Does Size Matter? UPDATE By Park Cooper A recent conversation...
Me: oh brother, the soundtrack to the US vs John Lennon means there's one more excuse for Beatles complete-ists to buy an album.
Barb: how'd you reckon that one, then?
Me: Oh, the Borders newsletter, which I just now deleted, was like here it is! Along with George's 1970s LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD which has been remastered. In other words, Malibu Stacy has a new hat
I think that's something fascinating to me about Beatlemania -- it shares some things in common with the sort of collector mentality that leads to multiple comics covers -- isn't that just like comics? Reissuing things?
Barb: oh yeah
I was thinking about that 'rent a manga' idea (http://www.animetakeout.com/MangaDefault.aspx) and how it wouldn't work in western comics because of three things
1/ collectors' mentality
2/ A comic is only a comic if I own it in hard copy (a comic isn't a comic if it's on the web or rented)
Me: Oh, yeah -- not only an artifact you can hold in your hand, but OWWWWNERSHIP it's crazy when people obsess over how their comics look on their shelves... i mean, yeah, sometimes it's worth taking a picture of when you're just documenting "i can't believe i have this much stuff" and i suppose it makes for a precocious background if one ever gets interviewed for some sort of documentary, which few do...
Barb: 3/ Western comics are bigger and weigh more than handy mini-manga----the postage would kill such a conceit dead in its tracks
Me: Ah, that's true. You can have smaller shelves and more of them
You would probably choose to be interviewed in front of the round Brian Wilson poster, not a wall of comics shelves, anyway
Barb: yeah
But the point is, otaku _read_ comics. Western readers often want to _own_ them.
Me: right, the disposable/nondisposable thing.
Barb: yeah. a manga reader'd never care about an alternative cover done by an artist.
Me: I hadn't thought about it lately, but that really is a bad metanarrative that needs removing in the west.
Barb: and the creator/artist thing isn't a dichotomy because the creators are the artists
Me: And wouldn't care that the spine was cracked of that the cover was bent
Well the teams are solid. THIS is the team that can bring you THIS world.
Maybe this speaks to what we were saying about K – how he was reading mainstream comics that people had scanned and put online and you were like "why would anyone scan their comics and put them online?!?" Because the west is so obsessed with paper and owning solidity that it's taken them this long to think of doing it. It never came up before.
Whereas if I showed pages of some manga online we'd think "well of course they love fruits basket or whatever so much they scanned it in for the other fruits basket fans."
Barb: yeah. Comics on cd rom didn't exactly sell, right?
Renting cd rom comics didn't catch on.
Me: Well you and I said in the 90s that collecting was stupid, and then the collectors' market seemed to fall apart... but all the metanarratives are still there even though it would be a lot harder now to convince anyone that it's still a Collector's Market
Barb: and while more and more comics are on the new hand-helds, that really only works for manga and comic strips.
Me: Yeah no one ever talks about those things we see at Hastings or places. The one we looked at was so bad, we didn't either. But I suppose that it did say, if the comic is weak, what's the point of the CD Rom?
Barb: Most Western readers are still a little techno-scared – I mean of cutting-edge stuff -- unlike in the east. I mean, 40,000 readers for an Eastern rim web comic? A day? Did we understand that right?
Me: and another thing was CrossGen. They tried things, and failed, and their failure seemed to mean people could ignore what they tried.
But you're right -- in Japan, you _read_ this thing, so any way you _can_ read it is valid. People would still pay 5 bucks a month to read all of Shonen Jump online!
You're still _reading_ it after all... the writer, artist, characters and words are the same...
Barb: yup
Me: This is what's hurting western webcomics!
Barb: well, it's also hurting web comics that we aren't making them small like manga
Me: Uh, do you you mean screen size?
Barb: Screen size. The medium is the message here. as they say in the instructional design game, the "system of delivery"
Me: Hmm.
Barb: That's a factor in Marvel's otherwise-excellent teen graphic novels…
Me: Well... Er... which are you -- oh, the smallness after-shrinking.
Barb: the simplicity of manga means it shrinks well
Me: The bigness of the images, too, often.
Barb: Remember those superhero books when we were kids...the black and white ones that would have maybe two panels a page coz they were cut up? That might work better for western comics...although it sucks for the artist
Me: uh... Oh yeah! Seems like the spider-man digest you bought one time was sometimes like that? Maybe not but I think I know what you mean now.
Barb: yeah...all the dc mini-books
Me: OH! Yeah! DC was more like that sometimes.
