Comics Pants Podcast #5 (10-12-06)
Episode number five of the Comic Pants podcast is now live. Dave Farabee, David Martindale, Nick Budd, and Randy Lander are talking about late comics. Not just a list of what’s late (although they are naming names), but a discussion of whether lateness hurts sales or not, how it affects the big two versus how it affects smaller publishers and how it compares to lateness in other mediums.
As always, commentary is welcomed and encouraged. Let us know what you thought of the podcast, tell us your thoughts on late comics and how they affect your buying habits, and if you’ve got suggestions for future podcast topics, leave us a comment!
Use the podcast feed buttons on the sidebar to subscribe, listen via the flash player below, or directly download the MP3 here:
Loading ...
Late books were one of the reasons I no longer pick up weekly books. I’d rather not have to read the previous issue again just to remember what happened before. Couple that with the money I was shelling out each week, and I’m a proud trade buyer now.
12 Oct 2006 at 7:52 am
QuoteLateness/bi-monthly publication is really killing the momentum for some of the ‘A-list’ titles I read — namely Astonishing X-Men, Civil War, and Ultimates.
I think Mark Millar is talented, but is it worth it to hobble all of the publicity Marvel worked so hard to generate for Civil War?
I’ve been picking up ‘the Ultimates’ since the first volume launched. The delays between issues are such that I actually have to get on Wikipedia to refresh myself about what I’ve already read!
12 Oct 2006 at 8:45 am
QuoteHere’s my consumer perspective – Since I got married, my wife declared that I can only buy a comic once. I used to by the single issues, buy the trade, and then buy the sweet, sweet hardcover. Now, I just buy the one that I want to keep forever – the hardcover. So late books don’t affect me as much as abandoned series (the examples that comes to mind are Jenny Finn and Hepcats).
There is a real financial incentive to waiting in entertainment across the board. I don’t go to the movies too much because it cost so much less to wait for it to come out on DVD. I don’t buy new fiction hardcover non-comic books because the softcovers will be cheaper and might contain a new afterward or some comment on the reaction to the book (‘Moneyball’ is a great example of this. The softcover contains a rebuttal to the criticism directed at the book.)
With comics, there is also an incentive to wait for the trade because you will know if it will be good ahead of time. Which of the ‘House of M’ tie-in is worth my money? Any of them? All of them? I can plunk down a few dollars each week and treat it like an entertainment slot machine or just master patience and only get quality material.
When you decide to get on the wait-for-trade bandwagon, the game changes. Lateness doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the completed product.
The publishers have made it quite clear that the growth area of the industry is the trade/hardcover market in Barnes and Noble or other retail bookstores, and that is the market they are customizing their product for. (You can even see this in the way dialogue is rewritten/retconned in the trade.)
When you mention that Dork #11 is an unexpected treat – that’s the way I feel about ‘Age of Bronze’ trades or the constantly-coming-down-the-pike ‘Berlin’ trade. I’ve given up on monthly books, so when something comes out in trade, I think of it as an unexpected treat.
So far the most creative use of fill-in artists to keep on schedule was Alan Moore’s run on WildC.A.T.s where he had two parallel stories drawn by two different artists. So each artist would have to only draw 10 to 12 pages a month instead of the 22 to 24 pages that fill up the book. It was almost as if they asked the writer to help them with an editorial/scheduling issue and he knocked it out of the park.
Interesting discussion, as always.
12 Oct 2006 at 11:50 am
QuoteI don’t mind lateness so much, within reason, so long as it keeps the quality up, though I do agree that it would be better not to solicit books as monthly when it’s well known that is not gonna be, that way problem solved.
Still, I’d prefer to wait a month or so between issues than have a shoddy looking fill-in artist, rushed storyline or bizarre ‘flashback’ issue. Not that fill-in’s were “always” poor quality but they often fit that mold. It’s not like my world is gonna be any different because I have to wait longer for my next issue of whatever comic I happen to be reading.
