[Comic Book Publishing] – How Comic Books Came to Be What They Are Today (and How It Affects A Publisher)

Thinking about publishing comic books? You might want to think again after you read this article. Comic books have a long and interesting history, and the format we read today is a result of many different choices that were made along the road.

Believe it or not, the format we use for comics today happened as much by accident as anything else. Prior to the 1930s, comics came in many different sizes, such as 7″ x 9″, 10″ x 13″, and the tabloid-sized 11″ x 17″. But the current size, 6 ?” × 10 ¼”, traces its history back to a comic called Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics. Though this book is often erroneously called the first comic book (it’s not), it’s probably the first comic book that modern readers would recognize as such.

One story behind it is that a printing company called Eastern Color, Inc. was trying to find ways to keep the presses rolling during the Great Depression, and a sales manager named Harry I. Wildenberg was idly folding a newspaper broadsheet. He folded it once into the tabloid size, and then folded it again. It occurred to him that this produced a tidy little book in which newspaper strips could be printed. Another story attributes this idea to Maxwell “Charlie” Gaines, who is generally credited as the creator of the modern comic book format. Gaines happened upon some old newspapers in his mother’s attic, and started reading through the comics pages. As the story goes, he realized that people would be interested in reading reprints of these old strips, and he pitched the idea to Eastern, who’d published tabloid-sized books in the past. Gaines suggested that they fold the tabloid books in half and use a saddle-stitching binding to create a small book.

Whichever way it happened, the size of the book was a little bit larger than the modern format (reduction to the current size occurred years later), but the benefits were obvious: a smaller book allowed the publisher to cram more comics inside, and it was just as easy to produce a 64-page comic book as it was to produce a 32 page tabloid-sized book. Thus the modern comic was born. (Interestingly enough, this format an American convention; in Britain, comic books have traditionally been printed in full-size magazines.)

But the size of comic books isn’t the only thing that has its roots in industry history…

Prior to the last decade or so, most comic books have followed a magazine subscription model and been supported primarily by advertising. This, too, derives from the Depression era. In those days, people had little to spend and looked for inexpensive methods of entertainment. Eastern approached department stores and convinced them to offer free comic books, containing reprints of popular newspaper strips, that contained advertisements and coupons. The idea was that these books would help promote the stores and bring in new customers. Some stores tried the concept, and though it worked, they weren’t interested in making heavy use of the idea. But what’s important to note here is that practically from the start, comic books have been used as a promotional vehicle.

The idea of circulation fees was soon to follow. Gaines took a bunch of the unsold books and stamped “10 cents” on the cover, and convinced some local newstands to offer them for sale. To everyone’s surprise, the books sold out, and there was demand for more. Eastern went on to produce the Famous Funnies series, which initially lost money with its 10-cent price tag, but which eventually was making the company over $30,000 a month. Though Famous Funnies was an anthology book that featured Buck Rogers adventures, reprints of humorous comics like Mutt and Jeff and Joe Palooka, it also featured non-comic content such as puzzles and games.

When Gaines left Eastern (or was kicked out, depending upon the source of the story), he went on to work with a comics syndicate to create a rival publisher. Other publishers formed as well (including the companies that would become Marvel and DC), and comics became a hot new style of storytelling.

But what’s interesting about comic books is that they were never treated like regular books; like their cousins, the dime store novels, they were frowned upon by the literary world and could only be found in places like newstands and drugstores alongside magazines. And, much like the pulp novels and magazines, they were considered disposable entertainment, meant to be read casually and stored in careless piles. Comic book readers of the 1940s, 50s and 60s would have been surprised to learn that decades down the road, comic book buyers would be bagging and boarding each book they purchased.

Through the Golden and Silver ages, comics had circulation numbers similar to magazines; they were designed for the mass market, and many featured three or four short comic stories in an effort to provide something for everyone. In the Golden age, continuity was not important, and each story stood on its own. In the Silver age, some stories began to have continuity, particularly in the Marvel universe. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that a demand for deeper, darker stories began to emerge. This was the point at which most comics began to feature single stories that played out in a serialized fashion, which is most like the comics we have today.

It was around this time that comic book stores began showing up. Since comic books had traditionally been a newstand item, they were treated like magazines — publishers overshipped orders, and retailers would tear off the covers after 30 days and submit them for credit on unsold copies. This meant that comics were extremely hard to collect once they became back issues. Some fans would write to the publishers and attempt to order them, but with limited success. Comic book shops thus evolved to serve the demand for back issues, and also to provide fans with a place where they could consistently find new issues. This also led to the rise of the comic book collector — individuals whom were interested in building up personal collections of old and hard-to-find books.

