Are weekly comics doomed?

[Digifiend]

The Beano's usual price is £2 exactly, but it's an extra 50p right now due to those Turbo Battlerz covermounts, the last of which will be with next week's issue. The price will revert to £2 after that.

[AndyB]

Eh? A fourth Korky nephew? So Nip, Lip and Rip had a brother or cousin?

As for Biffo, it seems that DCT have forgotten that Cuddly is female. Despite the fact she wears a bow, the Beano website referred to both as Biffo's nephews. http://beano.com/characters/meebo-zuky/ ... 27s-biffo!

They've fixed that since, but in the Beano itself, Cuddly and Dudley were definitely both male.

[Digifiend]

You have me to thank for the fix:

I see a bow on Cuddly's head. Isn't she a girl, and therefore Biffo's niece rather than nephew? [WEBGUY SAYS - Well spotted, Digifiend. Biffo DID have nephews called Cuddly and Dudley in the 1980s BEANO strips, but the pair of cubs in MAGIC were indeed his nephew and niece... while the original nephews from the 50s and 60s were rarely named, but were in fact called Bertie and Bruin.]

[Kid Robson]

I saw The Beano for sale in my local supermarket recently, the price was £2.50!! Golly, is this the usual price of the weekly comic or was it a special? When I read the Beano in the early 1960s it cost 3d.

DCT were taking advantage of the holiday period by charging 50p more - it's usually £2. However, it's worth remembering that The Beano is now 36 full-colour pages, whereas, in the'60s, it only had 16 pages with 4 in full-colour and some of them in spot colour. That said, the '60s incarnation didn't carry out-of-house ads.

[Digifiend]

There's many reasons for the price hikes over the years. Rampant inflation, increased production costs, lower print runs, improved paper quality, extra ink (due to full colour printing), increased pagination (which doesn't just mean more paper, but also additional artist fees), and they now tend to charge for what used to be free gifts (this was the case over the summer with those Turbo Battlerz packs).

Indeed, the only reason that they stayed at 2d for over 20 years was because of the fact the pagination had been so badly savaged during World War II. If it had remained at 28 pages the whole time, you can be sure the price would've gone up faster, although it wouldn't have affected the present day price since we finally overtook the 1930s pagination in 1998. Of course, 2d was still cheap in the 1950s and that may well be why The Beano and The Dandy survived so long and became ingrained in the public consciousness.

[Kid Robson]

There's many reasons for the price hikes over the years. Rampant inflation, increased production costs, lower print runs, improved paper quality, extra ink (due to full colour printing), increased pagination (which doesn't just mean more paper, but also additional artist fees), and they now tend to charge for what used to be free gifts (this was the case over the summer with those Turbo Battlerz packs).

Indeed, the only reason that they stayed at 2d for over 20 years was because of the fact the pagination had been so badly savaged during World War II. If it had remained at 28 pages the whole time, you can be sure the price would've gone up faster, although it wouldn't have affected the present day price since we finally overtook the 1930s pagination in 1998. Of course, 2d was still cheap in the 1950s and that may well be why The Beano and The Dandy survived so long and became ingrained in the public consciousness.

'Production costs' would include the increased page rates to artists and writers, I suppose - but in DCT's case, it's hardly been that much. (At least they pay promptly, so I've heard.) However, I think it's a certainty that one of the reasons B & D remained so popular for so long was because of the low price.

[babington]

We often talk about the decline of comics on this forum but if I go into Smiths these days the shelves are crammed with comics. Beano and Dandy are surely on the decline (or gone), but there are more comics on the shelf now than when I was young - it's just the titles and tastes have changed - more TV tie-ins, superheroes, etc. But is it really all that bad?

I agree about the price issue. I'm constantly seeing free or very cheap newspapers that presumably make money from advertising. Couldn't there be a comics version of this? Didn't comics start in newspapers? When I was a kid I couldn't care less about the quality of the paper - just the strips. If it was funny or exciting I read it, and if it wasn't I stopped. The Beano was a winner because it was cheap, well done, and very funny.

[Kid Robson]

We often talk about the decline of comics on this forum but if I go into Smiths these days the shelves are crammed with comics. Beano and Dandy are surely on the decline (or gone), but there are more comics on the shelf now than when I was young - it's just the titles and tastes have changed - more TV tie-ins, superheroes, etc. But is it really all that bad?

I agree about the price issue. I'm constantly seeing free or very cheap newspapers that presumably make money from advertising. Couldn't there be a comics version of this? Didn't comics start in newspapers? When I was a kid I couldn't care less about the quality of the paper - just the strips. If it was funny or exciting I read it, and if it wasn't I stopped. The Beano was a winner because it was cheap, well done, and very funny.

Although there seems to be just as many (or more) periodicals for kids on the shelves than ever, not all of them contain mainly comic strips, or sell anywhere near the number that comics once did. In that sense, the industry is nowhere near as strong as it used to be, sadly - despite the overflowing shelves in newsagents. What's the solution? Dunno, I'm afraid.

[colcool007]

The thing is that our society is now geared towards the quick fix. And weekly comics cannot compete with Nickolodeon, CITV, etc as they would broadcast 24/7 if they were allowed to and steal the last remaining comic audience.

Weekly comics will die eventually, but if it is this decade or this century is anyone's guess.

Sorry to be so pessimitic, but better to face reality than to deny it.