Also and I may get slammed for typing this but I do feel that art has gotten, on a whole, more intricate over the years, folks like Travis Charest or Bryan Hitch, who bring this amazing level of detail to every panel weren’t as common back in the 70’s and 80’s. So it’s only natural to expect that kind of detailed work to take longer.
And like you guys mentioned the super-star writers have also caused lateness, though on a related tangent I did find it strange and more than a little unprofessional that Tom Brevoort publicly called out Dan Slott over lateness when it seems so common place within the industry and the company, even as you guys pointed out, from the Editor and Chief.
Here’s a link for those who might not know what I’m talking about. http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=80375
A few other from the observations on the Podcast:
Secret War might not have had cloned Thor, but it did have Jerri Curl godling, the Beyonder. I leave it to you to decide which is the greater evil.
You know I forgot all about 7 Soldiers, that said, there was some very good stuff in those books, so I can forgive it.
Figures you guys are fans of the Shield, I had never gotten on board until a couple of months ago then I watched seasons 1-4 in a marathon frenzy of late nights and little sleep over a week or so and I’m chomping at the bit for season 5 to be released on DVD.
12 Oct 2006 at 2:41 pm
QuoteWhen you decide to get on the wait-for-trade bandwagon, the game changes. Lateness doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the completed product.
This is true, and as someone who buys 99.9% trades and hardcovers these days, I certainly don’t have a problem with waiting for the trade. Personally, it’s the way to go.
But if lateness pushes enough people out of the early adopter mode and everybody is waiting for the trade, what does that do to sales across the board? Tradewaiting isn’t going to hurt Civil War and Ultimates… but it could kill books like Atheist and even more midlist fare like BPRD.
It seems like short-term thinking on the publishers’ part to focus solely on the trade/hardcover market, unless they’re actually planning on transitioning there fully… and given their push for Civil War, 52, etc., I don’t believe that’s the goal.
So far the most creative use of fill-in artists to keep on schedule was Alan Moore’s run on WildC.A.T.s where he had two parallel stories drawn by two different artists. So each artist would have to only draw 10 to 12 pages a month instead of the 22 to 24 pages that fill up the book. It was almost as if they asked the writer to help them with an editorial/scheduling issue and he knocked it out of the park.
Ooh, good call. I’d forgotten about that artistic change-up, but it worked and featured great art and great stories.
12 Oct 2006 at 7:52 pm
QuoteAlso and I may get slammed for typing this but I do feel that art has gotten, on a whole, more intricate over the years, folks like Travis Charest or Bryan Hitch, who bring this amazing level of detail to every panel weren’t as common back in the 70’s and 80’s. So it’s only natural to expect that kind of detailed work to take longer.
Well, I’d argue that while there are more intricate artists, what we’ve lost is a level of professionalism and in many cases, a level of craft when it comes to storytelling. I’ll put John Buscema up against Travis Charest and Bryan Hitch any day, and if you want to talk detail, I’ll put George Perez up against Greg Land or Jim Lee, and he’ll provide better action storytelling to boot.
There’s also a tendency to look back at the early stuff in the medium and think it was weaker than it was. There were certainly weak, or at best solid, artists at work there. But there were also great artists working in comics, early on. Dave can probably defend this point better than I, but I think that while there is a high quality of art right now, the ratio of great to just solid artists probably hasn’t changed all that much. And back in the day, a lot of the great artists were better at hitting deadlines.
I totally agree with you on Brevoort calling out Slott, btw. Completely unprofessional, and also just a dick move.
Secret War might not have had cloned Thor, but it did have Jerri Curl godling, the Beyonder. I leave it to you to decide which is the greater evil.
Ray, I’m disappointed in you.
Secret Wars had no such thing, it was the godawful Secret Wars II that introduced us to permed white jumpsuit-wearing Beyonder.
