Semi-animated comics - future of the medium?

Fysh

magwea wrote: »

We the consumer know the merit of comics, greater the those who make them!

It's not really a consumer vs creator situation, nor has anyone claimed that consumers know better than creators. Once again, glibness gets in the way of actually having an interesting conversation. The point I was making, and which I think livingtargets was making as well, is that while a creator's works can shape the medium, they do not have the exclusive rights to describe what the medium is or is not. Neither to consumers.

magwea wrote: »

Woe to those who attack the great sanctity of the comics medium.

What? Once again, I have only the vaguest idea of what you're getting at, so I'm going to ask you to elaborate.

magwea

Fysh wrote: »

The point I was making, and which I think livingtargets was making as well, is that while a creator's works can shape the medium, they do not have the exclusive rights to describe what the medium is or is not. Neither to consumers.

Reasonable enough, and i would agree to a point, it would still be unreasonable to disregard what actual comic creators believe, they know their business, even if what they are saying undermines themselves and what they do.

Creators do shape the medium -Fandom and critics are very much second tier- and have every right to lampoon what they do.

They are not omnipotent but who in the end is going to be more critical?

Fysh

Creators make work that defines their medium, but tbh if a creator is self-loathing enough to genuinely dismiss the medium they work in, I'd frankly suggest that they stop complaining and move onto something else that they consider more worthwhile.

I don't buy this notion that the audience is somehow less important than the artist - without the audience there is no art. If the point of art is to provoke thought and communicate ideas, then the audience (be they creators or non-creators) are an integral part of the medium, since without them there can be no dialogue of ideas and without this art is essentially pointless.

Creators may have insights into the nature of the medium that the layperson is less privy to, but if a creator can't provide reasoning for whatever argument or statement they make concerning the medium then they should be dismissed, in the exact same way that a layperson making the same comment would be dismissed. If a point has merit, it has merit regardless of who says it, and the reverse is also true.

magwea

I love the self-loathing cartoonists that you are dismissing.

An idiot creator and an idiot fan are much the same, if a guy life Kurtzman and Ware say something about the medium I'm going to prick my ears.

Returning to the topic; anyone see Ware's animation for this American life?

Fysh

magwea wrote: »

I love the self-loathing cartoonists that you are dismissing.

An idiot creator and an idiot fan are much the same, if a guy life Kurtzman and Ware say something about the medium I'm going to prick my ears.

Oh, for heaven's sake, you're missing the point. I'm not dismissing them as creators or their work in the medium; hell, I'm not even dismissing their comments on comics being a bastard art form, I'm dismissing what you have presented of their supposed comments about comics being a bastard art form on the basis that those comments don't stand up by themselves. And frankly, if I were to read a criticism of the form with half-baked arguments from any creator, from the lowliest margin-doodler to Alan Moore or Will Eisner himself, I'd still dismiss it. If the criticism has merit, it can be backed up with arguments. If not, it's just another glib remark or self-deprecating joke and deserves to be paid no more heed than any other comment falling into those categories.

Regarding Ware's animation that you mentioned, I haven't seen it. Got any more info/links about it? Would be interested in finding out more and maybe having a look.

Gegerty

Facts are the future is paperless....and the sooner the better. This is a very good response to that provided they don't over do it. Putting in animated motion marks or animated BLAMS etc is as far as I would push it. I'm a little worried about the voice overs. I hope they don't go putting voices on the characters. I gave up reading Judge Dredd when the movie came out, I just couldn't get the "I am the law" with Sylvester Stallone speech impediment out of my head!

From an old comic book fan who gave up at the age it started to become embarrasing, I'd be interested in trying out motion comics, who knows it might rekindle my love of comics. I'm going to check them out on iTunes when i get home....

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

We the consumer know the merit of comics, greater the those who make them!

what? I don't get what you mean by that at all.

Fysh:
Chris Wares american life

magwea

I think we are more in agreement then anything.

