Multiversity’s history column returns with another installment of our year-by-year look at the comic industry. Today we hit 1992, and man… What a year! I’ve already covered several of the minor milestones in previous columns, but I could easily expand this into a multi-part saga. Instead, I’ll just try provide a general overview today. Look for future (2023) installments to expand on major events like Image’s first year and the Death of Superman. Before continuing, you might consider refreshing yourself on 1990 and 1991.
The comic industry continued the rapid growth of previous years with no signs of slowing. Total annual revenue from sales was
around $500 million, with lucrative income streams from advertising (
$7M) and licensing ($500k for Marvel). Top sellers could easily move
600,000-700,000 copies per issue. In the busy summer months, Capital City Distribution was shipping 500 unique comics a month and the ordering catalog for its competitor, Diamond Distribution, was regularly hitting 400 pages. Paperback reprint collections had become common enough that fans could reasonably expect popular runs from most publishers to be available in a bookshelf format. To support this growing market segment, Diamond instituted its Star System, a quarterly catalog of backlist items that retailers could use to restock. Superheroes remained the most popular genre by far, but Frank Miller’s “Sin City” brought crime comics back in a way that hadn’t been seen since the last 1940s. Harris Publications quietly revived “Vampirella” with an irregular schedule, but her return led directly to the “Bad Girl” craze two years later.
The easy money that came with the boom was accompanied by innovation, expansion, respectability, and carpetbaggers. The startup PC Comics pioneered digital comics, which they described as “electronic comic books” or “Hypercomix.” Their first release was “Trouble at the Wox,” a choose-your-own-adventure style narrative sold on CD-ROM for $20. Nicola Barrucci founded Dynamic Forces to sell limited edition and/or autographed comics and merchandise. In the summer, Eclipse Comics tried to grow their audience by pushing their “Parts Unknown” miniseries by Beau Smith and Brad Gorby into video stores. It was a risk because it wasn’t a media tie-in, but it found readers. Reorders for the first issue were higher than the initial orders. Art Spiegelman’s second volume of “Maus” won a special Pulitzer Prize and Eric Drooker’s wordless picture novel “Flood!” received the American Book Award. Ronald Schmitt examined comic literacy in ‘Deconstructive Comics,’ an academic article for the “Journal of Popular Culture.” In August, TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman opened The Words and Pictures Museum in Northampton, Massachusetts. It focused on original artwork with intent to educate visitors, featuring everything from cave art to contemporary comics. Around the same time, his cohort Peter Laird used his half of the TMNT fortune to launch the Xeric Foundation in support of self-publishers. In October, Christie’s auction house held its first comic book auction, institutionalizing comics as an investment. As the trading card market suffered a 20% decline in year-over-year sales, Topps created a comic division to shore up its bottom line.
The rising tide did not raise all boats, however.
World Color Press, once the world’s largest comic printer, closed its Sparta, Illinois plant after a
mishandled attempt at employee ownership. Comic fans didn’t notice, as most comic printing had moved to Ronald’s Printing in Montreal by then. During the Summer, perhaps spurred on by the revelation of
Northstar’s homosexuality in January, three California comic shops were visited by police responding to calls about obscene material. Golden Apple received a warning. About 45 comics were confiscated from Amazing Comix. At City Comics, the store manager was arrested. “Amazing Heroes,” the long-running news magazine for comic fans, came to an end with the double-sized issue #203/204 in July. Its weakening sales were attributed to “Wizard” and other competitors, but “Wizard” had only reached the point of profitability and raising sales four months earlier. Given that the publisher of “Amazing Heroes” was Fantagraphics, a company well known for its disdain of mainstream comics and reportedly unpleasant treatment of the “AH” staff, I think its more likely they just wanted to out of the sector. Fantagraphics was suffering low sales across the board and was forced to cut eight series and layoff four employees later in the year, refocusing its efforts on more profitable graphic novels and its pornographic Eros imprint. In November, Capital City hosted a roundtable purporting to be comprised of the industry’s most important figures. No women were invited to it, angering industry reporter Heidi MacDonald and prompting her to form the
Friends of Lulu at the 1993 WonderCon.Continued below
The internet was beginning to reach the average person in 1992, with Usenet, Compuserv, and Genie becoming hubs for fan discussions. As an added draw for fans, Compuserv waived the standard signup fee for comic professionals to encourage them to post in their Comics & Animation Forum. One of the big debate topics for the year came from a September 1991 letter to Comic Buyer’s Guide. The letter claimed to be from a mainstream comic artist, but was signed “name withheld.” Its main point was that artists did not need writers the way writers needed them, and that fans would be better served if artists were all allowed to write their own material. As Image exploded onto the scene with superstar artists doing just that, it proved to be a hot button topic with new evidence to support claims every month.
As the number of comic retailers grew, they reached the critical mass that turned them into a profitable audience by themselves. “Comic Buyer’s Guide” had split its professional news off into its own publication, “Comics Retailer,” in 1991. In 1992, “Wizard” and “Hero Illustrated” followed suit with “Entertainment Retailing” and “Comic Book Business” respectively. Seeking to utilize their strength in numbers, retailer Gary Colabuono formed the Direct Line Group, a national organization of comic book retailers with 64 charter members. It had ambitious aims to support independent comics and take power back from publishers and distributors, but the market shakups in the following years found retailers lacking the confidence needed to rock the boat.
I’m considering a format change for this column in 2023. If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered, please let me know by email. If you’re viewing this after 1/1/2023, I’ll still accept suggestions. Thanks for reading!
