So instead of floppies, would it be better for american comics to completely convert to graphic novels like what european comics are already doing?
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So instead of floppies, would it be better for american comics to completely convert to graphic novels like what european comics are already doing?
For the capeshit writers that rely on cliffhangers and stringing people along for another floppy of twists and turns, many of them not planned from the beginning, to keep the popular story going as long as possible to make more money? Certainly not. The whole system would have to change to one where a story is planned out from beginning to end and then sold to DC/Marvel who then prints and sells it, and lots of writers wouldn't do well under that format because they're used to selling issues because of "earth-shattering revelations!!" and twists, rather than the complete story being told.
Very poor choice of series to make that point considering they may as well be considered capeshit equivalent at this point
It would have better if they had put a real effort into transitioning toward graphic novels. Instead they gave a half assed attempt, and then went even harder on making floppies their primary income. Western comics can't just drop floppies because they would die, but because floppies are dying they have to keep cranking up the price and making more variants to survive.
Not really, the structure is far more constricting in terms of how you pace and and work within the number of pages.
I like the Jump method, then for the favorites to get collections in trades or hardcovers, but they'll never go for it.
I've never understood why. Dense magazines are a guaranteed market coverage that books and floppies have never had. Almanacs go all the way back to the 17th century.
Magazine printing in the US became prohibitively expensive. Newspapers cost $3 these days. American shonen jump was $10, the Jp version is barely $4
That's certainly a headwind due to the lack of paper mills (which can and will make a comeback) but a hybrid model is incredibly viable. Look at Jacobin or Defector, or 404 Media. All sustainable magazines with primarily digital formats but some with a physical form that people can buy as well. Plus, I think text and print media are due for a resurgence simply from the fact that most videos on YouTube would be better and cheaper and quicker to consume as blogs.
They have the existing titles for it too, Detective Comics, Amazing Fantasy and so on. Even if it's not frickhuge 20 titles you can collect a few similar titles together
Nobody buys anthologies, they try them constantly. Nobody wants to be held hostage, so to speak, being forced to buy a bunch of shit they have no interest in by writers they dislike just to read 8-16 pages of one or two stories they want.
European comics have minimum engagement, even in Europe, because releasing things in yearly engagements leads to almost no discussion.Dripfeeding through the year is why manga is so popular.
Charles Dickens had way more engagement when he originally released his stories like Great Expectations in a weekly publication. People actually stood at the docks in France calling out to the sailors on incoming ships from Britain to find out what had happened and if they had the new chapter with them, because they were so obsessed with Pip's fate. Does this mean that books should go back to being published chapter by chapter in weekly publications, to up their engagement and volume of discussion?
The books that get the most engagement these days are the ones that have whole lead-ins to their publication with press tours and clickbait and are kept in the public eye for an extended period. With literal thousands of books getting published these days, keeping a book in the spotlight helps those books sell over countless stuff that barely moves.
And yes, reading in bite size increments is becoming the way people engage with written works more and more over long form ones.
Yes. Nobody reads books anymore, and serialization leads to back-and-forth with the audience, which can help the final product
There is a relatively popular substack called Dracula Daily which emails out segments of Dracula that way
Man I first heard about that in a way that made it sound as if they'd modernised it and converted the letters into the email format, so it'd be like you were in on a group chat where your buddies are giving you all these crazy updates every day. I was really disappointed when I checked it out and it was just the normal chapters emailed to you.
The Incal?
More like The INCEL am I right?
A big issue nowadays is that, while floppies exist, writers aren’t writing for floppies. You’re just getting a segment of a story
This is a major problem I completely agree.
This is partially why I think this:
>Marvel and DC should stop collecting ongoings at all
The decompression to fit trade releases (which don’t even sell well) has ruined floppies for the customers that actually would buy them and meanwhile made the paperback releases full of redundancy and poor pacing. It doesn’t serve either format to obsessively double dip the formats.
There is no reason to “completely” ditch floppies but I do think there should be more effort put into original graphic novel releases.
Marvel and DC should stop collecting ongoings at all, which would incentivize buying floppies or digital/streaming, and should only release OGNs to the book store market.
But make no mistake floppies are the most lucrative portion of their releases. Without them there would be no revenue to sustain paperback releases.
Only an idiot with no knowledge of the industry would want them to stop making them.