The future of comics and graphic novels... and my utopian hopes.

[taniadelrio]

I was checking one of my favorite sites, Mangablog, and from there I was led to a link of a recent blog post by Becky Cloonan about floppies vs. graphic novels and how the whole Original Graphic Novel thing can't keep on the way it is. Too demanding, not enough pay, and individual volumes tend to disapear on the shelves with the rest of the masses

Comments

[limemanga]

Hey Tanja

[limemanga]

Sorry, I know your name is spelled Tania...just hit the wrong key!

[taniadelrio]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply! I've actually been quite interested in following what's been happening with Shogun magazine and I'm envious that it's only in Europe! I do think it's good that they are treating it as a sort of experiment and are flexible enough to change direction as needed.I feel it really has the potential to pave the way for similar publications if it succeeds

[limemanga]

Tania,

Your absolutely right on all points. The advance is not enough to live off of and Tpop would have been much better off with less projects (same can be said about Shogun which is going to have out more books than Tpop).

However, I want to mention one thing. Tpop's idea was always for the creators to do TWO BOOKS per year and not one. It sort of morphed into one book a year because that's what creators felt more comfortable doing. I know for a fact that the Tpop office is not happy with the release schedule. So, if you create two books, then the advance would be let's say 30k, which is already a lot better.

[taniadelrio]

Ah, that's interesting. Yes, it makes sense that TPOP would have expected a quicker turnaround from the beginning. I had assumed that because it's taken each artist about a year to complete a book, that this was also the expectaion. I guess it's all one big learning process!