How to make comics cheaper

[DiceX]

Better paper was introduced at the behest of the collector's market... the only remaining market buying comic books. I'm all for newsprint comics again, except that they would have to switch their entire coloring process back to what it once was to suit the separations required for newsprint (which allows for fewer separations and a less diverse palette of colors), and there goes hundreds of thousands of dollars in work down the drain.

 

Let me object to this statement.

Paper has very little to do with printing in today's world.

There is no such thing as "fewer separations" or a "less diverse palette of colors".

 

The problem with comic quality in years past was technology.

In the old days, comics were limited in color choices because of the hand work involved in putting the colors into the lineart.

Here's an abridged version of how it was done. And I'll skip the part of penciler/inker/colorist because most people understand how the art was done.

 

1) The original artwork arrives at the printer where it is reduced to comic size by shooting it with a very large horizontal camera.

2) The image is now on a piece of film in negative form.

3) The film and color instructions are matched up by a "stripper" to begin his job of putting color into the negative. (Note that the "color instructions" are what the colorist painted up with Dr. Martin watercolors, and are often seen sold on eBay)

4) The stripper takes a clear piece of mylar and begins the tedious task of masking out every single area by various methods. This was known as "Flatting".

5) The stripper makes a separate *hand cut* mask for every different color seen on the page. For instance, there was a mask for the light blue in Spidey's costume. It might also have a few other spots on it that had the same exact light blue. Another for the dark blues. Another for the light reds. Medium reds. Dark reds. And so on. This process took hours per page to complete. On complicated pages it's possible it took 24 hours plus of hand work per page.

6) Now that the flatting is done, he can begin to compose the images into the four negatives needed for printing. (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (or Key as it is called in the printing world))

7) The stripper has four unexposed pieces of film. One for each color. He takes the piece used for the black and pins it in a vacuum exposure frame. Then he sorts through his pile of multiple masks and exposes each one, one at a time, onto the piece of raw film. Note that the black will contain the line art, plus multiple other tones and gradients with other masks that contain black ink.

8) Once this color has been composed, he can then move on to do the same thing for each of the remaining 3 colors. One color could take upwards of 5 to 10 minutes plus to expose.

9) Now that the four colors have been composed into 4 pieces of film, they need to be proofed. To proof the page was to take the colors and create a full color representation of what the printed page would look like. Often at this point the stripper would check his work and notice he made a mistake on an element in the page. This could be a minor mistake that would only take him 30 minutes to repair, or could send him back to work the page up from scratch.

10) After an acceptable proof has been produced, the printer packs them up and mails them to the editor. The editor would look them over and make corrections that were stripper errors, or he could possibly completely change it because it didn't turn out the way it had originally been envisioned.

11) The proofs are returned with corrections noted... that again, could be nothing, or could cause the page to be completely redone.

This process took weeks to complete for a book. Obviously the strippers were working on other comics while waiting on the corrections to return, so it was a daily grind.

 

Once everything was acceptable, the pages were laid out on a grid to be exposed onto the printing plates. The plates in the old days were crude and not very quality minded.

The theory back then was to print comics.

Print LOTS of comics as quickly as possible.

 

 

 

Ok...fast forward to present day.

Now comics are colored quickly (by the COLORIST) on a computer, underneath the quickly scanned lineart and a file is created for each page.

That file is color separated inside a computer and imaged quickly onto plates that are FAR superior to the plates of old.

 

IF you are still reading this, you're either bored or wondering what my point is.

 

The point is that in todays printing world, newsprint can be printed on with almost as high of quality as a nice shiny coated paper.

The days are gone of long tedious hand work and replaced with a palette that is only held back by the creativity of the colorist.

 

Newsprint can produce any color you can separate into the CMYK gamut.

Many of todays popular magazines are printed on newsprint.

The problem of printing in years past was the way comics were colored.

Since computer coloring is now a staple, there is nothing preventing a beautiful, full color comic from being printed on newsprint.

The same newsprint used in comics from 30 years ago.

 

(Although paper technology has come a long way and newsprint is now far superior to what it used to be. But that's another story entirely.)

 

Now that my fingers are hurting, I return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Proverbs22_2]

Better paper was introduced at the behest of the collector's market... the only remaining market buying comic books. I'm all for newsprint comics again, except that they would have to switch their entire coloring process back to what it once was to suit the separations required for newsprint (which allows for fewer separations and a less diverse palette of colors), and there goes hundreds of thousands of dollars in work down the drain.

