.
Culture Crash has been doing it for a year.
Summit's getting into it.
And now, comic book writer Steven Grant talks about
the viability of the comics-magazine format.
Something's in the air... could this be the next big thing?
“…lately I've chatted with several creators attempting to do their own graphic novels. As most people who've done them know, a graphic novel is a huge, time-demanding undertaking, and while you can get paid as you go along to do a CAPTAIN AMERICA or MARTIAN MANHUNTER graphic novel, but if you're trying something truly adventurous, something original, you're pretty much on your own. This includes highly regarded, well-established talents with critical acclaim behind them, believe it or not. And
publishers... continue to become increasingly conservative in their tastes.... This increasingly leaves original graphic novels in the province of "works of love," but as my grandmother used to say, "love is like butter – it's better with bread." Unfortunately the world doesn't stop because you have an idea you'd like to develop. Bills must still be paid. Which means top talents end up working for DC or Marvel instead of developing their own material and all the assorted problems of the business continue on.
“A possible solution lies in the old PILOTE model, if anyone's willing to take up the challenge. PILOTE was a weekly French magazine in the first golden age of French graphic novels, which would publish graphic novels in progress. On any given week there might be three pages of VALERIAN, two of LT. BLUEBERRY, ten of LUCKY LUKE, etc. – and I'm not talking chapters, I'm talking whatever of the graphic novel happened to have been produced that week – rounded out by short comics stories, one page gag strips, and a few text features. 80 pages or so per week, much of it full color. It was great. Eventually it was cancelled because – get this – the publisher found it more profitable to go straight to graphic novels, because, yes, they were doing that well.
“Obviously this would be a harder sell in today's American market. We've trained the market against anthologies, and this would be more volatile than your standard anthology as it wouldn't even involve chapter breaks; material would flow just as in the graphic novel format, not reconstructed to fit eight page segments or whatever. A weekly is an all but unheard of sell in the American market. I don't know that our current distributors or retailers would be comfortable with such a thing; this is a business now dead set against any real progress, where everything has to look like something someone else is familiar with.
“It would need an assortment of stunning talent, but, fortunately, stunning talent isn't something the industry's in short supply of these days. (Would you buy a magazine featuring work by Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, John Jay Muth, George Pratt, Bryan Talbot, fill in your favorite top talent's name here, etc?) Of course, it would also take someone willing to put money behind it, while it has become the standard of the startup comics publisher to let the talent shoulder the financial burden, which puts us back where we began. Still, the potential's there, and I know from talking to talent the hunger is there. An awful lot of creators would love the chance to shift to original graphic novels. Any funded entrepreneurs out there willing to seize the moment?”
Culture Crash has been doing it for a year.
Summit's getting into it.
And now, comic book writer Steven Grant talks about
the viability of the comics-magazine format.
Something's in the air... could this be the next big thing?
“…lately I've chatted with several creators attempting to do their own graphic novels. As most people who've done them know, a graphic novel is a huge, time-demanding undertaking, and while you can get paid as you go along to do a CAPTAIN AMERICA or MARTIAN MANHUNTER graphic novel, but if you're trying something truly adventurous, something original, you're pretty much on your own. This includes highly regarded, well-established talents with critical acclaim behind them, believe it or not. And
publishers... continue to become increasingly conservative in their tastes.... This increasingly leaves original graphic novels in the province of "works of love," but as my grandmother used to say, "love is like butter – it's better with bread." Unfortunately the world doesn't stop because you have an idea you'd like to develop. Bills must still be paid. Which means top talents end up working for DC or Marvel instead of developing their own material and all the assorted problems of the business continue on.
“A possible solution lies in the old PILOTE model, if anyone's willing to take up the challenge. PILOTE was a weekly French magazine in the first golden age of French graphic novels, which would publish graphic novels in progress. On any given week there might be three pages of VALERIAN, two of LT. BLUEBERRY, ten of LUCKY LUKE, etc. – and I'm not talking chapters, I'm talking whatever of the graphic novel happened to have been produced that week – rounded out by short comics stories, one page gag strips, and a few text features. 80 pages or so per week, much of it full color. It was great. Eventually it was cancelled because – get this – the publisher found it more profitable to go straight to graphic novels, because, yes, they were doing that well.
“Obviously this would be a harder sell in today's American market. We've trained the market against anthologies, and this would be more volatile than your standard anthology as it wouldn't even involve chapter breaks; material would flow just as in the graphic novel format, not reconstructed to fit eight page segments or whatever. A weekly is an all but unheard of sell in the American market. I don't know that our current distributors or retailers would be comfortable with such a thing; this is a business now dead set against any real progress, where everything has to look like something someone else is familiar with.
“It would need an assortment of stunning talent, but, fortunately, stunning talent isn't something the industry's in short supply of these days. (Would you buy a magazine featuring work by Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, John Jay Muth, George Pratt, Bryan Talbot, fill in your favorite top talent's name here, etc?) Of course, it would also take someone willing to put money behind it, while it has become the standard of the startup comics publisher to let the talent shoulder the financial burden, which puts us back where we began. Still, the potential's there, and I know from talking to talent the hunger is there. An awful lot of creators would love the chance to shift to original graphic novels. Any funded entrepreneurs out there willing to seize the moment?”