Axel Alonso addresses – or, maybe, avoids – the issue of why so many of Marvel’s $3.99 titles have dropped to 20 pages in recent months. From CBR’s Axel-in-Charge column:
There are occasions when a writer requests additional pages for an issue, and if it doesn’t imperil the ship date, we try to accommodate — though we’re more frugal in soft economic times like these. Conversely, there are occasions when a writer, knowing that his book’s behind schedule and looking to fend off the possibility of a fill-in artist on the arc, shaves down a script a little to help the artist hit their deadline and move on to the next issue. If they do this, they usually balance it out later, with an extra page in a subsequent issue.
On the plus side, if this is true, we can expect some really, really long issues on titles like Ultimate Spider-Man and Moon Knight soon (Alonso also suggests that 20 pages may also be used to help low-selling titles like Deadpool Max).
September 23rd, 2011 at 4:18 pm
lol, don’t hold your breath waiting for those extra pages mate!
September 23rd, 2011 at 4:27 pm
OK, let’s take Axel at his word. The question becomes: ‘why?’ Why can’t Marvel simply assign a certain amount of pages to comics, and be consistent? Then everyone knows where they stand – the writer knows they have a certain amount of pages and no more*, the artist knows to organise their time to accommodate the production of said pages, the reader can make an informed decision about whether to purchase if price is a consideration … as it is, only Marvel seems to be benefiting, by getting an extra dollar for nothing.
* Are there really decent pro writers who simply can’t write to length?
September 23rd, 2011 at 6:23 pm
BS. Really this sounds and looks like marvel scrambling fora excuse for something that caught doing.
September 23rd, 2011 at 10:43 pm
“Alonso also suggests that 20 pages may also be used to help low-selling titles like Deadpool Max”
Or they could, I dunno, drop a low-selling Deadpool title since they flooded the market with all kinds of unnecessary Deadpool comics in the last year.
September 23rd, 2011 at 10:57 pm
“Alonso also suggests that 20 pages may also be used to help low-selling titles like Deadpool Max”
That’s funny, considering that next week’s Deadpool Max #12 is the final issue.
September 23rd, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Over on FormSpring (http://www.formspring.me/TomBrevoort/q/240829839450323429):
“Tom, if fans don’t want to pay $3.99 for 20 page stories, (and there are at least a few) what comics should they skip?
The $3.99 ones, obviously.”
I dunno. I’d tend to believe, at best, the answer is somewhere between Alonso’s and Brevoort’s, meaning that the one quoted in the blog entry is mostly spun tripe.
September 28th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
VOTE w/your $PENDING ! ! !
PEOPLE of the EARTH:
S T O P $PENDING your LABOR, your TIME, your FUTURE on a flimsy booklet filled w/a bunch of advertisements that interrupt stories…
GO TO USED BOOK STORES AND FIND GREAT DEALS ON GRAPHIC NOVELS – and guess what, no commercials/advertisements…and pay LESS THAN COVER PRICE!!!!
Anything over $2.25 for a comic book is L A M E, and an embarrassing use of your LABOR, TIME and FUTURE.
VOTE w/your $PENDING ! ! !