Lately in this column, I’ve been discussing some of the ills associated with the retail end of comics, exploring the problems many local shops face as well as the evils of the chain bookstore. But for all my rhetoric, I do think a symbiotic relationship between local stores and chains is something we should work towards. If we recognize that no one type of retailer is better than the other, that they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and if we do not rely heavily on one or the other to save the industry, then in time we can eventually achieve our goal. We will reach a point where chains and local shops can sit side by side peacefully and both the diversity and availability of the comics themselves are maximized.
Coexistence should not be a difficult endeavor. Chains seem to prefer graphic novels over monthly issues since their format is most like the rest of what they already sell, so letting chains specialize in the trade paperback format would not be a problem. Meanwhile, the local shops can deal exclusively in “pamphlets,” still carrying a few trade-sized issues if they wish. If publishers then put ads in the back of their graphic novels for the monthly adventures, everybody would end up happy.
It’s really when publishers start to favor one format over another that variables enter into the occasion. Lately in comics we have started to see the pendulum swing away from the monthly format and towards the trade paperback. For example, a manga company (TokyoPop) recently announced they were switching over to releasing just trade paperback collections of their works and no more monthly issues. Now, this one company can do that, because they’re an exception to the rule for a number of reasons. But we can never go over to solely publishing graphic novels. While this format does look sleeker and is more marketable, completely doing away with monthly comics would be a costly mistake to the industry as a whole.
First of all, monthly issues serve as loss leaders for publishers. It’s a situation much like how book publishers put out a hardcover before a paperback. The pamphlets are what publishers use to pay for the upfront production costs of the book itself, everything from hiring the talent to do the book all the way down to printing and distribution. Any money pulled in from trade paperbacks then is sheer gravy. A very small percentage goes to the talent in royalties and there are still printing costs, but most of the profits go straight to the publishers themselves.
If we were to switch over to solely graphic novels, there would be no loss leader. The graphic novel itself would have to cover those initial costs, and thus the profit margin for the publishers on the book would be less. Publishers would then most likely have to increase prices of those graphic novels to exceed their initial investments. Higher prices then mean the consumer has to be pickier about the things they buy, causing the market to shrink. Now perhaps you can bring in new readers with the new format to make up for that shrinking market, but it’s a risk that may not pay off. That loss leader is a necessary part of the endeavor, and the only reason TokyoPop can switch over entirely to GNs is that it has those loss leaders in place already in Japan , where the books were first published.
Independent publishers especially need monthly issues because, quite simply, the creators need to get paid. Without those monthly issues, a writer and artist might work for a year or two (and that’s really an underestimation for some creators) preparing a graphic novel, knocking out and polishing a script, illustrating and lettering the book, all without seeing a dime. It would be a hardship for a person in such a situation to be able even to eat, let alone scrape together enough cash to print the book. Plus, those printing costs for that GN might be the same as five or ten monthly issues, but the cost with monthly issues is not one lump sum as it would be with a trade. It boggles my mind how anyone would be able to live this way; I don’t know how folks like Larry Young (of the publisher AiT/PlanetLar) do it.
Also, there’s a certain immediacy to the periodical format we have now. When publishers let months pass between issues, fans might get angry, lose interest or disappear in some other way that translates into less sales. But no matter how much a delay there is between two issues, it’s nowhere near as long a wait as it might be if we were waiting for an entire graphic novel. Here’s an example: the ninth issue of the brilliant comic Palookaville, the issue which printed the last chapter of Seth’s story It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, was published in June of 1996. The most recent issue of Palookaville, issue sixteen, was released less than three months ago and is part seven of a nine-part story. That means, if Seth had released both of these stories only in graphic novel form, seven years would have passed since his last book and we’d still have at least a year and a half to wait for the next one. The periodical publishing of Palookaville not only kept food on Seth’s table, but it has kept his fans interested while they wait for the story to finish.
Finally, and most importantly to me, publishers can try more with monthlies. If we went to graphic novels alone, anything published would be a bigger risk than it is in the monthly format. The stakes are higher and if a book fails, the cost to the publisher would be higher. Thus, to alleviate some of that risk, a publisher would want the majority of the books they released to be stories they know would sell. That road leads to less diversity and more of the same old, same old books. Take Marvel, for example; about a year ago they released a miniseries called The Hood, which featured a writer who at the time was relatively unknown and almost all new characters. In a world with only graphic novels, such a book would never have seen print, because the chances that it would be profitable were too slim.
A GN-only publishing system could work for some corporate properties, I suppose. The Superman books, for example, would be a perfect series for their publisher DC to experiment with going over to graphic novels. DC could publish a Superman issue in January that would be the size of a graphic novel, or about the size of four issues (around 96 pages). Then in February, they could release a similar GN-length issue of Adventures of Superman, do one in March for Action Comics, and so on. Each story could be self-contained, but there would be some sense of continuity between them. Thus, fans can continue to get their monthly fix of Superman for around the same price as they would be spending now, creators would still do the same amount of work for the same amount of pay without the increased wait between paychecks and publishers would not have to worry about loss leaders since the fanbase is already large enough to insure good sales.
But for the most part, like with chains and local shops, a kind of symbiosis is best, allowing multiple formats and thus appealing to a wider range of people. Publishers can release original graphic novels, reprint their monthly storylines in GN form (or manga-style digest-sized books), and do the monthly books for those who like the immediacy (and their collectible nature). With more options available, you have a greater chance of making people happy with your books and thus increasing sales across the boards. We just need to make sure that the publishers get this message that multiple formats are better, that trade sales are not the end-all, be-all of comics, so we can avoid a situation in which graphic novels become the tail that wags the dog of our industry.
