shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,864
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Post by shaxper on Sept 30, 2014 19:01:31 GMT -5
Roy Thomas' justification for Marvel expanding into the magazine format (from Dracula Lives! #1, 1973) "It's our firm conviction that at least a sizable portion of the future of comics lies in a larger, more expensive, even more mature product than today's color-comics market is structured to allow. In a day when Playboy and other magazines sell for a buck (and more, on such gala holidays as Christmas, New Year, and Hugh Hefner's birthday)--in a day when a forty- or fifty cent cover price is possible only to a magazine of tremendous initial circulation--in short, in a time of creeping inflation, rampant overcrowding of the newsstands--we felt that, even though Marvel's popularity is at an all-time high, we'd be fools and klutzes not to experiment with other prices, other sizes, other formats." 43 years later, why is the comic industry still trying to maintain the same format at ever unrealistically increasing prices? Granted, the magazine format didn't survive, and I don't know the story of why, but for the last ten years, the only other solution comic publishers seem to have tried is going digital. Surely, there's more experimentation to be done. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2014 19:07:17 GMT -5
43 years later, why is the comic industry still trying to maintain the same format at ever unrealistically increasing prices? Granted, the magazine format didn't survive, and I don't know the story of why, but for the last ten years, the only other solution comic publishers seem to have tried is going digital. Surely, there's more experimentation to be done. Wouldn't the TPB, HC and Omnibus be examples of that experimentation that have by and large, succeeded? Granted, TPBs and HCs are reprint material, but usually immediately follow the release of a recent series and are sometimes the format of choice compared to their 'floppy' counterparts. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 30, 2014 19:32:49 GMT -5
Jez brings up some fine examples. But the bottom line is that quote is 40 years ago and things have chenged. The newstand is dying. Magazine circulation across the board is shrinking, even the all-time leaders like Readers Digest. Newspapers are dying. The American public generally is turning their back on physical printed media and would rather stare at hand held devices. They'd rather text and tweet then read. They'd rather yak on their mobile phones all day like blithering idiots then read. Bookstores are struggling or closing as well. If they don't serve coffee and have free wi-fi people won't come in. We've had this conversation on this forum before-Print Vs Digital. Forget the magazine format. Thats last century
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Sept 30, 2014 19:49:13 GMT -5
Technology ruins past mediums. Soon phones/PC will be integrated into every aspect of our lives. It won't be a device we hold but an inferface with our brains. Think 10-15 years ago an iPhone would be science fiction. Kids play games on phones that surpass what I played only NES. If something technological hits big everyone/thing gets behind it. But eventually something new comes a long and things have to adapt or they are left in the pass.
Somethings survive because despite their irrelevance too modern technology like vinyl, printed comics, or analog clocks/watches. But support can only last as long as it's plausible, affordable or feasible. Eventually everything is left in the past. It may be why we as humans find things of the past attractive. It reminds of no matter how well technology caters to our lives and makes things easy for us we still miss the things that were new to us in some category or aspect.
Maybe 200 years from now anything printed will be a sought after item from those whose wealth knows no bounds whether it's Jack Kirby or Rob Liefield.
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Post by benday-dot on Sept 30, 2014 20:10:01 GMT -5
Jack Kirby saw the future that Roy Thomas saw in 1973 before Roy Thomas saw it in 1973. Kirby was pushing for comics to embrace the more "adult" format of the magazine before Roy got visionary along the same lines almost as soon as he set up shop in DC in 1970. The results weren't very fruitful, with only single issues of "In the Days of the Mob" and "Spirit World" seeing the light of day, and several other aborted projects never getting much of the ground. Kirby himself was no doubt impressed and influenced by the likes of Wally Wood, Jim Warren, Gil Kane and others. The point is that Roy Thomas wasn't particularly original in his prognostications, whether we agree or not that he was a successful prophet.
