I’ll try to be brief, I know I only have your attention for so long, but I’ve noticed something and it’s been bugging me. Comic readers have short attention spans. I know many would claim this is a problem endemic to society at large, but I don’t have a podium for those folks, I can only talk to you. So what exactly am I talking about?
Also a book by Brian Michael Bendis.
It seems that every month there are a half dozen or so controversies in comics. We can all accept that in the grand scheme of things these issues are minor problems but comics are the wagon we’ve hitched our nerd horses to, so we care about them and when problems crop up we take interest. But when was the last time you felt a sense of resolution? As comic fans, resolution is nigh anathema to our whole reason for being here. We want the story to continue. An ending is usually the result of low sales, a move to a more lucrative project, or even just us as fans calling it quits at the end of a particular arc. There is the odd exception, and of course the Vertigo line in general, but amongst the cape-and-cowl adventures we always expect to get another yarn out of each and every character.
And I think this story-arc structure is part of what’s fueling the attention deficit in comics these days. An average story takes around 6 months to complete with 20 pages per segment. That’s 120 pages total over the course of half a year. For most books this amounts to barely an hour of reading, less than the average crummy action movie. So the expectation is that after 10 minutes and/or 20 pages, our attention is shot and we can wait until next month. I know some of you will disagree vehemently in the comments, but you can’t deny that it is this expectation that has and will continue to be the backbone of the industry. “A snippet of the story is enough, they’ll be back.”
And they’re right, we will be back. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve picked up, mid-story mind you, and never read, only to drop them the next month because I realized I hadn’t read an issue I already had. But it’s not just about the books; it’s also about the nerd rage. I see nerd rage every day. Mostly in comment sections and Twitter. I avoid it as much as possible because it’s exhausting and representative of the entire issue at hand in this column. A month ago a character was acting skanky and not wearing enough clothing. This was deemed a monumental problem facing all of comics, yet what has been done? Have the fans revolted? Maybe a few. Was there are populist uprising against the books, creators, or publisher? Nope. And are people still buying the book? They sure are. Perhaps the people who were truly disgusted just stopped reading, and good for them, but those that advocated a change in the fabric of comics really dropped the ball.
And I’m not just attacking this one issue. Nerds get enraged over every little change they disagree with. It’s like an established part of the culture now. Something new happens; nerds cry foul, earth continues to spin. The publishers seem to know that deep down we all want more of the same graphic comfort food, and we’re not doing much to prove them wrong. Change only comes with a bit of tenacity, which isn’t the milieu of the focus challenged group.
The great irony is that this isn’t how the heroes in our comics behave. Batman never wavers in his mission, Reed Richards never loses focus, and Superman, for all his super senses, never gets distracted. Why not take a page from our supposed heroes? But at the same time, our very method of heroic consumption bellies our inattentive nature. Do you sit and reflect on the happenings of Daredevil after finishing and issue? Or do you immediately snatch the next floppy off the stack to find out what the Flash is up to this week?
So maybe if you’re upset about something, be upset long enough to do something. And if you’re reading a story, try to give it some time to breathe; if it really can’t hold your interest then it’s probably not a very good book. Don’t be afraid to step away from the media torrent you’ve created for yourself amidst your stack, various queues, Tivo ad infitum. Go outside and just be for a moment. At least until you get bored. Good gravy, do I hate being bored. That’s why I always have a podcast ready when I leave the house.
No prize for whoever names the species.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is simply— What’s that? Sorry, I saw a really cool bird outside my window. Be right back…
Ryan Haupt is… over there now. Hear more hyperactive tangents on Science… sort of.
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nice article…you raise some great points, although i think this short attention span thing is more of a global 24hour news cycle/twitter/newsfeed culture and not just comics. Another parallel is sports. Last Monday all anyone could talk about was “The Handshake”, a day or two ago it was “the bullpen phone call” within a few days those major things are forgotten and purged from memory. Thats our world today.
i’d agree with is the bitching and buying. There is a certain event that people have been trashing on continuously since issue #2, yet it still gets mega pulls. every week its “worst. event. ever”, but you still vote with your dollars for a certain publisher to keep producing stories like that. I’m sure thats why they have a 12 issue follow up event. The fans demanded they publish it.
i remember someone commenting that we should give the new 52 books at least the first arc before passing judgement. I did the math..thats A LOT of money. We’re so quick to drop books, because i think a lot of us are very aware of how much we just spent on something that was disappointing. There is just very little wiggle room for “just ok” when so many books are being hyped.