Since these shops were operating on thin margins with little control over their product, a distribution system that has come to be known as the “Direct Market” eventually evolved. The idea behind the direct market was that comic book retailers would purchase books on a non-returnable basis in exchange for larger discounts. Several distributors offered services to this market (you can read about one retailer’s famous experiences here), but big publishers such as Marvel and DC ignored the shops entirely, relying on the newstand magazine style of selling books instead. It was not until 1979 that Marvel opened itself up to work with specialty shops, and DC didn’t follow suit until the 1980s. Additionally, newstand and subscription sales continued during this time, though they dwindled every year.

The comic books of the 1980s began to set the stage for many of the modern marketing conventions we see today; epic crossovers, one-shot side stories, and prestige format books (later assigned to the title “graphic novel”) all become quite common during this time. Comic books were still primarily supported by advertising, and they were still printed on low-quality newsprint and designed to be disposable products. Superhero comics received a pop culture boost from the blockbuster Superman (1978) and Batman (1988) films, and both Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk had live-action TV shows to complement Spider-Man’s Saturday morning cartoon show. Then, as is the case now, the comic books were almost ancillary products to their licensed products; far more people saw the movies and television shows than ever read the comic books.

The 1980s also led to a spike in comic book collecting, which ushered in an era of speculation as the 1990s rolled around. Every now and then, a story would surface in the news about someone getting rich selling off an old comic book or baseball card, and many people wanted a piece of the action. Thus it became normal for comic book companies to relaunch series and put out multiple variants of each book. The more often a publisher could launch a book as a “#1,” the better– would-be collectors would buy up one or more copies, bag them up individually in plastic with cardboard backing boards, and carefully set them in a long box in their closet to ensure they didn’t lose their value. When seven major Marvel artists left to form their own company, Image Comics, they were able to ride this trend so well that their initial books sold much better than they should have. The poster child was Spawn #1, which sold 1.7 million copies, primarily to speculators who were hoping the book would be a good investment. (As of 2008, I believe it’s still valued at around a penny.)

DC Comics found a great way to manipulate the media in 1992 by killing off Superman; the trick has since been re-used by Marvel to announce the death of Captain America. (DC may re-use this trick as well down the road, since many rumors have circulated that they’re planning on killing off Batman.)

Still, despite all the buzz, the 1990s nearly killed comics, for several reasons:

It was getting harder and harder to find comics outside of comic book stores, thanks to distributors focusing on the direct market. Though comic book stores went through an incredible boom during this period, most went bust quickly. This resulted in stagnating the growth of the industry and hurting the publishers as stores began to close.
Over the course of a decade, prices for individual issues doubled, making it hard for fans to collect large numbers of books. At the same time, Marvel more than doubled the number of books it was producing each month, putting severe financial strain on retailers and turning off those who had been long-term collectors.
Several new publishers jumped into the fray, attempting to make money off the higher prices that were being charged for books in lieu of an advertising-supported model. Decreasing demand, combined with a sudden increase in supply, hurt everyone involved.
Marvel went through a bankruptcy process in the mid-’90s, and also purchased a distributor in an attempt to control its own supply chain. Marvel also made a series of bad business decisions, including contradictory licensing agreements and the purchase of trading card companies. Though Marvel went public in the early ’90s, its stock was overvalued by the end of the decade. (You can read more about this in the book Comic Wars, which details the power struggles that were going on at Marvel.)
The distribution system narrowed down to two very competitive companies: Diamond Comic Distributors and Capital City Distributors. Both companies were constantly trying to steal market share from the other, and though Diamond won out eventually, their feud resulted in oversaturating the market with too many stores and too much product.
Many comics were produced as “gimmicks” rather than actual books. This was the era of the triple-gate-fold holo-foil covers, the summer swimsuit issues, the “Valiant Vision” glasses, and other such nonsense.

Thus the current system we have today, with a near-monopolistic distribution system, high-priced books, low circulation numbers, a decreased reliance on advertising, gimmick sales and dwindling retailers, is a direct result of the 1990s.

The 21st century has been marked by a few new changes:

Licensed books became popular following a brief wave of 1980s nostalgia, and though most of the ’80s comics proved to be a fad, licensing has helped publishers such as IDW, Devil’s Due, Dynamite Entertainment and the Dabel Brothers gain traction in the industry. (Dark Horse was one of the few companies already benefitting from licensing prior to the year 2000; its Star Wars comics have long been a staple of its lineup.)
Japanese manga comics became quite popular as anime secured its spot in pop culture. Though Dark Horse and VIZ Media began by trying to introduce these titles in an American-style format, the Japanese pocket-style books quickly became more popular, and manga books saw a rapid growth as TOKYOPOP and VIZ cranked out hundreds of titles.
The book market, once chiefly characterized as small mom + pop retailers, began to consolidate under major big box retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books-A-Million. Graphic novels became a huge growth area for these retailers, leading to a large demand for collected anthologies and prestige format reprints. Bookstores also became the primary marketplace for the emerging manga titles.
The Internet has changed the way that comics are produced and published, allowing publishers to more effectively promote their books directly to consumers and to rely less on the comic book direct market. This has been good for some retailers, and bad for others; those who have benefitted most have been those who have embraced the Internet and used it to expand their business.
Comic book-based movies and television shows have brought the medium back into popular culture, though their popularity has not necessarily translated into sales.
Alternative forms of comics, such as webcomics, have arisen and created a new niche category of amateur-produced entertainment that is enhanced by strong online communities.

