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Why Give a Pass to Comics?

Sorry, that title is a tad vague. It will make sense in the end, I promise… It better, as providing a payoff in the end is the entire point of this article. For years now, I’ve lamented the trend within comics to write for the trade. While I understand the reasoning from a business sense, trades make it into big name bookstores, it makes the comic fan within see red... (I was trying to find a way to work in a Hulk reference, but no one says "green with rage", though people should. I’m starting now). Anyway, this pending oak of a rant comes from a wee acorn of a comment made on a fantastic comic review site, Legion of Doom: "The decompressed writing (yeah, it took seven issues for the team to come together) is much less of a problem when reading this as a single unit.", Jean-Claude Van Doom - June 17th, 2007 .

I couldn’t agree less...

Like television, comics are for the most part a serial medium. As such, the writer of a comic makes an unwritten but still implied promise to the reader: I will tell you a complete story, even if the story is part of a greater whole. Now I know some people will take to task this belief. However, I challenge you to find any (successful) comic arc, book, television program, or film that does not do the above. I doubt you can. Even films that end on a cliffhanger provided the reader or viewer with some form of closure. Yes, Han is frozen in Carbonite and the bad guys won, but you still got a complete story. Sure, Crisis on Infinite Earths took twelve issues to complete, but each and every issue still managed to tell a complete tale while forwarding the primary arc.

I just think the other is lazy writing.

Yes, sitting down to a completed comic is a fantastic way to rediscover a story. Perhaps there are elusive elements within the larger story that a reader might miss in single issues. There is nothing wrong with that. Indeed, with the exception of behind the scenes material and a desire not to damage your individual issues; that is only reason to purchase a trade collection. (Or, you have a desire to create a fantastic library of comics and those trades do look fantastic on a bookshelf). I also think writing with the trade collection in mind is potentially detrimental to the comic book industry. To be fair, I should admit that I know very little in regards to the retail end of comics. I don’t know what comic book storeowners prefer; the sales from a monthly book or trade collection. What I do know is that there are thousands of small press comic book companies trying to print their own books, but with the big boys aiming for trades; an already daunting task become downright Sisyphean. How can a small press even hope to get their books to readers if stores were forced to shift the paradigm to the trade market?

We don’t let television get away with it.

Would you continue to watch a television program if nothing really happened, every episode, but when called on it, the producers stated to the effect, when you watch the DVD collection, it will make more sense. I highly doubt it. The primary example, in my rarely humble opinion, being HBO's Carnivàle. The show had fantastic writing (from a character standpoint), great performances, and the setting was divine. Sadly, nothing ever happened in the show. Sure, there were small elements here and there, but nothing truly came to fruition. When called on it, the creators boldly stated that you had to wait till the end. Well, the end never really came and HBO ended the series. The same is happening with many of the comics coming out of the Big Two. Telling me that your epic tale will all make sense after 7 issues, 7 months, and $21 (assuming your book costs the industry average of $2.99 an issue) is not a way to endear me to your comic. If anything, it makes me not want to read your work.

Considering I’m talking about the Justice League of America, that is saying something.

What, you were expecting a perfect little ending? Sorry, don’t have one...

Frustrating, isn't it?