Comic Books - Exploring Your Imagination

A comic book, or comics for short, is a magazine or book containing sequential art in the form of a narrative. Since the formulation of the comic book format in the 1930s, young and old alike have enjoyed comics. However, the comic industry lost some of its popularity when it came down with a crash in the mid 1990s.

To promote its popularity once again the comic book industry is producing films based on the comic book stories. This method proved successful for few stories like Sin City, X-men and Spiderman but it failed miserably for other titles that flopped at the box office. So far this approach seems unable to rejuvenate the comic book industry.

Research shows that the main cause of downfall of the comic industry is the removal of comic books from shops and stores. But this cannot be the sole cause since comic books are now easily available on the internet, in movies and animations.

Another question that comes to mind is why Japanese animation or "manga" is doing better then traditional comic books? The answer is simple. The Japanese write a better story line and their animated movies are made for a wider audience. Often, Japanese comic books are framed as graphic novels containing 70 to 220 pages for a mature audience. The manga holds a more important place in Japanese culture, and is both well respected as an art form and also as a form of popular literature. On the other hand, comic books in Western countries are generally geared towards young teenagers rather than adults. This approach has made it tough for the Western comic industry to attain its dominant position.

Common misconceptions regarding comic books turning readers into out-of-touch delinquents have also hurt sale. Many parents fear that comics will brainwash children into believing that supermans and batmans actually exist in the world. For this reason, many parents forbid their children from reading comic books as in their view they carry no ethical or moral values. These attitudes have contributed to the lack of interest in comics as well as its drop in publication.

The comic book price guide also sheds some light on why comics are no longer sold. The price guide reveals that the cost of comic books has soared up with the success of movies like Batman, Spiderman, and Superman etc. making it unaffordable to many. Plus when it comes to buying storybooks parents prefer to buy their children fables or novels that will help them build up their vocabulary and learn proper English.

But these parents fail to realize that without fantasy and imagination as found in comics, a child's creativity cannot develop. Comic books help break the monotony in children's lives and refresh these young minds to face the challenges of daily life.

By: Sue Jan -

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For more on Comic Books, visit Comic Book Fan. Susan also enjoys writing on a wide range of topics at Internet and Communications