BOOM! Studios is making a public statement about comics and the wider culture that surrounds them. This message is timely, just as comics tend to be when social commentary is tied to storytelling. It’s usually because of the time it can take to produce and release a comic but it’s also about the wide range of personalities working in the comic book industry. Today, the CEO of BOOM! Studios, Ross Richie’s editorial in PREVIEWS magazine is challenging everyone in the comics medium to continue to momentum that the geek culture has created.
With the attack on the great but controversial creators of Charlie Hebdo, having a more accepting and open culture is vital to the well being of a free society. All ideas should be welcome in the public forum and all of those ideas, regardless of how important they might be to a group of people, should be open to fair and even vitriolic debate. Comics are a medium were all stories can be told. Comic books are truly a medium for everyone with super-hero comics, horror, drama, action adventure, fantasy, political cartoons, and web comics being just a small list of the possible areas the comic book medium can exercise creativity in.
That being said, Ross Richie put’s it far more eloquently in his PREVIEWS editorial. With 2015 just getting underway, I believe the hashtag #ComicsForward is a great way to get everyone involved in the medium they love and perhaps the medium they know nothing about. The conversation and the adventurous storytelling we’ve seen through the indie comics world is just the tip of the iceberg. As Richie predicts:
Let’s go make that comic book for them. Together. As fans, as creators, as retailers, as the press, as publishers. All of us. Let’s talk about how we can all Push #ComicsForward. Because comic books should be for everyone.
We know where we’ve been—our favorite eras, our favorite characters, our favorite runs. We already know all of that. I’ve got a garage full of Silver, Bronze, Copper, and Modern Age comics and I love them.
But the medium of comics has never been more on the forefront of driving pop culture and as fans of this art form, we have a rare opportunity to take that interest to the next level and embrace an entire generation of potential fans who don’t read comics right now.
We can make a new Golden Age.
Richie wants amazing stories about every subject matter to permeate comic book culture and by osmosis the larger culture. His hope is that the next 10 years of growth and storytelling in comics can build off of the trends of the previous 10. As Richie points out, with the seeming hold that the comic book industry has on wider pop-culture, there is no time like the present to have everyone work toward an amazing decade.
The world of storytelling and the larger culture that surrounds it will be a better place if everyone is allowed a voice and if everyone is allowed to talk about those voices in an open public forum. If today is the first day of the rest of our lives, why not now as the moment we begin the work we’ve already started?
For the full article you can grab the latest issue of PREVIEWS or check it out below:
Push #ComicsForward
It’s Keith Giffen’s fault. I keep telling people that he talked me into it in a dive bar on L.A.’s west side. But the truth is that I started this company out of the spare bedroom in my apartment because I couldn’t believe the guy that created Rocket Raccoon thought I could do it. Maybe we could bring something to comics that hadn’t been there before?
I’ve loved comics since 1976. I never thought I’d publish them. Sure, I’d worked with giants of the field, including Barry Windsor-Smith, Howard Chaykin, Jim Starlin, Walter Simonson, and others too numerous to mention, when I was a young marketing turk at Malibu Comics 20 years ago. But me, publish comic books? You’re crazy.
So it’s 10 years later now. Comics publishers don’t often make it that far, do they? We should do a victory lap right now.
But who wants to look backward when there’s so much more cool stuff around the bend?
Let’s talk about the future.
Have you ever had a friend that shared a lot of your interests, but they didn’t read comics? You gave them Watchmen, you gave them Y: The Last Man, you gave them X-Men. But nothing stuck. They liked the idea of comics, but there wasn’t a comic book that felt like it was made for them…
Let’s go make that comic book for them. Together. As fans, as creators, as retailers, as the press, as publishers. All of us. Let’s talk about how we can all Push #ComicsForward. Because comic books should be for everyone.
We know where we’ve been—our favorite eras, our favorite characters, our favorite runs. We already know all of that. I’ve got a garage full of Silver, Bronze, Copper, and Modern Age comics and I love them.
But the medium of comics has never been more on the forefront of driving pop culture and as fans of this art form, we have a rare opportunity to take that interest to the next level and embrace an entire generation of potential fans who don’t read comics right now.
We can make a new Golden Age.
At BOOM!, we’ve carefully selected new projects in 2015 that we believe will help Push #ComicsForward. These projects will take on risky subject matter, introduce new characters from diverse backgrounds, and debut a swath of new creative voices to the industry.
Just in the first few months of 2015, we’ve launched a gaming-inspired humor comic in Munchkin, two projects that tackle the complex climate in the Middle East with Burning Fields and The Realist, five series with unique female leads (Curb Stomp, HaloGen, Cluster,Help Us! Great Warrior, and Giant Days), a period crime project (Hit: 1957), and an original graphic novel about the cutest crabs to ever start a revolution (The March of the Crabs). And we’ve only just begun. But this movement isn’t just about BOOM!, it’s about all of us. We’ll be devoting a ton of our time and energy in 2015 to work with the press, conventions, and social media channels to keep the conversation going.
If you know me, you know I’m the “Challenge Accepted!” guy. If there’s a problem that hasn’t been solved or a project that seems insurmountable, I’m the first one to jump in. This is a big challenge, but I want you to join me in taking it on.
No one thought comics targeted at All Ages was viable until KaBOOM!. Now it’s the norm. No one thought an all-female cast of characters with an all-female creative team had a shot in the Direct Market—until Lumberjanes. And who would have guessed that an oversized limited series like Memetic, starring a hearing-impaired, gay college student and a blind, African-American general about a meme-induced apocalypse, would garner rave reviews? We did.
If you believe comics are great just the way they are, this isn’t for you. If you think superheroes are the only kinds of stories worth telling in comics, this isn’t for you. But if you want to see everyone reading comics—your aunt, your co-workers, your niece, your boyfriend, that kid down the street—let’s Push #ComicsForward in 2015.
Together.
Founder & CEO
BOOM! Studios