Fysh wrote: »

If not, it's just another glib remark or self-deprecating joke and deserves to be paid no more heed than any other comment falling into those categories.

Is that not almost exactly what i had said earlier.

I didn't intend to justify the term, it was just a quickly thrown out remark in response to what you said about motion comics being a medium torn between between comics and animation. Funny that some believe comics is equally torn between writing and drawing. Whereas the comics connoisseurs would believe that it is a symbiosis and that the term has to much of a negative feel; to which i'd say Phooey.

I did not intend to hide behind the words of others, or take everything that they say at face value.

Should i even bother making an argument for it, certainly seems unnecessary most have already made up there minds.

Back to the topic.
More Chris Ware This AmericanLife animation.
Art comes from Artists motion comic of Jimmy Corrigan set to ragtime

Fysh

magwea wrote: »

I didn't intend to justify the term, it was just a quickly thrown out remark in response to what you said about motion comics being a medium torn between between comics and animation. Funny that some believe comics is equally torn between writing and drawing. Whereas the comics connoisseurs would believe that it is a symbiosis and that the term has to much of a negative feel; to which i'd say Phooey.

Ah, ok. I see what you're getting at now. I do find the range of views on what relationship comics as a form bears to its constituent aspects to be interesting, because while I have my own opinion (that the form is at its best when the writing and art inform each other to the point that you can't easily separate the material into its component parts any more) it's good to see other opinions and what effect they have on the material created by the proponents of those views.

magwea wrote: »

I did not intend to hide behind the words of others, or take everything that they say at face value.

Should i even bother making an argument for it, certainly seems unnecessary most have already made up there minds.

Fair enough, I didn't mean to suggest that you were hiding behind their words as such; it wasn't really clear whether you actively agreed with the notion or were just mentioning that someone else had made that comment.

I would like to know what your arguments for it are, just out of curiosity, because I'm not very familiar with the in-depth thinking behind the idea of comics as an amalgam of artform.

livingtargets

magwea wrote: »

Funny that some believe comics is equally torn between writing and drawing. Whereas the comics connoisseurs would believe that it is a symbiosis and that the term has to much of a negative feel; to which i'd say Phooey.

Well I think it`s a negative term and I sure as feck aren`t a "comic connoissuer"!
Sure,with the logic you`re using,film could be seen as the bastard child of writing and image.And the way I see it,no one`s going to marginalise film as a bastard child,so I don`t know why anyone(including Ware and Kurtzman)would be pretensious enough to marginalise comics as such.

Joseph Kuhr

Downloaded Watchmen last night (only available in the US iTunes store so I got it from *ahem* an alternative source). Haven't had a chance to view it in its entirety but from what I've seen I have to say it very well done. It compliments the graphic novel very well. The animation is very subtle and stylish. The only complaint out there is that it uses a male voice for the female characters but if the voice overs bother you then turn the sound off and just read the text bubbles as you would with a regualr comic.

magwea

Fysh wrote: »

I would like to know what your arguments for it are, just out of curiosity, because I'm not very familiar with the in-depth thinking behind the idea of comics as an amalgam of artform.

I suppose there are two defensible arguments to be made.

The apparent dichotomy of writing and art is probably the first thing a new comics reader notices and the manner in which the comic books are historically made in which the duty of writing and art is separated to a certain extreme plays to this. The unity of text and image happening much later. In a medium which potentially is the most egocentric and potential self-expressiveness, one which has every writing and graphical tool at its disposal, it seems odd that the creative duties would be split into in such a simplistic manner, a split that has more to do with commerce then anything, ditto the further separation of inker, colourist, letter. Comics as a medium is one which potentially is neither simply words and pictures is at its worst and historically a bastard medium of its progenitors.

Another argument for the term; Comics as a medium owes much to writing and art yet has little of the respect of either, least of all from cognoscenti of culture. In a recent interview about his exhibition in the Wexner Center for the Arts Jeff Smith is cautiously thankful for his museum show and the greater media coverage of the comics art form. Bone was started in his garage with little money, a comic not thought suitable for kids who had to hide it from there parents. While being grateful for elevated presence of comics Smith wants his comics to remain "punk", to keep their edge, and -although Smith would never use the term- to be the in a way the bastard of two respectable mediums.

