Comics - issues v. graphic novels

Neat analogy. Instant gratification vs. the full picture. Except its more like singles vs. greatest hits albums.

Now if graphic novels came out with the few good issues and a pile of filler at the same time and cost 5 times as much would there be any market....

yes. and they often get additional stuff like essays by the author, special short stories, pages of initial sketches, etc.

Angela, you are making graphic novels sound like when classic albums get reissued on CD with a load of shite bonus tracks that they would be better off without.

Yes. Nyaah nyaah nyah nyah nyaah

(The longer answer is that TPB collection does seem to depend on the original issues selling well, but this is because of publisher stupidity. TPBs seem to sell to older readers, and have a large bookshop audience, while single issues are only sold in comics shops. There are plenty of comics which would probably appeal more to the TPB crowd than they do to the single issue crowd, and that's what the decision to collect should be based on.)

The thing with the independents like Peep Show, Eightball etc, is that they come put so infrequently, that oftens it's just better to wait until the collected edition come out. But, for comics that come out regularly, then single issues are best.

It's a 'catalogue' thing surely. Single issues keep on selling but the publisher doesnt see any extra revenue from the resales etc. and theyre a bastard to keep in stock for a long time because they need to be displayed front-first rather than spine-first. But convert the single issues into graphic novels and you have a long-term steady seller which remains profitable and can stay inobtrusively on your shelves forever.

I was an issues man through and through.

maybe the TPBs are like re-issues or box sets, with extra new fluff added in. to further stretch the analogy, are the letter columns in issues like the b-sides that never make the album?

This analogy means that the comics market is like the music market if a band could only come to fame by issuing singles and singles compilations. Possibly a good idea for the Beta Band, probably a bad idea for Cornelius. Hated though The Concept Album is, the concept of an album is still a classic.

Ian - Aren't you due to talk a lot of shite about how comics are an inherently trashy medium about now?

One problem with the analogy is that you don't have to listen to all of a band's previous singles to appreciate their latest one. A major advantage of getting a collection is that you don't have to go to a comics shop every week, or wade through boxes of back issues, to get a complete story.

I prefer GNs - or European 'albums' like Tintin etc. - 'cos I find the montly installment plan unsatisfying - half the time I can't remember what happened the month before, so I have to go back and re-read the bloody things. This is even more frustrating w/ those irregularly published epics like 'Love and Rockets'. I guess the serial form is ok for on-going titles - when they work well it's like a gd soap opera - but reading mini-series/maxi-series/whatever in dribs and drabs, rather than as one cohesive whole, doesn't do the overall artistic whatsit any favours, imho.

I also think that because GNs tend not to be 'collector's item' ppl feel less inclined to treat them like fanboy fetish objects - mylar bagging yr GNs wld be so silly...

And I really really like those 'Essential Marvel' GNs - a big black and white wodge of classic comic bks at a cheapish price - just like the 'glory days' of British Marvel!

Why isn't Nevada in TPB format?

A dancing girl, an ostrich, a drunk mystic and world threatening spatial time distortion - what’s not to like.

This failure alone is enough to convince me that solely relying on TPBs is not the path of righteousness. A mixed portfolio - always the answer.

Bringing out a collected book straight off is a big gamble. if it doesn't sell then that's a LOT of money spent up front (in advances, in print/paper/binding, in marketing) -- so the issue-by-issue is cheaper cos it slices up the costs, works it's own sort of publicity/marketing, and you can always STOP if it tanks.

Vicar: what's the name of that comic you've got, about the town full of different people, who each get a couple of pages to themselves at a time, in a different style? (By ghostworld geezer I think.) I thought it very impressive.

Pinefox: were you going through my comics? you dirty dog.

It was an issue of Eightball. Actually, like many issues of Eightball it flies the flag for issues rather than graphic novels, because it is a completely self contained story. And yes, it is brilliant (it's the one about the town where some kid disappears and it follows a load of people in the town over a week or so). My favourite bit is when Blue Bunny (a blue anthropomorphic rabbit just out of jail) says to some woman "Hey you, any chance of a suck job? I've been living on state pussy for the last two years". This has become my chat up line of choice.

Andrew F: watch it.

I'm just saying.

oh and Pinefox, it is indeed by Daniel Clowes, the Ghostworld Geezer.

