Late, but worth noting: nowadays, TV shows based on comics outscore the NFL. And that’s why there are seven new shows coming that are based on comics.
And among the people with real buying power, The Walking Dead won. Imagine that. We now have a new emblem of Americanness. “Oh, Cody was like the typical all-American kid in high school. Blonde hair, blue eyes, was president of the Walking Dead fan club.”
Glenn Hauman
Glenn is VP of Production at ComicMix. He has written Star Trek and X-Men stories and worked for DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, Random House, arrogant/MGMS and Apple Comics. He's also what happens when a Young Turk of publishing gets old.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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True “Acceptance” of comics into mainstream culture will never happen. Of the entire audience of The Walking Dead, I’ll say no more than 30% realize that it’s based on a comic book, and only 30% of them could tell you where in their area you can buy a copy of a monthly issue (and only a small number over that would know where you could buy the collected editions.)
Yes, everyone knows that the various Marvel (and DC, when they can get one made) movies are based on comic books, but honestly, how many of those viewers have started buying comics?
The people who see the movie version of something will always outnumber the ones who read the source material by an order of magnitude. Hell, how many people know that Ben Hur was originally a book? Not just a book, but a book as pop-culture hot as any book they made a movie of from the modern day?
As a rule, the idea of being the guy who compares the movie to the book is a punchline character. It’s seen as elitist and, well, geeky.