For the enlightened and the academic the term bastard is going to fall short, too direst, too colloquial, too simplistic: all the reasons why i like the term to begin with, but in the end is indefensible.

As for what livingtargets said, sure the term could be applied to film and certainly other media as well, but in the case of modern film a medium which employs and requires companies of specialists rather then bastard the term orgiastic love child seems much more fitting.

Joseph Kuhr

Ok I've watched the whole episode (Chapter 1). Sorry to get back on topic here (:rolleyes:) but I have to say this SHOULD be the future of the medium. I think its brilliant anyway, far better than reading a regular comic but doesn't go too far as to call it an animated movie. For example, turn the sound off and read it like a comic....such a simple idea but a massively positive step forward for the medium.

Has anyone else had a chance to have a look at it? Would be interested in your views...

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

The apparent dichotomy of writing and art is probably the first thing a new comics reader notices and the manner in which the comic books are historically made in which the duty of writing and art is separated to a certain extreme plays to this. The unity of text and image happening much later. In a medium which potentially is the most egocentric and potential self-expressiveness, one which has every writing and graphical tool at its disposal, it seems odd that the creative duties would be split into in such a simplistic manner, a split that has more to do with commerce then anything, ditto the further separation of inker, colourist, letter. Comics as a medium is one which potentially is neither simply words and pictures is at its worst and historically a bastard medium of its progenitors..

I guess I can't see this view as the only people I know who split the art and writing process up in such a way [along with inking, colouring, and layout] is those using the DC method - where the writer lays everything out and the artist is just given panels to basically fill in. The marvel method is more interactive as there is a back and forth between writer and artist but honestly not alot of comics are made either of those ways anymore - its mainly the on going tittles those companies put out that are done on this conveyor belt system. Most small press comics are made by one creator [look at the majority of Top Shelf, fantagraphics, First Second books catalogue] and more and more mainstream books are being made by teams of people working very closely together [like say American Virgin]

magwea wrote: »

Another argument for the term; Comics as a medium owes much to writing and art yet has little of the respect of either, least of all from cognoscenti of culture. In a recent interview about his exhibition in the Wexner Center for the Arts Jeff Smith is cautiously thankful for his museum show and the greater media coverage of the comics art form. Bone was started in his garage with little money, a comic not thought suitable for kids who had to hide it from there parents. While being grateful for elevated presence of comics Smith wants his comics to remain "punk", to keep their edge, and -although Smith would never use the term- to be the in a way the bastard of two respectable mediums.

I've actually talked to Jeff Smith at SPX last year about working as a cartoonists and as an animator and I can say he is a guy who LOVES comics and does really respect them. His wish for them to remain "punk" is more to do with his background in animation and his utter dislike for the studio system [which anyone who has worked in animation will tell you will suck the soul right out of you] and how miserable he was working in it. He said to me and has stated in several interviews that nothing could make him give up comics and go back to animation.

magwea

ztoical wrote: »

more and more mainstream books are being made by teams of people working very closely together [like say American Virgin]

That may be true but look at the top selling books; the split is still predominant.

ztoical wrote: »

His wish for them to remain "punk" is more to do with his background in animation and his utter dislike for the studio system

I never met the guy, must be sweet to talk to him very sound guy form what i've heard, so i didn't get it first hand but i was quoting from this video.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

That may be true but look at the top selling books; the split is still predominant.

The majority of the top selling books are the titles that are produced on that conveyor belt system and if anyone should be getting credit for the look and feel of the book its the editor not the writer or artist. The editors usual have a rough of the story idea that is given to the writer, then his script is given to the artist, pencils to the inker, inks to colour so and so all done via the editor most of the time the writer/artist/inker will never meet or talk to each other. While yes these books sell and it is a business and its goal is to make money, from an artistic point of view alot of these books aren't interesting.