I agree with you 100 percent about the event stuff. If your hating a storyline that much and still buying it its pretty obvious who the fool is.
It’s true that it is a universal thing not specific to comics. Hell, it’s even in politics. Call someone a Nazi and it’s top line news for 2 days and then everyone forgets it ever happened.
However, I disagree with you in that no good comes from a crusade as you are saying. The one thing saving civilization is that there is so much of everything and so much communication that we can all find people to agree with as well as disagree with. It is a blessing that more people DON’T turn into crusaders who latch to some faux controversy and ride it for years.
We do have some though, Westboro Baptist Church, Green Peace, Right to life, Planned Parenthood, PETA, NRA, Occupy Wall-street, Tea Partiers, Democrats and Republicans. Does anyone want more of these people??? People who’s entire lives become crusades against perceived injustices? I’d rather people just get over things in two days when they realize none of it really matters.
I guess that would explain why some people can complain about a brilliant series like the new Ultimate Comics: Spider-man because “nothing happens”.
Mimus polyglottos!
In italics of course 🙂
Aka. Northern Mockingbird. Do I detect a fellow birder/biologist here? Holy crap!
Yup! Any guesses as to why I chose it?
Because its song can go on and on and consists of various bird calls it’s mimicking…it can also be very annoying to nearby human residents when it chooses to start singing at 5:00 in the morning, or in the middle of the night (which it can and often does)…similar to how annoying and continuous nerd rage on the Internet can be?
Cool theory. But no.
My dad is a bird nut so I grew up with a bit of avian knowledge, my area of biology tends to deal with things a lot smaller though. My guess for why Ryan chose the Northern Mockingbird would be that they are, like comicbook fans, known to be very territorial and sometimes even attack their own reflections.
Another interesting theory, but no. I live in TN and just wanted to use the state bird. Mystery solved!
Ahhhhh. Sometimes the simplest answers are the most elusive!
What was this article about?
Don’t know, I skimmed it.
Nice pictures though…
Too long, didn’t read,
Hey man, I didn’t read the article, just the title, but I don’t appreciate you saying my attent- Oooh look! The POTW is up!
Agree with your points made in this article. But I also agree with Wally. Increasingly short attention spans is more an epidemic of overall society and culture. We are ADD nation. Smart phones, text messaging, the internet, video games, and the media has seen to it.
One thing I’ve noticed with The New 52 is, people are impatient as fuck. Its like they expected the entirety of these characters to explained right out in each #1 issue.
Yup. I noticed that too.
I think DC created that monster. We’ve all added sooo many of those new 52 books to our pulls and we know we can’t sustain the time/money to keep going with them all. Even Ron was talking about how he’s buying too many books on last week’s podcast.
We’re looking for reasons to cut more than keep, so i think that creates the impatience.
@wallythegreenmonter: I don’t agree with that at all. This isn’t a new phenomenon. For years comic fans have been less and less willing to let stories play out. They have been less and less willing to suss things out for themselves. It’s been an endemic problem with comic fans for as long as we’ve been doing iFanboy.
@conor–interesting. What do you attribute that to? Any theories after all these years? Do you think its price/value or just people want an epic pick of the week issue every week? Prices are kinda high to stick through an arc or two that you’re not enjoying.
How do you balance the “let it play out” against the “only buy books you enjoy” mantra?
it just seems to me that the new 52 was a giant tidal wave…at least for me (and what i’ve been observing with others) thats bordering on overwhelming. Every week is becoming a big week.
