What changes should be made to comics?

[sciquest2525]

I feel the prices are too high for the number of pages we get.
I would pay $3.99 for a book that offers more pages
DC has more pages in it's $3.99 books and if all books were to get a $3.99 price in the near future they should ax four ad pages and have a 40 page book with 32 art pages. Twenty-four pages for the main feature and eight for back with established team books having a 32 page story.
We need fewer, bigger, lower price comics.
Abandon the newstand market as done by Marvel and go for the comic shop/bookstore/subscription markets to eliminate the high numbers of returns.

 

[Takeru]

Use cheaper paper and less colors, high quality glossy paper is a waste of money, it is more expensive and adds barely nothing to the experience.

Get rid of the shared universe! All heroes should exist in their own worlds, no crossovers etc., Superman doesn't exist in Batman's world. You can still have a Justice League, but it wouldn't be in continuity with the other books.

Don't have several books featuring the same character or members of the same group, no Batman/Detective Comics/Nightwing/Red Robin/Batwoman situation. There's only one book that tells the story of this world.

Introduce a company style that the artists are forced to use! No individual styles, every character should look the same no matter who draws him/her, screw the artsy stuff. You want to draw in your own style? Create your own stuff at your own company.

Do a hard reboot, ditch everything, even the successful stuff, start over and don't look back.

Fire long time writers and perceived stars of the industry like Morrison et al., get new blood and new ideas and as soon as someone declares himself a fan of character A make sure he doesn't write character A.

Adopt the writer's room that tv shows have, hire 4 or 5 writers for one book, let them work together, throw around ideas, plan the storyline and then write individual issues with a head writer overseeing them.

The monthly books should have at least 50-75 pages, it's not hard to do if several writers and artists work together.

The most important part: Make the books accessible! That's why getting rid of the shared universe and not having several book for the same character is important. Don't make readers feel like they need to read other books to get the full experience and don't crap on your writer's stories by forcing a stupid event on them every summer.

Do another hard reboot after five years, allow your current version of Spider-Man to end. Let him die (for real) or let him live happily ever after, let him go to prison after he snapped and murderd Norman Osborn or let him be celebrated as a hero after he proved himself to everyone. Having a set time before the next reboot allows for more interesting stories and it allows to have lasting consequences, you can kill characters off without retconning the shit out of the story 3 years later to bring them back, just wait until the next reboot.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Use cheaper paper and less colors, high quality glossy paper is a waste of money, it is more expensive and adds barely nothing to the experience.

It would actually be more expensive to use cheaper paper now because the industry ditched it a long time ago and would pass the costs of converting back to it onto the consumers.

 

[Forbin]

Use cheaper paper and less colors, high quality glossy paper is a waste of money, it is more expensive and adds barely nothing to the experience.

It would actually be more expensive to use cheaper paper now because the industry ditched it a long time ago and would pass the costs of converting back to it onto the consumers.

It may not even be more expensive! When I worked for Scarlet street magazine and they switched to glossy, I asked the editor if we could afford it. He told me it was actually less expensive than the regular paper we'd been using!

 

[Forbin]

What I hate, as a Marvel reader, is the massive amounts of crossovers and multiple titles. Honestly, I'm 55 years old and I've been buying comics for eternity. I'm really tired of chasing stories around titles, and trying to keep up with multiple titles of the same hero that seem to have different realities. I ACHE for the days when there was ONE Avengers comic, ONE X-Men comic...

 

[C.E. Evans]

What I hate, as a Marvel reader, is the massive amounts of crossovers and multiple titles. Honestly, I'm 55 years old and I've been buying comics for eternity. I'm really tired of chasing stories around titles, and trying to keep up with multiple titles of the same hero that seem to have different realities. I ACHE for the days when there was ONE Avengers comic, ONE X-Men comic...

That's really what I'm doing right now. After about 18 months or so away from Marvel, I decided to return but I'm not falling for crossovers or multiple titles anymore. I'm sticking to just one X-Men book and if it eventually launches into a crossover, I'll sit it out and rejoin it once it's over (I'll find out what happens during it regardless).