If yr not a comics person for whatever reason (lets say geography on my part), graphic novels are a, er, safer/whatever investment (esp. for purposes of continuity. eg I'd rather wait for a Japanese novel to be published than read it bit by bit in a newspaper or whatever (=> I am not a patient boy).

a thing I don't like is when comics are published sequentially but obviously meant to be read all in one go. So you get that thing of reading an issue where it starts referring to things that happened six months ago and you get confused.

Graphic Novels are a great way to catch up on stuff you've missed, they look a wee bit more respectable to your girlfriend and they don't have eannoying adverts scattered throughout.

But nothing beats the smell of newsprint... mmmmmmmmm luhvvvvvvvleeee.

OTM re. annoying ads in single issues -- especially those ones that are mini-comics in themselves and go on over 3 or 4 pages. GRRRR.

destroy also: anti-drug ads, collectible figurine/tie-in tat ads, ads for loser sports-metal bands you've never heard of

search: army recruitment ads (if only for stunning misjudgment of their target audience, heh heh heh)

well, I for one stopped wanting to take drugs after reading that interminable spiderman v. the stoners ad that was in every marvel comic for years.

dude.

MARTIN SKIDMORE TO THREAD!

I have some collections and others (cf. Peter Bagge's Hate) in individual issues. It all depends...

graphic novels = dodgy "now that's what i call" compilations = pop

term "graphic novels" = rockism

It depends on the comic. Milk and Cheese works well on the individual issue because the stories are short and to the point. Acme Novelty Library and Hate seem to have longer stories meant to be read all in one go. It's easier to read them in a Graphic Novel to keep the ebb and flow thats missing when you reach the end of the issue and have to wait for the next one.

'term "graphic novels" = rockism ' - Mark S

Ye-e-e-es (copyright J. Paxman). Is it not more the case that publishers and the unthinking refer to any compilation of several comics stories with a square spine as a 'graphic novel' irrespective of its actual cohesiveness as a 'novel' or not? Cf. the Ligglefield referring to the Marvel Essentials volumes as GNs supra.

But, yes, anyone who uses the term is v. v. suspect.

I was clearly overexcited by my first "...to thread". Sorry.

Isn't this abit like asking "what do you like, snacks, or meals". I mean, as long as the foods good, then they're both good.

Happens to the best of us, Martin. ;-)

Single ish = 10" cLOUDDEAD EPs.
TPBs = cLOUDDEAD selftitled CD.

From a consumer standpoint, it's cheaper to buy a single TPB than all the issues, unless, in the event that one buys ishes, you take the rest of what you will pay for the remainder of the given story arc and invest it in, say, a money fund.

Both formats clasic, IMO. Oh, what sweet snobbery to claim that, yes, I read "Ghost World" as it appeared, serially. But, oh what sweet convenience for the rest of us slobs to just buy the thing in book form.

Back in the day, novels by authors such as Dickens and Twain would be serialized in periodicals before publication. Would a real snob have read "Great Expectations" in installments, and then disdained the hardcover?

Me, I'm just hanging on 'til the next Eightball. Has there been a Clowes thread hereabouts?

buying TPBs = false economy, as they are more inclined to fall apart.

buying issues instead of TPBs = also false economy, as you file them away and never re-read them.

calling TPBs Graphic Novels = mark of the cockfarmer. I only did it in initial question because I'm an issue man.

continental european comics = all shite. They're too short, not having enough time to develop a proper story.

As opposed to America's 20-odd page monthly issue as the standard, Europe has the 40-odd page album. I wouldn't say that they are too short to develop a story - Asterix albums seem a good length, and Corto Maltese stories are often terrific. They don't develop soap style stories, true, because the neverending serial is not a format they generally do, and really huge epic adventures are rare too.

But everywhere has its own standard formats: Lone Wolf & Cub is one of my all-time favourite comics. It originally appeared in episodes of 60-odd pages, mostly fairly self-contained, at fortnightly intervals in an anthology, and then was collected in 300-page volumes, the format closely mimicked by the current American editions. Given the relative narrative paces, that is quite like US comic publication followed by TPB collections, but it is an overall complete story in about 8,500 pages, and that's not been done in American comics (though we could sort of argue for Dave Sim's Cerebus, maybe), though it's not unusual in Japan.

Sorry DV, you are talking rub abt European albs - for a start, they're not all one fixed length (Pratt's 'Ballad of the Salty Sea' runs nearly 200 pages, for example), they are often part of a longer series of bks (eg 'Lieutenant Blueberry', which all told makes up one long gigantic saga), and the larger format often means that the artists cram more panels on a page (just look at any 64 page Tintin alb for proof of that.)

Besides, the pics are usually v. pretty.