Why Original Graphic Novels CANNOT replace monthly comics

[Zonker]

Finally, an industry insider lays out the economics of this.

 

Stuart Moore's Newsarama Column

 

Excerpt:

The biggest expense for a major-company comic book is creative -- writer, artist(s), colorist. It’s not unusual for a major comics company’s creative cost to add up to $600 per page. (Top creators can earn much, much more.) On a 22-page comic book, that’s a total of $13,200 -- a substantial sum. But on a 96-page graphic novel, it’s $57,600. And on a 150-page gn, it’s $90,000. Before you spend a dime on production costs.

 

People say they prefer graphic novels -- but they don’t back it up with their dollars. If you, Magnum Comics, a direct market leader, solicit a 22-page comic book at $2.95, let’s say you’re going to get orders of about 30,000 copies on average. But if you solicit a 96-page graphic novel at $12.95, you’re going to get far fewer. Probably closer to 4,000 -- less, if name creators aren’t involved.

 

That means you -- Magnum Comics -- are getting a hell of a lot less return on your $57,600 than you would on your $13,200. And your $13,200 item has a second chance to earn its keep, as part of a trade paperback collection.

 

Why are the orders so much lower? Because you, as the publisher, are asking the retailers -- many of whom are cash-strapped -- to lay out a lot more money per copy. And since the direct market works on a nonreturnable basis, if a retailer is stuck with five copies of your GN, that’s $60 retail -- between $24 and $36 wholesale, depending on the retailer’s discount. If he’s stuck with five copies of the $2.95 comic, that’s only $14.75 retail, or six to nine bucks of the retailer’s money. There’s a big incentive there for them to cut gn orders to the bone.

 

Of course, that’s the direct market. There’s the potential to make a lot more money in bookstores. But as mentioned above, the bookstore market is far riskier to a publisher, because 100% of the product is returnable. If sales are high, everyone wins. But if they’re low, the only person eating all that page-rate money is the publisher.

[delekkerste]

Just reading your excerpt, I can see that the author's premise is faulty. Right now, the solicitations for an original graphic novel would be far less (e.g., 30,000 vs. 4,000 as the author contends). However, if monthly comics were replaced entirely (or at least to a large extent) and if original graphic novels became regularly issued as flagship titles that are part of continuity, it is unrealistic to think that 26,000 fans would leave the title. Sure, some may balk at the higher price point and sales may drop off without specs buying multiple copies, but there would also be tremendous economic benefits counterbalancing this (lower material & shipping costs from printing 1 GN vs. printing & shipping 6 monthly titles, bolstered revenue from more outlets willing to carry the more portable/durable merchandise at price points that make sense and more *readers* willing to buy them, etc.)

 

This kind of static analysis that the author engages in where he moves 1 variable but doesn't account for other factors is just a bad joke. I'm not saying TPB-ization of comics would be a sure thing, as there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, but clinging to bad analysis to justify the outdated pamphlet is just doing everyone a big disservice.

 

Gene

[Zonker]

Far from being a bad joke, Stuart Moore's analysis is a starting point. I'd be interested in other fact-based analyses.

 

So you disagree that the right population of OGN buyers in the future is 4000. Fair enough. What number would you use? 100% of the current buyers? (30,000 in the example).

 

Do you have anything to add to the retailing dilemna outlined in the piece?

 

A) Retailing through the direct market. Brick & Mortar shops then must gamble on $30 items rather than $3 items. Paging Lighthouse for some enlightened B & M perspective!

 

...or...

 

B) Retailing through the bookstore market. 100% returnable to the publishers. Probably a reasonable risk if you're talking about the proven marketability of something like Gaiman's Endless Nights HC. But can you imagine a publisher taking a gamble on the first Sandman arc in OGN form back in '89? By a nobody at that time named Neil Gaiman?

 

Let's quantify your competing assumptions before we're so quick to dismiss the Newsarama piece.

 

Regards,

Z.

[mrwoogieman]

A little off-topic from this post, but I was at a garage sale on Sunday that had comics listed among the items in the classified ad. When I get there asking to see the comics, the mom shows me a container full of .... graphic novels, dozens of them, and not a saddle-stitched monthly to be seen! Quite surprising really. The mom told me she would pick these up for her son at the bookstore (or her son would get them while they were at the local bookstore together) -- not from a comic shop. So, here's a little anecdotal evidence that graphic novels are starting to creep into the public's consciousness, not just as a replacement to monthly titles, but in this case, as an alternative to other sources of entertainment.

 

btw, I got a bunch of great reading for 2 bucks each!

[Zonker]

Exactly! Don't get me wrong-- I'm not saying I want only saddle-stitched monthlies and no OGN or TPB. I want 'em both.

 

But I continue to be mystified by the economics supporting any idea that we can get rid of the monthlies and have a healthy OGN/TPB market.

[delekkerste]

But I continue to be mystified by the economics supporting any idea that we can get rid of the monthlies and have a healthy OGN/TPB market.

 

Likewise, I'm mystified by the economics supporting the idea that we "CANNOT replace monthly comics" with TPBs, as you say. It *can* be done, and many prominent industry execs and creators have gone on record to say so (Maggie Thompson, the editor-in-chief of CBG, is one name that immediately comes to mind).

 

Z, the arguments you make are only valid in a very static world. I'm talking about nothing less than a *revolution* to save comics, because the 32-page monthly pamphlet is an uneconomical anachronism that is hastening the slow death of the medium. Forget the conventional wisdom you know - the OLD RULES DO NOT APPLY! Case in point:

 

The biggest expense for a major-company comic book is creative

 

Brick & Mortar shops then must gamble on $30 items rather than $3 items.

 

Who says anything about adhering to old-fashioned cost structures and price points? This is a going to be a freaking *revolution* - let's reevaluate everything from creator costs to paper stock to advertisements to reprints to fill pages to # of pages, to size of the product to marketing to distribution to everything else. What you're saying can't be done now may very well be a great idea once you tweak a few variables.

 

I think you are under the impression that the current system works. It doesn't. I'm not saying I have all the answers or that a solution can be found in a post on a message board, but I am sure that smart people asking all the right questions can do better than the pamphlet format which is not an attractive value proposition, as many have argued over and over. Sure, some parties will lose out, but I think if we want to get comics back into the mainstream, we've got to gear them towards the mass market, and that means revamping the format to accommodate distribution through other channels.

 

Gene

[Zonker]

Gene,

Ya say ya wanna Revolution

Well, ya know

We'd all love to see the Plan!

 

[Darthdiesel]

Gene, IMO, the creative cost is not a "variable that can be tweaked". Without that lofty incentive, no one will want to draw/color these pages, whether in a monthly or in a TPB format...this is the one constant that takes precedence and all others must adjust around it.