Someone recorded the animation panel from SPX last year where Smith talked about how stressed the animation industry made him - I never looked for it online but I have the card of the guy who was videoing it somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find it and if they put the video online.

magwea

ztoical wrote: »

Someone recorded the animation panel from SPX last year where Smith talked about how stressed the animation industry made him - I never looked for it online but I have the card of the guy who was videoing it somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find it and if they put the video online.

Sweet, link me up.
I have never heard Smith talk at length about his earlier career in animation. Wasn't he in charge of a fairly successful animation company, I remember some story about claymation? I might be wrong, i know very little about animation, but It seems as though Smith jumped off at the right time, just when all the small studios and older techniques were dieing.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

Sweet, link me up.
I have never heard Smith talk at length about his earlier career in animation. Wasn't he in charge of a fairly successful animation company, I remember some story about claymation? I might be wrong, i know very little about animation, but It seems as though Smith jumped off at the right time, just when all the small studios and older techniques were dieing.

found some parts of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stg3PZpBRdE

They've bits of the panel mixed in all over - it was Jeff Smith, Kim Deitch, and Tom Neely [whose book the blot I picked up and have to say one of the nicest graphic novels I read last year] taking on a panel about working in both animation and comics. This is only a tiny bit of the whole panel and its shown out of order cus the top shelf cake being cut towards the end was actually in the panel before this one and there was still tons of it left when this panel finished. When it was over I just went up to ask Smith what table he was doing signings at next so I could get stuff signed for the director of the film I was working on who LOVES Jeff Smith - I ended up sitting down and eating cake with him while we talked about animation and he grabbed some hotel stationary and wrote a note to the director with a sketch. It was really super nice of him.

magwea

Thanks for the link.

Smith is a super nice dude, I've never heard any complaints from anyone, except maybe Dave Sim. To think that he's almost in his fifties though, and still acts like a teenager. Blame the comics woot.

Edit:Just watched the clip Achewood gorilla! Longstreth! Those are some funny guys. Great that someone was there to film it.

corkstudent

Comics are too expensive for what they are. €4+ for a 4-8 minute read.

Thing is, they weren't always like this. Older comics tended to have more panels in it, modern comics are all about huge double page spreads and decompression. Some of the better 70s/80s comics could squeeze 20 minutes of reading into a single issue.

I find having the actual physical copy in your hands is nicer. You have better "control" over it. If anything the future should be going back to newspaper quality pages. Sure the silky, glossy comics are nice. But I'drather only have it for stuff I really like.

Semi-animated comics are the exact opposite of what needs to happen because it requires even more work to it.

Fysh

corkstudent wrote: »

Comics are too expensive for what they are. €4+ for a 4-8 minute read.

Thing is, they weren't always like this. Older comics tended to have more panels in it, modern comics are all about huge double page spreads and decompression. Some of the better 70s/80s comics could squeeze 20 minutes of reading into a single issue.

I find having the actual physical copy in your hands is nicer. You have better "control" over it. If anything the future should be going back to newspaper quality pages. Sure the silky, glossy comics are nice. But I'drather only have it for stuff I really like.

Semi-animated comics are the exact opposite of what needs to happen because it requires even more work to it.

Wow, that's....that's certainly the most unique opinion I've read on what comics should aim for in the future. As printing and reproduction techniques (not to mention access to internet services) move ever forward to allow for more artistic freedom, you're arguing for comics to go back to using crappier materials? Yes, it would be nice if they were cheaper, but making them look crappier is the worst possible way of making them cheaper because it'll also eliminate potential target audience, and no publisher in the world is going to go along with that.

I'll be perfectly honest about the durability of the read, I find it varies depending on what you're reading and who's writing it. If you want concept-heavy comics with interesting ideas, good dialogue, and a significant amount of storytelling and plot development, the big superhero titles aren't the place to be looking - most of them just don't have the scope for that kind of content. Sure, maybe you can get lucky and jump aboard what turns out to be a great run of a given character (such as Brubaker's run on Captain America, according to reviews so far, or what Fractions run on Invincible Iron Man will hopefully turn into) but even so you'll be lucky.

