The medium is the message

With all the hype surrounding Apple's new iPad, the comic industry is get a big, collective erection. One of the biggest limiting factors in this industry has long been the distribution method.

HISTORY

Originally, the industry was based on distributing low-quality printings to the same places that carry magazines. As demand grew for back issues, this created a specialty market resulting in comic book stores popping up all over in the eighties. This, in turn, created new marketing opportunities... particularly to sell ancillary merchandise that could not be sold on the magazine rack... like posters, statues, or T-shirts.

A company called Diamond Comic Distributors quickly dominated distribution and pushed out most of the competition (including the second largest distributor, Bud Plant Inc, located in my little home town... which currently doesn't even have a comic store). In 1997, the US Department of Justice investigated the company for antitrust violations. Although they were found to enjoy a monopoly in comic distribution, they were somehow not penalized because they don't enjoy a monopoly on distributing all books.

How they ever got that far into the investigation without realizing this is beyond me. Your tax dollars at work!

In the late eighties and early nineties with the industry enjoying some hard earned artificial inflation due to a suspect spectator's market, comic books were being collected in TPBs (trade paperbacks). The advantage of this format was that it collected older material that was often difficult to find or prohibitively expensive. It also moved the comic collection from cardboard boxes to bookshelves.

NOW

This brings us to today and it is a very interesting time. Despite the success of ancillary marketing (read: comic-based films), comic book stores continue to decline due to an ever dwindling audience. It seems that the people reading comics now are the same people who were reading them before... they are just paying more now.

There has been a lot of talk about ending single issue distribution and concentrating on graphic novels. (Vocab break - A TPB is a collection of individual issues, usually between six and twelve. A graphic novel is a more book-like format, but was originally intended for this format, unlike a TPB.) In fact, DC is trying this approach out with their upcoming Superman: Earth One and Batman: Earth One titles. The advantage of this format is that the anxious reader can follow the story from start to finish without waiting for individual issues to be released. Also, the artists are not limited to telling a 22-page arc within each issue. Chapter lengths may be non-standard.

And as I said in my introduction, the comic industry is stoked about the iPad and hopes that they can model comic book distribution in the same way iTunes distributes music. This would allow them to cut out printing costs and discounts to retailers, so its great for them... although I wonder if their contracts with the artists would entitle them to royalties. Since the comic industry doesn't have a union, this seems unlikely.

EXPLOITATION

For years now I have been angry at this industry for its blatant exploitation of their reader-based, often to the detriment of their stories and characters. But my biggest current complaint is with the way that they try to sell the customer the same thing multiple times. Naturally, the most abused victims of this practice tends to be the most loyal reader.

I will use DC's All-Star Superman and Batman: Hush as examples, but Marvel is no less guilty. These are two storylines meant to be read as a twelve issue arc. Both were extremely popular and sold extremely well.

Oct 2002 - Batman #608 begins the Hush storyarc
May 2003 - Batman: Hush Vol. 1 (hardcover)
Nov 2003 - Batman #619 ends the Hush storyarc
Jan 2004 - Vol. 2 (hardcover)
Aug 2004 - Vol. 1 (paperback)
Nov 2004 - Vol. 2 (paperback)
Oct 2005 - Absolute Batman: Hush
Aug 2009 - Batman: Hush (paperback) - complete

Jan 2006 - All-Star Superman #1 is released.
April 2007 - All-Star Superman Vol. 1 (hardcover)
Sep 2008 - All-Star Superman Vol. 1 (paperback)
Oct 2008 - All-Star Superman #12 (the final issue) is released.
Feb 2009 - All-Star Superman Vol. 2 (hardcover)
Feb 2010 - All-Star Superman Vol. 2 (paperback)
Oct 2010 - Absolute All-Star Superman

As you can see, if you wanted a book collecting the entire series of Batman: Hush at a reasonable price, you would have to wait almost six years! In the meantime, no indication was given that such a collection would ever exist.

So let's say that you are a comic fan. You purchased the Batman: Hush series when it came out for $2.25 per issue for a total cost of $27 spread out over a year. If you don't want to ruin your comics, but like to lend them to your friends, you probably want a TPB... plus the gorgeous art of Jim Lee warrants this kind of format. You can buy the hardcover release almost a year later, but since it only collects half the story, it isn't much of a convenience. Because of the hardcover, the price is marked up to $20. The paperback would sell for $15, but unless you are a smart consumer, you wouldn't know that; besides, you have to wait almost another year for that to come out. If you want its matching companion, wait almost another year.

