Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2020 20:12:07 GMT -5
An interesting perspective from Adam Lamb, part tie comic creator and full time executive in the art management field-from a piece at Bleeding Cool (I don't give much credence to BC's clickbait reporting most times, but they do bring in interesting folks to produce opinion pieces form time to time, this is one of those.
Adam Lamb is the creator of The Tide comics series and Rich and Strange Press, his publishing imprint. Alongside his work as an artist and writer, he is also a "suit" – a trained picture editor, IP, image, and brand consultant and has worked for many art galleries and in TV over the past 20 years. He writes for Bleeding Cool.
If you are interested in Zoya, the pre-launch Kickstarter page is here: Zoya Kickstarter where you can click to be notified when it launches. (Lamb is based in the UK so all prices at his shop and kickstarter are in UK currency).
I haven't read any of Lamb's stuff yet (I intend to check out the web-version of Tide Vol. 1 in the near future, but he does offer an interesting perspective. As long time comic book fans we are often inured to the deficiencies or inadequacies of storytelling in a lot of comics to more general readers because we often look at them through the lens of nostalgia or we grew up on comics so they became are norm/standard and we don't question where they fall short. One thing Lamb does bring is an understanding of the relationship between production cost, price points and economy of scale that I think a lot of fans lack, especially when I hear complaints about comics being too expensive especially when they try to compare the rise of comic prices to inflation without taking into consideration the impact of a shrinking consumer base on the price per unit (it's just not feasible to lower prices when you are selling fewer units but production costs keep rising and a drop in prices will not increase sales enough to meet the gap, in fact increased sales at a lower price point will likely generate less revenue and shrink margins to the pint they are not profitable enough to be viable for many current retailers ot continue carrying). And he understands that for comics to have a future as an affordable medium, they have to find a larger audience, and that means making comics that have a broader appeal than to just hardcore super-hero comics fans in the shrinking direct market. And I agree, a lot of comics made for that direct market audience just aren't good enough to appeal to a larger mass audience, but I think that's been the case for at least half a century not a failing of "modern super-hero comics, like a lot of fans want to attribute it to. Collections of classic comics that we old fans like and grew up on sell no better to mass audiences than do more recent super-hero fare, and in some cases sell a whole lot worse, so they are not a better product in terms of mass market appeal or perceived quality of storytelling by the audiences comics need to reach to survive in the changing marketplace.
I am not sure I agree with the conclusions he draws or his ideas how to improve things, but I do think his analysis of the issues a the core of the problem are insightful and cut to the heart of the matter. It certainly provides some food for thought.
-M
Adam Lamb is the creator of The Tide comics series and Rich and Strange Press, his publishing imprint. Alongside his work as an artist and writer, he is also a "suit" – a trained picture editor, IP, image, and brand consultant and has worked for many art galleries and in TV over the past 20 years. He writes for Bleeding Cool.
All my work is produced from my studio based in Sheffield in the UK, a city home to a vibrant arts scene. Here, I focus on creating painted-worlds for my own books (and sometimes other clients). I work both traditionally and digitally with the intention of creating drama in comics that allows the reader to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in the story.
25 years ago, in my late teens, I stumbled upon a copy of Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics in my local library. The book left a lasting impression on me and on thousands of others over the years.
"The potential of comics!" I thought. Wow. And comic readerships seemed to be growing. The thing is, most comics I'd read weren't that good. I put my aspirations to be an illustrator or comic artist to one side. I studied film, design, and art management at university and ended up having a successful management career in these sectors. I kept reading comics. Had they got better? Well, yes, they had – a bit. Some were very good. Most weren't. More writers, artists, editors, letterers, colourists, and designers were pushing the potential of the medium, though. (Sturgeon's Law does apply – it just seemed to be higher in comics.)
I was reminded, though, of my early film-history classes and how early 20th-century film stumbled around whilst creative people figured out how to make this new medium work. This "new" medium of cinema wasn't theatre; it was something else. A new language was created. And for a while, it wasn't very good. This is true of comics as well, of course. A rich, sophisticated language has emerged – as explained so well in Scott McCloud's book. But comics as a medium didn't seem to improve as fast as film did.
What matters in a story is emotion and meaning. Audiences get to feel, thrill, fear, love, laugh, and cry. "Meaning creates emotion" to paraphrase Robert McKee's book, Story. This, to me, is at the heart of drama and the reason we don't have a wider comics readership. To create this drama, we require the reader to suspend their disbelief. And to do this, they need to stop feeling like they are reading panels, words, and images on a page. The core of the problem then is that we must get better at the medium of comics.
Am I better at this than anyone else? Nope. But I'm trying really hard to make better comics. To use the medium better. So I created Sea Change Comics. To publish comics that are trying to make better use of the medium and also to share inspiration and ideas for others to do the same.