12 Oct 2006 at 7:59 pm
QuoteDon’t get me wrong, I’m not saying intricate equals better, just more time consuming. I love Buscema’s work, he’s one of my all time favorite artists (though I’m also a huge fan of Charest later work, i.e. his post I’m ripping Jim Lee stuff). But even paging Savage Sword and looking through Perez’s pre Busiek runs on Avengers recently and I found a fair number of panels that were pretty much blank except for one or two characters; it was the norm back then, again not necessarily a bad thing, just the way it was. Contrast that with Charest near the end of his run on Wildcats or Hitch on the Authority or the Ultimates, where every panel is as loaded with details as a scene from a Dario Argento movie. That kind of work is just gonna take more time to do.
I’m not so sure I’d agree on a loss of craft, professionalism maybe, but I think that much like your point that relationship of great to just solid artists probably hasn’t changed all that much, that there a just as many artists who know there craft today, as there were back then, it’s just that a lot more of them have this superstar thing going on these days.
Ray, I’m disappointed in you.
Secret Wars had no such thing, it was the godawful Secret Wars II that introduced us to permed white jumpsuit-wearing Beyonder.
Oh yeah… *blushes* well in my defense I haven’t read secret wars since it came out some twenty years ago.
12 Oct 2006 at 10:25 pm
QuoteAs said in the podcast I can’t see why publishers don’t wait to sollicit a mini-serie after it’s (completely) finished. Why is it so hard to wait of spreading the news about such a serie after until you’ve got the complete script of it. Especially for mini-series that are like 4 or 5 issues long. I wouldn’t care to wait a little bit longer for a new serie if I know that I will receive a new issue every month!
13 Oct 2006 at 3:57 am
QuoteJoss posted this on whedonesque.com regarding lateness:
—————————————————
And now, a public service message.
Lately I have heard much crabbing about bi-monthly books and people not meeting deadlines. And yes, I have much to answer for in terms of the FRAY schedule debacle. But I was young, I was running three shows, and I was borderline not-impotent. Since then I have been late by a week (extenuating circumstances)once and by two weeks (no frikkin’ idea what to write) once, both in the first arc of Astonishing. Never since. I didn’t need the book to go bi-monthly — in fact I wasn’t even told it would be. I don’t like bi-monthly; it puts too much pressure on every issue to be standalone-ly awesome, and hurts the flow. Schedule haters, hate the game, not the playa. And quit pissin’ me off.
This was a public service message, because it helps me, who is a public.
—————————————————
“Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall” was never solicited and _really_ late, but they did first want it for last year. But that’s a special case, obviously. And actually a good example of soliciting _when_ you can hit it.
I love snickering at lateness at the Big 2. Else it hurts my heart.. I have a brown bag with 2 unread “Wintermen” inside.. waiting for that action to finish. Hester’s “Athiest”.. and “Stronghold”. Not that I really cared, but the art on “Bad Planet” was great.. and 2 never came. Tom Jane said they’re going to wait until mini is in can to resolicit the whole thing.
Looking at your site’s background.. “Local” is just coming out of a “scheduled” delay.. but those who read it but not the internet don’t know that, do they?
13 Oct 2006 at 10:21 pm
Quoteon old art being “weaker”.. i think that’s more about coloring than penciling.
13 Oct 2006 at 10:24 pm
QuoteI agree 100%
There are bad and good both old and new, but I would say the old is much more solid on average. Just look at some of the beautiful B&W stuff in the Essentials.
13 Oct 2006 at 11:36 pm
QuoteI agree that technology has improved coloring on comics, but to be clear I never said, the old art was weaker, only that back then it was pretty common place to have a more stripped down style, again look through some older comics and in many works, even earlier Perez, you’ll find lots panels that featured few details other than the characters themselves, a lot of the big names today, like Hitch have very elaborate styles, where every panel is filled with details, cf Authority /Ultimates, it just stands to reason that the more detailed artwork gets the longer it’s gonna take to finish.
14 Oct 2006 at 12:38 am
QuoteAbsolutely awesome ‘cast, guys. It should be sent to the marketing departments (express mail, natch) and labeled “Handbook.”
