How to do it right
In the past, plenty of comics got it right. My favorite American comic is the Fantastic Four. Back in the early 1960s, sales rocketed upwards in a way that has never been equaled. let's have a look at those issues, shall we?
Issue 3: five chapters: a new villain, a complete multi-part battle, new costumes, a new vehicle, the Torch quits... a packed issue! These early issues also found space for extra feature pages explaining how the super powers worked. No wonder they sold so well.
A page is a lot of space!
If you think the old Fantastic Four comics were good value, you should read Ken Reid's Jonah. It was reprinted in the 1980s in Buddy comic, and the second time around it was given large white margins for some reason, so the printed area was exactly the same as a page of an American comic.
Imagine if American comics had this level of detail. An entire chapter would fit on a single page. A 22 page comic book wouldn't be a book, it would be War And Peace!
Issue 9: five chapters: the FF become bankrupt, they become movie stars, they battle the sub mariner, and Ben briefly becomes human again. Any one of these would today be expanded into a whole issue, or even a multi-issue arc.
Issue 11: two complete stories! The first features a new character (indeed, a new planet and a new race who appear in later stories), complete with origin story, battles and resolution. The second story covers a ton of interesting featured demanded by the readers themselves!
Issue 17: the cover says it all! Five different scenarios; and a first for comics: the heroes are defeated! (But only for a while). Plus we see world leaders in their various locations, the hunt for doom, the battle, and the whole thing is wrapped up nicely by the end. It is rightly described as "an epic tale." And all within a single issue.
Issue 1 had two stories (the second one in two parts): the origin, the first major battles, a new villain (complete with origin story), we see all the FF in action several times, we discover the underground world... so much packed into so few pages!
Issue 2: four chapters: a new galactic race is discovered and defeated, the FF are declared enemies of the state, the kinds of events that are today reserved for a multi-title cross-over event. And all for ten cents!
Issue 4: five chapters: we learn more about the FF, the Torch returns, they rediscover the Sub Mariner, he attacks, they go after him, the story has a climax and resolution... each of these chapters would be at least a whole issue today.
Issue 5: five chapters: the first appearance of Doctor Doom, they travel to Latveria, they have adventures back in time, the whole story wraps up... fantastic value for money!
Issue 10: five chapters, featuring a complete multi part battle with Doom, a major character change that has been used to great effect in later years (Doom learns to mind swap), and Stan and Jack appear on the cover! A gem.
Issue 8: five chapters, a complete story including the introduction of two major characters who would feature prominently thereafter
Issue 7: five chapters: the FF are outlawed, they travel to the stars, they save a world, and we have more drama and tragedy than today we see in a whole year!
Issue 6: five chapters: the first and greatest team up between their two greatest (and most interesting) foes. Often copied, never equaled.
Issue 15: "A book length saga!" A major new villain, developments in the private lives of the FF, plans, battles, this one has it all, and it's all neatly wrapped up at the end of the book. A classic! Plus another pinup page for added value. Stan and Jack really give you your money's worth and more.
Issue 14: one chapter - it starts with the label "part 1" but then events move so fast that they don't have space to insert "part 2"! Two old villains return, Reed has a period of introspection, we see the results of fame, the FF travel from up in space to under the sea, we have battles, and more! This is the first story that is not broken into chapters, and it works because it's a novelty.
Issue 13: four chapters: the origin and first appearance of the Red Ghost and his super apes; the first appearance of the Watcher; the FF travel to the moon; and we even have space for a bonus feature page! A whole trade paperback origins collection in one issue. Such value!
Issue 12: four chapters: "A book length epic! Need we say more?" This was the first major cross-over story. The cover screamed "At last!" because the readers had been waiting eleven long issues for this. Back then, eleven issues was a very long time. Readers expected a lot, and they got it. Note that a in-continuity crossover was a new idea fr comics. These issues were exciting because the ideas were new! Since then, comics have played safe by copying the old formulas, and nobody cares any more.
