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Underground > Comic Books >

what's the point of limited serialization?

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:57 / 11.11.01

I was just thinking about how Grant Morrison's upcoming The Filth project is going to be a 12 issue mini-series, and how that just doesn't seem to make sense...what is the point of serializing the comic when it will likely just be rereleased (and reach a larger audience) as a graphic novel?

By releasing it as a selfcontained graphic novel straight away, they can market it before it comes out to proper books stores and book reviewers. It never has to be explained away as a collection of individual issues.

It just seems silly for comics which are a larger story to be broken down and serialized if they are not going to be an ongoing series.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:57 / 11.11.01

Well, it depends who is publishing it doesn't it? I was under the impression that it was going to one of the smaller publishers who may not have the resources to put it out as a collected edition, hell, we might not get all the parts of the comic in the first place.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

11:02 / 11.11.01

okay, but what about the publishers who CAN afford to put everything out in one volume?

Doesn't it make a lot more sense to put all the resources into one product than risk it all on the performance of the opening chapter and word of mouth to keep the subsequent chapters afloat?

Oh, don't listen to me...I've read some economics books and just can't comphrehend the business sense of the comics industry...

11:57 / 11.11.01

I think a number of factors govern this decision

The different formats appeal to different readerships. The way i see it the comic market is at a similar stage that the novel marketplace was at around the turn of the century and the music industry hit around the 60's - a movement slowly away from shorter cheaper forms and onto longer more fulfilling forms. It should be noticed that the shift towards longer work doesn't pervent a viable market in shorter works. The general readership prefer the 'value' of longer works while the more fanatic readership pefers to get shorter works (or at least will buy whatever comes out first...)

Secondly all original graphic novels are still quite rare few publishers seem to be willing to produce a large graphic novel (over say 100 pages) without first pre serialising it - getting two lots of money for the same material maximising the appeal of each form to each audience

14:20 / 11.11.01

And - I suppose - if you do a print-run of a 500 page book and nobody buys it, you're fucked.

Whereas if you serialize it, you don't lose out so much if it turns out to be a disaster.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

15:40 / 11.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
And - I suppose - if you do a print-run of a 500 page book and nobody buys it, you're fucked.

Whereas if you serialize it, you don't lose out so much if it turns out to be a disaster.

I knwo that in Dark Horse's case, the release mini-series so that the creators get paid while they are working on a book, and they can use the mini-series to pay for the coloring, separations, film, etc, making the graphic novel profitable enough that they can afford to pay for storage while it sits "in stock."

The few graphic novels (real ones, not glorified annuals) that have tried this have not made money for the artist. Howard Cruise had to sell the pages for "Stuck Rubber Baby" before finishing the project. And it has yet to make a profit for DC, despite being one of their better books.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:40 / 11.11.01

quote:Originally posted by sleazenation:
a movement slowly away from shorter cheaper forms and onto longer more fulfilling forms.

Maybe I'm a radical, but I feel that if a comics company isn't doing EVERYTHING it possibly can to bring its products to the general public, than it is simply failing as a business. And the fact is: if it is not a tv show, most people like their fiction in one piece, and not split up into little fragments. So fuck the comics market that has always dictated the serialization of stories, and embrace the mass market, even if it doesn't work at first.

The publishers of comics need to decide NOW: do we publish magazines, or works of fiction? The answer should be the latter and not the former. Full length books and novellas should replace all comics that aren't ongoing series.

16:55 / 11.11.01

Weel flux- While while the the change of pace in the comics market may seem poderously slow, even slower compared to other older media it equally makes worse business sense to change format so drastically over such a short time. Anysuch move risks alienating the existing market without actually guaranteeing a new market of greater worth. No publisher worth their salt would sacrifice market share in an existing market on the hope of carving out a greater piece of the pie of a market that may or may not exist.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

00:09 / 12.11.01

well, that is a good point, and it's reason enough for Marvel and DC to behave the way that they do, but I'm really surprised that the smaller companies (or a new company altogether) doesn't just come along and push an all-full length policy.

03:11 / 12.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Flux = *******:

And the fact is: if it is not a tv show, most people like their fiction in one piece, and not split up into little fragments. So fuck the comics market that has always dictated the serialization of stories, and embrace the mass market, even if it doesn't work at first.

I do see your point. But, graphic novels are pricier than your usual text-only book, so mightn't the opportunity to buy a piece of a serialization for a couple bucks lead to more people buying the finished novel if they liked a section?

(I guess the answer is "no" if we assume people decide if they are interested by in-store perusal, but it's a thought.)

quote:...I'm really surprised that the smaller companies (or a new company altogether) doesn't just come along and push an all-full length policy.
Of course, if a smaller/newer company put out a 500-page book and no one bought it, as Rizla mentioned, they might be fucked to the point of financial ruin if they had a couple failures--Marvel or DC could weather that loss the way a small publisher can't. So they might be under even more pressure, economically, to serialize things.

