What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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NoOneofConsequence
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

Post by NoOneofConsequence »

Ares wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:28 pm Earlier on, at least with the truly good writers, it was about writing the CHARACTER. Guys like Roger Stern treated writing a comic book hero like they were caretakers being entrusted with a part of American folk lore, and they wrote stories to showcase why these characters were important.
Even beyond that, I think there's a very similar economic/business aspect to it: These character's are valuable intellectual properties that belong to someone else. If you are asked to write one of these characters, you are being entrusted with someone else's property. (The same for editing them.)
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Batgirl III wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:46 pm He told me it was stupid to follow characters and I should follow artists or writers instead.

The dude owned a comic book store.

Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.
That's the divide I'm talking about right there – though the guy selling you your hurting wrong fun should just shut up and take your money. I follow some creators, and I used to follow some characters when I could still recognize them in publication. Maybe someday I'll be able to again.
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Batgirl III
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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In some recent similar discussions about this topic with my two daughters, 14 and 11, I think I’ve hit on another thing that’s “wrong with comics” these days... They’re ridiculously expensive!

Cover prices for most books these days are $4.99 USD; When I was the same age range they are now (which was the peak of my monthly comic buying years) the median cover price was $1.75 USD. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $3.40 USD...

But, inflation only tells us part of the picture. Today’s teens have access to a world of entertainment options that I didn’t have in the early Nineties. My parents were early adopters of the internet and I was “online” before I hit my teens... But there were no MMORPGs, social media, webcomics, or YouTube. My family had cable tv, but the fifty-odd channels I had then cannot compare to the content available to my kids from Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime (and that’s the only streaming services we have, they have peers whose family have many more and regular television which we don’t); Not to mention console and pc games, podcasts, novels (both prose and graphic), and a thousand other forms of entertainment I can’t think of...

If I give either one of my daughters $20 and send her off shopping, which gives her more hours of entertainment? Four sixteen-page comic books (which have as many pages of ads as they do comics) or two tankōbon manga of 180-220 pages without any ads? Or a single used PlayStation game? Or the latest YA novel trilogy to come out in paperback? Or a movie ticket and a bucket of popcorn? Or listening to a free podcast while eating a Chipotle burrito?

My daughters love the MCU... But the thought of spending their allowances on old fashioned paper comic books confuses them.
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NoOneofConsequence
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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I can still remember when comics were 65 cents. I think I was in middle school or high school when they went up to 75.

Another thing I have seen pointed out is that for the past couple of years, a lot of solicitated comics don't feel like actual attempts at comics but instead pitches for movies or streaming series. A lot of these also seem to be by people who appear to neither care nor know much about the existing characters tangentally connected to their book - the creator of Children of the Atom apparently thinking the idea of the X-Men having young protégés being a new and novel idea, for example - which would seem to support the idea. These people seem to look at superhero comics as an easy way to get their foot in the door with Hollywood and then do whatever "normie" thing they really want to be writing.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
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Woodclaw
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:26 am In some recent similar discussions about this topic with my two daughters, 14 and 11, I think I’ve hit on another thing that’s “wrong with comics” these days... They’re ridiculously expensive!

Cover prices for most books these days are $4.99 USD; When I was the same age range they are now (which was the peak of my monthly comic buying years) the median cover price was $1.75 USD. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $3.40 USD...

But, inflation only tells us part of the picture. Today’s teens have access to a world of entertainment options that I didn’t have in the early Nineties. My parents were early adopters of the internet and I was “online” before I hit my teens... But there were no MMORPGs, social media, webcomics, or YouTube. My family had cable tv, but the fifty-odd channels I had then cannot compare to the content available to my kids from Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime (and that’s the only streaming services we have, they have peers whose family have many more and regular television which we don’t); Not to mention console and pc games, podcasts, novels (both prose and graphic), and a thousand other forms of entertainment I can’t think of...

If I give either one of my daughters $20 and send her off shopping, which gives her more hours of entertainment? Four sixteen-page comic books (which have as many pages of ads as they do comics) or two tankōbon manga of 180-220 pages without any ads? Or a single used PlayStation game? Or the latest YA novel trilogy to come out in paperback? Or a movie ticket and a bucket of popcorn? Or listening to a free podcast while eating a Chipotle burrito?

My daughters love the MCU... But the thought of spending their allowances on old fashioned paper comic books confuses them.
The value for money of the current comic industry is completely off the rails, even without factoring the quality of the story.
I'm not sure how other foreign publishers handle this, but as far as I know here it's customary to bundle together multiple titles usually three for the same price. For example, one issue of Avengers also includes one of Thor and one of Iron Man, meaning about 50-60 pages of content.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Over in Japan, the main form of publishing manga is through magazines (mostly monthly, a few really big sellers are bi-monthly or even weekly) that average in the 40-60 page range (some get into the hundreds of pages) contain multiple different serialized chapters for ongoing titles... and are usually black and white. With the lower selling titles often using cheap newsprint and even the big titles just using regular matte paper. (Although, this can vary. Back in the Nineties, one of the top sellers the magazine Nakayoshi was printed on cheaper paper and it’s massive 480 page size led to it being colloquially known as one of the “telephone book manga.” Average monthly sales were around 2,000,000 copies... Mostly thanks to one little serialized story in every issue: Sailor Moon.)