The “200,000 sales-per-issue/6 issues-a-year” vs. “100,000 sales-per-issue/12 issues-a-year” comparison is an interesting one. I have little clue as to how these things work, but I wonder what impact “creative expenses” has. For instance, let’s say ASTONISHING X-MEN is the 200,000/6 example and X-MEN is the 100,000/12 example. Yes, the gross income is even, but is the net? If Whedon/Cassady/Martin/etc. are paid more than 2x per issue what Carey/Bachalo/etc. cost, then X-MEN is actually more profitable. Hell, maybe the ASTONISHING crew gets paid less than twice the X-MEN crew, in which case ASTONISHING is the moneymaker.
When it comes to CIVIL WAR, as I’ve said elsewhere (the Ye Olde blog, I think), it doesn’t really matter to Marvel how big sales on the core series are, so long as the crossover titles pick up sales (unless, of course, CIVIL WAR’s sales exceed the combined sales increase of the crossovers). The 7-week delay probably didn’t hurt the core title at all, but it probably depressed interest in the ancillary titles–I know it did for me–as readers take a “this is taking longer than I thought, I don’t care enough anymore to read the side-plots, I just want the gist of it all” stance. Especially considering that DC pulled off the year-plus long INFINITE CRISIS without significant delay (as I recall, the only hiccup in the whole thing was IC #7). Marvel basically said, “Oh yeah? We can do a finely-timed, interconnected crossover too! And we can make it awesomer!” only to fall flat on its face. Unsuccessful optimism, people tend to be lenient; failed hype, not so much.
I think the shared-universe model hurts Marvel and DC’s lateness too, in comparison to indies. I like PLANETARY (Wildstorm U, yes, but not integrally), maybe not as much as I used to when it was on a regular-ish schedule, but enough to be joyed by Planetary Day. I can’t get a Planetary story anywhere else but from PLANETARY, so I wait, TPBer-like, patiently. But if I want an X-Men story, I don’t necessarily have to hold my breath for ASTONISHING. I can pick up any one of the dozen other X-titles and be content. The problem then becomes that Carey and Brubaker are telling 2x more story than Whedon is (not now, but for a few months, anyway). And not only might I drop ASTONISHING in favor of a twice-the-X-Men-fun UNCANNY, but suddenly UNCANNY becomes the flagship title again because it’s not in some suspended-time bubble. At a certain point, even Marvel’s other creators give up on the thing and start writing like ASTONISHING doesn’t exist in the Marvel Universe, and that can be a pretty big blow to sales (just ask post-Crisis Hawkman).
14 Oct 2006 at 2:58 am
QuoteAs far as Joss Whedon goes: When Runaways is monthly, I’ll believe him. But there’s too much evidence that the Hollywood guys are too busy to give their full attention to comics, plus too many times of writers blaming their artist or “outside factors, *plus* enough late books from Whedon himself, to put it in that “believe it when I see it” mode. I like Joss Whedon, I *love* most of his TV work and will tune in faithfully if he puts a new show on. Hell, I’ll be first in line for his new Wonder Woman movie… but when it comes to comics, he doesn’t rate for me yet. He’s still gotta prove himself.
Now with sales where they are, I can understand why proving himself to *me* might not be a huge priority at any rate, but it’s what Whedon has to do in order to get guys like me to pipe down about it already. You want the “haters” to quiet down? Prove ‘em wrong.
“Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall” was never solicited and _really_ late, but they did first want it for last year. But that’s a special case, obviously. And actually a good example of soliciting _when_ you can hit it.
The perfect example. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall is coming out on the very day that it was solicited for, because they built the time into the schedule. That’s intelligent planning, and it *should* be the default.
Not that I really cared, but the art on “Bad Planet” was great.. and 2 never came. Tom Jane said they’re going to wait until mini is in can to resolicit the whole thing.
