Ugh, Moore has me thinking about serial storytelling again! Just noting how both superhero comics and soap operas have drifted towards a more diverse, but expensive audience. https://twitter.com/HenryBarajas/status/1314735172214947840

I think about this pivoting to YA and adult "coffee table" OGNs and I can't help but look over to soaps and see how they lost an audience to prestige dramas on paid streaming services or formulaic reality shows geared towards young adults.

But look, you go where the money is. You go where the viewers are. And both daily soaps and mainstream monthly comics have an audience that is resistant to change and openly hostile to having a diverse selection of voices.

You also have a shrinking window of opportunity--a limited number of available positions and a "revolving door" that has rusted shut.

Add to that the fact that nobody wanted to admit that the daytime viewing audience was getting progressively browner and the pool of general readers now had more women than men.

Only a madman caters to a consumer base that is shrinking, refuses to replenish itself, and drives off any potential new interest via harassment and aggressive opposition to change.

Which leaves us with a serious question--is the format worth saving? Because this is not about genre. The public adores a good romance and a good superhero adventure. This is not about the medium. People still read sequential art and watch episodic TV.

What we have to decide is if we are going to continue to use these formats--daily television episodes and monthly comic books--to tell these stories. And to who? And for how much? And for how much longer?

Because the remaining audience isn't really paying for a story, it's paying for a private clubhouse full of nostalgic touchstones that bars entry to anyone that might effect change. A cultural experience frozen in amber untouched by the upheavals of the outside world.