 

Let me object to this statement.

Paper has very little to do with printing in today's world.

There is no such thing as "fewer separations" or a "less diverse palette of colors".

 

The problem with comic quality in years past was technology.

In the old days, comics were limited in color choices because of the hand work involved in putting the colors into the lineart.

Here's an abridged version of how it was done. And I'll skip the part of penciler/inker/colorist because most people understand how the art was done.

 

1) The original artwork arrives at the printer where it is reduced to comic size by shooting it with a very large horizontal camera.

2) The image is now on a piece of film in negative form.

3) The film and color instructions are matched up by a "stripper" to begin his job of putting color into the negative. (Note that the "color instructions" are what the colorist painted up with Dr. Martin watercolors, and are often seen sold on eBay)

4) The stripper takes a clear piece of mylar and begins the tedious task of masking out every single area by various methods. This was known as "Flatting".

5) The stripper makes a separate *hand cut* mask for every different color seen on the page. For instance, there was a mask for the light blue in Spidey's costume. It might also have a few other spots on it that had the same exact light blue. Another for the dark blues. Another for the light reds. Medium reds. Dark reds. And so on. This process took hours per page to complete. On complicated pages it's possible it took 24 hours plus of hand work per page.

6) Now that the flatting is done, he can begin to compose the images into the four negatives needed for printing. (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (or Key as it is called in the printing world))

7) The stripper has four unexposed pieces of film. One for each color. He takes the piece used for the black and pins it in a vacuum exposure frame. Then he sorts through his pile of multiple masks and exposes each one, one at a time, onto the piece of raw film. Note that the black will contain the line art, plus multiple other tones and gradients with other masks that contain black ink.

8) Once this color has been composed, he can then move on to do the same thing for each of the remaining 3 colors. One color could take upwards of 5 to 10 minutes plus to expose.

9) Now that the four colors have been composed into 4 pieces of film, they need to be proofed. To proof the page was to take the colors and create a full color representation of what the printed page would look like. Often at this point the stripper would check his work and notice he made a mistake on an element in the page. This could be a minor mistake that would only take him 30 minutes to repair, or could send him back to work the page up from scratch.

10) After an acceptable proof has been produced, the printer packs them up and mails them to the editor. The editor would look them over and make corrections that were stripper errors, or he could possibly completely change it because it didn't turn out the way it had originally been envisioned.

11) The proofs are returned with corrections noted... that again, could be nothing, or could cause the page to be completely redone.

This process took weeks to complete for a book. Obviously the strippers were working on other comics while waiting on the corrections to return, so it was a daily grind.

 

Once everything was acceptable, the pages were laid out on a grid to be exposed onto the printing plates. The plates in the old days were crude and not very quality minded.

The theory back then was to print comics.

Print LOTS of comics as quickly as possible.

 

 

 

Ok...fast forward to present day.

Now comics are colored quickly (by the COLORIST) on a computer, underneath the quickly scanned lineart and a file is created for each page.

That file is color separated inside a computer and imaged quickly onto plates that are FAR superior to the plates of old.

 

IF you are still reading this, you're either bored or wondering what my point is.

 

The point is that in todays printing world, newsprint can be printed on with almost as high of quality as a nice shiny coated paper.

The days are gone of long tedious hand work and replaced with a palette that is only held back by the creativity of the colorist.

 

Newsprint can produce any color you can separate into the CMYK gamut.

Many of todays popular magazines are printed on newsprint.

The problem of printing in years past was the way comics were colored.

Since computer coloring is now a staple, there is nothing preventing a beautiful, full color comic from being printed on newsprint.

The same newsprint used in comics from 30 years ago.

 

(Although paper technology has come a long way and newsprint is now far superior to what it used to be. But that's another story entirely.)

 

Now that my fingers are hurting, I return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

Five Stars to DiceX, for a very informative post, specifically for finding so many opportunities to reference "Strippers" in a "G-rated" fashion...

 

Oh, and as for CDs, it has been common knowledge that they were obcenely over-priced for at least fifteen years!

 

-Joe

[DiceX]

Five Stars to DiceX, for a very informative post, specifically for finding so many opportunities to reference "Strippers" in a "G-rated" fashion...

 

You don't know how much fun you can have by being able to claim "Stripper" as an occupation on various documents.

 

Oh, and as for CDs, it has been common knowledge that they were obcenely over-priced for at least fifteen years!

 

Nooooo!

Really?

It costs less than 20 cents to manufacture and produce one.

