I was recently surfing thought the archives and I got to reading this thread and i wanted to through in my two cents into the mix and at the same time get the ball rolling on this subject again.
SIngle issues need to cost less. (think this has been proven by several other posters)
I think one thing that needs to go is the collector’s aspect of the comic reading. We need to stop counting on a single issue going up in value. While at one point this was the bread and butter of the comic shops in the end it really screwed the industry over in a lot of ways. In all fairness we have to admit that this price inflation started because if a reader wanted to read a specific issue or fill in whole in a greater story arch they had to dig through the back issues.
The most important suggestion I can make is that a title should be created by one person and should stay with that person. In the thread i linked to I heard several people say that there should be more self-contained titles to help get new reader in to comic reading. I think that is a BULLSHIT idea but i do think that it’s important for title to have enough consistency to get and keep a readership. In Japan it’s VERY uncommon for a title to be done by a non-creator and I think this helps a title maintain a stability that dose not exist in the American comic industry. A few example of how creator control can benefit a book is Sandman. Let’s be honesty if Neil Gaiman hand not written every issue of Sandman it would not have been nearly the book it became and I’m certain that while man reader were sad that it came to an end I think that certain degree of relief that it was not passed on to another writer. The quality of the non-Gaiman spin offs is proof that sometimes titles should not go on forever. While I don’t think that comic needs to be created with a specific demographic in mind, I do think a book that sticks with it’s creator has a beter chance of gaining a consistence readership. IMHOP is that the best books being put out write now have are the ones that are creator controlled and this goes for super heroes, underground comix, slice of life ect.
I think that a comic should be REGULARLY collected into trade paper backs. I think that an availability of an issue in always-available TPB has many advantages to back issues. One it discourages the collectors market because if i want to read lets say Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing, I don’t have to hunt down over three dozen issues (and spend a large fortune) I just need to by five TPB (and spend a small fortune:) ). Another thing is that if gives the publishers and creators a product that they can always put out and profit from rather than hoping that a given issue dose well. It also makes it easy for a new reader to play catch up because the just need to find a TPBs which they can by when a reader wants it rather than having to hunt down many (and potential expensive) back issues.
In summary i think that a buyer ship of readers would be more stable and reliable than collectors. Titles done and controlled by their creators contribute to the quality and helps maintain that quality and helps establish a readership. Finally a regular publishing of issues into TPB is financial benefit to both creators and publishers and provide a point for a reader to jump on a title.
Clearly I’m suggesting an industry model closer to the Japanese manga model but i think that this would benefit industry both financial and artistically.
Agreed, but CAN this be done? I’d imagine if the average sales of a given title were much higher, companies could afford to lower their single-issue costs. I have no idea what the average title sales are these days, although I’d guesstimate they’re around 80,000 (and that’s just for Marvel and DC books; indies would be much, much lower).
Is this still an issue? I largely get the feeling that the speculator’s market is dead and has been since the mid-90s. The point was particularly illustrated with Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man#1 and the “Death of Superman” comic, both of which were so heavily purchased that the demand simply wasn’t there to drive the collectible value up. Additionally, we really don’t see a lot of foil-enhanced, glow-in-the-dark, embossed polybagged covers anymore.
I love the idea, but it’s hard to find creators with that level of commitment. Sure, Bendis and Bagley are committed to at least 100 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, but Mark Millar abandoned Ultimate X-Men just short of 30 issues. Artists in particular seem difficult to nail down; I’m enjoying Dan Jurgens’ run on Thor, but I’d swear it’s gone through a dozen artists in 4 years. And then there’s creators that are attached to certain books. I’d read Spider-Girl if they’d just get Tom DeFalco off the title; granted, he created the character, but his writing is extraordinarily painful.
Agreed, and I believe Marvel’s been pretty good about this. DC has always been. Dark Horse is slooooooooooooooow in putting its TPBs out, mostly due to some artery clog in their writer-artist-editor-publishing chain.
The REAL problem is getting TPBs on the mass market. Stores like Barnes & Noble and Borders have always, until recently, had at least a decent-sized comic book section. They’re starting to shrink, and I recall seeing one commentator remark on how his B&N now has one shelf for comics and three shelves for Manga. Scary.
Definitely. I think a step in the right direction might be to start using lower quality paper. I admit, I don’t know how much money this would save, but it doesn’t seem like it would hurt, anyway. Otherwise, it’s hard to see how they could get by decreasing prices unless readership really picked up a lot as a result.
I think that’s easier said than done. It’s hard to just tell people “stop caring about what that’s worth” in any event, and moreso when they find out they can get $25 for JLA/Avengers #1 or whatever on eBay.
It sounds great, I just don’t know how anyone except the collectors themselves can really do anythying about it.
I dunno about this. I mean, there have been great runs of titles by creative teams who didn’t start on the book. It seems like the only change this would bring is that instead of a single long running series, we’d have a bunch of miniseries instead, and I’m not sure how that would really change things.
Aren’t we pretty much there? I know there’s still a lot of stuff I’d like to have in TPB form (cough Sandman Mystery Theater cough), but Marvel in particular releases things in TPB form about a week after the monthly titles come out, it seems. DC isn’t quite as good, but they’re getting better.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with TPB availability.