1) If all comic companies moved away from monthly books, would the Direct Stores stay open? Yes, people seem to buy their collected or graphic novel books at comic stores, but they can find most of those same books at Barnes & Noble or Borders. The reason I would guess that they choose to buy the books at a Direct Market store is that they are also there to get their monthly books. Wouldn’t the comic industries decision to get rid of monthly books turn Direct Market stores into mom & pop bookstores which will quickly run out of business?

2) Also, what about comic creators? Without the monthly books, you wouldn’t have many of your TPB’s that you have. The system is set up for creators to put out books monthly so they have a steady stream of income to keep working. To produce a 100+ page graphic novel takes a lot more time than a 22-page monthly book. Many creators are not in a place financially to take the time to complete a 100+ page book.

Or… maybe moving to non-monthly books would help weed out weaker creators… who knows?

Or, you get advertising in TV Guide and through a psychotically devoted fan community with Buffy, and then who cares? Bang those 22 pages out!

More Fell, less Faker.

- Chris

Personally, I haven’t bought a floppy for the last four years or so… I used to back when it was unsure whether things would get collected at all (mostly DC or Image books… Marvel has been pretty much collecting everything and anything in one format or another reliably and without exception for awhile). I can’t really say how this affects my ability to enjoy a book IE versus reading it serialized, but I do like the format better, find it takes up a lot less space, and is easier to organize on my shelf or in my filing cabinets.

As to trying out a few series in TPB or GN format… I do so pretty much every week with manga, and have with mainstream books as well (IE: The EXCELLENT Hernadez collections, which, if I’d tried them in floppy format, I probably wouldn’t have been interested in at all). I actually have to say that I find it easier to know if I’ll like something if I have a bigger chunk of the story than can be found in 32 pages (if I’m going to commit to the long run, rather than just that particular storyarc).

Anyways, that’s just my perspective as a customer… nothing scientific or anything. I just prefer the format and how it reads, and I’d rather spend $10-20 on something to find out if I’ll like it rather than spending $3 over the course of 4-6 monthes to find out if it’ll pan out, and get stuck with floppies I can’t get rid of, because there’s a TPB out. :B

http://savagecritic.com/2007/11/responding-to-titling-responses.html

I might be back a little later today with some point-by-point stuff

-B

But I’m not convinced that dropping the serialization of most of these books would increase sales of the trades, or ogns, or whatever. It’s arguable that the single issues act as cheap tasters for the trades, for people who don’t buy every issue as it comes out. Singles certainly get reviewed more, and help immensely with word of mouth.

Obviously there’s no way to prove any of this, because there’s no control for the experiments — every book and every author are different. And Vertigo is a funny animal in a lot of ways…

I think it really comes down to trying to get customers to buy the same material more than once, something that Marvel seems to put a lot more effort into that DC. It strikes me personally that someone is much more likely to buy something twice if it is offered in a more deluxe format, i.e. floppy buyers might be more inclined to pick up a hardcover over a trade.

Also, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to compare first month trade sales to floppy sales, especially for likely perennial sellers in the Vertigo vein. I imagine that Fables v1, which charts in the top 100 almost every month, has sold twice as many copies as the floppy average in the DM alone.

I don’t mean to sound unempathic to Brian’s retail concerns either, it’s no surprise that in retail circles this column was _very_ appreciated because it feeds into commonly-held beliefs about the comics industry, and SOP. But while this is an argument about how retailers’ and readers’ interests don’t coincide, I would (and have, I think) further argue that what Brian is arguing for really isn’t even in his OWN best interests, long term.

If his argument ends up being that it’s in Vertigo’s best interests to prop up flagging single-issue sales unnaturally… Well I just don’t know what to say about that one.

Yeah, I disagree with the meat of Brian’s argument too, though I totally understand where he’s coming from. I said this way down on Heidi’s board, but I really think this is one of the rare areas where (certain) retailers’ interests don’t coincide with readers’.

Regarding INVISIBLES: I only edited volume 1, but I recall that the v2 relaunch — which, again, was wholly Grant’s idea — raised numbers a bit, mostly because of the presence of Phil Jimenez as regular artist (ably followed by Chris Weston). I don’t think the book was in any danger after that.

Your OGN discussion really does rely on Marvel/DC Page rates for serialisation to become necessary. Coming up out of art-comics it’s a totally different story. If you read a few of the interviews with Adrian Tomine, following the release of his new book SHORTCOMINGS you’ll run across a quote something to the effect of “I think my publisher only puts out single issues of my work as a favor to me,” because you look around and you see that the artcomix single issue is a rare thing, these days, most work going straight to collection. Adrian is actually one of the few creators whose work turns a profit in serialisation, actually, and even as a means of amortising the eventual book collection, single issues became unprofitable for a number of publishers a long time ago. With numbers at Vertigo dropping into the 7,000s, that ‘fuck the floppies’ number has gotta be getting pretty close.

That’s an interesting characterisation of The Invisibles! I had only ever heard low sales/reprieve from cancellation as the reason for relaunches. Thanks.

- Christopher

AGREED! Seems like a recipe to alienate the last few true believers.

This same debate/issue is going on with indivual DVDs versus box sets of TV Shows.

I’ve argued the ogn question on Heidi’s site, so I won’t get into it here. Suffice it to say that DC/Marvel page rates are a significant factor in this decision. And even if you’re only selling 10,000 copies in single issues, why give that up when, historically, patterns show that you won’t sell a single copy less — and quite possibly more — when you do publish the collection?

One correction: You may be speaking in hyperbole, but “They cancelled The Invisibles twice for low sales” is just wrong. Sales were flagging a bit, so Grant suggested the v2 relaunch, which followed within a few months of the end of v1. The series had always been structured as three “books,” so relaunching v3 as a new #1 then followed from the first decision.

2) That’s what makes the whole enterprise such a ridiculous bullshit-fest. Hibbs made all of his comparissions on one set of data favourable to his position, pure sales numbers regardless of things like retail cost/printing cost/dollahs made. I pointed out a difference of opinion based on another dataset favourable to my own opinion. I like hearing the sound of my own voice as much as the next guy, but I’m not usually doing so to agitate for change that’s going to affect the bottom-lines of my retailing cohorts, you know?

Anyway, thanks for the compliment. I don’t know how but I had no idea you had a blog. Off to read it now.