Love & Rockets New Stories Vol 1...the future of American comics?

[helionaut]

A common complaint about comics from DC, Marvel and Image, among others, is the idea of 'writing for the trade.' Storylines are drawn out over 4-6 issues where they might've been finished in 1-2 issues 20 years ago with more organic development of sub-plots and characters. Monthly sales are a shadow of previous heights, but trade paperbacks do consistently well, if smaller totals. Plus, trades are available in many non-hobby stores, whereas comics have all but vanished from traditional outlets.

 

Some people have suggested that floppies might all but disappear eventually, but where would that leave new content? The European model of graphic novels has been pointed to, but I think that's a little too much in the other direction. The whole market would have to be weaned off the idea of ongoing series coming out on a regular basis.

 

Barring a complete reversion to an 'every issue (or two) stands alone' model, or at least one where stories aren't so obviously structured The middle ground, where regular series go to a larger, trade-style format of all-new material with longer production intervals, seems natural. Then the problem is the upkeep of the creators while they crank out 4, 6, 8 or more issues at a time. Looking at a series that is strong in trade sales, such as Fables or Walking Dead, could they go to a format where every 4-6 months they come out with a 100-150 page volume of new material? What would happen to such a series? Certainly the writing would change, both in plot pacing and story structure. But it could be accomodated. With a book like Superman or FF, there would be major changes needed, especially given the multiplicity of books these characters appear in. Continuity would be much tougher, or much simpler, to maintain.

 

One bonus would be the likely end of company-wide crossover events that change things forever until next summer.

 

This brings me to the latest incarnation of L&R, which came out 2 weeks ago. The book is a nice round 100 pages of new story, with 4 pages of ads in the back. A nice format, squarebound, 7"x9", $15. L&R comes out quarterly, I think, maybe thirdly. There are long waits between issues, but you know a new issue will come out eventually. But that's for the 32-page book, and Los Bros put out other material in between. While there is continuity for each Bro's characters, it's pretty much impervious to format and schedule, owing its integrity the fact that only one person works on them, and they control them totally. A book going on in this format would have to be similarly insulated.

 

So anyway, I'm wondering if this is a format that could adopted for other ongoing series. And limited series, why not just put out a trade without the floppies? They would likely be much improved, on the whole.

 

The companies also would have their revenue on that book go into big peaks and valleys. A large enough company would handle it, but a smaller one would have to be much more careful. Fantagraphics probably more than any other publisher caters to the needs of the creators. Look at all the goofy editions they've done for Chris Ware. Since they seem to have virtually no marketing and probably pay very little up front for talent, not to mention the lack of corporate overlords, their overhead is probably very small for the volume of material they put out. They might be uniquely suited for this sort of package.

 

BTW, Jaime's 50 pages in this book were great. Two 25-page segments in one long story focusing on his latest adorable female creation, Angel of the Valley, book-ending several short stories by Gilberto of varying quality and subjects, most in his usual existential, ever-so-slightly surreal milieu.

[sterlingcomics]

There's no doubt that trades are an increasing market as compared to comics. I would venture to say that trades would be the future of comics, but I like the choice of going either route, and hope that any and all formats remain.

 

If however, it means that storylines are much more intricate and detailed as a result of going fully to trades, then I might revisit my stance.

[the blob]

well, if today's creators simply drank the kind of coffee byrne was drinking in the 70s and 80s and Kirby was drinking in the 60's and 70's (as well as the writers who penned multiple titles) cranking out 96-128 pages of material a month wouldn't be a problem.

 

64 pages of the main arc and another 64 bages of back-up stories by others?