It must be the little pieces of paper they fold up and stick inside the jewel case.

Total them up and it costs in the neighborhood of 25-30 cents a CD.

 

I would bet there's more of a markup on CD's than any other product ever made.

[valiantman]

I would bet there's more of a markup on CD's than any other product ever made.

Blue jeans cost about $2 a pair to make... even $300 Versace ones.

[DiceX]

I would bet there's more of a markup on CD's than any other product ever made.

Blue jeans cost about $2 a pair to make... even $300 Versace ones.

 

I stand corrected.

 

 

 

Again.

[Kevin Boyd]

Thanks for the info DiceX I was not aware of any recent improvements in the quality of reproducing color art onto newsprint.

 

Nevertheless that was one of the reasons why newsprint was abandoned at the time.

 

Let me ask you this though, cost-wise, is it a lot cheaper to use newsprint then it is to use the types of paperstock used for current comics?

 

Kev

[DiceX]

Let me ask you this though, cost-wise, is it a lot cheaper to use newsprint then it is to use the types of paperstock used for current comics?

 

It depends on the Mill and Grade of the paper.

But, Yes. It could be a LOT cheaper.

In the $1.50 range very easily, I'd say.

And the quality would still be very desireable.

 

BUT, you'd have to do without diecut, embossed, foil, chromium covers in multiple versions per issue.

[PovertyRow]

Best buy from the bin was the two-pack of the Max Fleisher (sp?) Superman cartoons from the 40's, two DVD's worth for just $5.99...

 

Is there a cloud 9billion?

[Kevin Boyd]

I'm not sure where you are getting your $1.50 value.

 

I think we all know that comic book prices are not necessarily derived from the cost to print the little suckers as stores pay a lot less than $1.50 per copy when ordering from Diamond, so it certainly isn't costing Marvel and DC that much to print them.

 

In order to lower the current price from $2.50 to $1.50 the cost of printing would have to be lowered by $1.00 per copy - and I find it very hard to believe that. If the dealer cost is $1.00 per unit now... what % of that dollar is the actual printing cost?

 

We're about to get our programs printed for the convention and the cost is surprisingly low for a 32-page newsprint comic (b&w, color cover). (About 30 cents Canadian per copy is what I recall someone saying for the volume we are looking at). That's nothing. If I were to sell that comic for say $2.99 US and it only costs me about US 20 cents to print it - and the dealer who orders it to sell gets to buy it from Diamond for about US$1.10 per copy then I would assume that the difference - a whopping 90 cents gets divided between me and Diamond. If Diamond takes, say, 25 cents of that 90 cents, then I get 65 cents to cover the cost to make it. That 65 cents has to pay for the artist, the writer, the inker, the rent.... do you see where I'm going with this?

 

What I would be interested in finding out is what it costs Marvel to print say, an issue of Amazing Spider-Man on the current paperstock at Quebecor vs. what it would cost to print it on newsprint. Are we talking about US 5 cents per copy vs. US25 cents per copy? Or US20 cents per copy vs. US25 cents per copy. Or less? Or more?

 

If we are talking about a negligible difference then I don't see any advantage to printing on Newsprint if it is only going to lower the price of the book by pennies.

 

Kev

[DiceX]

Hmm. Good post.

 

I overlooked quite a few things.

I figured that they could cut the cost of producing the book by about half.

I never figured it into the whole picture.

 

You're right. The cost of producing the book is minimal.

When you figure in the cut of the distributor and dealer, that's where most of the markup comes to play.

 

Also figure the money generated by selling ads in the comic.

 

No doubt they can save money by printing on newsprint.

But would it be enough to pass on and lower the price of comics by a significant ammount? After your post, I have a few doubts.

To be able to figure this, you would need exact numbers on how much is tacked on by every person that gets a cut.

I don't have this information.

[Proverbs22_2]

 

That's what I've been getting at... ad revenues would only have to be enough to cover the printing costs!

 

Remember, they're not printing 600,000 copies anymore, and the artists royalties, I would assume, have been cut in proportion.

 

I'm gonna have to say I'm looking more like that Genius than I thought...

 

-Joe

[DiceX]

In the magazine world there are a few factors involved.

The price a would be advertiser pays for an ad is determined by the subscription census.

The more people that subscribe to that mag, the more the ad costs.

 

Most magazines easily cover the cost of printing the book in ad sales.

This allows them to sell subscriptions for rediculously cheap prices.

Subs are also cheap because there is no middle man.

