Jeffery Klaehn is an editor of an upcoming book project, Comic Books and Comic Book Culture: Studies in Pop Culture, which collects essays on comic books and comic book culture written by a range of noted scholars working in the field.  He teaches Sociology at a small Canadian university, Wilfrid Laurier, and has been a comic book reader his entire life.

                                                   "Comic Books and Comic Book Culture: Studies in Pop Culture"

This diverse collection of scholarly essays makes a strong contribution to the range of existent literature by bringing together studies of comic books and  comic book culture by many of the top scholars working within the field today.  The book represents an excellent reader which will be of interest to scholars, students and general readers alike who are interested in furthering their understanding of the various dynamics in play within the world of comic books and comic book culture.  The book also features new, original interviews with several comic legends and industry professionals.

The book invites audiences to view comic books and the culture-forming fans associated with them as culturally and sociologically significant.  It is unique in that it brings together a colorful and dynamic mosaic of scholarship in one package.  This should be extremely attractive to students who are interested in understanding not only comic books and comic culture but also the range of possibilities involved in actually doing research oriented toward comic books. 

JK: What led you to pursue a career in the comic book industry?
 
BL: I learned to read from comics when I was only four years old, I skipped a grade when I entered the school system and wound up graduating High School at barely 17 years old. If that isn’t a powerful statement for the power of the medium, I don’t know what is. The medium affected me in a manner that changed my life in a positive direction. 
After High School, I met Roger Stern (who worked for a local radio station in Indianapolis.) and we began publishing fanzines together.
Contemporary Pictorial Literature was the name of our main 'zine.  It turned out to be an extremely popular fan publication for its day and eventually led us into a working alliance with Charlton Comics, with Sterno and me editing and publishing the Charlton Bullseye magazine.
The close association with Charlton (and their production manager, Bill Pearson) led to my meeting Wally Wood and becoming one of his apprentices.  Once I went to work for Woody, doors started opening up for me all over the place. I stared getting inking work with Charlton, DC and Marvel while continuing to do stuff with Woody and would occasionally deliver pages for him when I made a trip into NYC from Connecticut, which allowed me to get to know the editors at both companies.  Eventually, I was able to strike out on my own, thanks to the connections I made through Wally Wood.
At DC, David Michelinie and I formed our partnership, working together on Star Hunters and Claw-the Unconquered. After about a year, we had agreed to leave the company for greener pastures.  We both sensed the impending 'Implosion' and didn't want to wind-up being casualties of it.
When we jumped to Marvel, we interviewed to work as a team there.  We were given a choice of lower end books to work on and I jumped out of my seat when I realized that Iron man was one of those choices.  That was the one book in the entire industry that I wanted to do more than any other.  Dave was unfamiliar with the character but his lack of history with Iron Man mythology proved to be a tremendous asset--translating into a fresh approach to the character.

And-- the rest is history.

 
JK: As a fan, what comic book titles and characters most impacted you?
 
BL: As I said earlier, I learned to read from comics when I was only four years old.  My first comic was a Showcase issue featuring The Challengers of the Unknown by Kirby and Wood.  I have to say that it made such an impact on me that it set me on my career path. Great art jobs come and go-- but what makes a classic is the kind of story that you carry with you from your childhood right into your adult life.  That Challengers story was definitely one of them.
And, obviously—Iron Man.

I’ve always gravitated towards characters (like the Challengers) that possess no inherent super-powers.
My philosophy on the essence of the character is that Tony Stark doesn't play superhero.  I believe he uses the Iron Man persona for two reasons; To protect his various business interests globally and to ground himself to the 'real world'.  
 
 
JK: What artists did you find most influential, most powerful?
 
BL: In the beginning of my career, I was taught by the likes of Wally Wood and Dick Giordano. They hammered into me, time and again, that a good artist should be in service to the tale being told. Memorable words. I was very blessed to have been tutored by two such industry giants. Also, I’d have to say that I was heavily influenced by Gil Kane and Jack Kirby, as well.
 
 
JK: You have worked in the comic book industry in a variety of different capacities for three decades, affording you a unique ‘insider’s view’ of the industry as a whole.  How do you feel the industry has changed since you first entered the field?
 