Now, you take something like Fell or Casanova or the recent Omega The Unknown miniseries or Gilbert Hernandez's Speak Of The Devil and you're onto a different setup entirely because the point of those comics isn't to be an ongoing action/adventure/comedy franchise which perpetually brings in money for the publisher, so there's the freedom to do all sorts of things to make it a more rewarding read that might be used in more mainstream titles. That might be something like Fell's use of a 9-panel grid structure to set the pace of the comic, or it might be something like using large, detailed, silent panels to slow things down occasionally, or even something like having extended silent sequences.

I'm not sure what you mean by your last line, but if your point is that semi-animated comics require more work than non-animated comics and that this is a bad thing, then I have to disagree.

magwea

Comics are overpriced.

Look at the Japanese model, which has an extremely successful industry, an anthology like Afternoon which has more then 950 pages, barely any ads cost only 6 dollars.

Comparing an American comic like All Star Superman which has the same circulation, at 125,000, has like 7 pages of ads, might be in full glossy colour but costs 3 bucks.

The Carl Horn article i've linked to before says it better then i could.

Leaving the Kramers Ergot crowd and their expensive art art comics to one side; comics are shooting themselves in the foot in the way they are sold at the moment why bother making collectible crap gimme cheap pulp any day.

Fysh

I'll be honest, I don't like the way that the Big Two try and push the collectible angle on their material, and equally the variant covers thing bugs me too (Avatar being particularly bad offenders in that regard). I'd like to see cheaper comics, but I don't think using cheap crappy paper is the answer. Maybe if you're talking about material produced for black & white reproduction, but for the stuff that's drawn, inked and coloured with the intention of reproduction in colour on glossy paper you can't really drop the quality of the paper or printing technique without getting something rubbish.

And to sound really contentious, if the majority of comics being published drop in price but revert to the visual quality of the stuff from the '60s and '70s (with paper and printing quality to match) then I'll be pretty much reverting to reading online comics. Yes, the increase in price is harsh, but frankly I'd rather the option of buying nice-looking items for ~€3 than cheap-looking tat for €0.50.

Now, onto the more chicken-and-egg aspect of this discussion - it's very easy to say comics are alienating their audience by being expensive, but well, I suspect that if the big two thought there was more profit likely to be had by making cheaper black & white comics, they'd make them. Until they're convinced that audience exists, they're not going to risk losing what customers they have by changing the fundamental nature of their product, are they?

ztoical

The cost of American comics has gone up because they all use Canadian printers mainly due to the Canadian dollar usually being so crap vs the American dollar but currently the two are almost one for one and its effecting alot of areas in the US like Film and TV production.

Going back to newsprint printing would actually be more tricky then it sounds - the pre press involved with off set litho printing is annoying and most of the big comic publisher don't keep as many graphic designers on staff as they use too. Most newspapers operate their own presses but comic companies don't so they would have to find a printer that does newsprint printing and they would have to take step back colour wise cus you can't get the same colours with newsprint that you do on other paper stocks. Black and white might be the option but as Fysh said they need to be convinced of the market and I keep meeting people who tell me black and white comics aren't proper comics [whatever the hell thats suppose to mean]

BlaasForRafa

Fysh wrote: »

I'll be honest, I don't like the way that the Big Two try and push the collectible angle on their material, and equally the variant covers thing bugs me too (Avatar being particularly bad offenders in that regard). I'd like to see cheaper comics, but I don't think using cheap crappy paper is the answer. Maybe if you're talking about material produced for black & white reproduction, but for the stuff that's drawn, inked and coloured with the intention of reproduction in colour on glossy paper you can't really drop the quality of the paper or printing technique without getting something rubbish.