They are addressed and mailed directly from the printer.

The cheaper the price, the more subscribers you get.

The more subscribers you get, the more you can sell ads for.

And on it goes.

 

The newstand sales are pocket change.

And the only reason there are newstand books for purchase?

You guessed it.

To advertise cheap subscriptions.

Then you get more subscribers....

But the newstand copies cost more because of the middle men.

 

How do comics fit into the picture?

Most people buy them from comic shops.

There are two middle men between you and the publisher here.

Thus the high mark up in price.

 

That pretty much solves it.

No way to get cheap comics.

Unless you print them yourself.

[lighthouse]

Best buy from the bin was the two-pack of the Max Fleisher (sp?) Superman cartoons from the 40's, two DVD's worth for just $5.99...

 

Is there a cloud 9billion?

 

You know, I almost bought four or five more while I was there. Any forum member who has a DVD player and doesn't have these on DVD is really missing out...

[greggy]

Best buy from the bin was the two-pack of the Max Fleisher (sp?) Superman cartoons from the 40's, two DVD's worth for just $5.99...

 

Is there a cloud 9billion?

 

You know, I almost bought four or five more while I was there. Any forum member who has a DVD player and doesn't have these on DVD is really missing out...

[Proverbs22_2]

Well, this turned out to be a blast...I apologize to the original poster for hijacking his thread...

 

I learned a couple of things during this discourse.

 

-Most of us don't mind outside advertising in comics at all.

 

-In fact, nearly HALF of us have purchased something from one of those ads. (For all your sakes, I hope that it wasn't the "7-foot Monster Ghost"... )

 

- I was also pleased to learn that I am considered to be "Comics Czar Material"! (Special thanks to Mom & Aunt Sally for their support on that one!)

 

I would like to make one more point on the "costs of advertising in Comics", relative to other mediums: Many people make the mistake of looking at the expense of a thing, rather than at it's results. A five dollar ad that gets no results is a waste of five dollars. A five thousand dollar ad that gets you 2500 front-end sales would be a bargain, I would think...

 

-Joe

[stynxno]

Also, I think another way to make comics cheaper is to just make sure that the factory their printed at is working efficently and is keeping its total cost as low as possible. If these companies aren't, you could actually knock off several cents or more off of the cover price.

 

 

[Aman619]

I dont thnk comics publishers have any interest or intentions in lowering the prices. Even if they cut $0.50 off their costs. They would just bank the profits. They believe after son eexperimenting, and I dont totally disagree, that a lower priced comic book will not entice greater sales. The 99 cent comic about the most popular superhero STILL failed after 20-odd issues. And the Batman version did too.

 

IMO, only content that is attractive to many more readers (dont ask me what!) will work to increase readership, and more important to the industry, greater comics sales. People who never step into comics stores see lots of comic book movies and TV shows. So they dont mind comics genres in small doses. Getting them to buy them, week after week, and trying other titles, is the trick. And its one that nobody in the industry has been able to perform.

 

well, there is another way to increase sales: make comics hot and collectible again so everyone buys multiple copies again expecting prices to soar!! Awwwww, that'll never happen again...will it? Oh yeah, Marvel's has been doing it for a few years now.

[stynxno]

only content that is attractive to many more readers (dont ask me what!)

 

You're probably right about the the costs but if they cut costs and have more cash in their bank, you would think that would use that money to invest in good writers, artists, etc. I agree about the content. If the comics that both companies put out were well written and had good art, the readership numbers would rise. However, if the companies instead decide just to keep the money and not do anything with it, well....then the comic industry won't gain readers and will remain stagnant.

 

 

[Aman619]

Invest in who exactly? Arent there enough good writers and artists working today? That's like saying Hollywood should use their profits to invest in better writers and directors etc when their films fail. There are plenty of great comics coming out now. But percentage wise, its a small number (10%)...but thats ALWAYS been the case..even when comics were selling a million copies each! To get a higher percentage of GREAT comics published each month, they should CANCEL all but the very best!!

 

To me, comics are like every other entertainment medium: 90% is dreck! (thats a famous quote, Theodore Sturgeon I believe). The big difference hlding comics back is that very few people LIKE reading comic books! Getting more people to like comics is very difficult. Probably impossible. It will never be a "mass medium"...just a poor stepchild of publishing, dollar-wise.

 

So sit back and enjoy em while we got em!

You dont want all those normal people in our club anyway, do you ?

