| Posted: 27 November 2017 at 10:00am | IP Logged | 10
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It starts not at a specific date ("Back in '73....") but at an age, the age at which addicted fanboys begin to realize they have aged out of the ideal target audience, but remained in deep denial. When I started in The Biz, the bulk of the audience was still kids. I saw them at cons. Ten, eleven, twelve years old. Often accompanied by a parent or profoundly bored older brother. And in those groups of kids, enthusiasm ran high. Questions asked were along the lines of "Who's stronger, the Thing or the Hulk?" Questions about storylines. About how I did my job. But, year by year, the questions change. I'd sign a book and find myself being asked "Will this be worth more, now?" (Usually I'd say no, somebody wrote on it.) Then there were questions about sales, sell-thru, page rates. Was I "jealous" that Todd McFarlane made more than me? All questions that should be of no concern to a true fan: a READER. But I was watching the fans get older, too. Twenty-somethings started to replace the kids. And such kids as remained began to be more and more hollow-eyed zombies stumbling from table to table, bags of comics clutched to their chest, seeking to "score". The older ones kept getting older. Soon, the tides of fandom washing (I wish!) by my table started to look like the PARENTS of those bored older brothers of yore. And more and more their tone became disparaging. They sounded like drug addicts who could "quit and time." But didn't. Oh, don't get me wrong! There were still moments. Joyous flashes, even among the older fans, of the sheer love of the form that had brought me in all those years ago. But around those, the glum miasma that eventually drove me away from cons altogether. (One last note: if you are offended by what I have written here, before you race off to declare "Byrne hates the fans!", pause a moment to consider that your offense might spring from recognizing yourself in my words.)
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