BL: Nothing has been the same since the boom of the mid-nineties. The same speculators that flattened the sports trading card business did the same number on the comics industry.  Too many books (bad ones, at that) were dumped back onto the market place for pennies on the dollar—precipitating a crash in the perceived collectable value of the comics overall. The collectable value of comics has tanked. Purchase patterns are now driven by mainstream iconic characters or company brand loyalty—not by collector/investors. From that peak period until today, there is still a glut of products being regularly produced —over 300 titles monthly—mainly due to the major companies attempting to bolster sagging numbers by adding more and more product to their publishing schedules.
Misreading of the marketplace, publishers have concentrated on more superficial elements instead of quality content, in my opinion.
However, the boom did a great service to Independent comics in the short run.  In an industry dominated by Marvel and DC, new start-up companies like Valiant and Image were able to get a foothold in the market place and compete with the large publishers on a somewhat-level playing field. And—a few of those Indies are still hanging in there today, offering a welcome alternative to the cookie-cutter super-hero mainstream genre’.

 
JK: In what ways have superhero comics themselves evolved or changed, in your view?
 
BL: The major problem, as I see it, is that the current crop of mainstream titles has devolved and are totally inaccessible to the general public. The analogy I commonly use is that if Star Trek movies were written by hardcore Trekkers, the general film-going public would be totally alienated by all of the insider references. That’s what’s going on in comics at the moment. Comics are written by former fans—for current fans. I really can’t read the current stuff and I have thirty years of comics experience behind
me.  That’s why there isn’t a huge sales spike in the Spider-Man titles when a movie is released. In my opinion, accessibility to the product is something that has to change in order for the comics industry, and the monthly periodical, to succeed in the long term.  That’s what I attempted to do with Future Comics—create a line of characters that would be easily accessible to the general public, defying the convoluted continuity and trendy storytelling techniques that make today’s products confusing and somewhat unappealing.


JK: The American superhero has endured for almost a century, sustaining both commercial and cultural relevance.  Why do you feel this has been the case?

BL: Comics are a unique medium that combines the written word with the visual concept. The only other medium that accomplishes that is film. The struggle of “gods and mortals” in comics is a theme as old as storytelling itself. Comics are the modern mythology that we, as a society, template our fears and dreams onto. It’s the universal power fantasy we all dream of—to have the ability to soar above our problems-- or pummel them into dust.

More than anything, we should be doing something that would educate and enlighten young people—not merely entertain.

JK: Your thoughts on the impact, influence and legacy of Jack Kirby on the comic book medium and industry as a whole?

BL: Kirby was the Orson Wells of comics.
 

JK: Your thoughts on how Jack Kirby was treated at Marvel Comics and later at DC?

BL: Like Wells—they first deified him—then later, shit on him.  But, that behavior is an unfortunate tradition in the comic industry. We’re not very good at honoring our groundbreaking forefathers. Not while they’re alive, at least.
 
 
JK: Historically, how have comic books influenced and been influenced by pop culture?

BL: Comics are totally a contemporary medium, subject to all the trends that affect pop culture in the United States. Remember Go-Go Checks on DC Comics of the sixties or Marvel Pop Art Productions? I think that it’s been only recently, with the advent of comics-to-film productions, that we’ve been able to insert some of our sub-culture into the mainstream.
 
JK: In your experience, is marketing as important as editorial in terms of influence on decision-making processes within the industry?

BL: Marketing is every bit as important as the editorial content of the product.  Some very good projects have fallen “between the cracks” due to poor marketing. Vise- versa, some real shit winds-up selling like hotcakes due to some shrewd marketing and hype.
 
JK: How do you understand the concept of creator rights?

BL: That’s a tricky question.  It really depends on the deal you make with the publisher. I was fortunate to get in on the beginning of the creator-rights deal at DC in the 70’s with the Huntress.  As a result, I’m still collecting royalties to this day.

Work-for-hire agreements mean you give up any claim to the work done in exchange for a paycheck.  I don’t think you can go back and alter that because the character has a hit movie.  A deal is a deal, whether you think it’s fair or not.  Hell, everything done on Iron Man has been somewhat based on the work David Michelinie and I did back in the day—but I’m not going to sue Marvel for the rights once the movie comes out.  I knew what the deal was going in.

 
JK: Your impressions of the ‘hot writer/artist’ phenomenon that seems germane to the industry today?

BL: There have always been those types of creators in our business.  It’s nothing “new”.  The way I see it, there have been a multitude of creators who started that trend decades ago. i.e.: Will Eisner, Howard Chaykin, Jim Starlin, Frank Miller, Dave Stevens and Walt Simonson.
 
JK: Do you feel that the comic industry suffers from age-ism, to a degree?

