As I’ve been re-reading the comic books on my shelf and gobbling up new ones through Libby, it’s struck me that comics may be the most disposable storytelling medium I engage with.
Granted, all art is disposable and that’s not just a phenomenon of the modern era. A brief look at the history of art and entertainment in 20th century America shows a society crammed full of pulp novels, radio plays, nickelodeons, sitcoms, vaudeville—hell, even regular films, novels, and prestige TV are and always have been disposable.
I love comics and yet I find I can devour and forget them more than any other medium. Why? And why don’t I personally do the same for novels, movies, or TV?
My Lifelong Love Affair With Comics
it’s this one
Ever since I stumbled upon a stray collection of Garfield comics (I remember which one too) on my parents’ bookshelf, I have been hopelessly enthralled by the medium. Every time I think I’m growing up and leaving comics behind, they reel me back in with new fantastical tales that make me go, “okay, just this one…” and then before I know it, I’ve read ten volumes in three days.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I am always going to be twelve years hold at heart.
I need all kinds. Shove ‘em right in my eyes
My love started with comic strips—Calvin & Hobbes, the Far Side, Foxtrot… and yes, Garfield and Dilbert (look, I was young), but my tastes could not be contained to one-off gags. I thirsted for more substantial stories.
My first and only superhero love is Spider-Man, but for the most part I was tepid on superhero stuff and got deep into the likes of Sandman, Bone, and Alan Moore’s oeuvre. Furthermore, I took to Belgian style comics such as Tintin and Asterix with aplomb. But the type of comic book that dominated my shelves more than any other when I was younger was manga.
I had a subscription to Shonen Jump for a long time, but also wound up making my way through the full series of Dragon Ball, Rurouni Kenshin, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Death Note among others. I always preferred manga to anime. And that has a lot to do with how damn fast I can blow through comic books.
Speed-readin’ demon
Unlike anime or other television shows that require sitting through a particular length of time per episode, comic books can be finished as fast as one can take in a page. Comics are generally one of the easiest art forms to consume, and I’ll get to my thoughts on why later, but the reason I’ve read so many comic books and why most people I know who do read them also have a similar voracious appetite has a lot to do with how easy and fast they are to binge. The sorts of stories comics tell lend themselves to reading large amounts too.
The Pulp(ish) History of American Comics
Humans have been telling stories through combinations of art and word for thousands of years, but the comic book as we know it today has its roots in the turn of the century newspapers.
Funny pages only, please
It’s not a racist caricature of an East Asian boy, believe it or not. I know you’d think that given the name and it being the late 1800s, but I checked and no.
Up until 1897, comics were never sold on their own. Before then, they were an integrated part of newspapers. The first standalone comic publication is widely considered to be The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats, which was a collection of previously-run newspaper strips. Eventually, more and more collections were published and in 1922 Comics Monthly became the first dedicated publication, although these were still reprints of newspaper strips [1].
While printing techniques may have been similar between comics and pulp fiction, they were relatively separate industries due to comics’ anchoring in newspaper.
The parallel rise of pulp fiction
The first pulp rag. Gaze upon its glory.
It was around the same time The Yellow Kid was published that the first pulp magazines also entered circulation. The course of fiction printing was forever changed in 1896 when the Argosy magazine exclusively began to run fictional stories printed on the cheap pulp paper that would become commonplace for the next half century. These magazines printed many stories about numerous characters over the course of an issue. These were fantasy, adventure, science fiction, detective, and romance tales among others.
Eventually, pulp magazines focused around single characters were released, the first being the wildly popular “The Shadow” detective character whose exclusive magazine debuted in 1931 [2].
It was these sorts of stories that eventually led to the Golden Age of Comics and the format we know today.
Superman changed everything in 1938
Can you believe this dumb be-caped idiot changed everything?
Leading up to Superman, National Allied Publications (what would eventually become DC Comics) published New Fun in 1935, the first comic collection of wholly original material and not newspaper reprints. The next few years would see the release of various pulp-inspired comic publications, such as Detective Comics which would eventually give birth to Batman.
Superman wasn’t the first comic character to leave the land of newspaper funnies behind and indulge in stories more closely aligned with pulp, but his popularity as a character blew the floodgates wide open [1]. The whole genre of superhero comics was a direct permutation of the famous pulp characters that came before, like the aforementioned Shadow, as well as Tarzan and Zorro.
