Amidst the debate about why Diamond Comics Distributor decided not to distribute James Turner's The Warlord of Io, from Slave Labour Graphics, few commentators considered the monthly comic format as a culprit.
Like many people who like comics (as a medium), but complain about their price, I no longer buy monthly comics, but wait for them to be collected as trade paperbacks. The monthly comic book occupies no special position, as a format - it is subject to the same technological, commercial and cultural forces that affect every other medium - and yet the argument persists that it deserves preservation in its own right.
Serial comics stories have appeared in various formats apart from the monthly booklet - from the newspaper strips and pullout sections, to features in lifestyle magazines (for example Jamie Hewlett's Get the Freebies strip in Face magazine, in the 90s), to anthology magazines (like 2000AD and various manga) - and will continue to do so (web comics of varying frequency of publication and delivery to electronic devices).
The monthly, thirty-two-page comic book is an anachronism that belongs to another time - in both the history of publishing and printing and in the evolution of the comics medium - and it needs to go.
The problem with the monthly book is not simply price, but that most comics, as Tom Spurgeon pointed out in a recent article, are simply poor value. The comparison in value between monthly comics and trade paperbacks/graphic novels does not need to be restated.
"One of many, many reasons manga has been successful is that it not only seems to connote value on a one on one basis - a manga trade vs. a comic book - but that the perceived value works according to a standard model of participation. A lot of folks seem to feel that buying x-amount of dollars in manga has a better chance to give you a more rewarding experience than buying x-amount of dollars in American comic books."
And the barrier for participation in many mainstream comics is ludicrously high. As I've argued previously, the content of mainstream comics reflects this cultural issue. It may reward the die-hard Wednesday crowd, but it does a profound disservice to a medium that could easily reach a much larger audience.
If the format of a medium is relative to the narrative's length (ie. a long narrative demands a long format) it makes perfect sense for Image Comics to publish a compendium of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead (or indeed Jeff Smith's Bone) to give readers a sense of the story's scope. I predict that this compendium will do well, though it may burn slowly.
"Even the best serial comics only approach those standards [of Jeff Smith's Bone] occasionally, it seems, in between larger segments where nothing very much at all happens and what happens doesn't happen in a way that's memorable. Serial comics readers remember the good runs for decades afterward, and I think live in partial denial about the dominance of the fallow periods."
Apart from the disproportionate financial burden placed on the reader of serial monthly comics - Spurgeon estimates comics prices are about three times ahead of inflation - the medium fails to consider the changed media landscape. Following a serial narrative requires commitment of time and attention that relatively few can afford.
The tendency of comics publishers to merchandise their properties into other media might endear audiences to brands and characters, but not necessarily to monthly comics. Publishers need to listen to what the majority of comics readers are telling them.
Comics have long since ceased to be the magazines of their pulp origins, they are now books.
The comics blogosphere has been in a general state of agitation about (what I am calling) 'The Warlord of Io Incident.' The Warlord of Io and Other Stories, was a one-shot comic, by illustrator and comics creator James Turner, published by Slave Labour Graphics. However, when news that comics distributor, Diamond, declined to carry the planned mini-series, on the grounds of its poor sales to comic shops, it seemed to reflect a lack of confidence in the medium on the part of the very people responsible for running the industry, prompting furious debate on all sides. Without doubt the matter raises some serious issues about the way the comics industry is run; specifically, about... - retail comics as a product (their content, format and price)
- the publication and marketing of comics
- the distribution and retail of comics
Over the next few weeks, I'll review the debate and try to unpick some of these issues, starting with retail comics themselves, not as a medium, but as a product. Part one of this article - to be posted this afternoon - will look at retail comics.
Paul Grist is certainly best known for his self-published ground-breaking police-procedural, Kane, and for his homage to the superhero genre, Jack Staff. With his new comic, The Eternal Warrior, Grist brings his minimalist graphic style online. OK Erok conducted a Q&A with Paul about how his visual style has developed.
Your layout seems very spacious compared to conventional comics layout. For example, there are only three ‘panels’ in some of your Eternal Warrior (and Kane) pages. You've said before that you were influenced by Frank Miller's Daredevil, in terms of storytelling and structure. Can you elaborate on this and your 'philosophy' of storytelling?
