shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 20:46:46 GMT -5
Most of us know the history of how comics ended up in bound regularly published volumes, but why weren't they published as magazines? Throughout history, comics have more often referred to themselves as "magazines" or "mags" than "comic books" or "comics," and surely it would have been cheaper to have the printers utilize a format that was already in common use.
What was the advantage to inventing a new format for comics?
I know, in the age of the comics code, magazines were seen as being targeted to a mature age group (thus circumventing the code). Was that the idea back in the 1930s, as well? Invent a format that was somehow more easily identifiable as being "for kids"?
But that explanation doesn't hold up either, as the majority of comic readers in the 1930s and 1940s were adults.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 28, 2014 20:51:45 GMT -5
I'm sure I read an explanation but I'm too sleepy to investigate. But weren't comics and pulp magazines the same size in the 30s?
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 20:54:28 GMT -5
I'm sure I read an explanation but I'm too sleepy to investigate. But weren't comics and pulp magazines the same size in the 30s? That would definitely make more sense. Of course, then, why weren't pulps magazine sized? |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2014 21:01:04 GMT -5
I suspect-no proof or source here, that comics used newsprint not glossies like magazines because the earliest content was repackaged newspaper strips, which they knew how they would reproduce on newsprint rather than on glossy. Price of newsprint probably had something to do with it. Size of the package might have had to do with cost. Comics were meant to be produced on the cheap-re-purposed material not new, so smaller size means less costs. The bigger mags and pulps offered more new material and had a higher cover price. Would people pay a higher cover price for collections of reprint material? If not, decisions were made to keep production costs down to keep cover price down. Some of the early comics were even give-aways, so again they needed to be cheap to make. When original material entered into the equation, the need to keep costs down became even more imperative to make up for the increase cost of acquiring new material vs. repackaged reprints. So my best guess is that the format developed because of the peculiar economics of making comics.
-M
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 28, 2014 21:12:22 GMT -5
It was Maxwell C. Gaines who invented the comic book as we now it in the early '30s. He was looking for a way to keep the presses in continuous use (it was expensive to shut them down and restart them daily) at his then-employer (Western Printing, I think) when he noticed that a sheet of newsprint could be folded and trimmed after printing to form four pages. These pages could then be stapled together, along with a higher grade stock cover, to form a 64-page pamphlet. The first comic was a giveaway reprinting popular newspaper strips. On a hunch, Gaines slapped a 10-cent price sticker on the overrun and convinced a handful of newsstands to display them. When the pamphlet sold out virtually overnight, well, the rest is history.
Why were comics marketed mostly to kids? I suspect the vendors told Gaines that most of his books sold either to children or parents who bought them for their kids (or said they did), so he naturally concluded that was the audience. Too, although newspaper comics did have a considerable adult following, the medium as a whole was looked on in those days as a subliterate and disreputable one, fit only for children, immigrants, and others who needed pictures to follow a story.
Hope that's helpful!
Cei-U!
I summon the history lesson!
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 21:46:10 GMT -5
Extremely! So maybe then you can help me answer a related question I posted waaaaaaay back in the day at the old forum and never got a satisfactory answer to: Why were early comic books numbered? There was no back issue market, no collectors, and no internal continuity at this point, so why bother to put the issue number on the front cover when magazines and newspapers did not? I know Dell rarely put numbers on their covers, but pretty much every other publisher did. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 28, 2014 21:48:33 GMT -5
Honestly? I have no clue.
Cei-U!
I summon the painful admission!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2014 21:55:20 GMT -5
Cei-U knows all!
Great question shaxper - I know the old pulp magazines only had the date on the cover.....
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 22:00:25 GMT -5
Just a thought: is it possible the early newsprint printing quality was so crude that there was uncertainty as to whether the indica would be legible?
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 28, 2014 22:05:49 GMT -5
Probably not, since newspapers printed on the same paper and on the same presses often featured type as small or smaller than comic book indicias. By the way, most magazines did (and do) include an issue number in their indicias, just not on their covers.
Cei-U!
I summon the teeny, tiny type!
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 22:08:15 GMT -5
By the way, most magazines did (and do) include an issue number in their indicias, just not on their covers. Cei-U! I summon the teeny, tiny type! They still make magazines??? Just kidding. Yes, I'm well aware of this  |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2014 22:13:55 GMT -5
Here's another thought...book series marketed to kids (like the Hardy Boys) were numbered. Maybe they took the idea from them?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2014 22:20:29 GMT -5
Extremely! So maybe then you can help me answer a related question I posted waaaaaaay back in the day at the old forum and never got a satisfactory answer to: Why were early comic books numbered? There was no back issue market, no collectors, and no internal continuity at this point, so why bother to put the issue number on the front cover when magazines and newspapers did not? I know Dell rarely put numbers on their covers, but pretty much every other publisher did. Probably less for hunting down back issues and more for knowing when the new one comes out. "Action #14! I don't have that yet!" Or possibly for kids whose parents went to the newsstand for them, easier to let the parents know what the kid is looking for. Or maybe it was just a simpler form of cover date. I think magazines back then would have had the long form cover days like "December 1939". For the kids maybe "#5" was good enough. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 22:22:12 GMT -5
Extremely! So maybe then you can help me answer a related question I posted waaaaaaay back in the day at the old forum and never got a satisfactory answer to: Why were early comic books numbered? There was no back issue market, no collectors, and no internal continuity at this point, so why bother to put the issue number on the front cover when magazines and newspapers did not? I know Dell rarely put numbers on their covers, but pretty much every other publisher did. Probably less for hunting down back issues and more for knowing when the new one comes out. "Action #14! I don't have that yet!" Or possibly for kids whose parents went to the newsstand for them, easier to let the parents know what the kid is looking for. Or maybe it was just a simpler form of cover date. I think magazines back then would have had the long form cover days like "December 1939". For the kids maybe "#5" was good enough. Maybe the distribution system for comics made offering a cover date less workable. Maybe there was no guarantee the Late Spring, 1936 issue would arrive in stores in the Late Spring? |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 28, 2014 22:23:40 GMT -5
And, to throw another wrench into the debate, look what DID feature a cover date instead of an issue #:  Looks like the issues that followed continued to use cover dates and not offer an issue number on the cover. |
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