BL: No doubt.

A lot of us spent most of our careers working at perfecting our craft—only to watch most of the art of storytelling being compromised or disposed of all together by artistic “Darwinists.”

The whole idea of Darwinism in comics reminds me of that line “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Well--that’s what’s happening with the current decision makers in comics.

I personally feel it would be better to go down fighting than compromise the fundamentals. That’s why I have little interest in working in mainstream comics these days. The publishers have thrown out “the baby with the bathwater.”

JK: Stories of the various hardships encountered by comic book creators abound on the internet, starting with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, through to Dave Cockrum, co-creator of Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus.  From the outside looking it, it would seem as if the entire industry has, from day one, been rife with inequality, greed and calculated exploitation.  Do you agree or disagree, and why?

BL: Yeah, but why should comics be any different that other entertainment businesses when it comes to being exploitive, greedy or inequitable?
 
JK: Why haven’t comic book professionals unionized, or formed a guild, to protect and lobby for their collective interests?

BL: I believe that the “every man for himself” mentality has been the status quo in the comics industry. It’s always been a problem in entertainment—why does a Johnny-one-note actor like Tom Cruise get paid way more than a great actor like Helen Mirren? No standards exist to create an equitable system that encompasses artists from the Kuberts to the guy doing the occasional fill-in comic. And basically—cartoonists are competitive by nature.  Therefore—you generally get no movement from the more powerful, well-paid talents, whose participation would be absolutely necessary to create such a union or guild.

JK: Do you feel the industry has progressed significantly over the past thirty years in terms of its treatment of creative talent?

BL: Yes and no.

The money is better.  The printing is better.  But speaking as someone who has been on both sides of the arrangement, there has always been a war between the creative force and company management.  Management has different goals than the creative community—which usually ends in some sort of conflict.  Publishers generally don’t give a rat’s ass about creative freedoms or rights. Such things are merely a by-product of trying to keep ‘the machine’ running smoothly.
 
JK: Do you view comic books today as an art form, or as a business?  Or both, perhaps?

BL: It’s a business. Pure and simple.  Don’t ever fool yourself into believing that it’s anything else. Granted, one can occasionally use the medium for a meaningful artistic expression, but most of the time it’s “The Hulk kicks the livin’ shit out of the Juggernaut in Times Square for the 17th time.”

JK: Your thoughts on Wizard magazine and its relationship to the industry today? 

BL: I have a lot of moral and ethical issues with them. They’re all hype, misinformation and propaganda. I really dislike Wizard and everything it represents.

JK:   Why doesn’t other North American media give more attention to comic books, in your view?

BL: More attention than what? Why should they?  What have we done that isn’t totally laughable to the general public? The comics are generally unreadable, hard to find and a poor bargain compared to other forms of entertainment.

Thanks God that Hollywood is still making movies of our stuff.  Otherwise, the general public wouldn’t know we even existed.

Hey—I don’t mean to come off harsh.  I love my chosen medium, but that’s the truth.  For some reason, the majority of people in the comics business think they are re-inventing the wheel every month.

JK:  Diamond’s monopoly on the distribution of comic books – your thoughts?

BL: It’s no secret that the majority of comics sold are done so under the scrutiny of that single monopolistic entity. 
Retailers are simply given no choice about what they sell--or how they sell it.  It’s what the movie industry refers to as “blind bidding”.
If you are an Independent comics company, like a Future Comics, the current distribution system is designed to protect its largest clients from stolen market share by squeezing the smaller competitors dry of any potential for growth---with the distributor taking nearly 70% of their cover price for themselves. Unless you’re pulling huge numbers per title, you’re going to experience fiscal trouble as a publisher. The Direct Market retail community is ruled by Diamond with an iron-fist. 

When I ran Future Comics, we offered the Direct Market free shipping (not available thru Diamond or anyone else).  We gave them deeper wholesale discounts than Diamond.

We made our products 100% returnable (free for all intents and purposes) while all sales from Diamond are non-returnable.  The store owners complained that they wanted us to lower the cover price from $3.50 to $2.99—we did that.  They wanted us to make our products available thru Diamond, which we did-- but still, the majority of retailers still didn’t order.

 Some industry pundits have said our failure was due to the fact that our product sucked. Fair enough—they are entitled to their opinions. But there were several factors involved in the company’s downfall.  Diamond’s manipulation of the market and questionable business practices was definitely part of the problem.