“The storytelling in The Eternal Warrior is different to what I've done in previous comics (Kane and Jack Staff), where I've tended to use the page as a single unit. With Eternal Warrior I'm trying to speed up the production process and I'm using double pages as a single unit, so what I might have got on a single page previously, is spread over two. This gives more space to the layouts.
What I'm doing is trying to get away from a traditional approach to the comic page - so not using the usual panel boxes, but trying to let the pictures define the shape and layout on the page. It's a different way of working - and I think a different way of reading - to what I've done before, which I think is in keeping with the type of story I’m telling.
I'm trying to do something that is very much a comic, where words and visuals work together. The page with the silhouette and the legend of Leonard - which is not something I've really done before - will be the approach I take for The Eternal Warrior. It's a different to what I'm doing with Jack Staff, which is different to what I did with Kane.”
In looking at contemporary comics, your work is very distinctive. Do you consider yourself a stylist, in any sense? How do you place style, in terms of importance? Do you think there any kinds of comics that you could not/would not adapt to?
“Each story needs a different approach. I think my ‘style’ is distinctive, without being the same regardless of the story. I'm trying to work my way through different story genres - humour, crime, superhero and now fantasy (for want of a better word) - eventually I'll find something I'm good at!”
Do you undergo a long creative gestation period before you start work or do you feel your way into a story as you write/draw it? How did the idea for the Eternal Warrior come about?
“I have had the idea of doing a Big Cosmic Comic rolling round my head for a while now. I did some pages, left them for a few weeks, then came back and redid them - basically I was just running on the spot! - but posting the pages forces me to move forward.”
In terms of your process, as a cartoonist, you seem to place emphasis on speed. Why is this? Has your process changed - or do you see it changing (through technological or any other means) - so that you can work faster? Can you describe your creative process from a to z, in terms of composing pages and pacing stories?
“The speed thing is just a discipline - ideally I would like to be doing something like The Eternal Warrior as a bimonthly companion title to Jack Staff - but I need to prove to myself that I can do it.”
The composition/pacing, as well as the writing, is all done on the page - it's all part of the same thing, after all - which I think is the best way to go for a writer/artist. I don't write a script which I then draw - as the artist I wouldn't want to tie myself down like that.
Usually I start with an idea - perhaps an image or a scene - which I then draw/script. As I work I think how about how this scenario could develop and a story evolves. One way to describe it would be ‘organic’; another way would be ‘chaotic!’
Working like this led to occasions (on Kane and Jack Staff) when what I thought was going to be the beginning of a story became the end, so I worked backwards to reach my starting point! The Eternal Warrior is more linear than Jack Staff and Kane - so I’m not that disorganised, yet! - but I'm only seven pages into it. There's plenty of time!
It works for me, but I wouldn't advise it for anyone else.”
How do you feel about self-publishing nowadays? Do you see it as a necessary evil or a creative choice? The advent of print-on-demand and the internet have lowered the barrier to self-publishing. And there seems to be a natural flow from webcomics to paperback collections. Do you see yourself publishing an Eternal Warrior trade paperback, for example, at the end of its run or will you seek a publisher for it? Have you come across any self-published comics in recent years that have really impressed you?
“I do plan on printing The Eternal Warrior at some point - either as a back-up strip in Jack Staff or as a comic in it's own right - but the facebook group/blog is more an exercise to get me to actually finish pages, rather than coming back to them periodically and starting over!
The internet and print-on-demand allow you to get your work seen, but to make money from it you have to work with the comics distribution set up. The distribution system, for all its faults, allows people to publish their own work and (because it is based on firm sales) know before printing how much (if any) money they will make, so it's a fairly low risk financial proposition.
I don't think self-publishing is as easy as it was a few years ago - there are more hoops to jump through with Diamond - but I still see it as a viable option to being published by a 'proper' publisher.
Favourite self-published titles at the moment are Glamourpuss by Dave Sim and Rasl by Jeff Smith, but they're not the newest kids on the block!”