The birth of modern comic publication starts here. The rest, as they say, is history.
Comeconomics
Comic books are a medium with dubious profitability. The hits can really rake in the cash, but low sales can hurt a lot. The cost of comics is cheap, but their price is can really add up for the consumer which, among other reasons, is part of why it’s stuck in a niche market. But there is the digital world to consider…
Cost of doing business
Compared to many other storytelling mediums, the cost of producing a single issue of a comic book is relatively cheap compared to television or even novels. Part of this is due to there being far fewer personnel per comic issue than an episode of TV. A single issue requires the work of only about a half dozen to a dozen people whereas TV employs several dozen for a single episode.
The cost of a given book fluctuates depending on a variety of factors—whether it’s an indie or mainstream or whether there is in-demand talent on the team to name a couple—but an indie comic is likely to run about $4000 for the creative team per issue with an additional 40¢ per each copy [3]. These numbers can go up substantially, especially in the mainstream realm, but compare that with a single episode of, say, NCIS which costs a whopping $2.5 Million [4]. No single issue is ever going to cost anything close to that much even if you get Stephen King to write and Hayao Miyazaki to draw.
The thing is, more people watch TV and it’s a significantly more lucrative market for advertisers. Comics—especially single issues rather than graphic novels—are doomed to be niche.
For the low low price of… oh wait…
Go into a comic book store. Nearly all issues are priced at $3.99 with some climbing up to $5.99. Now, say you want to get into reading comic books. Maybe a writer you like is doing a series that looks intriguing. Maybe you saw a Marvel movie and were smitten by a character and want more of their stories.
If you go in for a single series, $3.99 a month isn’t too bad for the wallet, although it can certainly feel expensive for only twenty two pages of entertainment. But if you want to follow a handful of titles, the cost very quickly becomes prohibitive. Following five different series will run you $20 a month or more for physical releases.
Even if you generally stick to trade paperbacks like I do, that’s still $16-$25 per volume. A long series is a substantial financial investment many can’t justify.
But the individual issue is still pretty cheap, all considered. It’s on cheap paper. It’s stuffed full of ads. It screams “I’m disposable.” Digital lowers the price even further.
For the low low price of… next to nothing?
Despite not having to worry about printing costs, digital comics tend to cost the same as their physical counterparts. Ebooks do this too. It’s annoying.
But digital subscription services are hugely worth it for the price. Comixology is $5.99 a month and grants access to 25,000 books and discounts purchases. Marvel Unlimited is $9.99 a month and DC Universe Infinite is $7.99—both grant access to each company’s nearly entire publication history. That’s massive. Keeping up to date on your favorite series is now a fraction of the price.
Moreover, if you’re willing to be patient and wait for trades, many libraries carry the graphic novels of series. I’ve read dozens of comic volumes digitally through Libby and Hoopla.
Plus… comics are ridiculously easy to pirate. Which is part of the reason for the eye-poppingly cheap digital subscription models. With easy piracy and digital subscription, it’s easier than ever to read what you want and move on.
Collectability Works Best With Disposability
Comic books are notorious for being a collectable medium where some enthusiasts willing to pay ridiculous sums for rare and old issues.
I have a theory about the collectability economy. While it’s theoretically possible to collect anything, the markets we tend to think of as “collectable”—comics, stamps, coins, trading cards, Funko pops, etc—all have one thing in common: everything is a limited run. Limited runs work best when a lot of product can be made at low cost for a low initial selling price. In other words: limited runs and disposability are two sides of the same coin.
Once a given physical comic issue has run through circulation, it is never again going to be reprinted in that format (there are a few exceptions). Sure, the issue may be collected in a trade, but it’s never going to be available in that particular format again. Like baseball cards, once they’ve made as many packs as they’re going to, they’re not going to do any re-releases. It’s a deflationary economy.
Now, not every old comic issue is secretly worth a bundle of cash. Most aren’t. Just like most hoarded Funkos aren’t going to sell for more than double the sticker price. The less said about Be*nie B*bies, the better. Collectable economies are weird, but they’re only possible when scarcity is a factor in a given product’s creation and nothing creates scarcity more than disposability.
