Chapter 115: Horror Shock
The RoboCop debut month of September eventually ended and the month of October came along.
As the leaves of autumn fell in the seasonal parts of the world, Alexander's leaves of absences also became much more frequent as the next Creed Comics title was about to commence.
Halloween and horror were around the corner and the fearsome Yautja may just be in the element.
As the half-robot law enforcement officer blossomed quite well, it was greatly important for the top predator species from outer space to have its own success as well.
Alexander didn't have much confidence in this franchise though but his projected release strategy may change things up.
Creed Comics always has and had already been establishing its own pace when it comes to handling comic books, it just so happens that Halloween month of 1984 became its new target.
The new and awaited comic title finally arrived and it was much more significant in its advancement of story-telling and the reawakening of a sleeping genre.
The sleeping genre just happens to connect with October as well. Halloween exists to celebrate horror after all.
Of course, horror comics happen to be one of the driving genres that dominated the comic industry at some point.
In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s.
However, sometime in the 1950s, a man named Dr. Fredric Wertham published 'Seduction of the Innocent'.
A book claiming that horror, crime, and other comics were a direct cause of juvenile delinquency.
Wertham did his own observations from all the children that came to his psychiatric clinics and noted that all of them read comic books and all of them had 'problems'.
Ergo, reading comic books would eventually lead children to the same troubled fate of the patients that were coming to his aid.
It was from that extremely biased perspective that the comic book became outcasted and painted in an evil light. Not taking into account the other normal children who read comics and grew up just fine.
Wertham, so sure of his assertions, then proposed in his book that reading violent comic books encouraged violent behavior in children.
He also painted a picture of a large and pervasive industry, shrouded in secrecy and masterminded by a few, that operated upon the innocent and defenseless minds of the young.
'Seduction of the Innocent' became an apt title to whatever schemes that Wertham believed to be orchestrated by people in the industry.
Thus, the comic book burnings and the formation of the Comics Code Authority went underway.
Finally, the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority towards any comic book content contributed to the demise of many titles and the toning down of others
From this Alexander could peruse that horror itself was one of the biggest contributors for its crippling demise and the creation of the CCA.
Of course, it wasn't all bleak for the horror genre as it would eventually see its resurgence and its many ups and downs.
Black-and-white horror-comics magazines, that didn't fall under CCA jurisdiction ensured the genre's continued survival while mainstream American color comic books would only experience a horror resurgence, following the loosening of the Code.
While the genre has had greater and lesser periods of popularity, it occupies a firm niche in comics as of the 2010s and onwards.
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What Alexander can take from this horror comic history is the apparent distancing of many from the genre itself and the total 'Karen' power that protests had over the people in the past.
Old Psychiatrist Wertham was an alarmist, who may mean well, but his efforts of debate only centered around comic books and did not take into account the environment that 'delinquent' or 'troubled' children had in his/her development.
Everyone technically watches television and movies, reads books, newspapers, and magazines. Yet, the poor old comic industry that was on its grand rise had to bow down due to Wertham's claims.
Either way, 'Seduction of the Innocent' was a big hit and must have earned old Wertham quite some dollars.
It is unfortunate that with all that had happened, horror comic books were implicated and dove down American horror to the great heights that it could have been.
Maybe during those horrific horror peaks and abrupt downturns, another H.P. Lovecraft would have been born but was shut down by the censorship movement.
Ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the devil, witches, monsters, aliens, serial killers, cannibalism, psychopaths, cults, dark magic, Satanism, gore, and torture.
It was a genre with many frightening things to explore and many franchises that could be built from. Just the far reaches that the Japanese manga industry has with its horror mangakas like Junji Ito has achieved resounding success.
Even Universal studios is said to own most of the monster franchise was able to stay afloat due to their sway to these frightening creatures and ideologies.
Such an avenue of public domain horrors needed to be tapped by Creed Comics and Alexander chose his plundered Predator to be the precursor and stimulant to the established comic book market.
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And so... in usual Alexander and Creed Comics fashion, the industry and the comic book fans readied themselves to be surprised once again.
The new release day always dictates the flow of everything that is happening to the comic book industry and it is, as usual, the gauge on how a single issue's success could go in the long run.
At the current trend of things, the Big Two's releases were "Big Two" no more as the leading Creed Comics was always the one that the incoming comic crowd was after.
TMNT #15, ThunderCats #8, The Cybertronian Chronicles #7, RoboCop #7. It was a bundle of fascinating storytelling and a continuation of what had fascinated them in the past days, weeks, months.
Such a line-up of stories influenced one another and pulled everyone to their amazing parallels and progressive plots. As such, the promise of today became everyone's target.
Ever since September's amazing RoboCop mass release debut, the advertisement for the sixth member of the Creed roster has already swooped people's attention.
How could it differ from its enticing Creed title peers? How would its creative concept grab their attention? How would it entice them to read up more of what's about to come next? How would it change up the industry once again?
The day that their question would finally be answered has arrived.
After the crowd grabbed their weekly Creed single issues, they found that the new title was not among its ranks but when they moved on further towards the Volume Book library-esque station... they finally understood.
And they were also stunned!
The eye-catching spines of TMNT and Dragonball Volume 1s were still present but the new darker and glimmering green book spines caught their attention.
"1... 2... 3..." A man among the crowd counted as he admired the sequential 3 by 3 display that the 3 new Volume Books applied.
"Hold on... wait..." The man was suddenly flabbergasted at his late realization. "3! There are 3 fucking new Volume Books!"
Every nerd around the man was awoken by his shock and all their nerd glasses glinted with blinding and reflected light.
There was no other way to express their excitement than to shout. "Grab it and Buy it, people!"
Like energized flocks, the crowd grabbed the 3 new Volume Books that each had [Predator: Slaughterous Hunt] ominously fonted to it.