Within issue 1242, the Comic Shop News ran their 20th Annual Red K awards, and there are a couple of comments from there I would like to share with everyone.
*Chris Nelson commented on the fact that while DC and Marvel are arguing over whether the "standard" (quotes mine) comic book should be 20/22 story pages at $2.99 or 30 story pages at $3.99, he points out that Archie has been offering an average of 64 story pages per issue within their Life With Archie magazine, and wonders why The Big Two can't do the same.
("The Buck Stops Here Award", page 7, 2nd column, although I'm guessing his page count is also including the articles)
*Meanwhile, Matthew Corlew points out that despite the price argument, Superman: Earth One outsold any other Superman title that month, despite its price point. Corlew goes on to say "Maybe publishers should worry less about making comics cheaper or more expensive and just try to make them better." (emphasis his)
("The Price Matters Not Award", page 6, third column)
The floor is now open for thoughts, comments, and opinions.
Replies
As for me, I had no problem paying the extra dollar on selective DCs for either a good back up feature (Detective Comics, Doom Patrol) or extra pages to the main feature (Justice League).
I could not see giving extra pages to Green Arrow/Black Canary just to have one of the title stars go off in solo action. If that feature concentrated upon Connor or Mia, then they would have had something.
My finances cannot afford to support every title I read going to $3.99 per issue, so I am happy that DC has made an effort to address the situation. But I hope that the story page count goes no lower. I have lived through the days of only getting 17 story pages per issue and don't want to see those times again!
Yet while a lot of the Independents are starting at $3.99, Chris Nelson does have a point about Archie's magazine format.
Is that the way publishers will go in the future for print copies? Will everything actually be "published" digitally instead? Either way, stories would still have to be written, drawn, lettered, and colored first.
So what is the answer?
I haven't seen Comic Shop News in years -- nobody around here carries it -- but to the specific question being raised, I'd say I don't understand why Marvel and DC, or anybody else for that matter, isn't doing Life With Archie-style comics. A larger-size comic with a glossy cover, some minor celebrity features, and not one, not two, but now three full-length tales in each issue! That is, "Archie Loves Betty," "Archie Loves Veronica," and now "Jinx." I definitely feel like I get my money's worth each time out!
I wouldn't expect it to become the standard offering, but that kind of package ought to be in the mix.
The thing stopping the Archie 64 page format is probably a factor raised by Joe Q at Marvel in an interview I read. I'm pretty sure the quality of printing/paper in the Archie digests is lower than we expect for current Marvel/DC comics. I think the glossy, hyper-detailed Ivan Reis style we've reached now wouldn't translate at all into the digest format. I'd go as far as to say it is a dead end for comics. It also makes clear coherent comics storytelling take a back seat to heavily rendered illustration.
Joe Q said that writers and artists demand to do their work in the high-quality paper/printing, and if either of the big two cut back, the best writers and artists would head over to the other camp.
I think it's a dead end because I look at Manga comics like Death Note, Pluto and 20th Century Boys and they have put clear comicbook storytelling that has lots of pages to tell its story ahead of expensive glossy surfaces and detailed finishes. They are a more 'pure' comics storytelling form than the current art fashion at DC/Marvel. The Manga style also lends itself to cheaper thick-format reproduction without losing much in the way of clarity or picture quality.
Okay .. but Life With Archie isn't a digest. It's the same size and shape as a magazine, like Time or Essence or Sports Illustrated, and has a glossy cover like those. And, up until two issues ago, Life With Archie also had the same kind of glossy paper. It recently switched to a cheaper, more newsprint-like paper that's still heavier than the newsprint used in traditional comics, about the same time it added the third regular feature, "Jinx."
So, with that in mind, I don't understand why Marvel or DC, or anybody else for that matter, isn't doing something similar. Especially as Life With Archie is positioned in the magazine racks at places like CVS, right next to the teen gossip magazines.
As for me, I had no problem paying the extra dollar on selective DCs for either a good back up feature (Detective Comics, Doom Patrol) or extra pages to the main feature (Justice League).
The problem is that most of the second features weren't very good. And despite Corlew's comments, there's no real way to get around that. if the guys are good enough, they're going to be working on a primary feature instead of a back- up strip.
I'm not going to pay extra money for something I'm not interested in. I didn't drop every title that had a second feature but it was a factor in my decision to drop a couple of them.
If DC was going to do any magazines, Action Comics (with a Superman lead) and Detective Comics (with a Batman lead) would be the obvious choices to spearhead the project. What would be the other features in each is open to debate, but if they did (had to) include articles, I just hope they would not be aimed at a "teeny-bopper" audience, for that is the one thing I have against Life With Archie.
Format wise, Adventure Comics would also be a natural magazine, but wouldn't you need a dependable (at least sales wise) lead feature to anchor the title?
Of course any DC magazine would automatically be excluded from tie-ins, because while comic book stores would carry the magazines (like they are with LwA) the regular news stand at your local Wal*Mart, Target, etc; doesn't.
But in response to something Jeff said earlier, while comic books may go digital in the future, there is a download/subscription fee. Maybe things are different on Earth-J, but the point is you would still be spending some money to read whatever you want to. Besides, what if a file gets corrupted or your computer is infected with some virus? What happens to your digital collection then?
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