Choosing Teams

Originally published December 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide 1996 Annual

How many of you hated it when the time came to choose up sides? In gym class, in neighborhood pick-up games, there would always come that defining moment: the defining moment of youth (male youth in particular), when two teams were being formed, and the team captains would say, “I pick Jimmy,” “I’ll take Spike.”

It was a microcosm of survival of the fittest as the best, the brightest, the strongest, the most adept and athletic would be sifted out, one by one. There is no lonelier feeling, no greater sense of despair in the heart of a boy, than when the kids to your left and to your right are picked. They stride over to their new teammates, and there is some backslapping or handshaking (the high five hadn’t been invented yet), as the paring down continues.

And the captains would begin to pick with less eagerness. The joy or triumph in snapping up some preferred player would be replaced by grudging acknowledgment of the inevitable.

“Ooookay, I’ll take Lester.” The sentence might be prefaced by a sigh or a pained expression.

Survival of dignity and self-respect is always on the line during such moments. I was always among the last to be picked. It is my suspicion that many comics readers experienced the same situation.

Comics offer wish-fulfillment fantasies wherein the reader can empathize with and share in the triumphs of well-muscled heroes who invariably have alter egos that are meek, mild-mannered, or geeky. Like us. But beneath the Sad-Sack exterior, there beats the heart of a hero. If only the world at large knew what lay beneath the dorky looking shell, it would be dazzled into reverence and perhaps even be downright apologetic to those truly deserving of respect. Like us.

So, because of the nature of comics, readers would tend to be smarter than average (because they read for leisure-time entertainment) and physically less adept than average (see wish-fulfillment comments above).

(I don’t think it’s necessarily that way any more. The new breed of slice-and-dice heroes with the can-you-top-this cycle of escalating violence has gone beyond wish-fulfillment and played squarely into the adolescent desire to see bad guys hurt, maimed, or killed in the most intense and creative ways possible. The wish-fulfillment, if there is any, is not inwardly directed toward self-esteem—”If only the creeps of the world could know how wonderful I really am”—but outwardly directed toward mass elimination—”If only I could take two huge guns under my arms and blow away anyone who really annoys me.” But I digress.)

In case you’re wondering about the point of the foregoing, I’ll lay it out for you now:

I was trying to think of some way to encapsulate what the past year has been like. And I think it’s that same mentality. We’re all lined up, team captains pointing and choosing, and we’re waiting to see who gets picked and who gets left behind.

This seems to have been a consistent theme throughout the year—although, depending on the situation, being picked isn’t always a desired outcome.

It’s all trickled down from the shake-ups in distribution. Curiously, it began with an action that usually signals the end of the game, not the beginning. Basically, Marvel Comics, or Marvel Entertainment Group, or Marvel-the-Disney-Wannabe, or whatever it’s calling itself this week, engaged in an age-old strategy. Marvel announced that it didn’t want to play the game anymore, took its ball (comic book distribution), and went home.

Yet, in a way, by ending the game, Marvel started a new one. The name of the game was “Exclusive, Exclusive, Who’s Got the Exclusive?” As befits the bizarre times we live in, it was a perverse game in that the team captains (Diamond and Capital) didn’t pick whom they wanted. In this instance, the future players chose which team they wanted to be on.

And all the biggest, best players went to Diamond. Diamond got kids like Jimmy and Spike, and Capital got kids like Lester and—well—me. That’s not intended as a slam against Capital accounts. It’s just that if you’re fielding a baseball team, for instance, you want to have a bunch of guys who can really whack the ball out of the park. Not an entire team composed of guys who can hit slow rollers down the first-base line and then maybe run them out.

Then there are the publishers—standing in line, feet shuffling, nervous about looking left or right, as the readers make their picks. Whereas once there were more than enough fans and fan dollars to go around, readers are now clutching their money with the fervency of O.J. clinging to his “Not Guilty” plea. They’re picking and choosing carefully, very carefully. And, as publishers stand there in line, it’s as if all the would-be players are poised on varying gradations of quicksand. They’re sinking slowly, as they wait to see whether they’re going to be among the ones chosen.

There’s a lot more than ego and self-esteem on the line. There’s survival.

And retailers are in the same fix. Once upon a time, readerships in various towns could support several stores. Not anymore. Stores are disappearing, as fans look them over, study what they have to offer, size up possible contributions to the personal financial bottom lines and, for that matter, to the commonweal. Not to be chosen means, again, to sink into nothingness.

What to do? What to do?

Unfortunately, there’s nothing that can readily be done. It does, however, explain that creeping sense of desperation throughout the market.

We stand in line, waiting to be chosen. Each name called out reduces the options, shortens the time until eventual elimination, causes anxiety to rise, as we wonder how much longer it’s going to go on, what new name is going to be tossed at us.

Who’s going to go exclusive? Who’s going to go out of business? We shift our feet and try to make eye contact with those who hold our fates in their hands.

Sometimes, they return our look; sometimes, they turn away. We have no control over what’s happening. We’ve told ourselves that we are masters of our fates, but nothing could be further from the truth. We are at the mercy of a selection process that seems almost arbitrary and we flinch at every decision that goes against us.

And slowly, greater and greater desperation creeps in. We toss dignity to the wind as we start to wave our hands or stand on our toes for the purpose of appearing taller than the guy next to us. We shout “Oooo! Oooo!” in a manner reminiscent of Arnold Horshack in Welcome Back, Kotter.

Such actions reek of panic, however. The cool kids, the ones who are going to get chosen, don’t have to resort to that.

They stand there sanguinely, arms folded, quiet smiles on their faces, knowing that all they have to do is maintain their cool. They will get their chances. They will be chosen. They will step up to bat with the confidence of others resting comfortably on their shoulders.

And, as they do so, there will be others sitting on the bench in frustration or stuck out in right field or buried at the bottom of the batting order.

And there will be more stores going under, more readers withholding their money because they’re too discouraged or too bored to keep up with their hobby, more publishers scrambling for survival, and more individuals collectively waving and trying to catch someone’s attention.

To the left and to the right, another will be chosen. Some will be chosen to play in the big leagues. Others will be chosen for oblivion.

And the playing field will get smaller and smaller.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)