10:08 / 12.11.01

Well as for publishers of note pushing collections there's Oni Press who while still preserialising most of their product before collection are making the first issues of their most popular series available online for free... and Top Shelf Comix The folks that bring you From Hell.. etc...- Top shelf have a policy of publishing comics with spines of more extended lengths and offering full returnability (a great boon if you want to get into the book shop)

10:14 / 12.11.01

IIRC in Japan, they produce loads of comic books on cheap paper, and then put the best ones into a book format.

The books are collectable, the cheap paper comics are thrown the bin.

So, does anyone have a a gaggle of artists, newspaper style distribution and a few million quid to set up a new era in UK comics?

11:05 / 12.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Formerly known as Mr E:

So, does anyone have a a gaggle of artists, newspaper style distribution and a few million quid to set up a new era in UK comics?

You mean in the old style, ink comes off onto your hands 2000AD, Battle, Eagle etc style of comics and not the glossy pap that get's produced most of the time. Ooh. That reminds me must try and catch up on Sureal School Stories.... must be waaaay behind now.

13:18 / 12.11.01

I was thinking of a more adult audience, daily editions and possibly news, sport, current affair and maybe naked people in the pages of it as well.

I think the Gratitous Bunny" creators have changes as well...

13:51 / 12.11.01

[off topic]opalfruit, i have the complete set of SSS, and it's one of my fave escapism mags. (reminds me, must transcribe the mad conversations i taped with the gratuitous bunnies at comics2001)

13:59 / 12.11.01

I was trying to think of a small press comic organization that puts out original graphic novels. Top Shelf! Thanks, Sleazenation.

Despite the fact that some of the material is from other sources, a great deal of Top Shelfs graphic novels are older stories that deserve reprinting in nice editions, or wholly new pieces of work presented directly in book form. Though they do publish actual pamphlets, too.

In regards to your question, Flux, though it's been answered far better by others already, I'd say one of the deciding factors is probably that Chris Weston has to eat. The Filth is 12 issues, which probably means that it will take Weston, what, a year and a half to draw? They don't even have a set publisher yet. What are the odds that someone is going to tell them, hey, you can keep all rights to your work, we'll give you a huge advance to live off of while you finish it, and we'll present it in an attractive graphic novel, right off the bat, while ignoring the financial rewards of serialization. How likely is that?

I agree with you. It would be nice to see more OGN. But I want to see them mainly because then the creators whouldn't feel the need to end each chapter on some sort of cliffhanger. They could make one, long story with no breaks, if that's what they chose.

Quite frankly, you're right smack dab in the middle of a group of people for whom serialization still exists. While many of us have jumped the boat and collect only graphic novels, still others want to get each piece pronto. When the Filth does come out, are you going to wait for the collection? If so, you'll miss out on the discussion that will surely break out here. I have no problem with serialization in that it provides, now that graphic novels are becoming the norm, more choice for the consumer. You can wait for the attractive collection if you want. Or you can jump right in and get the original, piece by piece. And what's wrong with that?

Besides, serialization didn't prevent From Hell, Watchmen, Jimmy Corrigan or David Boring from getting rave reviews.

Murray Hamhandler

02:35 / 09.04.02

Bumped up...
I thought that this issue might be of interest again in light of LPC's recent bankruptcy. With the possibility of losing their sole distributor of product to mainstream bookstores, are companies such as Top Shelf going to rethink their publishing strategies? Should they? I, too, have thought that, in a perfect world, comics companies should be moving towards books rather than continuing to issue finite narratives as serialized comics, only to collect them later. The increasing presense of comics in bookstores seemed to back this up, but now their presense is endangered. Is this going to be a setback? Should it be? This is all pretty scattered at the moment, but well worth going into in more detail, I think.
Arthur Sudnam, II

05:38 / 09.04.02

I don't really know enough about the situation, but I think either LPC will come out of Chapter 11, which to me sounds less like bankruptcy as we know it and more like Administration as we know it in the UK. I don't see Top Shelf changing their plans, really, maybe just switching distributor. It occurs to me at the moment that the problems with the comic industry almost all seem allied to distribution problems.

07:57 / 09.04.02

As kooky points out in another thread- chapter11 is bankruptcy protection LPC are still trading and still distributing books. The repayment of their debts (which in the case of top shelf still amounted to around $100,000) for a comparatively short period are being renegotiated. Meanwhile LPC are having a closer eye kept on them by the banks and have to pay any new debts accrued in the current running of the business first.

To put it another way the current system of distribution is still in place and viable. However the lesson of the past week might well lead publishers to look at alternative means of distribution...

The Natural Way

08:51 / 09.04.02

Clontle=Rad.

Yes?

The Natural Way

08:52 / 09.04.02

Oh, clearly, yes.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:57 / 10.04.02

Simple answer? It's so the creators can get paid as they do the book. Only in one case has the collected version of a comic outsold the serialized version in Mainstream books and that was Sandman.