 

[N-121973]

Introduce a company style that the artists are forced to use! No individual styles, every character should look the same no matter who draws him/her, screw the artsy stuff. You want to draw in your own style? Create your own stuff at your own company.

Do a hard reboot, ditch everything, even the successful stuff, start over and don't look back.

Adopt the writer's room that tv shows have, hire 4 or 5 writers for one book, let them work together, throw around ideas, plan the storyline and then write individual issues with a head writer overseeing them.

The most important part: Make the books accessible! That's why getting rid of the shared universe and not having several book for the same character is important. Don't make readers feel like they need to read other books to get the full experience and don't crap on your writer's stories by forcing a stupid event on them every summer.

Do another hard reboot after five years, allow your current version of Spider-Man to end. Let him die (for real) or let him live happily ever after, let him go to prison after he snapped and murderd Norman Osborn or let him be celebrated as a hero after he proved himself to everyone. Having a set time before the next reboot allows for more interesting stories and it allows to have lasting consequences, you can kill characters off without retconning the shit out of the story 3 years later to bring them back, just wait until the next reboot.

Hi Takeru
I've edited the quotes, as I disagreed with some of your ideas and wanted to focus on those things I did agree with, hope you don't mind. I've felt for some time that we need to do a company-wide hard-reboot every few years for the exact same reasons as you though I would make it every 10-15 years rather than every five.

Also I disagreed with ditching the shared universe. I just think it needs to be handled in moderation without these company-wide extravaganzas every few months. If nothing else I'm running out of storage space .

Another idea you mentioned was ditching multiple titles for the same character. For more than a decade there were four monthly and 1 quarterly Superman titles and in essence this meant a Superman comic every week. During this time they introduced a numbering system known to fans as the triangle. It went Man of Steel, Superman, Adventures of Superman, Action Comics and Man of Tomorrow and it was one of the heydays of post war Superman comics. I still miss it. Now given your idea to adopt a common 'house style' for how the characters are drawn ala Archie Comics would perhaps do away with this if you had a Superman (or Batman) comic every week. But I am rather concerned about losing some iconic title if we go down your route eg Detective Comics or Action Comics.

I certainly do think though that 14 (or is it 15) Batman related titles is too much. There's Detective Comics, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman Incorporated, Batman Dark Knight, Legends of the Dark Knight, Batwing, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood, arguably Huntress, Birds of Prey.

If I'd been in charge of the new 52 I would have done a hard reboot and introduced a core of characters and titles building up over a period of a couple of years.

Anyway thats my two penneth.

 

[sojourner]

Switch to an ad supported model. I wouldn't care if I only got 22 pages of story out of a 40 page book if the book was less than $1.

 

[Forbin]

What I hate, as a Marvel reader, is the massive amounts of crossovers and multiple titles. Honestly, I'm 55 years old and I've been buying comics for eternity. I'm really tired of chasing stories around titles, and trying to keep up with multiple titles of the same hero that seem to have different realities. I ACHE for the days when there was ONE Avengers comic, ONE X-Men comic...

That's really what I'm doing right now. After about 18 months or so away from Marvel, I decided to return but I'm not falling for crossovers or multiple titles anymore. I'm sticking to just one X-Men book and if it eventually launches into a crossover, I'll sit it out and rejoin it once it's over (I'll find out what happens during it regardless).

I just finally sat down and sorted 5 years worth of comics into order. I was flabbergasted by the number of different Avengers titles! And now they've rebooted it again with some new mutant members and retitled it the Uncanny Avengers! I just want one frigging Avengers comic to read!!!!!

 

[Mr Light]

Surely if they print it on newspaper it would only cost $2 or something...

 

[sojourner]

Not necessarily.

 

[Admiral2]

Send all American comic artists and writers to Japan, Korea and China to learn how to create manga, so we get 18 black and white pages a week instead 22 or 24 pages every other month. Manga is usually published the way comics once were in ancient times - several characters and stories in one magazine - so you could get all your faves in one single weekly purchase. BTW, crossovers in manga are virtually unheard of, so no Crisis of 52 Infinite Civil Secret Wars to deal with.