And thus we arrive at 2008. Hopefully, this brief survey of history has helped you to understand why the industry has dwindled down to its current state, and why many of the things that are done in the industry today are bourne out of an old style of producing comics.

With that said, let me offer a few closing thoughts on how the industry’s current state affects a would-be publisher.

1. Marvel and DC have traditionally ruled this industry, and they will continue to be dominant players down the road. DC isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; it’s owned by a major media company with deep pockets, and it continues to turn a profit due to its backlist catalogue and its strong stable of books. Marvel, likewise, has turned itself around and is in fairly good shape for growth, though most of its revenues are going to come from licensing and branching out into other media, not the sale of comic books.

Any publisher who tries to compete with Marvel and DC directly will be crushed in the long run; the implosion of Mark Alessi’s Crossgen proved that. There simply isn’t room in the direct market for a third major player. Too many retailers are built around Marvel and DC, and that isn’t going to change. What will likely happen, however, is that superheroes will eventually dip in popularity again and Marvel and DC will either have to focus on diversifying their lines or suffer the consequences.

2. Though the bookstore market has been growing steadily as a new marketplace for comics, it’s still not an ideal place for comics to be sold. Bookstores will only carry monthly issues as periodicals, and graphic novels are only a subset of the manga section as far as shelf space is concerned. Plus, bookstore product is returnable, which means that publishers take many financial risks in trying to focus on this market alone.

3. Ad-supported content is probably a thing of the past. Every time I’ve worked with a small publisher, they’ve wanted to sell ads in their books. But the problem is that big companies aren’t out there looking for opportunities to advertise in comics; the circulation numbers are too low, and the prices are too high. If comics could get back on the newstands with a low ciculation price, ad-sponsored books might be feasible. But since the print industry as a whole is going through a huge decrease in ad revenues, the newstand market is dwindling, and there are no real opportunities to get comics back in there.

And, with comics currently costing around $3-4 per issue, it’s unlikely that circulation numbers will get high enough again for small publishers to sell ads at high enough prices to offset production costs.

4. Long-running series are dead. The longer a book runs, the more its sales tend to dip, and unless it’s able to build a regular base of fans, it’s probably doomed to conclude within a year or two. Though there have been books that have been an exception to this rule, the simple truth is that fans are jaded and lose interest in most titles quickly. Only a very unique concept, or a very well-marketed book, will be able to sustain itself in today’s industry. A far better strategy seems to be running a series of miniseries (4-6 issues) that each tell a complete story, but which can be cut off if the sales grow stagnant.

5. The best strategy for a small publisher seems to be running a miniseries of 4-6 issues at a time, and then collecting each miniseries into a graphic novel for sale in the book market. The sales to the direct market help to offset the cost of production, leaving the sales to bookstores to generate profits. Additionally, this strategy is helpful to publishers because it allows them to plan gaps between miniseriesto get production teams caught back up.An added advantage of this strategy is that one miniseries is generally about the content length of a feature film, which opens up the book for easier licensing to the film industry. That’s often where the real money is made anyhow.

6. Publishers need to take advantage of the Internet. It’s the best way to cheaply promote books, and it’s a great way to develop strong relationships with fans. The whole purpose of developing the “direct market” was to bridge the gap between publishers and readers, and Marvel and DC both benefited from it tremendously. Modern publishers need to recognize that the next step is in using the Internet as a form of direct marketing, and take advantage of the power of a dedicated fanbase. It’s entirely possible for a publisher to sell all of its books directly to fans simply by creating or targeting a community of readers. And though that thought doesn’t make comic book retailers happy, it’s one of the best ways that a small publisher can survive.

This has been a lengthy article, but I hope it is a worthwhile one. Understanding the context of how comics came to be is crucial in today’s marketplace; too many would-be publishers don’t take their time to learn about the industry, and make predictable mistakes as a result. My hope is that the next generation of publishers will help transform the comic book medium into something new and fresh, rather than focus exclusively on the stagnating battleground of the direct market.

Note: If you’re really interested in learning more about the history of the comic book, I’d recommend checking out this page or this page, both by James Coville. Though I’m not 100% certain that all of his facts are correct, it’s a nice walk through the development of the medium. Another good reference is Don Markstein’s Toonpedia, which has specific information about many classictitles.

Writing Scraps

by Sean J. Jordan