IS HOLLYWOOD KILLING COMICS?

Remember when the phrase “comic-book movie” meant one Superman installment every couple of years? Or, later, a rapidly deteriorating Batman franchise? Well, fast-forward a few years to 2007: Spider-Man 3 made $151 million its opening weekend, and the Fantastic Four series, despite offering little more than Jessica Alba in Lycra, continued to go hard like Ben Grimm. Over the next 12 months there will be at least nine releases, with four major events (Hellboy II, Iron Man, Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk) this summer. Live-action adaptations of both Akira and Scott Pilgrim have been announced, and the rumor mill swirls ceaselessly with whispers and half-truths about comic-book movies stuck in various stages of development hell.

Once a niche industry on the brink of collapse, comic books have leapt from the basement to the big screen, finally earning respect—or at least enormous sums of money. “Last year, roughly 10 percent of box-office sales came from movies based on comics,” says DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz. These movies make money hand-over-fist, but are comic book companies reaping the benefits? Do millions of moviegoers at a Spider-Man movie mean millions more readers at the comic shop? And perhaps most fundamentally: Is Hollywood helping comics—or just helping itself?

According to Levitz, Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster Batman drove comic sales anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent higher—but today’s expectations are nowhere near as high. “We’ll sell a few graphic novels,” says Levitz of the upcoming Dark Knight, “but it’s unlikely to have the same kind of dramatic effect.” Part of the problem is that comic book movies aren’t a surprise anymore. Also, picking up a superhero comic book isn’t as simple as it seems. Go to the comic shop looking for a major character like Batman or Spider-Man, and you’ll find four or five ongoing series, dozens (if not hundreds) of trade paperbacks spanning 60 years of history, including alternate versions of the characters in different dimensions where Spider-Man is permanently 16 and Superman is a communist. (Seriously.) Expand the scope to a group like the X-Men, and you’re drowning in a morass of origins and story arcs.

Hardcore fanboys are more than happy to traipse through the swamp of continuity, but the average moviegoer…well, not so much. “There’s so much crap out there with Spider-Man [on it] that they don’t even know where to start,” says Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth, whose company first brought Ghost World to comic shelves. “Nothing scares people off faster than confusion,” agrees 30 Days of Night creator Steve Niles. “If they walk into the store and there’s 100 graphic novels and 50 versions of the same character, they probably won’t buy anything.”

The mixed track record of comics sales may be a bit of a disappointment for publishers, but the good news is that comics sales don’t really matter. The real money comes from licensing and merchandising anyway. We’re not only talking Hulk Hands here. Movies give publishers a chance to license their characters for everything from video games to cologne
to boxer shorts. A recent partnership, between Marvel and Pottery Barn, resulted in kids’ furniture emblazoned with Spider-Man graphics.