Yes, one of the major reasons that mainstream comics are so unreadable is because they aren't conceived as finite stories with a limited number of story arcs. One of the prerequisites for a truly good tale is a solid, evocative ending. Comic book companies despise endings; their executives prefer titles that will go on generating revenue forever, not reach a tidy resolution after twelve issues. Thus, writers are forced to choose a means of attack when faced with an open-ended series.
Option number one is the static hero. The caped crusader repeats the same adventure over and over--Batman beats Joker, Batman sends Joker to Arkham, Joker escapes--without ever becoming any wiser. This was the preferred method for much of comic history.
Option number two is the dynamic hero. After each battle, the good guy changes just slightly: he learns from each encounter, gains new allies to call upon, changes his costume, picks up a new weapon, discovers a new café that serves great cherry cheesecake or whatever. The problem with this is that new readers have to acquaint themselves with all of the conflicts that have been fought in the past five or ten years to completely understand what's going on in the present. That's why The X-Men comic didn't sell, even after the movie came out: only the die-hards fan-boys who had been there all along would know what was going on when Cyclops or Wolverine made some passing reference to his daughter. To everyone else, it was gibberish, a colossal in-joke at their expense.
Even relatively uncomplicated comics like Strangers in Paradise tend to drag after forty issues. On Terry Moore's website, his fans are growing restless; they're sick of being jerked around and tired of waiting for Francine and Katchoo to stop agonizing and become a couple. They crave resolution. They crave a good ending.
This, then, is the future of comics: the mini-series. Titles that go on forever are either too simplistic or ridiculously complex. Take a look at your favorite comics; I think that you'll find that most of them are either self-contained (Watchmen, Marshal Law) or a finite section of an otherwise unremarkable title (Miller's run on Daredevil, Morrison's work on Doom Patrol). There are exceptions to this, of course (Cerebus springs to mind), but if the brain trust behind the comics industry actually wanted to capture the adult market, the mini-series would be their best bet. |
