Comic Books 101 Read online

  In both cases, these issues delivered huge sales numbers in part by offering multiple covers and other gimmicks that enticed fans and speculators to buy multiple copies. Mostly, the astronomical numbers were because fan-favorite creators worked on the titles. As such, the creators expected to share in the wealth they were helping bring to their publisher. Unfortunately, the publisher didn't see things the same way.

  What happened next rocked the comic-book world at the time. Ultimately, it made the industry stronger and even nudged the Big Two from their comfortable perch high above the rest.

  Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee were not the only creators attracting huge fan bases and producing astounding sales numbers for Marvel. Other top artists like Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino and Whilce Portacio also had developed strong followings.

  Their art was bringing all kinds of attention to their comics, and they knew it.

  In the early 1990s, the big publishers typically paid talent a page rate as well as small royalties on a book's performance; however, creators did not share in revenue that resulted from merchandise featuring their art, or see a sliding scale of increased percentages if a book sold huge numbers. They didn't retain any ownership over any new characters they created for a company, either.

  These inflexible deals did not sit well with the creators. The artists banded together and approached Marvel's president, demanding a higher percentage of royalties for their efforts and greater ownership over their creations. The publisher refused to be strong-armed.

  CREATORS' RIGHTS

  In early 1992, these same seven creators left the comfort of the Big Two and announced the formation of a new company, Image Comics. The company was founded on the promise of protecting creators' rights — everyone would maintain ownership over his creations, and each creator would run his own “studio,” producing his own books while leaving the others to do the same without interference.

  Formed by artists, the new company needed more than just clever ideas and great art for a proper launch. It needed the things that an established publisher could offer — business assistance, marketing, production and distribution. Malibu Comics, a small but moderately successful publisher, agreed to help, leaving Image creators free to create content and characters.

  This “third-party revolution” began with great fanfare. Some of the early titles these creators developed, such as Todd McFarlane's Spawn, Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.s, Rob Liefeld's Youngblood and Erik Larsen's The Savage Dragon, sold in numbers that rivaled Marvel and DC. Unlimited by corporate dictates or editorial red pens, the creators' innovative styles were fully brought to bear on their own creations. This meant the books looked amazing, but were also subject to some valid criticism.

  The books were written and drawn by artists, not writers, so storytelling and character development took a backseat to the stunning visuals. Moreover, even with Malibu's aid, the sheer effort needed to run a new company, manage multiple studios and deal with the publishing end of Image Comics took its toll on the creators. They were called on to handle more and more of the business side of comics, and as a result, some of the titles were hindered by lateness. Some Image creators began to disagree on how to run the company, and accusations of poaching from each other's talent pools caused rifts and ultimately a split between some of the owners.

  Creators and studios have left, and others have come aboard, but through all the changes, the company's efforts to offer creators and freelancers full creative control and ownership over their creations has continued unabated. Comic creators have more creative freedom now, and even Marvel and DC have set up some programs allowing creators to earn greater royalties and even maintain ownership over some characters.

  Image as a company remains one of the top four publishers in the industry, and the wide array of choices it offers has forever expanded the medium, paving the way for other publishers and innovative creators. This increase of creative options has led to more interesting choices for consumers, which is the substance that this initially style-driven publisher helped deliver.

  10 Indies and Small Press

  Satisfying your indie jonesEven longtime superhero fans find their tastes developing, and they hunger for more diverse, personal comics. If this happens to you, where should you look? Everywhere.

  Post-1950s, comic books played it safe for decades. Superhero comics remained the order of the day, although there were flirtations with romance, westerns and neutered crime comics. It was generally assumed that people would read comics until they outgrew them and moved on to things like novels, magazines and other adultlike diversions. It took a visionary creator like Will Eisner to realize that there didn't need to be a cutoff age for comic-book readers, and that comics could be adult diversions, too.

  Eisner's seminal graphic novel, A Contract With God — often credited as the very first graphic novel — delivered on the potential of the entire medium, demonstrating in stunning fashion that comics could be more than genre fare. Comics could present sobering subject matter and resonant themes, and tell personal stories as effectively as any prose novel.

  Before Eisner delivered Contract, the avant-garde underground comix movement of the 1960s told stories that were far from superhero tales. They never had the reach of traditional comics and were relegated to the sidelines of the industry. Around this time, another acclaimed creator, Art Spiegelman, would move far beyond his own underground roots with his work on Maus. Spiegelman's Maus, a deeply moving tale of his father's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp (which portrayed the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice), would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1992 — the first time a graphic novel was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize committee.

  While many publishers, including Marvel and DC, have dabbled in producing smaller, more personal comics, a handful of publishers have made great strides in advancing confessional comics. The following is a brief overview of these publishers and their projects, notable for their efforts to publish material that treats comic books as seriously as other forms of literature.

  FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

  A discussion of confessional comics must start with Fantagraphics Books, a Seattle-based publisher that entered the market in 1976. The publisher, referred to by Utne Reader as “the premiere gathering place, publisher and promoter of the era's most exciting and multi-faceted form of literature,” has been pushing the idea of comics-as-literature since its inception. The home to the critical trade magazine The Comics Journal, Fantagraphics has been ranked as one of the five most influential publishers in the history of comics. Its fare extends from autobiographical graphic novels to premiere reprints of classic comic strips like Peanuts and Popeye to independent-minded tales that hearken back to the publisher's underground roots and many other acclaimed and awarded works such as Dan Clowes's Ghost World and Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth.

  KITCHEN SINK PRESS

  Cartoonist Denis Kitchen founded Kitchen Sink Press in 1969, and ran it for three decades. In that time, his company evolved from the home to underground comix produced by such luminaries as R. Crumb, Skip Williamson and Art Spiegelman to a publisher of works by classic cartoonists Milton Caniff, Frank Frazetta and R.F. Outcault. He also forged a friendship and relationship with Will Eisner and published nearly two dozen of Eisner's graphic novels.

  TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

  Top Shelf has been around since the late 1990s. In a decade of existence, it has published many acclaimed graphic novels from alternative creators, largely helping to push forward indie and confessional comics. Top Shelf has been rewarded with numerous awards and accolades, and its works often top many year-end “best of” lists. Top Shelf's roster is filled with esteemed creators such as Alan Moore (Lost Girls), Craig Thompson (Blankets), Alex Robinson (Box Office Poison) and Andy Runton (Owly), among many other critics' favorites.

  ONI PRESS

  Oni Press was formed in 1997, and it too set out to publish stories that covere
d subject matter not often featured in comics from the bigger publishers. Its fare ranges from politically charged dramas by successful novelist Greg Rucka (Whiteout, Queen & Country) to quirky series such as Bryan Lee O'Malley's charming Scott Pilgrim books and beyond.

  11 Manga

  Japanese comicsSome comics fans will tell you, “I don't read comic books. I only read manga.”

  Let's clear this up for them and for you right now: manga is the Japanese word for comics.

  Whether you read those books or superhero comics, we're all simply comics fans. There's no tiered system of importance, despite the need of some folks to qualify their interest in the medium.

  But while manga is used to refer to comics that originate in Japan (or other countries like Korea and China, which produce their own forms of manga), it does hold some distinctions over traditional American comics.

  Manga is primarily printed only in black and white. Traditional manga is printed right to left, reading backwards compared to American comics. American publishers have at times printed the pages in left-to-right format, but readers tend to prefer the authentic formatting, so the majority of manga reprinted in the U.S. adheres to the right-to-left style.

  There are certain conventions to manga art and lettering, too. Manga art is very distinctive — characters have overly large eyes, very small mouths, and exaggerated expressions. Laughter is expressed by a character's mouth overwhelming other facial features; crying is typified by an excess of tears flying off the face; and storm clouds over a head and cheeks flushed with rage denote anger. The lettering is the same — word balloons are huge and often contain only one or two extra-large words and a plethora of exclamation points. Every word or gesture in many manga tales is larger than life and gives the art an immediately recognizable appearance.

  Manga subject matter covers a range wider than most other comics: horror and fantasy are popular genres, as they are in comics the world over, but if you're interested in basketball manga, it exists. Business manga? Check. Pornographic manga, romance tales, political stories, true-life historical dramas? All available in volume after volume of manga.

  CHRIS SAYS

  My first trip to Japan in 2000 was a jarring experience when I hit up a comic-book shop. The store, selling only manga, was packed with people — school-age girls, punky teenagers, businessmen in suits, and the elderly — not common sightings in most comics shops I've frequented. Manga readers across all ages and economic standings seemed to openly embrace the art form to a degree that I don't see here. That's changed now that manga and graphic novels occupy dedicated shelf space at mass-market bookstores, but at the time, it felt like, well, being in a foreign country. One I wanted to visit again and again.

  American publishers have produced their own versions of manga, aping the style and flow of Japanese books. So far, these “Amer-imanga” books have not caught on to the same degree as translated Japanese manga. This is partly because fans tend to prefer authenticity over simulations. The main reason why new manga hasn't caught on is the fact that decades of superior Japanese manga is now available in the American market. Talented manga creators are innumerable (see the sidebar on the next page for a brief starting point).

  MANGA CLASSIFICATIONS

  CHRIS SAYS

  It can be daunting to know where to begin if you want to check out manga. Lone Wolf and Cub is my favorite, but Kaiji Kawaguchi's Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President is a close second. It details the 2000 U.S. presidential election, only with a Japanese-American candidate running for the first time. It simplifies the electoral process enough to make the story accessible and not like a textbook, and it features a healthy dose of sex, political corruption and intrigue — it's seinen manga, for sure — to make for a truly captivating thriller over its 2,500 pages.

  A BRIEF INTRO TO MANGA CREATORS

  OSAMA TEZUKA

  Tezuka is probably the most important, influential Japanese comic creator, the architect of the medium as it exists today. Tezuka is said to have created more than 150,000 pages of manga, with Astro Boy and Phoenix among his most popular. Tezuka, a non-practicing medical doctor, infused his works with a great humanity and respect for life.