@wally
I get that, and I also get how decompression/dangling plot-threads has become a major issue in comics today, but I dunno…just irks me I guess… Hell, I’ve talked to people who gave up on Wonder Woman after the first issue, claiming they didn’t know what was going on and that it was too hard to follow (though, imo, it was quite easy to follow. I mean, seriously, half the issue was made up of Greek/Roman mythology. Stuff you learn in middle school. I mean, c’mon), and now, the very next issue, we’re already getting answers and things are starting to clear up.
By contrast, we’re getting a straight origin re-telling with Blue Beetle, and for the most part, the first two issues have just been kinda…meh.
So just…yea…
@wally, I agree with the whole sticking with an arc, because of the price point. Two comics are the price of a soft cover novel. It really takes a proven vet to make me keep with a comic for 40+ issue to see their ideas play out. It’s a shame for new writers whom have a great idea, I missed many issues of Jonathan Hickman’s stuff for the very reason of lack of cash, and not being familiar with his work.
I also agree with the tidal wave of DC books, I am having a hard time choosing what to follow DC and other publishers vs my budget. It’s a great time for new books but killing my wallet every week.
Part of the New 52 issue may be that the lack of self-contained explanations in the #1’s was not appealing to new fans. The mythical “casual market” that DC was trying to woo knows .01% as much about Swamp Thing as we do.
The fact is that it doesn’t really matter how good the issue was if new readers (not just migrating readers) aren’t even told who this guy is. I really don’t think it’s a patience thing. It’s more of an insider thing. We (and I’m including almost everyone who wrote a NuDC book) assume so much about the level of understanding possessed by non-comics readers because we’re so deep in that we can’t even fathom that most folks simply don’t know how to follow panel progression. It’s not a judgement, they just haven’t been doing it for 20 years or whatever.
Sorry. Maybe this got off topic… due to my short attention span! Brought it back!
Mockingbird
Some of the issue is that the rage is from a vocal few. There aren’t that many people reading comics, but only a small percentage of those readers go to forums or listen to podcasts, and an even smaller percentage of those people comment.
So if a half dozen people on a half dozen forum are pissed off about Starfire’s swimsuit, or Catwoman’s bra, or Batman crying, or Bucky’s death, or what have you, there maybe be tens of thousands who really aren’t that miffed.
And events, sadly, get purchased, even though almost half of them blow… Infinitely and with the power of a zillion Norse Hammers. Most of the brilliant work in comics happens in quiet, well-crafted corners…
That’s not what the angry people told me…
Sorry, what were you saying ?
That is indeed an awesome bird.
The pace of comics is the result of the creators, not the readers. Releasing 22 pages in a month is a herculean undertaking. Comic creators, and the fans of comics, have bent their tastes to accomodate this reality. But as someone who is weekly challenged whether to tradewait or buy the single issue, I can certainly attest that if I could get the bigger story at once instead of waiting for the monthly installments, I would.
Consumers (comic readers) are more sophisticated and because of that, they demand more. Don’t confuse ‘short attention span’ with consumer sophistication. A bad comic is a bad comic.
It’s the responsibility of the book makers to appeal to their market, not the other way around. Just because they are selling, does not mean we should automatically buy it.
You should really give the readers of comics a little more credit.
TL;DR
I agree. It’s human nature to discuss, complain, praise, etc. But the only thing that creates change in any industry is sales. I despise Todd McFarlane’s storytelling method on Spider-man, that first five issues of the new book in which the Lizard tears Peter a new one. The entire story arc could have been done in a single 22-page book, and be just as thrilling. I stopped buying the book for that. Complained too, but McFarlane was hot, people bought every issue. When the Spider-Clone saga came around and masses of people dropped the Spider books, THEN Marvel canceled and rearranged everything.
There’s more power to influence the comic industry in the person who puts a comic book back on the shelf than a bunch of people just bitching about it on the Internet. Because when another person puts that book back, and another and another, sales go down and the company reacts.