And to sound really contentious, if the majority of comics being published drop in price but revert to the visual quality of the stuff from the '60s and '70s (with paper and printing quality to match) then I'll be pretty much reverting to reading online comics. Yes, the increase in price is harsh, but frankly I'd rather the option of buying nice-looking items for ~€3 than cheap-looking tat for €0.50.

Now, onto the more chicken-and-egg aspect of this discussion - it's very easy to say comics are alienating their audience by being expensive, but well, I suspect that if the big two thought there was more profit likely to be had by making cheaper black & white comics, they'd make them. Until they're convinced that audience exists, they're not going to risk losing what customers they have by changing the fundamental nature of their product, are they?

I'm going to try and address a couple of posts by fysh here and one by ztoical as that seems more efficient.

Regarding going back to newsprint thats pretty much a no-no. The vast majority of comics in america until the early 90's were published at World Color Press in Sparta Illinois until they closed down the presses on comics, the old newsprint presses were clapped out and most printing moved to a company in Ontario in Canada like Ztoical said.

I was sorting through a pile of comics recently and chucked out most from the early 90's because of the terrible quality of the paper and how badly it had degraded. The standard of reproduction on newsprint was in hindsight absolutely terrible. Pink or black Ziptone being used everywhere to try and make flesh tones look "realistic"...urgh. So they went in the bin. I gave up comics between 93 and 99 and then got back into them and its noticeable how much better they look due to better printing techniques and far better paper stock. And also they don't seem to be affected by light or other environmental effects in the same way newsprint was so they'll keep in much better condition.

Oh...regarding 60's and 70's comics.....Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and John Buscema were never "tat" ...but they do look outstanding when printed on good paper like in the Marvel Omnibus series....really just check out any of the Marvel Visionaries series and you'll see what I mean.

As for black and white comics....it really depends on the artist as to whether it will look good or not....Charleys War is one of the best looking comics of all time imo...I can't imagine that in colour (and yes I know some covers and centre spreads were colour but you know what I mean )

Now on to content...I get the feeling (again) in this thread of a slight "superhero comics are s**t" vibe. Now granted a lot are....but theres a lot of quality out there at the moment, Captain America, Iron Fist, Uncanny Xmen, Daredevil, She-Hulk, Invincible Iron Man ...(I don't get DC comics so I don't know what they're quality is like) plus Marvel does other stuff like Powers, Criminal, Anita blake, Dark Tower, War is Hell plus I've picked up some of the Marvel Illustrated series in hardback and they're bloody good too.

I'm not knocking serious comics either though, I like the Flight Anthologies too and I picked up the comics issue of McSweeneys Quarterly concern recently which is a damn good read too. But lately I prefer a bit of escapism rather than realism and you can have quality in that too I believe. Godland by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli is consistently my favourite read closesly followed by Conan from Dark Horse.

I'm getting into the oversized hardcover trades recently though, you can usually get the them for the same price or less as the run of individual comics.

And lastly for those with an interest in the behind the scenes stuff from the 1950's to 1980's in american comics try and track down the first 20 or so issues of the magazine Comic Book Artist from Twomorrows publishing on Ebay. They had a lot of fascinating info about not only writers and artists but also the owners, editors, printers etc from that era...well worth a few shekels if you can get them.

magwea

It seems like its a case of mistaking the format for the medium.

I enjoy the full color 32 page pamphlet. It is still a expensive way to serialize a story with little advantage other then the fact that it is the historical way comics have been published.

The notion of newsprint as terrible quality just isn't the case anymore, going back to Ware whose Building Stories was published in the G2 section of the Guardian, and whose ongoing strips are all published in the Chicago reader, an artist who is a perfectionist if ever there was one, speaks against any notion of newsprint being inferior in any way.

I have no idea of the logistics of printing, considering the decline of newspaper sales i would have assumed that printers would be happy for the extra business.

The popularity of manga in the America speaks in favour of a drastic change of format, one which serves the serialised comic, and the purse of the consumer.

Pandering to hardcore fans who believe that comics are only of a certain type is the reason why comics has effectively been devolving for so long. Why bother entertaining their rants.

