The big news of New York Comic Con didn't involve the reinvention of a long-forgotten character or the next major event mini series by the top talents in comics. What dominated discussions at panels and on the floor was the ongoing question of the price of comics and how all the publishers in the business would compete for reader dollars in the next year, led by DC Comics announcement that it would drop all of its monthly titles to a $2.99 price point this January while dropping the average story length to 20 pages an issue.I am still of the opinion that this (along with Marvel's similar announcement of a price drop) is one of the most significant pieces of comic "news" to come out of the NY ComicCon. Let's face it, all of the "announcements" that come out of these shows are PR/marketing pieces, the initial piece of the drive that will grind away at all of us as comic fans until the books finally come out.
This announcement is, to me, different. Yes, obviously it is PR in that "we listen to you and we care about you" kind of way, but it goes a bit deeper than that. A lot of the concerns that have come out of comic fans with all the BIG MEDIA announcements of the big two over the last year (i.e. Marvel being purchased by Disney and DC suffering from a corporate reshuffling so that their IP can be better leveraged by the rest of Warner) have boiled down to the thoughts that both companies are going to be reduced to nothing more than IP farms, causing us to lose the monthly comics we all know and love.
Honestly, in this day that should be a worry. Look at the announcements that have been coming out of the NY ComicCon, even smaller publishers talk about those media adaptations. However, with the attention that Hollywood is paying to comic properties and old beloved toy franchises the message is clear that it is Hollywood that drives these franchises, and not the fan bases. Most of that is because the geekier pursuits (comics and I'll lump RPGs into this as well since they belong) are becoming more and more marginalized and fringe. Ten thousand fans are small potatoes to the numbers that are wanted for movies, or a television series. Yes, they can court the geek audience (because they are often good for buzz) but unless that audience can be built upon from the "mainstream," then adaptations of properties are going to go no where.
There is also the one thing that everyone needs to keep in the back of their minds during all of this. Entertainment goes in cycles. Sooner or later something will happen with this trend of comic adaptations in movies and television, all it takes is a couple of bad movies or shows, and people will move on to the next thing. I think this is already happening with the trend of YA novel adaptations in the movie theaters, when even a classic like Narnia cannot hold up a franchise.
Hopefully those who are driving the comic publishing companies are keeping the fact that without these comics being published there wouldn't have been any of this IP that they are all so excited to option out for movies and television, because at the end of the day (once this fad has passed by comics again) all that any of us are going to be left with are the comics themselves. Kind of like where we all started.