March 4th - 2022: Break Through the Pages

Today, after having previously the night before sorted a number of new arrivals to my comic collection, noticed that when looking flicking through the individual issues (really looking at just the art than reading the story) noticed how similar the issues were in the contents, yet how they varied in the layout of said contents.

For example. In comparison between DC Comics and Image Comics individual issues, when breaking down their comics into their page count/type of contents on each page, regardless of the overall page count of the single issue, a series of factors emerge and remain the same.

Both publishers print adverts and other forms of information alongside the story that is being printed in that issue. Image Comics, unless there is some big event on or need to fill the left over pages to be able to print the issue, information from the creators of the comics (mostly afterwards or behind the scenes look at the production of the issue) and adverts are printed at the back of the issue, and are sometimes either before or after a sort of advert or sneak peek page which highlights the next issue in the series. These pages only ever appear at the end of an issue printed by Image Comics.

Now, it's a very different story with DC. In my honest opinion, and I believe a large portion of the DC community will agree too, that DC does not have the intention of delivering a story to you in mind when selling their comics, but instead are selling you a multitude of adverts for other stories available at the current time of that issues publication, whilst also happening to feature a story on the side in that issue. When reading the comics, and doing some painstakingly long research (I will get onto this in a minute), I have noticed that I cannot go more than 3-5 pages on average without seeing a single page advert or a double page, sometimes even having five straight pages of story, but then only to have a single page advert, a single page of story, and then a double page of adverts, only to have what I have just said more or less repeat itself for the remainder of the issues page count.

IT IS A TOTAL RIPOFF AND A SCAM IN MY EYES!

DC comic fans are not paying for a story anymore, but for adverts that are highlighting other stories they could possible read and be sold instead of reading the issue they are trying to read, but keep being interrupted by a constant stream of adverts. And on top of the five or six adverts throughout the issue interrupting the story, there is quite often another four or five adverts at the back also, sometimes even a crappy comic they promised a young and upcoming comic creator that they would publish, so they sick it in the back of the issue, tricking the consumers into believing that there is going to be a story packed issue of fun, when there is virtually nothing in there.

I cannot feel for how some of the older DC fans must feel now, having to but these overpriced issues, which in turn is not what they think they are buying, but are actually but literal adverts, a rubbish underworked comic story and half the original story that they had gone out to buy.

My Research:

Briefly in the last few paragraphs, I mentioned that I did some research.

What I did was that I broke down a number of different titled comics from different publishers, each of them all being single issues (or floppies) and all of different lengths. After recording their information into an Excel Spreadsheet and analysing the data, it is clear the big difference between the publishers and the issues they publish, the major point being what I have just talked about concerning adverts in DC and Image Comics issues.

I broke the issues down into eight different categories, in order to catalogue what each of the individual pages in the selected issues featured and fitted into my created categories. Theses are the following categories:

• Number of Cover Pages - (front and back cover)

• Number of Printing Information Pages - (information which specifies where the comic was printed, who is was printed by, as well as the creators of the comics and a possible inside title)

• Number of Story Pages - (pages in which feature panels and text which tell the story advertised/shown on the cover of comic issue)

• Number of Advert Pages - (pages in which advertise comics or other products that do not relate to the story of the comic etc.)

• Number of Information Pages - (pages in which feature information which commonly consists of afterwards, sketches, behind the scenes and notes from the creators or publisher)

• Number of BREAK Pages - (pages which are not story/advert/gallery/information/printing information pages, but form a break in the overall issue, normally sectioning off a secondary story from the issues main story)

• Number of Gallery Pages - (pages in which feature artwork for the comic by the creators, or variant covers available for that specific issues or issues to come)

• Total Number of Pages - (all page count categories, excluding Total Number of Pages, totalled together)

With the help of these categories, as well as a series of bar charts I was able to create using the data I had recorded and Excel, I was able to see a defining difference between current top comic publishers, and how they can fall into two categories. Below is a bar chart of all the comics I had used to collect data under my created categories, and how they relate to each other visually for an easier understanding. Each set of bars is set next to one of the comic titles, while each of the individual bars represents one of the eight categories, organised by a colour key:

What I personally saw, was this.

The comic publishers of current, do either on of two things:

• They sell their their comics to the consumer

• Or they sell their comics to the audience

What do I mean by this, I hear you ask? What I am getting is that the publishers have a very different mindset to one another, in retrospect of when publishing their comics. When looking at the bar chart above, it is very clear that certain comics have more adverts than others, those comics being published by DC. I understand that a majority of these comics have adverts, but DC has more, and I have already mentioned how they lay them out.

Just look at the advert page count for Batman: The New 52 #1 shown in the bar chart, a quarter of the total page count is adverts, and part of the comic is not even the story advertised on the cover, so in actuality, the page count for story pages is almost the same as the number of advert pages.

DC is not thinking, "hey, let's give our fans an amazing story", they are saying, "yeah, thats cool Scott Snyder, but let's advertise all the other Batman comics we are publishing at the moment, throughout your issue."

It just isn't right, they takes the readers, and me, out of the story, limiting the story we had just paid for, and then after seeing all those adverts we go out and buy more only to have the same experience again. In the end, they are rich, we are bankrupt, they only listen to those who can pay for the comics as they are rich, and the fans who have less money don't get any enjoyment out of their favourite characters anymore and don't have a voice towards how DC universe should be presented and publicised.

Don't get me started on DC films, as Warner Brothers has the same problem, they only see money, not a story, just a character who bears a big DOLLAR sign on their chest and is at their disposal whenever they want to make a spot of extra cash to make their greedy capitalistic friends even richer.

The comic industry is changing in huge ways, and half the time not for the better. The does need to be a change, there needs to be more people publishing and creating comics, just likes those who founded Image Comics and BOOM! Studios. I can only say, that the only real change and hopeful turning point for these historical fictional worlds, is the success of Matt Reeves dark, gritty, detective murder mystery vigilante film, THE BATMAN.