In the end, who cares? Football fans complain about the private lives of scumbags like Michael Vick, but they still watch the Eagles play and praise his skills. NASCAR fans complain about restrictor plates that slow down cars, but they still camp out for every race. Everyone on the planet complains about Greedo firing first, but how many DVDs did “A New Hope” sell? I love comics. Sometimes there are things I don’t love about them. I guess I’ve been around enough to know that things always change. And the best thing I can do about my short attention span is go with the flow. Put New Avengers back on the shelf becuase I don’t like the direction, and start buying Animal Man instead.
This.
Right on.
GREAT ARTICLE.
I particularly liked your point about how readers’ short attention spans is in great contrast to the behavior of Batman, Superman and Mr. Fantastic.
I’ve noticed the short attention span problem vis-a-vis comic readers quite a bit in the last few years. In my opinion, the most irksome aspect of it is how readers don’t really remember many details from month to month. I think a lot of series would be judged a lot differently (some for the better, some for the worse) if readers would just remember what the heck they read in the previous issue. Some readers seem endlessly impressed with the same sort of stock motifs: a writer gives them the same thing month after month, but they never really remember anything in detail, so they’re overly impressed every time. Or else a writer really is building up to very meaty character development, but readers have forgotten so many subtle details from issue to issue that they just throw their hands up and say: “I’m lost. This is going nowhere.”
Most of all, I think that the ability to remember what happened in previous issues leads to people making more accurate opinions. That would be better for everybody.
Excellent point. And excuse me for playing “the old man” here (hey, I’m only 45), but back when stories were done-in-one – or maybe two – readers didn’t have to remember what happened the previous issue. A new month would come around, you’d pick up an issue of Batman or Spider-man and read a beginning, a middle and an end. Next month would be a new, exciting adventure. Today when you pick up an issue, you must recall 15 minutes of your life from four to six weeks ago! (Sorry, but the front page recaps don’t truly cut it.) Unless the book is “Walking Dead” or has a comparable, bombastic story and/or last page of unbelievable art, you aren’t going to remember everything. And that puts a little dent in your appreciation of the industry every time, even if it’s unconsciously. Don’t get me wrong, there are many books I appreciate for the story arcs – Walking Dead one of them – but I still have a lot of dents.
I’ve just finished reading a few studies on cultural patterns over the past two hundred years, and while they’re focused exclusively on England there are a few interesting points made that add to this discussion.
Firstly, modern day media such as comic books, television and the internet have not brought about some “epidemic” of shorter attention spans. It’s fascinating to look at the Victorian Age criticisms of penny dreadfuls and the emerging form of the magazine, particularly the boy’s magazine / pulp magazine that the comic book was born from; they make exactly the kind of statements about the effect of consumer culture (although obviously this term wasn’t used) on the individual consumer as this article makes. What the article is talking about is by no means whatsoever a new phenomenon.
Secondly, these books collectively make a pretty good case for why these statements are being made more often today than they once were. Simply put, with the growth of the culture industry and particularly the advent of the internet A LOT more people are writing and talking intellectually about the cultural produce we consume. It is not the “effect” that has grown in size, but the number of people that are capable of noticing and talking about it.
Human beings have always had a surprisingly short attention span, a fact that we’ve never liked to admit. Consumer culture has always been blamed by a minority for this, but ultimately it is by no means the cause of our inattentiveness or our rampant need to consume. Instead, the relationship between culture and its consumers is merely the focus point by which these ingrained human traits become most transparent.
I, for one, am glad that nerd rage has a short shelf life. After a few weeks to think about it many of the things that we are SO FUCKING OFFENDED about are not a big deal. The Starfire thing, while I agree that it’s gross, is not indicative of DC’s opinion of women, nor is it necessarily Scott Lobdell’s. It’s just a character he wrote. It doesn’t mean that comics hate women (although that might be true for different reasons, to be explored in another terribly awkward comment thread).
I actually think that it’s a sign of maturity that we get over things that aren’t actually a big deal. We get mad, we type in all caps, but eventually cooler heads prevail and we just go back to reading what we like and avoiding the rest.
When something actually matters, that when it’s time to occupy places and really devote ourselves to making a difference, but y’know what? I think that we’re a smart enough bunch to tell the difference, and that’s why we let the little stuff slide… eventually.