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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 30, 2016 21:34:12 GMT -5
I think graphic novels are a better format creatively - but financially they can be a problem for creators. They take a long damn time to do, and that's time with no income. And the assumption in selling floppies and then a collection is that (A) there is an audience that will buy individual comics but not tpbs, (B) there is a graphic novel/bookstore/amazon audience that wouldn't get caught dead with a comic, and (C) hopefully there are some loyal fans of your work that will buy both! Love and Rockets since 2007-or-thereabouts was being produced as a series of graphic novels that was then collected into a series of slightly longer graphic novels. And there's not much logic in that.  |
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 30, 2016 21:40:41 GMT -5
Franco-Belgian comics have been doing it for years, they must have gotten something right with that formula otherwise we wouldn't have this huge amount of English translations
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2016 22:44:48 GMT -5
If (and it's a big if) the American market is going to move towards OGNs as the primary format, it will need to change the way creators are compensated, as Reptisaurus points out, it takes a while to produce a GN and creators are not paid during that time. Creator owned books often don't have page rates, as creators are paid off the back end, unlike mainstream work for hire that pays creators a page rate and some small amount of royalties based on sales.
If the market moves towards OGNs, it will resemble the prose book market a lot more, and would likely have to adapt the compensation infrastructure of that field, i.e. a system of advances and royalties rather than page rates. Creators starting out might have to create on spec and shop around for a publisher, but established creators might get deals for set amount of books (say DC works a deal with Scott Snyder to produce 3 Batman books over the next 2 years. They might contract the art to different people or not. Snyder would get paid an advance and they royalties rather than a page rate for producing the book. It allows creators t have some level of income while producing work but the bulk of earnings is based on sales and mitigates the risk for the publisher.
Of course comics works a little differently as there needs to be a creative team in most instances-writer, penciller, inker, colorist, letterer, rather than just one author, but that is something that will have to get worked out if such a transition is made.
It would also give incentive to publishers to create projects that generate enough interest to stay in print and have longer revenue windows.
It would also likely narrow the talent and character pool produced as only proven sellers among creators and characters would likely get the green light to be produced among the IP holding publishers (folks like Marvel & DC), while creator-owned material would likely see less narrowing as it pretty much has a built in survival of the fittest mode already.
-M
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