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How The English May Be Hurting Comic Book Sales by Cameron Hatheway

Following up from How Liberalism May Be Hurting Comic Book Sales, Cameron Hatheway writes for Bleeding Cool

If you are an American like me, you've been reading fewer and fewer comic books over the last 13 years. For those of you who know what I'm complaining about, the weekly visit to the comic book store has become either an exertion in hypersensitivity or a ho-hum assignment.

I remember fondly visiting the comic book shops as a cheeky youngling and voraciously rummaging through the racks for the latest issues of Batman and X-Men, seeing what adventures they were on, or what villain they were fighting that month. Looking back at it now, I cannot believe how naïve I was. I wish I could pick-up an old run of X-Men and see what Professor X and the gang are up to, but nowadays I feel that I've finally had enough of the English invading my comics with their tea & crumpets bias.

I wish I could say that the industry was different back then, and that proud, patriotic Americans (like myself) wrote and drew characters for the next generation to look-up to, but even back then the English creators were planting their seeds of doubt into our young and fertile minds, making it look like it was okay to mix the nationalities. Banshee in X-Men (a Ginger, no less), Alfred the butler in the pages of Batman, Captain Britain (could it be any more obvious?), Dan Dare in the pages of Eagle magazine, the list goes on.

What upsets me the most is that comic book sales are declining more and more steadily every year, 2011 included, despite the success of the DC relaunch. You know what's increasing while sales are declining? English characters and English creators. The correlation is so simple that you'd have to be some sort of Pinko-Commie Liberal not to see the connection!
Most of you are saying that I'm crazy, or that I'm imagining all of this. That's fine, I'm expecting that sort of response from you non-Americans and ex-patriots. You'd pretty much have to have bad dental hygiene and an appetite for Shakespeare to disagree with my points.

Look at the comics that have come out in the past decade; Knight & Squire, Dan Dare, Phonogram, Doctor Who, 2000AD, Captain Britain & MI:13, Kate And William: A Very Public Love Story, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, if I try and list them all I'll be here all night, or puke from being so mad. I'll be puking with rage one way or another, but I'd rather it be the latter.

Fans of comic books blindly buy all these titles, realize they're pushing a British agenda of some sort, then get angry that they were so easily duped. Think those fans will blindly invest in comics again? Nope, they'll drop the hobby and now spend their money on other things like cell phones and skateboards. Kate And William: A Very Public Love Story in particular not only reeked of cashing in on the royal wedding (what is this, a Blue Water title?), but it highlights the English monarchy, as if that's still appropriate in this day and age. Last time I checked, this was America, and we have Presidents. And First Dogs.
Speaking of Queens (not you, Marcus Bachmann), the Royal Family has an annual allowance of several million pounds (I'm proud to say I don't know how to convert pounds to real money) thanks to the English taxpayers (our little Boston Tea Party looks like a good idea now, doesn't it?). Keep in mind that the Queen has no real power, she's just a figurehead, who the English are blindly giving their money away to every year. You know what those limey Brits could be buying with their money instead? Comic books! The whole comics industry could be saved overnight if they all just invested their ounces in comic books.

But then it's a Catch-22; the English are destroying comic book sales, but at the same time, they could save it. They just like to be the bad guys, and that's why we cast them as such in our Hollywood blockbusters.

I feel that I'm slightly getting off track, so I'll get back to my points. Let's talk comic book creators, Alan Moore in particular. Back in the 80's Alan Moore wrote Watchmen, hailed by the majority as being not only the ultimate graphic novel, but the ultimate cash-cow as well. Last time I checked, it was in its 80th printing or something. So if it's so successful and such a major money-maker for DC, why does Mr. Moore insist on not making any more stories in this universe? Think of all the money that could be flowing to DC right now (then eventually into the comics industry) if Alan Moore had signed-off on prequels, sequels, and threequels of Watchmen. We'd be reading Watchmen Vol. 5: How Rorschach Got His Groove Back by now if Moore had just taken the paycheck and said 'thank you'. It's blokes like Moore who are giving a worse name to the English. Not only that, but we as Americans are outsourcing our jobs across the pond to these people, and don't receive so much as a 'thank you'! The nerve of these arseholes.

Therefore, I can only conclude that the English are to blame for the declining comic book sales. I read comic books, therefore I'm an expert on the inner-workings of the comics industry, and I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

For the good of the comic book industry, this acceleration and colonialism of English emotionalism has got to stop and it's gotta stop quick.

Everybody knows that when an entertainer goes British, he/she runs the very serious risk of cutting their audience by at least half. The comic book audience has been getting tinier and tinier and I think it's time to honestly consider that a big part of the problem is the content. It's gotten so bad that some of the more open-minded Irish comic book readers I know are getting turned off because it's so obvious what's been happening. I know that some of you are going to reply with some alternative of "I don't see it" or "This guy is a witch" or "Oi, where'd I place me fags?" That's fine, go ahead and exercise that right (if you're an American)…but it won't help the comic book industry or make the audience grow again.

God bless us all, and God bless the United States of America.

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