Issue 16: this one is so packed that it needs a whole splash page just to describe what is to come: the FF journey to the micro world! They team up with Ant Man! Dr Doom Returns! "22 pulse pounding pages" A satisfying epic. Even though Dr Doom returns the next issue, this issue has a proper ending. Nobody is left feeling they only bought half a story. In contrast, today's comics give you "part 3 of 6" and you have to fork out a fistful of dollars and wait half a year to see what happens. back then the writers respected the readers and knew who was boss.
Issue 18: the return of some old villains, a new "all powerful" villain, a lengthy battle (one of the longest yet), and all within one issue.
Issue 19: a new villain, complete with origin story; they travel to Latveria, then back in time, they battle, they lose their powers, the are enslaved, they regain their powers, more fighting, the story wraps up.... by this point the magazine has long dispensed with the chapter numbers, but just as much happens in each issue.
Issue 20: another new villain! And another complete tale! These issues were so popular that every one of these villains has appeared again and again in later years, often with enhanced powers or with their own series.
Issue 21: "a book-length bombshell!" Back in those days, the editors were proud to give their valued readers a complete book-length epic every issue. This one features a new villain, a major guest-star, social issues, infighting, and so much more for just 12 cents!
And so it goes on! Each issue is packed full of story, or soap opera developments, of new characters, of action, with a complete "book length" novel for just a few cents. no wonder the readers kept coming back for more! Back then a comic book was a real book.
Comics used to be value for money
then they committed economic suicide
Now compare a modern, uncompressed comic
I picked up a modern comic and scanned the first page it opened at. This is from "Fantastic Four: The End" by Alan Davis. Davis is one of the very best modern comic creators, Trust me, this is one of the best. I could have found a lot worse.
Steranko shows how to do it right
Maybe you think I'm being unfair, comparing a humor comic to a more serious comic? Here's a page by Jim Steranko from a horror comic (Tower of Shadows). It has even more frames than the Jonah example, yet has a slow pace and lots of space. Note how the language is modern and sparse. Sure, it's not perfectly naturalistic, but then neither is the Alan Davis example above. It also uses cheaper printing which gives clearer lines and brings the price of the comic down. Bottom line: it's a great story, and great value for money. Here are other examples.
It's not hard. Any good storyteller can do it.
There is no reason to waste space in a comic. Any good writer can tell a good story in a small space. Here are more examples. Newspaper strips do it all the time. And they're read by a whole lot more people than read comics in book form.
Here's just one example. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against full page pictures. But a full page picture should be an event, something rare and amazing, something to take your breath away. Something you will examine for minutes and remember for years. Not just a way for the artist to finish the book more quickly.
The first rule of business is: give your customers value for money. Old comics used to be great value for money. Click here for the best comics in the world.
Why did they do it??
Why did comics commit economic suicide? One word: video. Comics saw the rise of video and reacted in the worst possible way: trying to take comics more like movies. This is a battle that comics can never win:
The rise of video: a business perspective
Comics only have one advantage over other media: efficiency at story telling. A comic can tell a story in less time and in less space than a book or video, and it's cheaper to produce. Meanwhile, videos have two big advantages over books and comics: videos require no reading, and they move.
So the rational response to video is to focus on comics' strength: efficient story telling. Yet instead, comics decided to reduce the amount of reading and increase the number of frames! Comics can never reduce the reading to zero, and can never reach twenty four frames a second, but in doing so they become a thousand times more expensive. This is a battle comics will always lose.
So why did comics choose the suicidal option? To answer that we need to understand the history of comics and how businesses think.
History: why comics appealed to children
Comics have always been the most efficient way to tell a story, but for hundreds of years printing pictures was difficult. Story tellers would use mainly words, and only use pictures to illustrate what was already in the text. As a result, serious writers and serious readers knew that serious books meant words, not pictures.
