CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Dec 17, 2009

[CBR News]

Brian Hibbs returns this month and explains not only why the comic book industry is as healthy as it ever was, if not healthier, but also why the Original Graphic Novel may not necessarily be the end-all be-all comic book format of the future.


Full article here.

[BlackLesbianJewishWoman]

I love manga, and of course consider it comics, but I can make the distinction why it's cheaper. It's not so much just the fact that it's being reprinted (because if you look at the costs of the original manga published in Japan, in terms of exchange rate, the costs are usually the same as over here IF NOT CHEAPER.) No, it's also the presentation of the product, namely the fact that 1) it's not as big as American comics, 2) it's black and white and not in color and 3) it's printed on cheaper paper. There's no way you can't argue physical quality of one product being superior to the other. Even look at the Scott Pilgrim books, they are basically in the manga format in physical terms, and they're relatively cheap because of that.

[rolacka]

Hey Brian, interesting column. Joe Quesada said a similar thing in Cup 'O Joe this week.

I agree on your comments about the creative advantages from periodical distribution being minor and also publishers producing too much product being a much bigger problem.

However, something you didn't really go into, how would you respond to the charge that comics coming out periodically, and the subsequent spreading out of the marketing etc, makes it harder to attract 'uneducated' or new comic readers?

I think that all the publishers do a really bad job of marketing their trades. Everything is geared up for the first issue of a new series, not the trade collection. In general it is very difficult to find information, previews or reviews for trades, and I think potential new readers would want to read thoughtful reviews before committing money to buying a trade.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting this is inherent, but a result of the marketing strategies publishers employ. I understand them not wanting to push a trade when they pushed the story six to twelve months ago, but I think it is damaging to getting new readers.

Can occasional OGNs be more effective in this case? eg 'Joker' by Azzarello and Bermejo [sp?] capitalising on 'Dark Knight' movie goers.

[twincast]

I love manga, and of course consider it comics, but I can make the distinction why it's cheaper. It's not so much just the fact that it's being reprinted (because if you look at the costs of the original manga published in Japan, in terms of exchange rate, the costs are usually the same as over here IF NOT CHEAPER.) No, it's also the presentation of the product, namely the fact that 1) it's not as big as American comics, 2) it's black and white and not in color and 3) it's printed on cheaper paper. There's no way you can't argue physical quality of one product being superior to the other. Even look at the Scott Pilgrim books, they are basically in the manga format in physical terms, and they're relatively cheap because of that.

Exactly. 'Though that only covers standard paperbacks. We mustn't forget the incredibly cheap original "phonebook" magazine serializations in much bigger format on really crappy paper (for b/w, that is. the occasional* colored pages that are almost always printed in b/w for the small trade paperbacks are of pretty high quality) and the rare reprint editions** of one or more paperbacks in (+/-) original magazine size with colored pages restored, which depending on the paper quality (which ranges between paperback standard and high quality stuff) may cost up to your average super-hero hardcover.

*occasional per series. every single volume as a whole has a handful of them spread across comic, info and ad pages.
**even more rarely these are the original TPB's.

[zombiedictator]

The problem with the "I sell 10 comics for every 1 TPB/GN" is that your view of the industry is one little retail store that provides not even anywhere close to .1% of the sales of the industry. The better comparison would be "how many direct market single issues sold of Walking Dead #X-Y compared to how many TPBs sold that compiled those issues?" I'd be shocked if that number was anywhere near the 10:1 ratio you see in your store.

[Kody]

Interesting juxtaposition of articles this morning as Wildstorm announces they're dropping single issues for their video game properties and focusing on OGNs.

Link

[rexpop]

There are horses for courses. Some formats will work better in some markets, other formats in other markets. OGNs are there for the people who just want to read a Superman or Batman story that don't want to deal with 25 years+ of continuity. Maybe some of them will then go onto discovering the monthlies and bolster the direct market.

Plus I'd hardly call JoeyQ an Oracle of Wisdom. He dismissed weekly comics when 52 came out only to leave egg on his face when it was a massive success and he had to hire the guy who managed it to do the same with Spider-man. I'm willing to bet we'll see the same thing happening with OGNs.

While I agree that serialization of material is important, it doesn't mean that publishers shouldn't try and explore new ways to let people discover their product. After all rising interest in the comic book medium should lift everybody including the direct market, at least those that are in the position to capitalize on it.

