset of search engines has made this task laughably easy, as long as you know what you’re looking for.
The point I’m trying to make here is that, in order to pirate comics, you need to be a reasonably intelligent person. There is a certain mental threshold separating those who can from those who cannot. In general, intelligent people enjoy intelligently written comics. Thought provoking stories spark the imagination, providing more entertainment value than a mere spectacle. So let’s say, hypothetically, that everyone who knows how to pirate comics started doing so. Let’s say they never legitimately purchased another comic again in their life. In that case, who would be left? What kind of people would still be buying comics? What kind of people would still be giving comic book companies the only kind of feedback they actually care about?
By pirating comics, many intelligent people are unwittingly making themselves irrelevant. Fewer smart people buying comics means smart comics will become less profitable while sales on other comics remain consistent.
What will the industry inevitably be dominated by?
Stupid comics.
Worse yet, this trend will spread to other media based on comics. Have you heard about the new Hulk and the Agents of Smash cartoon? It’s an adaptation of Jeph Loeb’s Hulk run. You know, the one that was maligned by online fandom but still a huge sales success? I’m not commenting on the quality of those comics, which I haven’t read, or the upcoming show, which could be genius for all any of us know, but the choice to expand that story outside of comics in lieu of others is very telling.
We’ve all had comics we’ve loved cancelled out from under us. The truth is that all the positive buzz, letter writing campaigns, and online petitions in the world don’t amount to the sale of even a single copy. I’m not claiming that piracy is the only factor that kills good comics, but it certainly isn’t helping. In time, the pirates may learn that the comics they thought were free came with a terrible price after all.