But let's say you are holding out for the COMPLETE collection because you figure that you are buying a TPB so that you can just hold one volume in your hands instead of multiple. For you, they release Absolute Batman: Hush (now two years after the series end). This $100 massive, over-sized, hardcover collected edition is only for the most dedicated of readers and frankly not worth the cost, despite Jim Lee's art work. If you are precognitive, maybe you'll just wait another four years for them to finally release the collected edition you wanted in the first place: one book collecting the entire story in paperback at a fair price, if you consider $30 fair (which is equal to the original TPBs but more than the original issues or hardcover editions).

So if you are the ideal demographic (a real comic nerd), you bought the original issues when they came out because you wanted to read the story when it was released and you were afraid that it might be spoiled for you if you waited. You then purchased both hardcover editions to grace your bookshelf, but because they were rushed into production, the book is full of printing errors making it more difficult to read then your original issues. When the Absolute edition came out at $75, you snapped it up and sold your old hardcovers at the used bookstore. This means that you spent a total of... $132 (discounting $10 from the used bookstore) for a story worth $27. As you can see, they have more or less repeated this pattern for All-Star Superman and Marvel does the same thing.

Another recent scam is to fill a book with extra content and increase the price to compensate. For example, I recently purchased Uncanny X-Men: Manifest Destiny Vol. 1 for $25 featuring a four-issue turning point for the X-Men. Normally, a four issue TPB would run about $10, but the publisher "graciously" saw fit to add stories created by other writers and artists that were included in other titles. This means that I am buying things I don't want because I like my comics on my bookshelf instead of in my closet.

BACKLASH

Many comic readers have stopped buying single issues all together and only purchase trade paperbacks. Because it can take such a ridiculously long time to get a decent collected edition (and because they don't want to spend so much money on something they haven't read), many have taken to torrenting (or pirating) comic books. This way they can read the story before they buy.

Publishers (like all entertainment industry execs) have done their best to show how disgusted they are by pirating and have equated those who download comics as nothing more than thieves. Certainly, they figure that anything they do to artificially raise sales is just good business, but what their audience does to save money is thievery. Naturally, the artists (normally bastions of social justice) have largely been quiet on this issue because anything that increases sales increases royalties.

Here is a bit of free advice, guys. If you are going to do everything possible to exploit someone, you shouldn't be surprised when they resort to cheating.

THE GOOD

Lately, however, there have been a lot of creative efforts to repackage comics to appeal to a new audience. In my opinion, the best efforts have been made by releasing smaller, but thicker books. This cuts down on printing cost while offering the reader considerably more story. Great examples of this include indy comics Strangers in Paradise, Sin City, and Bone. Dark Horse has also made use of the Omnibus format to repackage material that they have a lot of and sell it to an audience that might not normally be interested.

DC's oversized Absolute editions are sexy as all get out, but the price tag is a bit ridiculous. The first volumes retailed at $50 each (which I think is fair), but later volumes increased to $75 and even $100. These large pages are great for comics with particularly beautiful art, but few can justify such a hefty price tag.

On the other hand, Marvel's Omnibus editions are giant-sized hardcovers for a hefty $100 price tag, but they don't just give you bigger pages, they give you more story... generally ranging from 24 issues to 30. By comparison, Absolute editions generally range from six to twelve issues. Granted, the Absolute editions have bigger pages, but it still isn't worth it.

THE BAD

Marvel and DC are unfortunately not as generous when collecting old material. DC is collecting their original superhero adventures from the golden and silver ages using their Chronicles line. Currently featuring the earliest adventures of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and Wonder Woman at roughly $15 for 160 pages. This is roughly equal to new collected editions.

Marvel is releasing similar volumes featuring their most popular characters in their original adventures under the Marvel Masterworks line. These retail for $25 for roughly 270 issues... making it roughly the same deal.

Considering the low cost of overhead and the generally poor quality of entertainment you will gain from reading most of these stories, I really think these companies could have offered a better deal. By making older comics available at discounted prices, it would help to expose readers to the classic history of your characters thereby promoting a greater base of readers.

THE UGLY

Marvel and DC's response to interest in older comics has largely been to release large, cheap, black and white editions collecting their classic material. Marvel's Essential line started this trend and DC responded with their Showcase line. Both volumes retail for roughly $18 to collect about 30 issues. While the price is good, the stories lose so much without color. Back in the day, these books sold almost entirely based on the aesthetic appeal of the pop art. The bold use of color matches the ridiculousness of the plot and makes the book fun.

All of this is to say that the comic companies have created their own problems. If they would stick to serving their customer instead of their stockholders, maybe they would be able to maintain customer loyalty. Instead, they are taking advantage of their most loyal customers who are becoming fewer and far between. It doesn't matter if you can find a new method of distribution. It is your philosophy that needs to change.