[MikeCr]

Absolutely excellent column Brian. You covered so many things that I've been thinking about but are regularly glossed over. All my experience of selling comics reflects yours: without the initial wider diffusion generated by periodical distribution it's very hard to generate the critical mass in the potential audience's awareness to become a longterm turner in book format. The reality is that the buy-in cost of a first issue is just so much less than the buy-in of an OGN. Beyond that the (necessary) long gaps between OGNs doesn't encourage consumers to buy them close to release which means that initial orders by retailers can often be lower as well.

The more that I think about it it really points to how remarkable it is what O'Malley and Oni have achieved with Scott Pilgrim: a series of OGN's that are published more like a (slowly) appearing periodical. I know when volume six is announced I'll probably be ordering more copies for our initial order than we do for Batman. The question is, beyond it's quality, how much of a role does Scott Pilgrim's relatively low MSRP play into that? It seems to point to the possibility of a third vehicle for print distribution of comics material: a hybrid OGN/periodical. Something like Ellis' Apparat line at Avatar, which we sell tons of, but with on-going, though self-contained, stories. Some publishers even seem to be experimenting with what the ceiling is for the price point of periodical comics content. I'm thinking of Radical's $4.99 line and Marvel's Soleil reprints. Could there be a day when some comics are initially published in a "cheapy" $3-$5 format (with size and page count like the current ones) while others come out quarterly, bi-annually, or annually at a $8-$12 price point but with greater content? Moore's new LOEG: Century books seem to meet my criteria.

[MikeCr]

The problem with the "I sell 10 comics for every 1 TPB/GN" is that your view of the industry is one little retail store that provides not even anywhere close to .1% of the sales of the industry. The better comparison would be "how many direct market single issues sold of Walking Dead #X-Y compared to how many TPBs sold that compiled those issues?" I'd be shocked if that number was anywhere near the 10:1 ratio you see in your store.

Yes, but Brian's point is that if it weren't for the buzz generated by the initial serialization would The Walking Dead have even got to the point where that was possible? We can never know of course, and The Walking Dead is the sort of exceptional material that breaks the rules anyways, but I wouldn't be surprised if it never got to the point that my initial orders for it's tpb's are triple to quintuple what we order of the issues like they are now. Brian's 10:1 ratio - as long as we're talking about initial orders - is probably a bit harsh but it's not unreasonable either.

For example, DC's new Earth One line: with creative teams and concepts announced I could easily imagine ordering 30 copies of the Batman book and 20 copies of the Superman book if they were solicited as magazines first. As OGN's? I'll be pretty comfortable with 8 for the former and 5 for the later and I work for a store that, like Brian, puts a really big emphasis on the book format of comic material. Now, obviously DC is hoping that these will really take off in the mass market and book store channels but even there they're not going to have the initial success in the direct market to point to when pitching to the buyers from the big chains. Look, I hope this line is successful because the delivery of comics material in more formats and channels is great for the medium. In fact, based on DC's good track record with the book format I suspect it will be. But that doesn't mean that it has to replace the monthly periodical format either. In fact, if it is successful I could just as easily see it increasing sales of the regular Batman and Superman monthlies as consumers go looking for more material to fill the void as they wait for each new OGN. Stranger things have happened and, believe it or not, most consumers seem increasingly less wedded to one format over the other since each one fits a different need: periodicals offer immeadiacy and regularity while collections and OGN's offer a better longterm convenience of format (for storage and re-reading) and (most of the time) a more complete reading experience. I know I buy both myself.

[RJT]

Brian- I don't totally disagree with your points, but I do take issue with a few of them.
Your assertion that you've heard people complaining about price increases in comics means that it's not a problem is belied by the fact that less people are reading monthly comics. Every sales chart shows that. Your argument later in the piece that it is better to have one hundred readers paying five dollars than 25 paying twenty dollars is also the problem with monthly comics readers--there are less of us, but we're paying more. Your exact argument against OGN is exactly the same as your reason for why the monthly comic is a good model.
And I discussed this with you over on the Savage Critics board: that some stories would be better not chopped into 20-24 page installments. Your argument here is a strawman argument. Nobody is saying that 'longer is better' but that having to create a story with an artificial climax or cliffhanger every set number of pages might not always create the best story. Certainly, superhero comics in particular are fairly adept at this, and I agree that often times working within boundaries can make work sharper and stronger. But there are movies that are out there that wouldn't work if you showed twenty-two minutes a week Tuesday nights on NBC, and there are some comic stories that work better with more space--not necessarily longer, but without having to have to worry about each 20 page subset existing as its own separate unit. I'm not sure that the Earth One OGNs will take advantage of this (sometimes habits are hard to break; I remember reading BKV's Pride of Baghdad, and while written as an OGN, I could count and every 20 pages or so there would be a dramatic full page splash) but I'm interested to see what a difference the format would make.
We discussed Asterios Polyp, and you mention it here, as well. It took Mazzuchelli over ten years to produce it. Are you saying that a serialized comic of Polyp, one issue coming out every 10-14 months (which certainly has happened to certain indie creators, like the Hernandez Brothers, Daniel Clowes) would engendered the same excitement and media attention that the OGN received this summer? You talk about the importance of monthly (or at least periodic) presence of artists on the stands, but what about the outside media attention? They aren't going to write articles about Mazzuchelli everytime he puts out a 20-page chapter of his opus. Just like Marvel can get the New York Post to do a big story about Reborn #1, but no coverage for #2-6.
I'm just saying that there is room for both formats (and more--I wholeheartedly agree about the 8-page story!) and there are reasons for both. Your argument that everything can be serialized is just as spurious as the argument that everything can be an OGN.

[collectededitions]

Brian, very interesting article, and thanks.

You wrote:

If you're doing a six issue story, you've got a marketing push at the beginning of that story, and you've got an ongoing (even if only passive) awareness on the racks for those six months. Then, at the end, when your work gets collected in the first of (hopefully) many formats, you get another push – that's creating awareness of you, the creator, as your own brand.

As an OGN, you get only a single push, and then your work is (effectively) off the market for the next six months until your next volume comes out. Some people can do well in an environment like this – particularly if you're doing work far and above the general level of work on the market. But let's be deeply realistic: you're probably not doing work well above the general level of work on the market, and there are very few creators that the wider audience is interested in waiting on, or, even more rarely, deeply anticipating their next work. It's great if you are that guy – but that's a lottery ticket, not a business plan.

Would you address this statement in terms of how it compares to the process of "regular" novels, for lack of a better phrase? It seems to me that a novelist who deals with the same characters (that is, a "serial" novelist) like, for instance, mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman, can release one novel every one-to-two years, maybe staggered with a paperback release, and not fall off his fans' radars as you describe; even less "big name" novelists don't have this problem.

Do you think the difficulty you describe is specific to comics creators, or otherwise how to you rectify the publishing industry, which largely runs by the business plan you describe, with your argument?

Again, great article, and thanks for your insights.

[Thad]

There's another argument that goes something like "Rejoice! We can free the creator from the tyranny of format! No longer must we have a mandated break every 22 pages!"

I think this concern is pretty amusing – not only does it appear to assume that longer-is-better

Not at all. "Not exactly 22 pages" does not inherently mean "more than 22 pages"; it could also mean less -- which, as you note below, could very well be a good thing. I think V for Vendetta is an excellent example of a book (originally serialized, yes, but not in 22-page increments) that had nice short chapters. Chapters in Maus are as long as they need to be, no longer and no shorter. Love and Rockets -- I could go on.

Of course, there's the pacing issue too; not every chapter has to have an action sequence.

But, still, it seems to me that this would be like railing against Network TV shows having to fit into half-hour multiples. Those 22-ish minutes of broadcast within every half hour don't seem to necessarily "limit" the creative story-telling potential, and I don't really think that that episode of, say, "Lost", would be any better if only it could have run 1:13, instead.

I realize that this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but I'm about sick of The Daily Show's 22-minute constraint. The interviews have been consistently running over about once a week, and, obnoxiously, if you click on a "full episode" link on the website, it will give you the 22-minute version, with the uncut interview on a separate link and not played inline.

Again, not apples-to-apples, as we're talking about the unscripted interview segment of a comedy news show, but there are plenty of ways TV could benefit from losing its time constraints. Animated shorts are far less common than they used to be, and I'd like to see that change. And of course Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog showed a great example of the potential of content designed for the Web; it was three 13-minute segments. I'd love to see more content like that produced, but of course there aren't many people who have Whedon's level of resources.

But, by and large, I think that boundaries are a relatively good thing for creative folks, as it can help restrain some of their laziest creative impulses. I mean, for that matter, I really wish we still had an outlet in America for eight page stories, because I think that the training to pack an entire full thought into that small of a space makes you much sharper as a writer, but I digress.