Wow, I forgot about Bad Planet. There was another indy book that just *vanished*.
Looking at your site’s background.. “Local” is just coming out of a “scheduled” delay.. but those who read it but not the internet don’t know that, do they?
True, but Local is like All Star Superman, in that it’s self-contained and it doesn’t matter too terribly much if it runs late. I mean, in an ideal world, it’d be monthly, but the story doesn’t suffer from delays between the issues. Copout? Arguably. But I think one of the key problems of late books is that they really disrupt the flow of the story, and if that problem is removed from the board, lateness becomes less of a problem.
I never said, the old art was weaker, only that back then it was pretty common place to have a more stripped down style, again look through some older comics and in many works, even earlier Perez, you’ll find lots panels that featured few details other than the characters themselves, a lot of the big names today, like Hitch have very elaborate styles, where every panel is filled with details, cf Authority /Ultimates, it just stands to reason that the more detailed artwork gets the longer it’s gonna take to finish.
But there’s the question… is that level of detail really necessary? Or it is just self-indulgence on the part of the artist? I mean, I’ll cop to enjoying that super-detailed art and loving the elaborate backgrounds, but if it’s drawing the story out by literally months, maybe it’s time to strip it down a little to more of the storytelling essentials, skim a little of the flash off the top while retaining the substance.
Especially considering that DC pulled off the year-plus long INFINITE CRISIS without significant delay (as I recall, the only hiccup in the whole thing was IC #7). Marvel basically said, “Oh yeah? We can do a finely-timed, interconnected crossover too! And we can make it awesomer!” only to fall flat on its face. Unsuccessful optimism, people tend to be lenient; failed hype, not so much.
The standard Marvel apologist line is that DC pulled off IC by putting on a bunch of guest artists and weakening the story as a result, and that Marvel is “committed to quality” for sticking with its artist. My take on that is that it’s bullshit, but I’m no huge fan of INFINITE CRISIS either… it’s just that DC has handled the scheduling on its crossover better. They’re certainly guilty of any number of sins on the lateness front, most notably with the All-Star line but also with books like Wonder Woman and certainly others that aren’t coming to mind right now.
The shared universe quality, you’re right, that’s an aspect we didn’t talk about, but now that I think about it, Whedon’s changes and additions in Astonishing are more or less ignored by the other creative teams, because they don’t know when the reading public will know about them. So they have to leave them alone to avoid spoiling Whedon’s stories.
14 Oct 2006 at 12:08 pm
QuoteBut there’s the question… is that level of detail really necessary? Or it is just self-indulgence on the part of the artist? I mean, I’ll cop to enjoying that super-detailed art and loving the elaborate backgrounds, but if it’s drawing the story out by literally months, maybe it’s time to strip it down a little to more of the storytelling essentials, skim a little of the flash off the top while retaining the substance.
And maybe it is self-indulgence to some degree, I dunno, but then I’m also inclined to say, hey if ya got it, why not flaunt it.
Well I suppose none of it is really “necessary” one could tell a perfectly understandable tale with just stick figures.
But I get what yer sayin, is it really adding to the stories content? Well, in some ways probably not, though I would argue that other than the “flash” factor of just being pretty to look at, that level of detail does add a certain something in the way of mood that works very well for some stories, much like a very stripped down style, like say from someone like Frank Miller adds a different kind of mood that also works very well for other kinds of stories.
Does it add enough to justify the months of delays? Or when does it become too much and hurt more than help? Again to some degree a matter of opinion and from what I seen one with permutations depending on the type of story being told i.e. serial vs. self contained, reader expectations and how upfront the publisher the publisher is about the delays.
14 Oct 2006 at 5:56 pm
QuoteWell I suppose none of it is really “necessary” one could tell a perfectly understandable tale with just stick figures.
Touche.
But I get what yer sayin, is it really adding to the stories content? Well, in some ways probably not, though I would argue that other than the “flash” factor of just being pretty to look at, that level of detail does add a certain something in the way of mood that works very well for some stories, much like a very stripped down style, like say from someone like Frank Miller adds a different kind of mood that also works very well for other kinds of stories.
