American Industries PDF Download

The last decade has seen a proliferation of hugely successful film franchises and television shows - such as Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, The Walking Dead and many more - based on comic books which have avid fan followings of their own. Comic books have now assumed an enormously important position within the American entertainment business, where they function as intellectual property (IP) development wings for major producers and studios, important brand management tools for studio marketing departments, and major divisions in their own right within powerful entertainment conglomerates such as Disney and Warner Bros. Even fifteen years ago, however, comic books' ascendancy within the entertainment industry would have been impossible to anticipate. With dwindling consumer interest, a collapsing retail market, and several high-profile bankruptcies (including Marvel Comics), comic books seemed an increasingly marginal - and unprofitable - business at the start of the twenty-first century. The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood charts the transformation of the American comic book industry as it became increasingly integrated into Hollywood between 2000 and 2015. What were the economic factors, organizational contexts, and technological changes responsible for the industry's sudden renaissance? How has the comic industry's greater integration into Hollywood altered the former's business, labour, and creative practices? Conversely, how has this integration affected the business, labour, and creative practices of Hollywood film, television, and video game companies? In answering these questions, this book provides a detailed account of how the comic book industry functions today, including details about its labour practices, corporate structures, product development, creative practices and consumer markets. This is the first book to provide a broad overview of the industry side of the comic book genre and associated franchises. It synthesises and expands upon existing scholarship on the comic book and Hollywood film industries, and draws on historical documents, original interviews with industry workers, and case studies of specific properties (such as Batman, The Walking Dead and Mass Effect) and specific companies (e.g. Marvel, Avatar Press). It also provides a corrective to the popular view that the comic book industry and its ties to Hollywood revolve primarily around superheroes and the properties owned by Marvel and DC Comics.