A little late, I find this post by Warren Ellis, spinning out of Twitter comments by Ed Brubaker and Brian Michael Bendis, about digital distribution of comics reshaping narrative in the same way that collecting everything into trades and hardcovers did:
Brian (and Joe Quesada, I guess) see digital comics as potentially doing to the serialised graphic novel what the mp3 did to the album. Digital comics services are still very much all about the single rather than the graphic novel. They’re not selling TRANSMETROPOLITAN as ten collections. They’re selling it as sixty singles. Mp3s are priced individually at most music services because people will buy the bits of an album they want. The days of being able to force the sale of a complete unit of songs, in a predetermined running order, are long gone. And I suspect what’s being said here is that there’s a belief that comics could go a bit like that. I also suspect it’s a bit of wishful thinking, hoping that waiting-for-the-trade will go away if you write technically infinite storylines that put the focus back on the individual single, and the individual single being the point of instant gratification that you load on to your tablet.
That said, if you deliberately write against collection as a method to embrace digital distribution…
…well, as I’ve said before, Archie Goodwin once told me that the only qualititative difference between superhero comics and soap operas is that superhero comics replace love scenes with fight scenes. And those shows only end when they get cancelled.
This isn’t a new idea, of course; the idea of comics as perpetual narrative machines was a selling point, once upon a time, and then an anti-selling point, when the bookstore market seemed to become more of a possibility/reality/new market eventuality. For that matter, the idea of purposefully re-embracing serialization and writing “against collection” is arguably something that DC has been pushing for some time; I’m sure Dan Didio has talked in interviews about making each issue so “important” that fans can’t wait for them to be collected (and thereby re-establishing the single issue market) before. But is it something that gains new impetus as digital becomes more of a focus, formatwise? Does that mean we’re going to see a change in the way comics are structured, just like we did with the whole “decompression”/”writing for the trade” movement, a decade or so ago? And if so, what will that look like?
September 6th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
I’m still waiting for someone to explain how decompression benefits a reader, instead of allowing a writer to minimize story content while arguing that the pace is more “realistic.” Compressed storytelling is no worse than the pace in a typical prose novel; narration covers the gaps in dialogue.
If Bendis didn’t rely so, so heavily on retcons to change characters to fit his desired situations, and on formulas (e.g., idiot plot) as situations, he might have some credibility when it comes to talking about storytelling.
SRS
September 6th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
I wonder if it will go further than just not writing for trades. 30 days might be too long for e-fan interest. I wonder if the successful digital comic books will be ones that can adapt to a couple of pages a week.
September 6th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
@Steven R. Stahl: Start here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_(comics)
Google and Wiki are your friends.
September 6th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
I’ve previously read that and other attempts to justify decompression; IMO, they’re so much self-serving blather.
The people who claim that there “are no rules” when their storytelling is criticized are the same people who insist that decompression is wonderful — but if you press them for an explanation of why it’s wonderful, they can’t supply one. Stylistic choices should affect how content is presented, not the amount of it. When page space is wasted as it is in decompressed comics — count the number of panels per issue in AVENGERS: CHILDREN’S CRUSADE — the reader is being cheated, as though he bought a prose novel with the text in a 20-point font. No amount of stylistic flourishes can make caricatures and stereotypes appealing, or turn plot outlines into plots.
SRS
September 6th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Warren Ellis is always right. Yes, digital distribution has the potential to and will determine content, as context always has an effect on content. I don’t think it force one way and one way only, however. Obviously, with the focus again being on the single issue, you will start seeing more series that resemble JONAH HEX in terms of length and structure. Ellis’ own FELL will prove prescient. This is a great format… it’ll be cheaper, simpler, more gratifying in single installments and it’ll match the upcoming generation’s preference for receiving information in “bursts”… smaller doses to be consumed in volume (“burst culture” being another concept Ellis coined).
BUT I don’t think that’s where it ends. Digital media has the potential to appeal to readers of long-form novels, as well. Check out how rapidly the sales of e-books have been increasing for proof. I predict that original graphic novels will also see new opportunities in digital market places as people are drawn to the “one purchase, one full story” concept.