Fysh

magwea wrote: »

It seems like its a case of mistaking the format for the medium.

I agree with this, and I think that this is a wider issue that tends to underlie a lot of discussions about the medium.

magwea wrote: »

The notion of newsprint as terrible quality just isn't the case anymore, going back to Ware whose Building Stories was published in the G2 section of the Guardian, and whose ongoing strips are all published in the Chicago reader, an artist who is a perfectionist if ever there was one, speaks against any notion of newsprint being inferior in any way.

I confess that I probably had a more specific interpretation of the suggested reversion to newsprint/pulp than was necessarily intended. Nonetheless, the kind of newsprint that is suitable for black-and-white Dilbert strips is not necessarily up to scratch for the likes of Ware's more intricate work. This does, however, raise the more interesting question of the purpose of single issues - at the moment, there's a content vs artefact thing going on whereby the content is supposed to be what you're buying (and which may well be better suited to buying in collected form) but the reason for buying the singles is the artefact value. Changing from the current setup to a more newsprint-like setup (with a commesurate drop in price) would essentially be an unofficial renunciation of the comic as artefact, which I'm not sure the Big Two would go for since it would potentially be a compelling argument against buying the single issues (whether or not the lower price point is a strong enough counter-argument is not something I feel qualified to comment on).

magwea wrote: »

I have no idea of the logistics of printing, considering the decline of newspaper sales i would have assumed that printers would be happy for the extra business.

It depends, to my knowledge the major newspapers have their own in-house printing equipment due to the fairly specialised and high-volume requirements involved in newspaper printing. I could be wrong though, and I hold my hand up and admit that I don't know what happens with the smaller-circulation papers - there may be large third-party printers looking around for extra business to offset the general decrease in newspaper readership.

magwea wrote: »

The popularity of manga in the America speaks in favour of a drastic change of format, one which serves the serialised comic, and the purse of the consumer.

Pandering to hardcore fans who believe that comics are only of a certain type is the reason why comics has effectively been devolving for so long. Why bother entertaining their rants.

I agree that the tradition of the single-issue format of comics is not a good enough reason to retain it, but I'm not sure that the popularity of manga is a good indication of a need to change across the board. A good argument for expanding the formats used perhaps, but I don't know that the existing format is so terrible that it must be discarded. There have been reports of some US manga publishers cutting back their planned releases, apparently having realised that there's only so long you can flood the market with material before people hit their spending limits and have to stop buying.

The idea of serving the serialised comic is another one that I think has scope for a lot more discussion. For example, the oft-decried tendency of stories to be padded to six issues in length to suit the eventual trade paperback release is based on a deeper notion - that the stories themselves are good enough to merit re-release in a collected edition. This directly works against the idea of monthly serialised stories, because if the intended format is the eventual collection, why read it in short chunks interspersed with ads? Conversely, if you're reading something that costs €3-4 an issue which you wouldn't bother buying in collected form, why bother at all?

In my opinion, a lower-priced newsprint anthology comic could do very well as a disposable read featuring short self-contained stories (and maybe reasonably short serialised stories a la 2000AD or Marvel Comics Presents). It would probably want to avoid tying into existing continuity comics too much to avoid alienating people who aren't already fans of given characters or universes; however, the biggest problem with such a comic would be convincing people it was worth buying and reading in the first place.

ztoical

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Now on to content...I get the feeling (again) in this thread of a slight "superhero comics are s**t" vibe. Now granted a lot are....but theres a lot of quality out there at the moment, Captain America, Iron Fist, Uncanny Xmen, Daredevil, She-Hulk, Invincible Iron Man ...(I don't get DC comics so I don't know what they're quality is like) plus Marvel does other stuff like Powers, Criminal, Anita blake, Dark Tower, War is Hell plus I've picked up some of the Marvel Illustrated series in hardback and they're bloody good too.