One of the major reasons that we started Future Comics was that nearly every retailer we canvassed in the Direct Market, during the company’s formation, voiced that they were tired of the way they were being treated by Diamond. Apparently—that was not true, because the fear of being put out of business by their monopolistic distributor overrode any other considerations.  Is that an indictment of the current distribution system?

Probably.

 
JK: Do you see comic fandom today as being more or less influential than in the 1980s?

BL: Obviously-- more.  Again, you can thank the advent of Hollywood adapting our material for that.

 
JK: Do you feel that comic books are currently too expensive?  Why or why not?

BL: The editorial costs of creating comics have stayed the same since the speculator boom of ’93.  Both Marvel and DC are, in some cases, paying the creators more than the book makes in profits due to their high page rates. Printing costs are soaring every year.

Much like Wall Street, industry numbers have been inflated for years and a crash may not far on the horizon. The industry needs to be prepared for that contingency. And, as I stated before, the Big Two’s books are generally unreadable, hard to find and a poor bargain compared to other forms of entertainment.

JK: Why don’t more women read comic books in North America, in your view? 

BL: Because-- they’re not written for women.  Why don’t you read Harlequin romance novels? I would speculate that they simply don’t appeal to you.

I tried very hard to create products for female readers while at Valiant.  “The Second Life of Dr. Mirage” was specifically created for women readers. Although the title was popular, it never succeeded in bringing in significantly more female readers.

JK: Your thoughts on comic shops, generally?  Are they customer-friendly, women-friendly?  Is it possible to generalize here, in your view?

BL: The industry still has to make new in-roads if it’s to survive—from distribution right down to the corner comic shop.
A large number of comic shops in America are dingy, poorly managed venues—akin to XXX porn shops.  The comic industry (Diamond and the Big Two specifically) needs to take a very hard look at some good retail business models, like Midtown Comics or Jim Hanley’s in NYC, and strive to help the Direct Market create easily-accessible venues where young people can casually find and purchase comics, either through subsidies or discount incentives.  They need to look at mall kiosks, movie theaters and similar venues to sell their comics and related merchandise—places where there can be walk-in business in a clean, attractive environment.

Generally speaking, the fate of the comics industry needs to be in the hands of better businessmen.

 
JK: Price-point, packaging, the so-called ‘collector mentality’, publisher’s attitudes, marketing, and direct distribution are all areas that one could theoretically view as detrimental to long-term health of the comic book industry today.  Do you feel that the comic book format as it currently exists in North America is still viable today?  The market and whole public perception of all things comic books in Japan contrasts quite dramatically.

BL: I believe I may have already answered that question in my previous statements.
The mass market trade paperbacks and graphic novels are probably the future of the industry.

The black and white digest-sized Manga imports have set sales records. The tie-ins with Hollywood movies that are based on comic properties continue to drive sales of titles that had moderate sales in the direct market, such as SIN CITY. The point is, it’s not exclusively mainstream Marvel and DC superheroes dominating the mass market.  For an ambitious publisher, it is a more level playing field to go toe-to-toe with the bigger companies. That market’s audience seems to be more character and story-driven in their tastes. The trade paperbacks and graphic novels are probably where the future of comics is heading. Europe and Japan have embraced that format for decades and trends clearly show that the U.S. is now heading in the same direction. In the last few years, revenues from the mass market have eclipsed that of the entire Direct Market. Products offered by the “Big Two” comic publishers are generally limited to their icon super-hero lines, leaving little room for experimentation or creative latitude. I expect the mass market to attract a wider diversity of genres and products, which is a very good thing, in my opinion.
That, and the skyrocketing costs of producing the 21 page, monthly format, makes an industry move into a primarily mass market format a no-brainer for a publishing entity. Also, distribution in the mass market is not dominated by Diamond, with many venues, like Amazon.com, available to publishers.

JK: Last question.  The JLA verses the Avengers in a full out, Authority-esque, no-holds-barred battle of epic proportions.  This incarnation of the JLA is comprised of Superman, Krypto (the Super-dog), Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, J’onn J’onzz (Martian Manhunter), Huntress, Aztek, Black Lightning, Orion and Big Barda.  The (new) Avengers roster consists of Captain America, Sharon Carter (Agent 13), Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Vision, Falcon, Hercules, Scarlet Witch, Luke Cage (Power-Man), Black Widow, Wolverine and Spiderman.  Who wins and why? 

BL: No thanks.  I’ll pass on this question.
 
JK: Many thanks!

BL: You’re welcome.