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 30, 2014 21:35:47 GMT -5
Roy Thomabooks' justification for Marvel expanding into the magazine format (from Dracula Lives! #1, 1973) "It's our firm conviction that at least a sizable portion of the future of comics lies in a larger, more expensive, even more mature product than today's color-comics market is structured to allow. In a day when Playboy and other magazines sell for a buck (and more, on such gala holidays as Christmas, New Year, and Hugh Hefner's birthday)--in a day when a forty- or fifty cent cover price is possible only to a magazine of tremendous initial circulation--in short, in a time of creeping inflation, rampant overcrowding of the newsstands--we felt that, even though Marvel's popularity is at an all-time high, we'd be fools and klutzes not to experiment with other prices, other sizes, other formats." 43 years later, why is the comic industry still trying to maintain the same format at ever unrealistically increasing prices? Granted, the magazine format didn't survive, and I don't know the story of why, but for the last ten years, the only other solution comic publishers seem to have tried is going digital. Surely, there's more experimentation to be done. Its funny but I think the opposite. The smaller comic book size is lasting longer than the larger magazine size. Im afraid that the price will be what finishes off comics once and for all. Im not paying 5 dollars for one comic book. |
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Post by ghastly55 on Sept 30, 2014 21:38:49 GMT -5
43 years later, why is the comic industry still trying to maintain the same format at ever unrealistically increasing prices? Granted, the magazine format didn't survive, and I don't know the story of why, but for the last ten years, the only other solution comic publishers seem to have tried is going digital. Surely, there's more experimentation to be done. Wouldn't the TPB, HC and Omnibus be examples of that experimentation that have by and large, succeeded? Granted, TPBs and HCs are reprint material, but usually immediately follow the release of a recent series and are sometimes the format of choice compared to their 'floppy' counterparts. Exactly right. I have slowly migrated in the ten years since the hobby reinfected me from someone only interested in reprints of old material to someone who buys up-to-date material as soon as its in a more permanent format. I have 85% of the DC New52 hardcovers and trades, and have been cherry-picking Marvel Now collections. But I cannot justify in any way, financially, aesthetically, or otherwise, buying floppies any more. Funny thing is I usually avoid titles which were specifically created to be standalone books in favor of complete and chronological collections of an ongoing series. |
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Post by hondobrode on Sept 30, 2014 22:18:18 GMT -5
Don't forget paperbacks. I dearly love my Marvel Pocket books from the 70's.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2014 22:58:29 GMT -5
Jez brings up some fine examples. But the bottom line is that quote is 40 years ago and things have chenged. The newstand is dying. Magazine circulation across the board is shrinking, even the all-time leaders like Readers Digest. Newspapers are dying. The American public generally is turning their back on physical printed media and would rather stare at hand held devices. They'd rather text and tweet then read. They'd rather yak on their mobile phones all day like blithering idiots then read. Bookstores are struggling or closing as well. If they don't serve coffee and have free wi-fi people won't come in. We've had this conversation on this forum before-Print Vs Digital. Forget the magazine format. Thats last century People are still reading. They're just reading digital content. Look at Kindle sales. The popularity of Kindle apps on iPads and Amdroid tablets. And even phones. And while bookstores are struggling, Amazon is not. People are still buying print material, just not at the corner store. Not when everything is 40% off (or more) online. Even comic sales are increasing, just slowly, mostly outside the direct market, and mostly outside the big two. But sales are sales. |
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Post by gothos on Oct 1, 2014 16:48:11 GMT -5
Shaxper, thanks for printing that excerpt. I never collected DRACULA LIVES, so I never saw it-- assuming that this was the only place it appeared.
It's my theory that what Thomas was saying in '73 was by then common wisdom for Marvel since about 1970-71. I've always considered the Bronze Age-- which I place in 1970-- to be a new era because that's when the Big Two took their first faltering steps toward "adult entertainment," as represented by Marvel's CONAN and DC's GREEN LANTERN. I must admit that there's a big marketing difference in the two, since the former was aiming for success based on the popularity of the paperback Howard reprints while the latter was a gamble aimed at keeping a failing book alive. Still, both are predicated on appealing to non-juvenile interests.
That Thomas was thinking in this wise long before 1973 is evinced in the 1971 premiere of SAVAGE TALES, for which Roy is billed as "associate editor." The idea of appealing to an older market would be a logical step since it's commonly asserted that sales in the late 1960s went way down, as the superhero bubble, prompted in part by the BATMAN teleseries, went kerblooey.
Marvel-- which also attempted to corner the underground market with the 1974-76 COMIX BOOK-- seems to have been more heavily invested in developing this market than DC, or even Warren. I've read very little of Silver Age Warren, so I don't know if its horror and war stories were on a par with the more mature stories of EC Comics, nor do I know whether or not the Warren audience skewed older than that of Marvel and DC. Warren did begin VAMPIRELLA in 1969, so that would seem to be a more overt courting of an adult audience by Warren, using sex-and-violence in much the same way Marvel used Conan.
On a side-note, I'd opine that the Marvel guys never seemed to get a handle on adult horror: most of the b&w horror stuff had the same tone as the color comics.
In 1973 it probably made all the sense in the world to assume that magazines would be a secure foundation on which a comics-company could build. For one thing, the company could expect to raise prices when other magazines did, and not lose out, as DC allegedly did when they tried to maintain 25-cent comics against Marvel's 20-centers. But then, who could have predicted that the digital revolution would come close to making all magazine entertainment irrelevant?
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Post by dupersuper on Oct 1, 2014 20:56:48 GMT -5
Don't forget paperbacks. I dearly love my Marvel Pocket books from the 70's. I enjoyed DC Digests as a kid... |
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Post by hondobrode on Oct 1, 2014 21:00:30 GMT -5
Oh yeah, me too !
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2014 0:56:52 GMT -5
Thomas seemed to have mentioned two things. Marketing toward a wider audience as well as marketing in new formats and price points. I don't consider the two to be related, although the mags were obviously for an older audience.