When printing pictures became cheaper (in the late Victorian era) comics became possible, but the prejudice was there: comics were only for non-serious subjects: humor, or children.
Why businesses think short term
Business is all about short term profit. Businesses need to pay bills now. They have to pay wages, rent, printing costs, shareholders, etc. If something works, they jump on it. If someone says "I have a better idea, but it requires some long term thinking," they need a lot of persuasion.
For centuries there has been the idea that "picture stories are not serious" so it was hard to sell serious comics to adults, but easy to sell them to children. Hence "comics" has always meant "children."
(A tangent: Japan and the post video era)
Incidentally, Japan has always used picture writing, so it's more acceptable for adults to read comics: hence the massive sales of manga. But the difficulty in printing was still an issue, so serious ideas still used the regular alphabet. The same idea that "comics are dumb" still applies to a degree in Japan, hence manga still sells more to kids than adults.
Now that video is everywhere, everyone accepts that pictures are a legitimate way to tell serious stories, so it is becoming a little less embarrassing for adults to read comics, but we still have centuries of tradition to overcome.
The worst possible response to video
Comics have traditionally been bought by children, and businesses are cautious, so when they saw the kids were watching videos instead, their reaction was "we should make comics more like videos!" So comics became glossier, with more space to the pictures and fewer words (I'm talking about western superhero comics here, to keep everything simple).
This strategy is suicidal because comics if comics try to compete with video on video's turf, video will always win.
Why comics find it hard to change
The only rational approach would be to focus on comics' unique strength: efficient story telling. For purely economic reasons, comics need to tells the same stories in fewer pages. But publishers find it very hard to change, for many reasons:
1. Inertia. They've been doing it wrong for a generation: it's all they know.
2. Lack of vision. Publishers ignore comics' only unique strength (efficient story telling)
3. Selective memory. Publishers remember some bad examples of old comics, and think this was due to compression no, this was due to talent being badly paid and having no expectation that their work would be read more than once.
4. Subjectivity. Publishers see expository dialog as artificial, without realizing that cinema style language is just as artificial.
5. Self-selection. The only people still buying comics are the small minority who like what is being produced.
6. Defeatism. Talent doesn't expect their work to ever find new fans, so they design it for existing fans. For example, artists create many full page splash pages as the original art can be then sold to fans to hang on their walls.
7. In the case of Marvel and DC, the sliding time scale makes realistic stories impossible.
Online is irrelevant in the long term
Many people see digital distribution as the answer. This may give a short term boost, as it potentially makes comics cheaper and more accessible. But the same is true of video, books, and all the other competitors.
Online distribution does not address the fundamental issue: how are comics better than video?
What is the answer?
This page is mainly about the economics of decompressed stories. An economic problem needs an economic solution. When faced with an over-priced product, you can go one of three ways:
1. Accept lower and lower sales.
2. Make the product more desirable.
3. Lower the price* **
*The price includes the time needed to enjoy it: decompressed stories take longer to read and so deliver less value.
**The price included the time needed to find it. This is why known brands sell better.
It's not easy to create comics that are serious, compressed, yet also fun and accessible. Yet it is possible. Learn from the masters and see how it's done.
How comics killed themselves
Adjusted for inflation, a typical comic cost $0.76 in 1965, $0.99 in 1975, $1.22 in 1985, $1.97 in 1995, $3.30 in 2005 and $3.99 in 2010. At the start of the 1960s each 76c comic contained three stories. Adjusted for inflation, each story cost $0.25. By 2010 a typical story takes six issues, and costs $23.94. In real terms this is a
9,576% price hike
per complete story. But if felt worse: ignoring inflation, the price per story rose by
60,000%
And if you want to understand a typical cross-over event, you need to read ten times that.
I can't think of a better way to drive away readers. Why did they do it? Why did the comics industry commit economic suicide? Before answering that, let's look at how it used to be: