GHO
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Post by GHO on Aug 12, 2022 16:00:19 GMT
I recently heard an interview with gary groth in which he mentions that the serialized "floppy" is more or less an obsolete form of publication and that there is no market for them. While I enjoy reading graphic novels in one go I do also enjoy the slow trickle of collecting individual issues, gaining more and more information from issue to issue. aside from the narrative aspects I love the design elements that a floppy holds, books don't have letters columns or advertising pages, any sort of design ephemera is also removed in traditional publishing. I guess what i'm trying to say is that from a reading perspective and a design perspective I much prefer collecting a run of issues as opposed to just buying a book. I understand the accessibility of a collection, I just think it takes pressure off the artist and allows them to slow down and create a more thought out product. I was wondering if anyone else feels like this or they hate floppies and only want to see printed collections.
I would say a great current example of what i'm thinking is crickets seeing the design of each issue get better and better is just as important to me as the narrative.
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Floppies
Aug 12, 2022 21:25:59 GMT
via mobile
Post by awfulquiet on Aug 12, 2022 21:25:59 GMT
There is a market for them, but it is becoming increasingly niche and probably more of a loss leader than anything.
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Post by mikesheawright on Aug 13, 2022 14:07:11 GMT
There's definitely reader interest but yeah I'm sure it's cost-prohibitive for a publisher. I'm hoping more cartoonists start putting out their own monthly minis or one-sheets like Santoro is doing with Hype Pup, super enjoying that. You can pack a lot of content into a double-sided 11x17. I'm currently fixing up a RISO and if I can get it working I'm definitely going to start a monthly something.
Also are there other monthly one-sheets/minis out there worth getting?
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GHO
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Post by GHO on Aug 13, 2022 18:05:48 GMT
I understand their cost prohibitiveness. But I can feel the same way about books especially when hardcovers come out and then it's sometimes years before a softcover comes out that still might be close to $30. I just like the aspect of buying cheaper parts to make a whole rather than getting it all at once. Max Huffman makes great mini comics for four dollars and a good regulation size floppy like the last letter is Z by clay mears is $7 and that's fantastic. I understand that they're not "financially viable" but if you make the guts cheap as dirt, print in black, or better yet as a small publisher, riso the whole thing $7-8 is pretty good when each book is close to or less than a dollar to make. n try as hard as possible to keep them in print (haha). I just like the idea of having a bunch of alternative floppies in circulation. |
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Floppies
Aug 14, 2022 0:09:36 GMT
via mobile
Post by awfulquiet on Aug 14, 2022 0:09:36 GMT
In prose/book publishing hardcover books have for a long time now been a sunk cost. It's advertising, it's for some sense legitimacy in the market. Going straight to paperback is the book equivalent of straight to home video.
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Post by mikesheawright on Aug 16, 2022 17:19:24 GMT
I am super enjoying Everglide by Carlos Gonzalez. Doesn't come out monthly but he's really cranking this thing out and it does have that element of expectation build-up. Cheapo xerox black & white with color paper cover, love it.
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kevinfong
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IG - @professorwormington
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Post by kevinfong on Aug 17, 2022 17:32:47 GMT
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Post by mikesheawright on Aug 17, 2022 21:36:29 GMT
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Floppies
Aug 22, 2022 23:39:09 GMT
via mobile
Post by tywhite on Aug 22, 2022 23:39:09 GMT
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Post by disneyweirdness on Sept 30, 2022 22:48:32 GMT
I was wondering if anyone else feels like this or they hate floppies and only want to see printed collections. At this point I have more space for floppies than book-books. I keep them in rubbermaid storage bins in the garage at my mom's house. My bookshelf space is very limited by comparison. I used to work for a bookstore that sold old comics for 50 cents (30 with my employee discount, or free if I took them with me when I punched out). I could probably insulate the house with my bookstore hauls. |
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Post by arecomicsevengood on Oct 2, 2022 13:37:36 GMT
I definitely feel like floppies are preferable to bookshelf-format work for people whose work you're not necessarily so into you want their work on permanent display in your home, always at the ready. Which, as someone who has a lot of comics, that's most stuff. The floppy is an object you can have a more casual relationship with. It also feels more intimate and less performative, due to it being filed away in a box. Like it's more like a letter or a postcard from a friend, a personal effect, more than like a painting on display. This is just generally a more low-stakes, and therefore realistic, way of contending with art. I would definitely rather read the work of Gabrielle Bell, for instance, in short staple-bound pieces rather than in books representing years of effort.
I just bought and read that Elizabeth Pich Fungirl: You Are Revolting comic that's in single issue format. It's cute and enjoyable, even if I don't think it's particularly funny. I definitely wouldn't buy a deluxe hardcover of the material but it works in a floppy format, where it's like: I would probably like the person who made this OK, even if we're pretty different people. However, one presentational choice I don't like about is that there's ad copy on the back describing the plot, and while I can see why that's necessary on a book I think a single issue comic should be more confident in selling itself to the reader on the basis of its look as presented by cover art/interior flip-through.
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GHO
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Post by GHO on Oct 4, 2022 23:25:33 GMT
I used to work for a bookstore that sold old comics for 50 cents Right!!!!!! Like what's better than getting something thats offset printed for a 50 cents or even a dollar |
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Post by whitecomics on Oct 7, 2022 18:02:40 GMT
I definitely feel like floppies are preferable to bookshelf-format work for people whose work you're not necessarily so into you want their work on permanent display in your home, always at the ready. Which, as someone who has a lot of comics, that's most stuff. The floppy is an object you can have a more casual relationship with. It also feels more intimate and less performative, due to it being filed away in a box. Like it's more like a letter or a postcard from a friend, a personal effect, more than like a painting on display. It's funny, I agree with all of this but I can and have had the opposite relationship with a floppy as a result of these mechanics -- where the intimacy (and, sometimes, the handmade elements) makes it feel like a precious object, and as a result some of the comics I've returned to most are floppies or minis even in cases where I have the same material in a book. Another point of discussion we haven't mentioned yet: there isn't much better than a perfectly executed piece of floppy ephemera. A letters page, a dumb joke in the indicia, a back cover strip -- for me that's an essential ingredient for the ideal floppy. |
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Post by arecomicsevengood on Oct 16, 2022 17:57:11 GMT
Oh man, just remembered another thing I love about floppies - Reading something you don't really have the narrative context for but liking it and feeling like you get it, as an isolated statement, and then maybe eventually being able to go back and read it from the beginning and understanding it on a deeper level. I feel like this really highlights something about comics, or the appeal of storytelling happening on a formal level (or "vibes" level) that's unrelated to starting a story by setting things up and then the reader has the satisfaction of watching them pay off.
(I recently had this experience stumbling across two later issues of Barry Windsor-Smith's Storyteller, liking them, then ordering a lot of the first six issues online. Still haven't read issue 8, and the stories conclude in hardcovers I'm not going to buy.)
This is sort of an experience that used to be pretty common with TV shows too that has disappeared with the rise of streaming services.
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