A Matter of Tradition
By Mike Solko

Do you ever hate comics?

This month’s column is probably going to have a little more of a detracting approach but remember, I come here to praise comic books, not to bury them. A lot is being written lately about the traditional 32 page monthly format the majority of comics are published in and whether or not this format can go on if comics are to reach a wider audience. Never one to resist a chance to beat a severely wounded horse, I’ve put some thought into the issue and come up with a revelation: If the 32 page format dies out I won’t have an inkling of regret. For the past several years, I’ve made major efforts to convert friends and classmates into comic readers but usually come up with 2 major obstacles. The first is the fact that the majority of mainstream comics feature super heroes, but that is a subject for another time. Most people are used to reading in the forms of paperbacks or standard size magazines. When I pass friends a trade paperback, they seem interested in checking the story out but with the traditional comic format, they seem less inspired to do more than a quick flip-through. While sales on monthly comics are dropping every year, the industry has seen a boom in trade paperback sales. I don’t know if there is demographic research done on this topic, (do we even have demographic research in the comic industry?) but the real focus needs to be on bringing in new readers. The major companies should be taking this change in the market into account and redirecting their focus on different formats. In my view, there are three formats comics need to move towards in order to bring in new readers.

1) Trade Paperbacks: The main benefit of producing comic stories in a trade paperback format is the fact that the reader is getting a complete story that they can read at their own pace. Compared with other forms of entertainment such as magazines, films, or novels it is very rare that a single installment does not have a clear beginning, middle, and end to the works included. Television is one of the only mediums in which stories are left open to continue in another installment, but unlike comics, television shows are generally a “free” situation, or at least one in which the viewer pays for a number of channels rather than a particular show.

Books like Sandman, Optic Nerve, and Preacher stand as excellent choices for bringing in new readers and showing them that comics have a very wide variety of genres, as well as having complete stories within a wider picture. Keeping up interest for an ongoing story in the monthly format is a very difficult task, but providing someone with a complete chapter is a good way to ensure if they like what they see, they’ll come back looking for more.

2) Magazines: I’m not talking about something like Comic Buyer’s Guide here or Wizard, but a monthly publication in the traditional magazine format featuring articles covering different aspects of pop culture and also having several serialized comic book stories. Over in the United Kingdom, they had success with the magazine Deadline for several years that had a big mix of alternative music coverage, movie coverage, and stories by cutting edge comic creators. I’m sure it would be pretty easy to persuade a creator like a Grant Morrison or a Brian Michael Bendis to write a monthly column on pop culture. Warren Ellis would more than likely entertain with a variety of topics. Marvel is moving in this direction with their new Ultimate Marvel magazine coming in a few months. The next big step would be to move away from superheroes and more towards a variety of genres. Magazines would be another way to get readers interested in comics while also providing material that can be collected later on in larger volumes.

3) Digests: Nothing against the Riverdale gang, but I find it seriously depressing that tons of great comic material is published on a monthly basis, yet the only digests I see at the supermarket involve Archie’s love troubles. Although I don’t know the figures, I can’t imagine that Archie Comics is losing money by having these digests prominently displayed at supermarkets. It boggles my mind that DC and Marvel wouldn’t be jumping at the opportunity to put their comics into digest format and have it there at the supermarket checkout counter. While it is necessary for them to pay the outlets a fee to have the materials displayed at such locations, I have little trouble believing if Archie can turn a profit, then a Batman or X- Men digest (original material or reprints) would do double or triple these numbers.

I don’t see the traditional monthly format of comics disappearing anytime in the next several years, but if the art form is going to endure, the publishers are going to have to try new ideas. If this column has held even the slightest bit of interest for you, ask a friend who doesn’t read comics regularly what type of format they would prefer. And if you do, let me know because I’d really like to see if it’s time for a new tradition to exist or if the stigma attached to comics has nothing to do with how they are presented.

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Copyright © 2000 Mike Solko

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