I'm not sure its a superhero comics are **** vibe but rather more a case of the only publishers doing monthly titles anymore are the big guys like DC and Marvel [Image, Darkhorse, IDW do them as well but not to the same volume] and we seem to be assuming with this whole "semi animated comics" thing that it would be a serial type thing very much like a monthly books so the focus has focused on that. I also think its more of discussion of monthly titles vs trades/graphic novels which includes trade collections of those monthly comics and cost wise wither people feel they are getting their monies worth. I certainly buy more mothly books when I'm in the states as first they are alot cheaper and second I've several comic shops in walking distance [and cosmic comics does a system where for every $100 you spend you get $20 store credit] but when in Ireland I find I will get the trades for alot of the monthly titles I collect as money wise its cheaper and I live at least a good 2 hour drive from the nearest comic shop.

I pick up pretty much bits of everything and I don't really think one type of comic is better then the other - I think you get more interesting and pretty print jobs from the like of fantagraphics because all their titles are self contained and they can afford to spend the time playing around with paper stock and doing interesting die cuts and limited editions. The bookbinder in me really appreciates those books as objects [on rare times regardless of the content] but doesn't mean I think they are better or worse comics then other comics.

When it comes to the whole animated/semi animated comics thing I think the alternative comics scene has put some good ones together because most times the comic creator themselves has put them together or has a big say in the production - when it comes to DC and Marvel stuff I worry they can't do it well because they'd just out source it to some animation studio in Korea and the original comic artist/writer would prob have no in-put at all.

I agree with Fysh that Manga isn't a good model to follow right now given the uncertainty of Tokoypop at this time. alot of the hardcore manga fans read scanlations online and they get them as monthly comics cus they is how manga is printed in Japan - we only see the collected trades here.

magwea

Leaving the mal practices of Tokyopop to one side, or the supposed doom and gloom of the manga industry.

One of the more excessive examples of the strangle hold the pamphlet format had on manga's potential in America can be seen in the earlier serialization of Kazuo Koike's Lone Wolf and Cub. This was a reasonably successful serialized comic, helped by celebrity fans and cover art most notably from Miller and Wagner, but as collected volumes and collected volume only released stories was where the series really exploded sales wise. At present there have been more then 4 million copies of Lone Wolf and Cub sold and Koike has more than 40 volumes of his writing in print.

The pamphlet definitely has a place in comics, while as the standard way to publish comics it seems archaic. Content vs artifact is way out of balance in published comics. Webcomics know were the focus should be.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

Leaving the mal practices of Tokyopop to one side, or the supposed doom and gloom of the manga industry.

One of the more excessive examples of the strangle hold the pamphlet format had on manga's potential in America can be seen in the earlier serialization of Kazuo Koike's Lone Wolf and Cub. This was a reasonably successful serialized comic, helped by celebrity fans and cover art most notably from Miller and Wagner, but as collected volumes and collected volume only released stories was where the series really exploded sales wise. At present there have been more then 4 million copies of Lone Wolf and Cub sold and Koike has more than 40 volumes of his writing in print.

The pamphlet definitely has a place in comics, while as the standard way to publish comics it seems archaic. Content vs artifact is way out of balance in published comics. Webcomics know were the focus should be.

I think it comes down more to comic shops/direct market vs general book stores - one of the reasons manga has really sold, states side and here, is because its sold in bookstores and not just comic book shops. They cracked a market DC and Marvel have only just started focusing on with collected trades.

If you go into any large bookstore in the states, for example say Barnes and Nobles, you'll find one of those small round stands that you spin around holding monthly comics with the magazines, its very easy to miss, holds only a handful of monthly titles and is usually not organized very well, then you've a graphic novel section which usually has a couple of bays of graphic novels and then you've the manga section that takes up a whole chunk of the shop.

I know from working in Easons that its far easier to order manga into their shops then it is graphic novels and the only monthly titles they carry are the UK reprints of american comics. Easons wholesale is the main supplier of books for the majority of the bookstores down the country so for those of us leaving in the middle of the country, void of comic shops, it is easier to start reading manga over other comics.