I've been fortunate to concentrate my art management work 4 days per week in order to spend at least a day a week trying to make better comics. I currently have two titles under my imprint for Sea Change, Rich and Strange Press. Dark fantasy thriller The Tide (Volumes 1 & 2 available now) and the forthcoming Russian Cyberpunk book Zoya, coming in 2021. You can judge how my efforts to produce comics with more drama. The Tide Vol.1 is free via my website Sea Change Comics
I wrote The Tide over many years. I had thought to work with another artist on this before deciding to draw the book myself. The Tide started with the ending. It's essentially a story about trust in the face of an overwhelming powerful spy network. It's a witness protection story with supernatural monsters to up the ante. I worked with award-winning letterer Jim Campbell on The Tide debut and got the benefit of Jim's years of lettering and logo design experience.
You can follow The Tide at thetide.co.uk. Zoya is my next book. A story about the decisions we make out of fear.
Thinking about comics, I am trying to look at how the medium can help me suspend the reader's disbelief and feel the drama. As McCloud says, much of the power of comics lies "between the panels." It happens "off-panel" in our minds. I'm pushing that as much as I can in my work. I'm also focusing on the little moments of expression in characters. I need you to feel what they are feeling, so you will find "talking heads" in my work. Finally, I'm keen to explore what the medium can do for atmosphere. I was never much one for abstraction in art, but increasingly I want to use light, colour, and tone to create mood over more "definitive" drawings. In short, I'm trying to give you just enough for the story to take place – not on the page, but in your mind. To paraphrase the late, great Micheal Turner, "The readers going to come up with something in their mind far better than anything you can put down on paper."
So, in 2020 I've been experimenting as I work on The Tide 3 to push my style to achieve the above. Experimenting with watercolour, acrylic, ink, pencil, oil, and digital to maximise the effect of abstracted light, tone, mood, and atmosphere.
And in my writing for Zoya, I've pushed the moment-to-moment actions of the characters to create those emotional beats in a story already raw with the emotion of a child facing hard choices in the near future Moscow. I wasn't the right artist for this book, and so for Zoya, I had to put together my first team in a "producer" role.
Zoya is drawn by Raymond "Monds" Agustin from the Philippines. Finding a team meant reviewing the work of scores of people to find the right creative partners. The number of talented artists was staggering, but Monds also shared a vision for what the Zoya book should be. He's hyper-focused on those moment to moment transitions in the "acting" and in creating the sense of atmosphere through well thought through lighting. And Zoya is a tough 9 panel per page format. UK based letterer Rob Jones (also a writer) brings the same thoughtful approach to lettering to place the lettering in the right story beats. And film poster designer Scott Saslow brings the
sensibilities to the tone of this book.
You can follow along with the production of Zoya at Zoya Comics
And why does it matter for more people to read comics? Well, comics are incredibly time-consuming to make. And that can make them expensive to produce. So, unless people are prepared to pay a lot more for a book, we need more readers to make the economies of scale work. But aren't films and theatre even more expensive to make? Yes, they are. Films have to have far larger audiences to make them financially viable. And look at the price of a ticket to a theatre performance in the West End or on Broadway where they need to cover the cost of huge productions.
We are all about the show, but comics must also be about the business. This includes production and distribution. Which reminds me, I need to be more efficient and faster. There are two new books to release in 2021.
25 years ago, in my late teens, I stumbled upon a copy of Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics in my local library. The book left a lasting impression on me and on thousands of others over the years.
"The potential of comics!" I thought. Wow. And comic readerships seemed to be growing. The thing is, most comics I'd read weren't that good. I put my aspirations to be an illustrator or comic artist to one side. I studied film, design, and art management at university and ended up having a successful management career in these sectors. I kept reading comics. Had they got better? Well, yes, they had – a bit. Some were very good. Most weren't. More writers, artists, editors, letterers, colourists, and designers were pushing the potential of the medium, though. (Sturgeon's Law does apply – it just seemed to be higher in comics.)
I was reminded, though, of my early film-history classes and how early 20th-century film stumbled around whilst creative people figured out how to make this new medium work. This "new" medium of cinema wasn't theatre; it was something else. A new language was created. And for a while, it wasn't very good. This is true of comics as well, of course. A rich, sophisticated language has emerged – as explained so well in Scott McCloud's book. But comics as a medium didn't seem to improve as fast as film did.
What matters in a story is emotion and meaning. Audiences get to feel, thrill, fear, love, laugh, and cry. "Meaning creates emotion" to paraphrase Robert McKee's book, Story. This, to me, is at the heart of drama and the reason we don't have a wider comics readership. To create this drama, we require the reader to suspend their disbelief. And to do this, they need to stop feeling like they are reading panels, words, and images on a page. The core of the problem then is that we must get better at the medium of comics.
Am I better at this than anyone else? Nope. But I'm trying really hard to make better comics. To use the medium better. So I created Sea Change Comics. To publish comics that are trying to make better use of the medium and also to share inspiration and ideas for others to do the same.