No high gloss paper, full digital color art, holographic foils, die-cuts, or other gimmicks and expenses. Some will include a bundled “gift” like a cheap toy or a trading card (to encourage kids to buy their own instead of just sharing with friends) but that trend seems to be fading.

They also sell them everywhere that they can, like grocery stores and convenience stores, not just specialty shops. The core of the business model is keeping it cheap and selling in high volume.

If a serialized manga is really popular, they’ll be collected in dedicated book-sized volumes, called tankōbon. These are the ones we get over here in the States. The paper will be better, although the art will still be black and white. Maybe some color splashed around on special pages in between chapters. Really, really, really hot titles might get a deluxe edition with all the trimmings... But the business model for tankōbon is built on keeping it cheap and encouraging people to collect completed series.

The American and Western European market probably wouldn’t take well to black-and-white art on cheaper newsprint, not anymore (we might have in the Fifties or Sixties). But there’s no reason to be using the high gloss stuff either... Go back to cheaper paper, use less slick coloration, and bring the production costs down.

Make a few collected monthly “Bat Book,” “X Book,” “Avengers Book,” “Superman Book,” or whatever other theme you want. Run 3-5 serialized stories in each every month. Keep it cheap... And sell them in grocery stores, convenience stores, newsstands, and pharmacies!
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Woodclaw
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:21 pm The American and Western European market probably wouldn’t take well to black-and-white art on cheaper newsprint, not anymore (we might have in the Fifties or Sixties). But there’s no reason to be using the high gloss stuff either... Go back to cheaper paper, use less slick coloration, and bring the production costs down.
In Italy and Spain the most common form of local comics is black and white, matte (or semi-gloss) paper, clocking at 90-120 pages per months. In France matte paper is the standard.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Woodclaw wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:30 pm
Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:21 pm The American and Western European market probably wouldn’t take well to black-and-white art on cheaper newsprint, not anymore (we might have in the Fifties or Sixties).
In Italy and Spain the most common form of local comics is black and white, matte (or semi-gloss) paper, clocking at 90-120 pages per months. In France matte paper is the standard.
I stand corrected on that front, but my broader point is the current American standard of a 16-page comic book has got to go.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:45 pm
Woodclaw wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:30 pm
Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:21 pm The American and Western European market probably wouldn’t take well to black-and-white art on cheaper newsprint, not anymore (we might have in the Fifties or Sixties).
In Italy and Spain the most common form of local comics is black and white, matte (or semi-gloss) paper, clocking at 90-120 pages per months. In France matte paper is the standard.
I stand corrected on that front, but my broader point is the current American standard of a 16-page comic book has got to go.
On that we agree.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:21 pm Make a few collected monthly “Bat Book,” “X Book,” “Avengers Book,” “Superman Book,” or whatever other theme you want. Run 3-5 serialized stories in each every month. Keep it cheap... And sell them in grocery stores, convenience stores, newsstands, and pharmacies!
If only Superman Family and Batman Family had stuck with us... that's the distribution model that we lost when direct sales took over, with the emphasis on making every issue available to everyone.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Black and white is a deal breaker for me. No chance I buy a comic that isn't in color
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Shock wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 7:00 pm Black and white is a deal breaker for me. No chance I buy a comic that isn't in color
During the 1970s, Marvel produced a number of well made black and white comic magazines aimed toward adults. This included The Savage Sword of Conan, Dracula Lives, Tales of the Zombie, The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes, The Rampaging Hulk, Monsters Unleashed, and Doc Savage, among others. The Conan book actually lasted for 20 years, which is more than most color comic titles from the past few decades.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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One Piece has sold something north of 480 million tankobon collections worldwide since it debuted in 1997 and is still ongoing; Dragon Ball ran for eleven years (‘84-‘95) and moved 300 million tankobon; Golgo 13 has moved over 350 million tankobon and has been running since 1968... and still going!

All three of those series are black and white.

Just about ever Barnes & Noble or other “big box” bookstore I have walked into in the past decade has multiple aisles devoted to English translations of tankobon manga these days. Almost all of it in black and white. If they have a section for American graphic novels at all, it will be absolutely dwarfed by the manga section.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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Before copying the Japanese model, also keep in mind their artists work starvation wages and earn NOTHING until their work is collected in tankobons. That's part of why the phone-books are so cheap.

But yeah, no chance I buy a superhero book that's not in color. That can work for some kinds of stories (Conan, martial arts manga, etc.), but superhero books need color or I won't be collecting them, period. Otherwise you'd have to use the manga-style "costume design" method of hyper-complicating everything.
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Re: What's Wrong With Comics According to Me

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I'm not saying black & white can't be successful but I'll never buy one. I don't watch B&W movies either. Hurts my eyes
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