Barb: The problem is now that the impact would be lost...artists deserve to have their work properly represented...and back then, coloring was in its infancy, so black and white books looked about as good as the flimsies
Me: True. And better, in the case of Swamp Thing
Barb: yup
Me: and... maybe hellblazer really.
Barb: oh yeah
Me: I glanced at that second Slaine collection we have by pat mills and you're like... no color! no color! beautiful black and white like CBGBs used to be.
Barb: and V for Vendetta, which started its life as a b & w comic
haha
Me: ARRGH yes. all that 2000 ad stuff AND ITS DESCENDANTS
Color was GRAVY. color was UNEXPECTED BONUS.
Creators had to make it work on its own, with or without...
Barb: The point is, artists and publishers are going to have to start thinking smaller if they want to compete with manga
Me: yeah.
Barb: artists might have to think, "my work may end up being shrunk in graphic novel form..."
Barb: it sucks, 'coz Western comics have gorgeous art, but as a practical thing, when you can put many more manga titles on the bookshelf (and cheaper) than western comics, the bookstores will probably get more of the manga.
Me: Actually I guess those Big Face shots of Tohru Honda and Yukinon evolved like that because we were like, "And now we're gonna have to let the readers get a really good LOOK at the character close-up... a close-up in manga has to mean CLOSE UP
Barb: while a lot of action stories look great in manga form...Naruto especially, I wonder if western comics shrunk...if the ways writers and artists wrote stories might have to change, too.
Me: and also good point about the shelf: "Here's 14 little copies of Fruits 14 or Naruto 11, all ready to get sold out, kids! there's room on the shelves for you all to get it without asking us if we have any more in the back!"
Barb: I mean, would there be more hellblazer type comics...the story told not so much through explosions or kick butt, but from a more detective POV
I mean, Hellblazer would work fairly well in the Gunsmith Cats size format
Me: ooh yeah. Because a "down these mean streets" panel takes one panel -- a fight takes pages!
Barb: well, depending on who draws it and how it's drawn...
Me: come to think of it... when you aren't fighting Mr. Uses 20% of His Power in the Dark Tournament, fights actually take LESS time in manga. One punch _can_ take someone out… It's getting that one punch in
Barb: I mean, Naruto...it's decompressed, too, but it works
Me: it's only when we run away from the pursuer (Ranma) or talk about it while it's happening (YuYu) that manga fights are extended. (oh and naruto of course).
Barb: maybe that's why Yu Yu and a lot of those guys talk so much before fighting...
Me: BINGO. Man... they even characterize their FIGHTS.
But what's grabbin' me is how you're showing me that that's something that's evolved due to the requirements of the medium itself.
Barb: I guess it's like this...take this example. You have a home computer and you have a laptop. Both have the same worth...only one is small and portable. As technology gets smaller, what we experience on technology may have to get smaller too. Radios, cars, technology… Japan has those tiny cell phones that do so much…
Me: right. like how the internet was already changing the nature of the music industry, and now the iPods are multiplying that times 6
and space is at a premium in Japan. well China and India too I'm sure
Barb: It's like we're still driving hummers and the rest of the world is driving mini-coopers and vespas.
Me: right... you have to have a car in texas because we aren't forced to build non-horizontally
Barb: and as the world gets used to vespas and mini-coopers, the parking spaces start getting too small for the hummers
Me: yesss
Barb: does this mean that all comics will have to be tiny? God I hope not.
Our artists look best in flimsies and big graphic novels...our artists are like Texas...big, bold, and beautiful...
Me: yeah yeah. opportunity is knocking for smallness, like it's an ecological niche
Barb: but the trend seems to be in other parts of the world...small is beautiful... I worry about our artists. Not _now_. Right now, the action-adventure comic is the West's finest comic book type. It's a joy to see. But if the trend towards the incredibly shrinking graphic novel continues, will we be left off the bookshelves in favor of the big little books? And if big little books become the rage, what of the western comic book fans who love themselves the big art?
Me: I saw two books at the library yesterday... one of those big giant thin JLAs, the one Waid wrote, which they'd had to put with the teen MAGAZINES... and In The Shadow of No Towers by Speigelman, who was on a shelf by himself... made me realize how libraries and bookstores must be so frustrated by those… Towers has gotten some great store space because since it doesn't fit on the shelves, they have to keep stacking it on tables…
Barb: Artists who draw decompressed...and the audience itself...deserve that art they love... But if bookstores want more and cheaper product per square inch, that causes a slightly discriminatory problem towards artists who draw in a de-compressed style
Me: right. Amazon is powerful because they don't need space, just warehouses or whatever. but for everyone else... it certainly poses problems vendor-wise, that much is clear.