 

[scnj]

Introduce a company style that the artists are forced to use! No individual styles, every character should look the same no matter who draws him/her, screw the artsy stuff. You want to draw in your own style? Create your own stuff at your own company.

What? Why?

 

[Shawnster]

Surely if they print it on newspaper it would only cost $2 or something...

Cheaper paper does not play well with modern presses. Printers charge more because the paper jams up the works, requiring more work on their end.

 

[TemporalFlux]

Price is the problem. I thought digital would solve that; but the last time I looked, Marvel was charging the print price for a digital comic! That was a long while back, though; I haven't cared to look again after seeing that paper and distribution had nothing to do with the pricing scheme.

What needs to be done is a netflix model for comics. I pay 20 bucks a month, and I get limited time access to a set number of comics during that month. It can be new stuff or back issues or whatever; but I get access to more for my money with the freedom to sample on a whim without spending more money.

 

[sojourner]

I think DC does have some kind of netflix pricing model for it's digital comics.

 

[USS Kongo]

I recall them trying out a new format called motion-comics a while back. These were standard comics, with still pictures--only with a voice cast performing the characters, like a radio show with pictures. Did this idea go anywhere? Or are digital comics just regular comics without the paper?

I've stopped reading comics a long time ago for the same reasons mentioned here; namely I got tired of constantly having to chase down multiple story lines that were spread out across several different titles.

Sean

 

[C.E. Evans]

I recall them trying out a new format called motion-comics a while back. These were standard comics, with still pictures--only with a voice cast performing the characters, like a radio show with pictures. Did this idea go anywhere?

You can still find motion-comic DVDs of selected comic book stories here and there. Not many, though.

Or are digital comics just regular comics without the paper?

Yup. Basically online comics that you can download.

 

[Mister Fandango]

Introduce a company style that the artists are forced to use! No individual styles, every character should look the same no matter who draws him/her, screw the artsy stuff. You want to draw in your own style? Create your own stuff at your own company.

What? Why?

Because only the annoying fanboys who are the vast, vast, vast, vast minority of the audience gives a flying fuck about who drew what. The equally vast majority, however, just wants to enjoy the stories and not have to withstand an art style that looks okay one month but then spontaneously transforms into some goofy ass shit that makes them not even want to keep reading the next.

That's probably why.

It also has the additional perk of greatly decreasing the chance that any one artist can have a stranglehold on a comic book by taking their sweet ass time getting the job done. If one decides to act that way, can their ass and let any number of other artists step in all without the readers being the wiser.

 

[Admiral2]

Introduce a company style that the artists are forced to use! No individual styles, every character should look the same no matter who draws him/her, screw the artsy stuff. You want to draw in your own style? Create your own stuff at your own company.

What? Why?

Because only the annoying fanboys who are the vast, vast, vast, vast minority of the audience gives a flying fuck about who drew what. The equally vast majority, however, just wants to enjoy the stories and not have to withstand an art style that looks okay one month but then spontaneously transforms into some goofy ass shit that makes them not even want to keep reading the next.

That's probably why.

It also has the additional perk of greatly decreasing the chance that any one artist can have a stranglehold on a comic book by taking their sweet ass time getting the job done. If one decides to act that way, can their ass and let any number of other artists step in all without the readers being the wiser.

A house style didn't save Archie comics from suffering loss of readership in recent years, which is probably why they haven't really had one since Dan DeCarlo kicked. Even though basic character designs have been maintained, the styles of their various artists - Dan Parent, Fernando Ruiz, Stan Goldberg, etc. - are easy to differentiate.

Plus, Marvel comics tried the house style thing ages ago, by saying everything had to look more like Kirby when Kirby was drawing half their books. They finally gave it up when other artists demonstrated they could do great work without imitating the great man.

If your problem is really "artistes" that take three months to make a single comic "brilliant," then establishing a house style won't help, because then those self-same artists will have to train to imitate that style and practice to make sure it's indistinguishable from the originator's work, and then doing the comics will take longer, because imitating someone else's style always takes longer than just drawing in a way that you're comfortable with. I know because I've done that more than once. The real solution is to tell the artist, "Draw faster or you're fired."

And yes, I happen to be one of those fanboys who give a flying fuck who draws what.