Finally, if publishers do continue the 4 or 5 or 6 issue storyarc as a storytelling format, digital has a chance to one-up paper trade paperback collections in its ability to sell bundles for cheap. Dark Horse is really good at this. Check out the Dark Horse digital store and you will find that you can buy single issues but also groups of single issues (Hellboy, Umbrella Academy, etc.) for lower prices than the TPB book version. Again, digital wins.
So the field will be opening up, for sure. But, yes, do expect more “slimline” comics, absolutely.
September 7th, 2011 at 10:17 am
Decompression allows for more character exploration, more emotion and building suspense or a sense of wonder. But if it’s the plot you care more about or big concepts and twists, you may prefer a compressed tale. One is not better than the other. Both provide entertainment for the reader. Entertainment is the benefit.
As to digital, I don’t see the soap opera mode working at all for the new e-reader. It’s too expensive and too long a wait between issues. Soaps, a genre that’s dying on American TV btw, are on 5 days a week. They’re written so people can miss a day or two and still not be lost. And they’re free or at least subsidized by commercials.
I read JL #1 and enjoyed it for what it was. But my mild curiosity about what might happen next isn’t enough for me to plunk down 4 bucks each month. If I had read a full story that gripped me, purchased at a higher price, I might look forward to the next even if the wait was several months. It would be like buying the new book in an ongoing detective series. The Dark Horse bundle model makes sense to me.
September 7th, 2011 at 10:47 am
BOX 13 was serialized using that model — David Gallaher and Steve Ellis don’t get nearly enough credit for delivering a comic that was serialized weekly and specifically for the device/platform.
I bought some of the new DC 1st issues today — and those double page spreads look awful on my iPad.
I’m tired of Ellis trying to pretend that he’s the pioneer of digital. That title should go to people who actually make the content and deliver it — Freakangels, last I checked was a webcomic, not a digital comic.
September 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
That is the sort of explanation I’ve been dismissing as unsatisfactory. Prose fiction wouldn’t even exist if a writer couldn’t provide all the benefits to the reader with words that decompression supposedly does with the artwork and glacial pace. Advocates of decompression might be wildly exaggerating the benefits of what they consider subtleties in the artwork that the typical reader skips over or misses completely while reading an issue in under ten minutes. Dialogue and artwork don’t suffice for a complete story.
SRS
September 8th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Prose fiction is different from comic books. In prose you talk about how it is a really dark, stormy night, in comics you show it. Filling up a page with narration (often clumsy poetry or wannabe Hammett voice over) is not necessarily more valid than showing two characters in a conversation for two pages.
I think where you say “typical reader” you mean “I”.
September 9th, 2011 at 8:36 am
The other thing is that there’s a difference between “decompressed storytelling” and “lack of content.” The example par excellence of this distinction is probably Watchmen, which is a rather “decompressed” book–despite pages packed with panels–the plot itself could be streamlined and probably be over and done with in six issues. Instead, the pace of the plot is deliberately slowed in order to provide character insight and perform world-building.
For less formally successful examples, but still great, there’s the Waid/Kitson Legion which spends about six issues doing nothing except being Legiony. Or Sandman, like that one issue where exactly one major plot event happens–Lucifer gives up Hell to Morpheus–and the rest of it is a rambly end-run around a proper theodicy. Or even the early Wally West Flash issues where Wally does little more than mope, be mean to cancer children, consider accepting sexual favors in return for overlooking drug deals, and eventually turns into Porcupine Pete and runs away to the 30th Century.
All of these books are deliberately, sometimes slowly, paced, but no one accuses them of lacking content. Well, maybe the early Flash v.2 stuff. I liked ‘em anyway.
Then, on the other hand, you have Warren Ellis, and Planetary, which occasionally crossed the line from “let John Cassaday be great” to “this entire issue is just a not very plausible excuse to get William Leather alone and have Jakita Wagner beat him up, with half-assed mystery science and copy-and-pasted reverence for explorers tacked on, isn’t it?”
In fairness, I guess I never read any of those books in single issue format, but single issues are gonna suck regardless. Even back in the day, you’re talking like, what, 24 pages? That’s never going to be a particularly deep reading experience in and of itself, with the possible exception of Alan Moore books. Ha, or Chris Claremont ones.