ABSTRACT
Through case studies of how fans are imagined, targeted, engaged, and valued by two different comic book publishers—mainstream DC Comics and independent Image Comics—the chapter illustrates the utility of a more nuanced analysis of the industry-creative-fan relationship. Most scholarship as well as most journalistic coverage of the American comic book industry has focused on Marvel and DC Comics. Since the early 1980s, scholars—especially those drawing from cultural studies traditions—have looked at the diverse behaviors and practices of comic book fans from a variety of perspectives. Fans were largely absent from such studies; instead, such work spoke in terms of broader categories such as readers, consumers, and markets. Even recently, when fan-industry dynamics have been discussed in a single publication, such as in the many case studies focusing on Batman. Shifts in larger economic, creative, technological, and cultural conditions during the 2000s corresponded with changes in how industry studies and fan studies scholars analyzed comics.