Barb: I just look at the bookstore shelves and the tiny comics are dominant and the big comics are shoved to the side
Me: yeah. literally... they don't stand out.
Manga shelving... those spines make things more eye-accessible.
Barb: not so much for comic book stores, except in terms of space, as they'll stay loyal to what their traditional customers want...
but book stores don't have that loyalty mindset.
Me: right. that's why they're sometimes called Specialty stores, eh?
Barb: so that hurts the valiant retailers, the talented artists, the companies that give the traditional reader what they want.
Me: the vox in a typical bookstore is a lot more widely populi
Barb: yeah
Me: hm... makes me think about the guy in Dallas... "Why should I have manga when anyone can go down the way to any bookstore and get that instead?"
Barb: but that makes this bad break between specialty store comics fans and general readers
I hope that won't be the wave of the future. I'm just so in favor of independent book store owners.
Me: there's a metanarrative there -- that "the specialty stores real customers only want those highly specialized products."
Barb: Tiny books are just another way they get screwed. the independent book store owners, I mean.
Me: right. they CAN'T offer everything, and it's really hard to guess what, besides western comics, they can trust, right? if you're running one of those stores, that is.
Barb: maybe their niche has to be...the stuff that you can't just get anywhere.
Me: yeah...
which is why they DO carry specialty statuettes and figures and shirts.
Barb: That's always been an independent merchant's challenge...be it a video store or a record store or what... what products do you carry that will make you stand out and make customers go to you instead of a chain...
Me: although not a lot of trust in clothes, come to think about it. there used to be more tshirts like that.
yeah. it's about the store's persona. (let's stop calling them SHOPS, while we're at it, it's like calling a town a hamlet)
"We're the ones you want to come to for ____"
And ___ can't be "miscellany" because other people can muscle them out that way.
Barb: I just hate the "you've got mail" (god what a bad movie) idea of chain, chain, chain stores running out indie merchants
Me: yeah. and one part of why you hated that movie was they never addressed the big giant destroying the independant specialty store
instead, they argued convincingly how bad it was -- and then did nothing to solve it or even suggest a solution.
Barb: And I'm as guilty as anyone of shopping chain stores...hot topic, borders...
Barb: It's something that fills a non standardized, individualized world...
Barb: Not a problem now but 5 6 10 years down the line…
Me: Maybe the book shape feels more like literature while people are embarrassed more to read flimsies on bus…
Barb: And remember most librarians are not geeks, especially school librarians…
Barb: If this is going to mean that western comics will be more simplified and iconic like toth and or cooke.
Barb: And as an aside… while I don't think this will hurt the majors because we'll always want the webhead swingin' across the big cityscape, I wonder if smaller indie comicbook publishers might have to start thinking about with an eye to libraries and bookstores… look at Little White Mouse maybe for example, the simplified art style, to get it in there not on the side with big marvel stuff, which will do just fine thank you but to try it because it's amongst the manga
Barb: If viper comics if they did them smaller… you wouldn't lose all that much in terms of art because it's a simplified style.
Children's librarians are buying more and more graphic novels. Many of THEM are geeks. And will buy western comics because of the recognition and the enjoyment factor. But many, such as school librarians, aren't necessarily. They have a limited budget and limited shelfspace. If they can get a small 200 page book for ten dollars, which they can in manga, or a big 150 for 18 dollars… There's a possibility that they'll go for the economies… the economy of scale… and the economy of budget. Unless there's some other deciding factor such as kids not checking out manga… which isn't generally the case…
Me: I think most librarians are going to be at least as likely to buy the manga.
Me: They want books that reward more reading, too. When I taught 7th grade, the teachers and the librarian would be like, "No, put that Garfield book back, get a real book." No one said that about manga. Or western comics… but I think one volume of your average manga has more words than one mainstream graphic novel… Not sure, though. I'm not gonna count them…
*Bamf*
Amber: But just because it's small doesn't mean it'll do well...
Me: GAHH! Where did you come from?!? Barb, start capitalizing more, we have company.
Barb: I'm just gonna keep my head down…
Amber: People are just uncomfortable with expanded canvases because they're outside of their experience usually... but once they get used to it, you'll be surprised how well people experience it...
Me: Of course it doesn't mean it'll do well. But if something is manga-sized, they will put it on the manga shelves in bookstores these days. And that, frankly, in my opinion... doesn't hurt to bring it to new readers.
Amber: They're putting Maus in the "history/literature" sections of Barnes and Nobles now.