Comic Stories Themselves Lend Towards Disposability
Comic books are an inherently serial medium. One-off issues that tell a complete story on their own are an exception. A story that has an intended endpoint doesn’t often get published first as a graphic novel—it has a run of issues that are first compiled. Of course, since the mainstreaming of graphic novels, there are quite a few of those that get published these days without having to run through the regular single issue circulation gauntlet, but it’s still overwhelmingly the case that issues come first, then trades.
While there are notable arcs like X-Men’s Dark Phoenix Saga and groundbreaking contained stories like V for Vendetta that can be compiled into a single omnibus, most comics are not intended for single or low volume runs. Even stories that were designed to have an ending and not go on forever can have loads of volumes. Y: The Last Man, Transmetropolitan, and Sandman are ten volumes each. While not intended to go on forever, they are still of a serial nature.
Serialization also lends towards disposability in my mind. Because there is so much to read, I’m much more likely to blow through books very quickly so I can get onto the next one rather than savor a single book that’s all there is. Psychologically, TV shows and comics work similarly in my brain, but even still there’s that time-bounding that TV has. I can read comics as fast as I want. I’m never going to watch a TV show on 2x speed.
Just Too Easy to Read
All of the above combined with the fact I can knock out reading comics faster than consuming any other medium is why comic books tend to feel disposable to me despite comics containing some of my favorite stories. I hold dear my time spent in the worlds of Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Saga, and the Walking Dead. These stories moved me, they’ve thrilled me, they’ve given me new perspectives on the world.
Yet I’m always thirsting for more. When I was younger I compulsively re-read comic books because there was only ever a limited number in the house at a given time, but now not so much. I’m doing a big re-read now, but my thirst for stories knows no bounds. Thanks to Libby I’m diving into stories that I’d never have paid money for just because I need more and I’m curious.
And then I move on.
Comics are so easy for me to read. My mind very easily takes in images without needing to spend a lot of time poring over them. Since reading text can take me a while, the sparseness of text in comic books leads to a rapid-fire flipping of pages. I can burn through a volume in less than an hour, often less than half. I love these story injections. I don’t get it anywhere else.
That ease leads to disposability. I move on so quickly from even stories I love because there’s always another and it’s easier than ever to get my hands on the next fix.
Ultimately, All Stories are Disposable
“Disposability” isn’t necessarily a pejorative. Going all the way back to pulps, going even further back to Shakespeare, stories have an ephemeral quality that can really stick and linger and obsess in the minds of people… but there’s always another story around the corner.
Disposability needn’t be a bad thing. Sure, I do feel bad about not paying as close attention to comic books as maybe I should to wring the most enjoyment I can out of them, but I’m the sort of person who prefers having a wide breadth of experiences and interests rather than obsessing over single monumental ones. It’s why die-hard fans of a given work of art don’t make much sense to me. There are a lot of things I like, but I’m never going to devote myself to one piece of media and exclude myself from others. I don’t care enough to learn what each Avatar: The Last Airbender characters’ birthdays are, I’m here for a good story. While great stories can withstand multiple viewings and deep analysis, to me a good story has never been enhanced by obsessing over trivia and lore.
Just because something is disposable doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. Bob’s Burgers is a thoroughly disposable TV show that will always hold a special place in my heart. Same for the oodles of Discworld novels. Same for so many different comic series.
There is so much art out there—so much good art—that it can’t all be experienced. And that’s fine. No one should strive to consume all of pop culture. It just means that for the story and knowledge hungry, you will never run out of your next favorite tale.
References
[1] Kowalski, Jesse. “Comics: Comic Books.” Illustration History, Norman Rockwell Museum, N.D., https://www.illustrationhistory.org/genres/comics-comic-books [Accessed: 3 November 2021].
[2] Lampkin, William, and Corder, Charles. “A Brief History of Pulp Magazines.” The Reflector, Mississippi State University, 1979, https://thepulp.net/pulp-history/pulp-history/ [Accessed: 3 November 2021].
[3] Allen, Todd. “The economic reality of indie comics page rates.” The Beat, Superlime Media, 20 August 2015, https://www.comicsbeat.com/the-economic-reality-of-indie-comics-page-rates/ [Accessed: 4 November 2021].
[4] Happy Evil Dude. “What’s the budget of your favorite TV show?” IMDb, Amazon, 1 August 2013 https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056710448/ [Accessed: 4 November 2021]