Today there are still Marvel magazines on the Walmart magazine rack. They're kids mags though, with connect-the-dots, word searches, comics, coloring pages, and so on.
I think new formats is important, and I think although Marvel and DC stomped their feet the whole way, they've finally realized the floppy is not the future, and are now starting to embrace squarebound formats (new material or old, I think it's the future of print) and digital. I wish mags were more popular in comics too, but even among indy publishers they've all but disappeared. Elfquest used to be a mag, Love And Rockets, Cerebus. I still see a mag once in a great while, but it's rare. Archie is going to do Afterlife in mag format now I believe. If they do I'm switching to that. Loved the Life With Archie mags.
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Post by Earth 2 Flash on Oct 2, 2014 6:34:15 GMT -5
I loved both the digests and the 100 page giants featuring a lot of reprints.
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Oct 2, 2014 9:39:35 GMT -5
The formatting of comics is a weird and fascinating subject.
It mostly derives from newspaper formatting. Comics are the children of newspapers and thats where they got their shape. A 11x17" newspaper is the same proportion as 6x9", which is a harmonious proportion. As a result the live area in a comic book is 6x9" while the actual print size is a little bigger at 6.5x10.25", with the width fluctuating over the years. And of course, comic book art is drawn on 11x17" paper.
I know Frank Miller has derided the fact that comics still cling to these proportions as they weren't determined with the artistic strengths of the medium in mind (and two of Miller's recent works use a widescreen format) but they actually had a huge influence on page layouts. The page and format dimensions lend themselves very well to the Golden Ratio. People look at the 2x3 and 3x3 grids of Kirby, Ditko, etc as being primitive and unimaginative but they actually sit right along the invisible lines generated by the proportions. You might not see them but your brain does. These lines have tensions with each other and this makes the pages feel exciting and bold. Yes, these simple grids actually induce a pleasing effect on your brain that is distinct from the actual images that have been drawn - but, if one takes those lines into account when composing the images the overall effect is enhanced and the story reads clearer. Even if you work outside of the grid the effect is still present and can be used but a grid accentuates it.
What all this means is the layout of a comic page is a fairly strictly defined thing. It has a purpose and it works very well. Where can we go from there? I think in the future page dimensions will be defined by the screens of a tablet, since that is where reading is headed. The problem? No standardized aspect ratio. iPads use 4:3, Samsung Galaxies use 16:9 and Kindles vary.
Page format is one thing, thickness is another. This is where it gets tricky. After quite a bit of experimentation it was determined that 20-22 pages was best for a single book by a single artist. Why? There are 20-22 work days in a month which gave the artist a day to finish each page (and weekends off!). As anyone who draws comics can tell you, the schedule rarely works out as designed.
So what can we do? The workload for an artist is pretty much set. The layouts are more flexible but until aspect ratio is standardized we can't make a move. The ideal aspect ratio is 4:3, I think, because that is proportional to 4.5x6", which is half of a standard page. Currently artists working on digital-first series draw the top and bottom halves of their 10x15" pages as two distinct pages so they work in the digital format and in the standard print size. This aspect ratio changes the dynamics a bit but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As far cost goes, which seemed to be Thomas' big concern, I don't think theres anyway to help there. Comics are expensive to make. Paying an art team to produce twenty pages of inked and colored artwork in a month is a costly job. I don't see prices going down without wages going on and that mean would mean quality going down.
Thats the real bottleneck. Comics require artwork and artwork is expensive so comics are expensive. I don't know what the guys in the Bullpen were making or if they were salarymen or not but going off of inflation alone Fantastic Four #1 would only cost 70 cents today. Why the dramatic increase in cost? Well for one thing, comics sold really well which offset production costs. And because they sold well their ad space was actually worth something which further offset production costs.
As far as graphic novels go with regard to potentially replacing floppies, I personally doubt it. Even today where floppies are treated as a theatrical run and nothing more they still play the important role of covering production costs. Even if it doesn't light the charts on fire each issue will hopefully pay for itself, which means the trade is mostly profit. Without that relief the costs fall to trades which kind of defeats the point.
I think if comics want to be gangbusters successful again there needs to be a big change. In the current market there is a ton of material out there. Material that sells well gets supplementary material which is how we've ended up with a dozen Batman books. But because all of this supplementary material is built into the same shared universe and the story makes a giant sloppy lurch forward one month at a time it quickly builds up into something unwieldy and after a few years it gets chopped apart to make it palatable again but it only serves to be more confusing. Quick, grab me Hulk #1. Can't do it because there are a half dozen out there. Resetting the numbering at #1 every six months only makes things more confusing. It is a stupidly short-sighted thing to do and it flies in the face of the other trends in the market, which is cultivating long term readership. Too much time is spent focusing on the now and not looking into the coming months and years. The goal should be building a clean and organized library of material that is as easy to peruse and read as possible. Checklists and relaunches do nothing to help that.
Cliffnotes:
- I don't think theres anything that can be done. The old days are over for good and the future isn't pretty.
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