Me: Huh. Well that makes more sense...
Amber: It depends on the store -- sometimes it's in history, sometimes it's in literature. I think that'll do a lot more for comics becoming more marketable than changing the size to fit on the previously pigeonholed shelves designated to comics.
Me: I'm afraid that Maus, in that way, will be seen as an exception that proves the rule...
Amber: Making Comics/Understanding Comics, etc. are put in the "art" section of bookstores.
Me: But I still fear that these will be seen as the rare, rare exceptions that prove the rule...
Amber: I might as well mention Dave Chelsea's book on _Perspective For The Comic Book Artist_ being in the art section and the History of the World series which is also in comic book format put into "World History."
But it's not just Maus or McCloud. R. Crumb's stuff is also in the art section of book stores and American Splendor volumes are in the Entertainment section since the movie came out.
Me: What about people that are doing genre work, though, actual fictional stuff still?
Amber: A lot of other graphic novels like Sandman are now put into Sci-Fi and Fantasy even though there's a "perfectly good" Graphic Novel section in most bookstores.
People have this pre-conceived notion that if you _emulate_ what's successful in your medium, you'll _be_ successful in your medium, when that's not always true. Maybe if comic artists, but especially comic writers, look outside of comics, they'll discover this whole world of outside inspirations to draw upon. That's the only hope in breathing new life into the industry.
*Bamf*
Kat: I read your column regularly and have done so for several months.
Me: Who th' what th'?
Kat: There are just a few points you made in your column this week that I just have to address…
First, I am middle-aged and wear bifocals, and I already spend most of my day at the computer terminal doing my work. I simply have to take a break from the screen to read for fun, so I don't seek out webcomics very much. I prefer my comics in print form because they're not so hard on the eyes as they are on the computer screen. This is mostly due to my age (early 50s).
Me: I'm almost always sad when people talk about reasons they don't read webcomics, but I think this is a good reason. Usually, there's two kinds of people who tend to read webcomics – people who enjoy looking at material on the web because it's up to them when they're on the computer, and people who enjoy looking at material on the web because frankly their job involves them looking at a computer all day anyway, so on their break they feel they might as well get some enjoyment out of it. But you're a different case – someone who looks at the screen all day because of their job, but their vision turns that into a borderline onerous task. I can't say I blame you – I do think you have a good reason to prefer print – and it's not the same as the reasons I've previously cited that bother me.
Kat: Next, it's not Children's Librarians who are buying so many comics and manga for their library collections - it's Young Adult Librarians. And yes, there's a difference. YA librarians serve teens. I have been a YA librarian for many years. I was a Children's Librarian first, then switched. YA librarians have led the profession in seeking out new types of reading material and new technologies. Lots of YA librarians have started Myspace pages this year because that's how they can reach the teens in their communities. We tend to be on the cutting edge of library services. Children's Librarians are still playing catch-up. I started getting graphic novels into my library's collection back in the 1980s, and I have been writing about them for the library world since the early 1990s. I have had a regular column in a professional journal -- Voice of Youth Advocates -- since 1994, the longest-running column in library literature devoted to graphic novels and comics. And I just started this year to write reviews of children's graphic novels for another professional journal – Booklist (published by the American Library Association).
Me: I know that what you say is true, because Barb and I have met two YA librarians here in town that have recently ordered a lot of manga. So in our defense, we didn't mean Children's Librarians as a term of art – which I admit it is – we just meant it as opposed to "Librarians in charge of the needs of their adult patrons."
Kat: Finally, manga is super-hot in libraries – manga circulates better than any other books (except Harry Potter). Teens love them – boys and girls. I conducted a circulation survey of a sample of graphic novels and manga from my library's collection back in 2001; manga got checked out of our collection about 3 times as much as other graphic novels, and at least 10 times as often as regular books. I left public library service in 2002 due to my husband's change of careers and our several moves around the country. I currently work as a freelance library consultant specializing in graphic novels and Young Adult literature, so you can believe I know whereof I speak (and write).
Me: I do believe it. Thank you for telling us what you were thinking about, Kat.
Kat: Thanks for your columns, they're always interesting reading.
Me: No, thank you--
*Bamf*
Amber: Well that was interesting. I'm outta here too you guys.
Me: I've got to teach you to say "y'all," Amber. The second person plural is "y'all—"
*Bamf*
Me: Our mystery guests today were our friend Amber Greenlee of www.panel2panel.com and our new friend and column reader Katharine Kan.
Barb: I know who Amber is, dear.
Me: I'm telling the readers, honey.
Barb: Oh right.
|