  KAZUO UMEZU

  Umezu is considered the godfather of horror manga, thanks to works such as Reptilia and The Drifting Classroom.

  HIDEYUKI KIKUCHI

  Kikuchi is a writer of pulps and novels, and his popular novel series Vampire Hunter D led to an acclaimed series of manga books and animated movies (anime), as well as video games and other merchandise.

  KAZUO KOIKE AND GOSEKI KOJIMA

  The seminal work from writer Koike and artist Kojima is Lone Wolf and Cub. The twenty-eight-volume series influenced acclaimed American creators Frank Miller (most notably in his Ronin series) and Max Allan Collins (whose Road to Perdition was an Americanized retelling of Lone Wolf), among many others. The long-running series inspired six movies and a television series in Japan. The creators considered it gekiga (“dramatic pictures”), not manga, although now the two terms are typically used interchangeably.

  KATSUHIRO OTOMO

  Otomo's Akira is a standard-setting cyberpunk series that led to one of the most popular animated movies (anime) ever.

  NAOKO TAKEUCHI

  Takeuchi's Sailor Moon is one of the more popular manga series of the past two decades. The series, which also became a long-running anime, is noted for its revitalization of the magic-girl genre.

  KEIKO TAKEMIYA

  Takemiya is the most famous female shojo manga creator. She got her start working on COM magazine in the late 1960s, when the magazine was edited by Osamu Tezuka.

  MASASHI KISHIMOTO

  Kishimoto's Naruto, a manga and anime series featuring a teenage ninja, debuted in 1997 and quickly became one of the best-selling man-gas in both Japan and America.

  MASAMUNE SHIROW

  Shirow's futuristic Ghost in the Shell was one of the more direct influences on the Wachowski brothers' Matrix movie trilogy.

  12 Collapse and Recovery

  The rise and fall and rise againWould a comic book sealed in a polybag containing a glow-in-the-dark holographic cover, a numbered trading card and a temporary tattoo be enough to entice you to pick up a comic you might otherwise avoid? If you answered “yes” to this question, it's likely the year 1991.

  In the early '90s, artists ruled the comic-book industry. Always a vital component to the visual medium, the comic-book artist became the propelling force of the industry in the final decade of the twentieth century, driving the marketing machine full-bore. Marvel and DC found success with some bigger titles through the offering of limited, variant covers, and they exploited this fact in a big way. While these comics sold huge numbers, they also had the less desirable effect of creating false demand for a title. Did the first issue of superstar artist Jim Lee's X-Men sell eight million copies because of its great writing and amazing art, or did it put up high numbers as a result of its six different covers? The answer is likely both.

  The problems grew from there, though they didn't happen right away. At first, publishers thought that if a first issue sold well with six covers, then producing a variant issue with a chromium foil-stamped image would perform the same. Followed by a glow-in-the-dark cover and then a sketch-art cover. Fans liked these variants, and soon trick covers were driving the bus, and, to extend the metaphor a bit further, soon crashed into a wall. Storytelling and character development took a back seat to flashy covers. Marvel and DC looked for the next gimmick to entice readers into buying multiple copies of an issue.

  THE FALL

  The core audience that was invested in the characters felt increasingly unimportant as it watched hopeful investors fill the comics shops to buy multiple copies as investments, driving up back-issue prices as a result.

  Some of these speculators who inflated sales numbers so greatly had shifted from buying limited baseball-card sets in the late 1980s to this new hopeful cash cow. However
, one factor that people buying seventy-five copies of, say, Superman #75 (the infamous “Death of Superman” issue) didn't take into account was that, in the long run, a comic with a print run in the millions would be hard-pressed to ever become valuable. Old comic books are worth a lot of money because a limited number of good copies exist. Demand exceeds supply.

  As it happens in speculator-driven markets, the bottom fell out, the speculators bowed out and the industry was left in a shambles. Many smaller publishers and some distributors and retailers disappeared as sales shrank. A title that once sold a million copies was now selling a hundred thousand copies — not the sort of decline that many small businesses are equipped to withstand, and serious repercussions would be felt for years to come. Although some titles today put up occasional sales numbers of 250,000 copies, the days of a million-seller were left behind.

  RISING FROM THE ASHES

  Surviving publishers took steps to rectify the damage, placing a greater focus on writers. Marvel's and DC's renewed emphasis on writing in the wake of the crash came at the same time the market for smaller-press, independent- minded graphic novels helped comics recapture some of its cachet. While not huge sellers compared to superhero titles, these kinds of books gave the industry the credibility it lacked and a means to reach out to more sophisticated audiences (and to readers who had tired of the gimmicky superhero comics in the first place).

  This is why Neil Gaiman's Sandman book, a title that crept into stores to little fanfare in 1991, was so heralded — the writing is intelligent and resonant, and the art sublime and impactful. Reprints still top best-seller lists more than fifteen years after its launch. Meanwhile, modern-day comic conventions are filled with boxes of other comics from the same year — many of them still sealed in their original polybags and with their bonus trading cards intact — and now available for a quarter a copy.