A reasonable point. To undercut my own point, I believe that the Ultimates 3 is going to have an uphill battle convincing readers that the more Silver Age-y style of Jeph Loeb and anime style of Joe Madeureira is a good fit for the realistic art and over-the-top writing of Hitch and Millar. Hitch’s detailed backdrops give Ultimates a lot of its atmosphere, and I don’t think the book would work so well without that added flash.
I’m not sure I believe, as a counter-example, that Cassaday’s damn near photo-real art adds that much to Astonishing X-Men. A good solid realist, like a Michael Ryan (who is good enough for Whedon’s Runaways, in Marvel’s eyes) or Tom Grummett, etc. would be perfectly fine, and since Whedon’s is the name selling it, I believe it would still be doing good enough business to make up the sales. Especially when you consider it would be published twice as often, if Whedon is to be believed about his timeliness with scripts.
But Cassaday *is* essential to Planetary. His work there gives the book a look and feel that most other artists couldn’t quite capture, unless you’re talking about other perennially late artists like Frank Quitely or Bryan Hitch.
Maybe there are some series where the lateness is more or less required to make the series work (and Ultimates is probably one of them, meaning the blame lies more with editorial and scheduling on that one), and some series where it’s an indulgence (like Astonishing X-Men, or any big icon book like Batman, Superman, etc.)
14 Oct 2006 at 7:31 pm
QuoteOverall I don’t let the lateness of books affect whether I buy them … especiially if it is something like Ultimates. But I do hate having to go pull the last issue and re-read it so that the new one makes since - it makes those opening one page summaries at the front of the book required reading.
I do hate the timing of the announcement of the lateness of the deliveries. That’s just bad project management … to announce one or two weeks before it was suppose to deliver that the book will be two months late means that somebody had not been minding the project. If something is going to be two months late, then they knew they were late two months ago. I don’t care who’s “fault” it is - artist, writer, clean-up crew - the editor is in charge of the project.
15 Oct 2006 at 12:29 pm
QuoteMy 2 cents? Barring illness by writer, artist, inker etc., I find lateness to be unforgiveable. Having said that, once I’ve invested some time in a book, I’m highly unlikely to drop the book while the current storyline is ongoing. Once the storyline comes to a close though…..chances are you’re about to get dropped.
Now I have to say I am very much against one of the topics you discussed, that being alternating artists. Nothing causes me to lose interest more than revolving artists, more so than lateness infact. During your podcast you actually mentioned my alltime worst offender (and appearantly many others, so you say) and that would be the Kordey/Quietly switching that occurred on New X-Men a few years ago. kordey’s ‘art’ killed that book for me.
So while I hate lateness, I’d rather see the original team finish what they started.
15 Oct 2006 at 9:24 pm
QuoteThe problem is, though, if you can’t have alternating artists, but you want the level of artist quality that folks have come to expect, you pretty much have to have lateness. Or bi-monthly books, which is basically institutionalized lateness when you’re talking about superhero comics.
I mean, yeah, it’d be nice if you could have guys like Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely, etc. on a monthly basis… but while you’re wishing, you may as well ask for a personal flying unicorn as well.
I will say that while I think Kordey’s art was rushed on New X-Men, I never had the loathing that so many seemed to have for it. And I’m frankly just floored by the number of people who outright dislike his work. Look at Kordey’s work when he’s not on unreasonable deadline, such as his work on Cable or IDW’s Smoke, and it’s amazing. But then, lots of folks don’t like Frank Quitely’s style, finding that ugly or bizarre as well, and lots of folks love Michael Turner and Marc Silvestri and think that’s the pinnacle of art. The lesson? Tastes vary.
And of course, that Igor Kordey is a great artist, and folks who say otherwise are wrong.
16 Oct 2006 at 1:50 am
Quote