[Bigwords]

Weekly comics will die eventually, but if it is this decade or this century is anyone's guess.

When movies came along, it was claimed that it would kill off reading / the theater / oral storytelling - none of which have completely disappeared. Then television was going to kill the trips to the Kinema... Back in the late 90s (when graphics went from godawful to slightly more appealing - yet terribly blocky still) computer games were going to topple cinema and television in one fell swoop. While it may be true that sales of certain computer games can make the gross take for Titanic look puny, that isn't the whole story, and - last I checked (about six months ago) - book sales were rising overall. For every new entertainment, and every technological development, people simply love stating "we're dooomed" as if auditioning for Dad's Army. Not quite true though, despite what is constantly repeated across those multiple avenues of media.

Once a thing is, it is really difficult for it not to be so any more. People will get nostalgic, or panicked, or... whatever. Sales will rise again. Interest will surge. It is true that (barring something unprecedented) we will never again witness sales of over a million, but that in itself isn't a sign that weeklies are going to ultimately vanish forever. There are lots of things which haven't been attempted yet, and it is only a matter of time until we see someone attempt to redefine the weekly in a modern context. It has been done (at least three or four times) with monthly titles, showing the artistic heights available, so the weeklies are overdue a shot in the arm.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I have always maintained that as long as there is an outlet of some sort, whether paper or on a screen, comics will always be around as long as civilization exists, including brand-new material.

While it is very sad that the true glory days are well and truly over regarding decent/healthy sales and exposure to the general public overall, comics will still be here after I am gone, I am sure of that, and it's sad I will miss out on what the future will provide.

I do agree that the present climate is not providing a strong enough outlet for talented artists: they can put their stuff out on the web for free of course, but who can blame them for being disillusioned?


I do hope that some system will come along where creators are paid for their efforts....yes, this must sound a bit hypocritical coming from someone who has championed illegal comic scans in the past, but at least the creators of older comics got paid...------today, there are a lot of creators out there who are putting out pro-level stuff online without payment which I reckon is a far bleaker state of affairs. [for the creators, that is, not the readers.]

[felneymike]

Some of the bigger webcomics do make quite a bit of money from advertising / merchandising. In a very few cases it's probably more than they would have made if they had got it published the conventional way!
But for every one of those, there's probably 10 other really good comics that are making a net loss (well, the cost of pens, paper and time put in, and nothing at all got out, which isn't a huge loss), and 1000 "less good" comics that nobody's even noticed.

If you talk in terms of sheer output, we're probably living in the golden age of comics now. It's just they're mostly on the internet, not making any money and a lot of them look awful or have terrible storylines (though there's plenty with bad art and great stories, and vice vera, too). Oh for that Euro Millions win, and giving all the great-but-unnoticed storytellers a print outlet!

If anybody fancies a bit of fun, every Feb 1st is Hourly Comics Day, where you draw a biographical comic every hour: http://www.tencentticker.com/msgbrd/vie ... 00d6fc2256
(Link will hopefully go to page 46 of the spam-infested forum, where the comics start. Those boards get neglected the rest of the year and only cleaned up in February).

[Kid Robson]

Some of the bigger webcomics do make quite a bit of money from advertising / merchandising. In a very few cases it's probably more than they would have made if they had got it published the conventional way!
But for every one of those, there's probably 10 other really good comics that are making a net loss (well, the cost of pens, paper and time put in, and nothing at all got out, which isn't a huge loss), and 1000 "less good" comics that nobody's even noticed.

If you talk in terms of sheer output, we're probably living in the golden age of comics now. It's just they're mostly on the internet, not making any money and a lot of them look awful or have terrible storylines (though there's plenty with bad art and great stories, and vice vera, too). Oh for that Euro Millions win, and giving all the great-but-unnoticed storytellers a print outlet!

If anybody fancies a bit of fun, every Feb 1st is Hourly Comics Day, where you draw a biographical comic every hour: http://www.tencentticker.com/msgbrd/vie ... 00d6fc2256
(Link will hopefully go to page 46 of the spam-infested forum, where the comics start. Those boards get neglected the rest of the year and only cleaned up in February).

To me, a 'comic' is a paper publication, and is a medium that has its own distinct identity. Although the 'comic strip' may survive in other mediums (like digital or graphic novels, etc.), to me they will never be 'actual' comics, because they are presented in an entirely different form than the traditional one. Reading something on a screen just doesn't have the same appeal to me as a 'real' comic - and a book, while certainly having its own charms, is not quite a comic even 'though it may contain comic strips.

[Ginger]

We often talk about the decline of comics on this forum but if I go into Smiths these days the shelves are crammed with comics. Beano and Dandy are surely on the decline (or gone), but there are more comics on the shelf now than when I was young - it's just the titles and tastes have changed - more TV tie-ins, superheroes, etc. But is it really all that bad?

But most of these titles aren't comics at all, they're 'kids' magazines', full of nothing but bland filler, puzzles, 'feature' pages and rubbish. Some have not a single comic strip in them at all! The strips that are in some of them tend to be just strip versions of the TV show, so there's no opportunity for cartoonists to create anything new and original. It's bland corporate sludge, it's not at all comparable to the days when the shelves were crammed with REAL comics.

[Kid Robson]

Have to agree with that, Ginger. And they cost a lot more nowadays too, even allowing for inflation.