[Kevin Boyd]

Invest in who exactly? Arent there enough good writers and artists working today? That's like saying Hollywood should use their profits to invest in better writers and directors etc when their films fail. There are plenty of great comics coming out now. But percentage wise, its a small number (10%)...but thats ALWAYS been the case..even when comics were selling a million copies each! To get a higher percentage of GREAT comics published each month, they should CANCEL all but the very best!!

 

I love how completely understandable your comment is, but it borders on ludicrous. You have hundreds of professionals and hopefuls toiling day in and day out to produce comic books - many of them are working their little hearts out laboring away on what they hope will be the best comics ever written and drawn, and a bunch of guys on the internet automatically dismiss their work as "not good enough" and worthy of cancellation. A lot of it IS hackwork, but I won't argue that it isn't worth the effort in attempting to make a great comic. How do they know that they aren't making a GREAT comic?

 

So let's say the top 300 comics represent the sum and total of the comics produced in a given month. That makes 30 comics GREAT in your opinion. I'm guessing you may have meant a lower number than that. But I don't think that's an unreasonable number. I'm not suggesting that a comic's POSITION on the top 300 chart is reflective of it's QUALITY.

 

So let's say another 15% are merely "good" comics. That another 45 comics. That accounts for 75 comics in the top 300 that are Good or better. What percentage are adequate? Maybe another 25% - that's another 75 comics a month - and now 150 of the top 300 comics have been accounted for!

 

To me, comics are like every other entertainment medium: 90% is dreck! (thats a famous quote, Theodore Sturgeon I believe). The big difference hlding comics back is that very few people LIKE reading comic books! Getting more people to like comics is very difficult. Probably impossible. It will never be a "mass medium"...just a poor stepchild of publishing, dollar-wise.

 

So there's no in-between? 30 great comics and 270 drek comics. That's a little extreme. I could accept that half of the comics produced in a given month aren't even adequate FOR ME but I can't accept that there are only 30 comics better than drek.

 

One man's drek is another man's masterpiece. You may think Archie is drek... I certainly do... but some people love that stuff. I have no interest in Crossgen comics, but a lot of people seem to think their great. I loathe Manga, but there is an entire generation of comics fans that seem to think it's the best stuff around.

 

I understand that comics may never be a mass medium but I disagree on the LIKE part. Entire generations in North America grew up reading comic books, but since it is dismissed by those generations as being a children's medium they tended to ditch them after puberty in favor of social acceptance. Subsequent generations began to see comics as something that was growing with them, and it's a part of their popular culture.

 

And aside from Archies and Vertigo books, comics have been a pretty much male dominated medium - as far as buyers go. My older brother may not go and buy comics, but does that mean he doesn't like them? He just doesn't have time for them, like most things his kids take up his time and priority. And he doesn't come across them except when they are at my place. Then he'll spend hours going over my new releases telling me which ones he liked and disliked. Some of the stuff that he dislikes are the same books that most of us would consider great, while other stuff that he likes is stuff that I would consider just OK.

 

A friend of mine gave up collecting while he was away at university, not because he didn't like comics, but because he didn't have time to track them down... he had other things to worry about. I told him about Jim Lee and Batman, and now he has me buying half a dozen new comics for him a month. If I wasn't getting them for him, he wouldn't buy them because he doesn't have any interest in trying to find them. There isn't a comic shop near his work or near his home.

 

I have other friends that love reading Ultimate Spider-Man when they are over at my place and keep swearing that they want to pick up reading copies of the trades to keep at their place, but they never find the time to get them because it would mean MAKING TIME to get them - time they don't have. (So they keep reading mine!)

 

And a lot of these people spend at least an hour a week in one of those big chain bookstores having coffee and looking around. Some of them bring their kids with them if they have them. And neither adult or kid know that there may or may not be a graphic novel section in the store.

 

And I think that's pretty much the case for 95% of North Americans. Comics just aren't a part of their daily lives. It's not that they don't LIKE them, it's simply that they aren't exposed to them, they aren't there and they aren't reminded that they exist - except for brief moments when there is a movie or tv series based on a comic. Or in the case of a lot of women, there is little or no INTEREST in action comics so they dismiss an entire medium they haven't looked at since they were kids.

 

So sit back and enjoy em while we got em!

You dont want all those normal people in our club anyway, do you ?

 

And the brief times that most people get exposed to comics, it's when they come across a comic book shop, where decidely abnormal comic fans hang out and scare them away because they don't want "those normal people in their club".

 

Kev