I've been fortunate to concentrate my art management work 4 days per week in order to spend at least a day a week trying to make better comics. I currently have two titles under my imprint for Sea Change, Rich and Strange Press. Dark fantasy thriller The Tide (Volumes 1 & 2 available now) and the forthcoming Russian Cyberpunk book Zoya, coming in 2021. You can judge how my efforts to produce comics with more drama. The Tide Vol.1 is free via my website Sea Change Comics
I wrote The Tide over many years. I had thought to work with another artist on this before deciding to draw the book myself. The Tide started with the ending. It's essentially a story about trust in the face of an overwhelming powerful spy network. It's a witness protection story with supernatural monsters to up the ante. I worked with award-winning letterer Jim Campbell on The Tide debut and got the benefit of Jim's years of lettering and logo design experience.
You can follow The Tide at thetide.co.uk. Zoya is my next book. A story about the decisions we make out of fear.
Thinking about comics, I am trying to look at how the medium can help me suspend the reader's disbelief and feel the drama. As McCloud says, much of the power of comics lies "between the panels." It happens "off-panel" in our minds. I'm pushing that as much as I can in my work. I'm also focusing on the little moments of expression in characters. I need you to feel what they are feeling, so you will find "talking heads" in my work. Finally, I'm keen to explore what the medium can do for atmosphere. I was never much one for abstraction in art, but increasingly I want to use light, colour, and tone to create mood over more "definitive" drawings. In short, I'm trying to give you just enough for the story to take place – not on the page, but in your mind. To paraphrase the late, great Micheal Turner, "The readers going to come up with something in their mind far better than anything you can put down on paper."
So, in 2020 I've been experimenting as I work on The Tide 3 to push my style to achieve the above. Experimenting with watercolour, acrylic, ink, pencil, oil, and digital to maximise the effect of abstracted light, tone, mood, and atmosphere.
And in my writing for Zoya, I've pushed the moment-to-moment actions of the characters to create those emotional beats in a story already raw with the emotion of a child facing hard choices in the near future Moscow. I wasn't the right artist for this book, and so for Zoya, I had to put together my first team in a "producer" role.
Zoya is drawn by Raymond "Monds" Agustin from the Philippines. Finding a team meant reviewing the work of scores of people to find the right creative partners. The number of talented artists was staggering, but Monds also shared a vision for what the Zoya book should be. He's hyper-focused on those moment to moment transitions in the "acting" and in creating the sense of atmosphere through well thought through lighting. And Zoya is a tough 9 panel per page format. UK based letterer Rob Jones (also a writer) brings the same thoughtful approach to lettering to place the lettering in the right story beats. And film poster designer Scott Saslow brings the
sensibilities to the tone of this book.You can follow along with the production of Zoya at Zoya Comics
And why does it matter for more people to read comics? Well, comics are incredibly time-consuming to make. And that can make them expensive to produce. So, unless people are prepared to pay a lot more for a book, we need more readers to make the economies of scale work. But aren't films and theatre even more expensive to make? Yes, they are. Films have to have far larger audiences to make them financially viable. And look at the price of a ticket to a theatre performance in the West End or on Broadway where they need to cover the cost of huge productions.
We are all about the show, but comics must also be about the business. This includes production and distribution. Which reminds me, I need to be more efficient and faster. There are two new books to release in 2021.
If you are interested in Zoya, the pre-launch Kickstarter page is here: Zoya Kickstarter where you can click to be notified when it launches. (Lamb is based in the UK so all prices at his shop and kickstarter are in UK currency).
I haven't read any of Lamb's stuff yet (I intend to check out the web-version of Tide Vol. 1 in the near future, but he does offer an interesting perspective. As long time comic book fans we are often inured to the deficiencies or inadequacies of storytelling in a lot of comics to more general readers because we often look at them through the lens of nostalgia or we grew up on comics so they became are norm/standard and we don't question where they fall short. One thing Lamb does bring is an understanding of the relationship between production cost, price points and economy of scale that I think a lot of fans lack, especially when I hear complaints about comics being too expensive especially when they try to compare the rise of comic prices to inflation without taking into consideration the impact of a shrinking consumer base on the price per unit (it's just not feasible to lower prices when you are selling fewer units but production costs keep rising and a drop in prices will not increase sales enough to meet the gap, in fact increased sales at a lower price point will likely generate less revenue and shrink margins to the pint they are not profitable enough to be viable for many current retailers ot continue carrying). And he understands that for comics to have a future as an affordable medium, they have to find a larger audience, and that means making comics that have a broader appeal than to just hardcore super-hero comics fans in the shrinking direct market. And I agree, a lot of comics made for that direct market audience just aren't good enough to appeal to a larger mass audience, but I think that's been the case for at least half a century not a failing of "modern super-hero comics, like a lot of fans want to attribute it to. Collections of classic comics that we old fans like and grew up on sell no better to mass audiences than do more recent super-hero fare, and in some cases sell a whole lot worse, so they are not a better product in terms of mass market appeal or perceived quality of storytelling by the audiences comics need to reach to survive in the changing marketplace.
I am not sure I agree with the conclusions he draws or his ideas how to improve things, but I do think his analysis of the issues a the core of the problem are insightful and cut to the heart of the matter. It certainly provides some food for thought.
-M