Totally with you on this one. Restrictions can actually help with creativity -- I participated in a game writing contest a few years back, and the most noticeable thing about the rules was a strict set of guidelines on word count, map size, and number of characters. This forced some very creative storytelling.

Douglas Adams is a favorite of mine, and of course it's often been observed that the meandering last two Hitchhiker's Guide books are great examples of why he worked best with a good editor -- for my money, the radio adaptations Dirk Maggs put together were superior to the original novels. So chopping them into episode length actually was a very good idea. (The first two Hitchhiker's Guide novels, of course, were adapted from radio scripts themselves.)

And eight-page comic stories are all but a lost art at this point, which is a pity -- Eisner packed more story into 8 pages than Bendis does into 22. I'm certainly not opposed to big, Hitch-style splash pages, but not every comic has to use them, either.

The problem with mainstream superhero comics isn't "the $4 periodical" or "the 22 page format", for that matter – it is "never ending events" and "unwanted line extensions" and "editorially-mandated creative directions" (among other things)

To that end, OGN's could be a big help. I don't see big crossover events occurring in them. Of course, unwanted line extensions and editorially-mandated creative directions could still be a problem; we'll see.

I'm interested in seeing where all this goes. I'm skeptical about the direction DC's taking with the Earth-One stuff; if it gets good reviews I'll check it out and if it doesn't I won't. But I think OGN's are a neat idea -- that doesn't mean they need to replace periodical comics by any means, but one more choice of format is a good thing.

[Brian Hibbs]

However, something you didn't really go into, how would you respond to the charge that comics coming out periodically, and the subsequent spreading out of the marketing etc, makes it harder to attract 'uneducated' or new comic readers?

I'm not so sure that "marketing" really moves comics too much anyway -- not to the "civilians", because most comics-oriented marketing is aimed within the market(s), rather than without.

We'll have an interesting test case with the Vertigo Crime books, though -- advertised on BBC America -- and I'm looking forward to seeing the end-of-year BookScan numbers to see if that made much difference.

Can occasional OGNs be more effective in this case? eg 'Joker' by Azzarello and Bermejo [sp?] capitalising on 'Dark Knight' movie goers.

Yes, but I always think that looking at outliers is probably not the wisest thing to do when trying to judge the impact of things. Would "Joker" have sold what it did had there NOT been "Dark Knight"? I don't really think so?

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

The problem with the "I sell 10 comics for every 1 TPB/GN" is that your view of the industry is one little retail store that provides not even anywhere close to .1% of the sales of the industry. The better comparison would be "how many direct market single issues sold of Walking Dead #X-Y compared to how many TPBs sold that compiled those issues?" I'd be shocked if that number was anywhere near the 10:1 ratio you see in your store.

A couple of things:

First there are, in fact, many many books where my "one little retail store" IS, in fact, sell .1% or better of the total DM numbers. Not WALKING DEAD, of course, but many things.

Second, I specifically said "mainstream superhero titles" in that 1:10 calculation.

Third, I said "on average" -- because there, are, of course, outliers on both sides of the range.

Fourth, the question RE: WALKING DEAD is whether it would be as successful had it not gotten the early buzz from serialization. I think not, but YMMV.

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Your assertion that you've heard people complaining about price increases in comics means that it's not a problem is belied by the fact that less people are reading monthly comics. Every sales chart shows that.

Which sales charts? I mean, sure, compared to the 1980s less people, overall, appear to be reading comics (the speculator bust, I think, is the root of that one, rather than price increases per se), but the "hits" from ten years ago are not substantially larger than the "hits" from today.

Yes, the midlist has drastically eroded, but there are SIGNIFICANTLY more comics being produced, so any other result would be shocking...

You talk about the importance of monthly (or at least periodic) presence of artists on the stands, but what about the outside media attention?

Given that, probably, less than 1/10th of 1% of comics published ever get ANY outside media attention (and, really, it might be less than 1/100 of 1%), I'm not so certain that this is a major deal?

I'm just saying that there is room for both formats (and more--I wholeheartedly agree about the 8-page story!) and there are reasons for both. Your argument that everything can be serialized is just as spurious as the argument that everything can be an OGN.

I don't think my argument is "everything can [or should] be serialized" -- more that "there are inherent advantages to serialization."

-B