There’s little money to be made in web serializtion (I think Scott Kurtz and Gabe and Tycho filch everyone else’s–just kidding!), but there’s little to be made in publishing pamphlets, either, unless you’re drawing for a company that pays a page rate (advances are painfully small–I bet Tania delRio makes more per 200 pages than a TokyoPop artist does, I’m guessing a difference of $5,000. for TP v. at least $10,000. for Archie (and that’s presuming Archie only pays $50. a page.))
For self-publishers, pamphlets are just not worth the agony of production, printing and shipping, and fighting in a market that generally does not care about anything but Marvel/DC/Image/DH.

The great thing about a GN collecting web-serialized work is you only have to go through the production pain once, and you have a product you can sell in traditional bookstores and to libraries. Try that with a floppy.

Regular book publishers haven’t adapted this “scheduled payment” idea. It’s all or nothing with them. Advance, then royalty. As far as I know, the graphic novel lines at the publishers are the same way. Some, that are work for hire, may even pay when you FINISH a job.

Anyone know?

Can’t speak for the other two, but I believe Minx pays advances.

OTH, the larger is culture is slowly beginning to accept “graphic novels” as a valid form of artistic expression and they are doing so through mainstream bookstore distribution channels. (People can cite all the anecdotal evidence they want and try to cast whatever voodoo they choose over the Direct Market sales #s to dispute this but we are talking about two different audiences/markets with a little bit of bleed over. Not the same audience/market at all.) As such, the “graphic novel audience” is not going to go to a comic book store or look at a comic book rack to find a monthly/quarterly/etc. serialization of a novel. They will want the one chunk purchase. The experience they are looking for is decidedly different than that of the “periodical comic book audience”.

As acceptance of the form grows, the potential of an anthology increases. But that is way down the line. And still, even the most well-known fiction anthology today, McSweeney’s, still does not have the same audience impact as a single novel by one of it’s contributors (i.e. Michael Chabon, Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, etc.)

I think the bottom line is this: Creators working right now are working for the future, not for today. You gotta do it because you love it, and figure out the ways to pay the bills because, odds are, they’re not gonna get paid by your work anytime soon. Five, maybe ten years down the road, if things keep going the way they are there will probably be a good chance. But right now, there are no quick fixes. Evolution tends to happen slowly. It’s just very frustrating for those who are in it right now.

Making single issues cheaply doesn’t seem to influence consumers. ”

That’s a genre specific title driven by creators with small, dedicated followings.

Make a cheap comic with a popular character and solid storytelling and I think it would be different.

”

I agree.

Making single issues cheaply doesn’t seem to influence consumers.

Because the U.S. hasn’t had a thriving comics market within mainstream society for a long time, I’m thinking that the model we might best look to is not Japan’s manga industry but rather the traditional publishing industry. Reproducing what Japan has with manga would require a serious cultural shift; however, marketing graphic novels more or less as novels requires something that’s more achievable. If sequential art appears in a form more readily recognizable to American readers as something mainstream — a novel rather than a series of saddle-stitched comics — then they are more likely to accept it as something mainstream.

This makes it sound as if American consumers are superficial in their thinking, but, heck, maybe sometimes they are. After all, the same goes with prose literature — if your book is published in trade paperback format (which has a different meaning in the prose publishing industry) it is going to be perceived as having more literary merit than if it were published in mass market paperback format.

Perhaps the distinctive format manga now has — those undersized graphic novels that Borders has shelves to fit specifically — is what drives a perception that they are somehow meant for teenage girls only. Since they gained the most popularity with teenage girls early on, manga books in that recognizable format are going to be associated with teenage girls for those less willing to consider content and only see the packaging.

I really like the idea behind those kinds of publications. They combine one of the best qualities of the internet (free access) with the physical medium that a lot of people prefer. Anyone want to partner up with me to make this?

And of course, although the pamphlet sales will probably decrease, the fixed printing costs do not. Just reserving the press and turning it on is the biggest fixed cost in printing. That’s why the per unit cost for 2000 units is much less than for 1 unit. So if you’re printing a 4 issue serialized graphic novel, that means you have to turn on the machine 4 times. If you’re printing the whole thing at once, you only turn it on once. If the goal is to get 2000 total copies in print, either in serial pamphlet form or single volume form, it’s much cheaper to go the one volume route.

If it’s a money thing, get a day job. Tend bar, wait tables or do commercial illustrations and storyboards. Whoever said comics would pay the bills for everyone.

If it’s an exposure thing, find different ways to get that exposure. The web’s a great start. Make the online serial a revenue producer. Add a tipjar at the bottom of the page - “enjoy reading this comic - a buck or two would go a long way.” Add links to original art sales and commissions. If the strip is very popular, NPR telethon style campaigns - “we want to show you more comics, but first we have to raise $1000, please give”

But hey, that’s the beauty of creator-ownership - creators can make their own choices on how they want to see their work published. However, this is why serial pamphlets are usually a poor choice.

GIRL GENIUS has found what works for GIRL GENIUS.

The world is full of a variety of formats and styles, and there are no absolutes.

Not all novelists are cranking them out like Tom Clancy or Janet Evanovich. Yet somehow we expect this of our comic book creators. (Gotta pay the bills.)

Who’s the Harper Lee of comic books? Writes one incredible book and then says “Thank you. I’m done.”

I’d like to see, for instance, Dark Horse Presents come back. Don’t let it devolve again into a training ground for new artists. Put the big shots in there. Frank Miller. Alan Moore. Grant Morrison. Don’t force them to have a “cliffhanger” every 20 pages or so. Cerebus basically stopped caring where the floppies ended a little over halfway through the run, and he worked towards the collected phone books. People still bought both.

Prose writers disappear for years between books, and I don’t see why it should be different for cartoonists.