The Graphic Novel: A Life Cycle

Posted on June 7, 2012 in Uncategorized

Last Thursday we hosted our first graphic novel panel event at the fantastic Gosh! Comics store in Soho, London. The evening was an open Q&A session with four industry experts who let us pick their brains about the future of graphic novels and the current developments occuring in the market. It was good to see so many of you there and we were delighted to be joined by four graphic novel experts who were:

Steve White has worked in comic for over a quarter of a century, as an editor, writer, artist, inker and colourist. He is now a senior comic editor at Titan Magazines, working on such diverse titles as Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Tank Girl. He also draws dinosaurs for fun.

Doug Wallace has worked in publishing for nine years and he helped launch graphic novel publisher SelfMadeHero in February 2007 as Marketing Director with responsibility for acquisitions. He is currently a Trustee and Director of Pop Up Projects CIC, a Community Interest Company, which organises London’s biggest children’s literary festival. He is the creator of the event series called Canon Tales, which promotes creativity in Publishing.

Karrie Fransman’s autobiographical comic strips were published in The Guardian. Her comic serial The Night I Lost My Love ran in The Times. Her graphic novel The House That Groaned is published by Random House’s Square Peg and has received praise from film director Nicolas Roeg and was chosen as Graphic Novel of the Month in The Observer.

Tony Bennett is a publisher at Knockabout which grew out of Tony Hassle Free Press, the UK publisher of Gilbert Shelton’s Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy’s Cat titles as well as British work from creators such as Hunt Emerson and Bryan Talbot and also acted as importer and distributor of underground comics. Knockabout have published several works in translation from European authors, as well as the continuing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stories.

There were some excellent questions asked and points raised, so if you missed the event here is a round-up of what was said:

How is publishing graphic novels different from publishing commercial fiction titles?

Doug: I don’t think it is very different. SelfMadeHero operates in exactly the same way as any other publishing house. We have the same proofing and  publicity processes as other publishing houses and we work to the same distribution and sales figures. The only thing that is different is our products are not completely text based.
Tony: The thing to consider with graphic novels is the illustrations. The artwork often takes much longer than the story planning.
Steve: I’ve worked for both graphic novel publishers and fiction publishers and I do think it is different. Graphic novels have more deadlines that you need to meet; drawing, colouring, inks and lettering. It is a much more complex process. Licence based it’s a big thing and you have to factor in licence approval times if it is going to tie-in with a film.

How do you choose your titles?

Tony: 50% of our titles are thought up in-house and then we approach writers and illustrators that we think are appropriate. We work with creators that we can share ideas with and they come from all over the world.
Steve: Sometimes we work with computer game companies who want to create a graphic novel to tie-in with a game they are releasing. As soon as we say we are looking for people we get a lot of submissions and unsolicited people approach us with their portfolios and ideas at comic conventions.
Karrie: Lots of artists who want to be published will go to comic conventions to meet potential employers. The UK has some really great artists but their knowledge of graphic novels is still growing.
Steve: It’s interesting that comics are no longer paid by a specific rate. Most artists and writers are now paid on commission rather than up-front. Old creators are really struggling as no-one pays upfront anymore, so you have to be really good to make money.
Doug: You have to show your confidence in a product if you do an advance payment agreement. Royalty-based agreements will make you (the illustrator/writer) work hard to promote your own work as you have an incentive for it to do well and succeed.

Why are there not more translated titles?

Doug: It’s a lot like films, you can buy the rights to a graphic novel idea or story but it won’t necessarily get published.
Tony: Sometimes there is not the market for the translated version.
Steve: Titan sell a lot to the USA but some European stories don’t translate as well.
Doug: I would love to see more readability in English titles translated from foreign languages. The prose is often more literary in foreign stories. It’s like subtitles, you don’t have to know exactly what they’ve said but it has to have readability.
Tony: Jokes are really hard to translate too.
Steve: The story has to not only translate in English but it also has to translate in the ‘comic’ layout.

Will graphic novels grow at all? The Radio 4 Book Club recently discussed Maus. Do you think things like this will have an impact on the market?

Steve: One of the biggest films of this year was The Avengers an adaptation of the original graphic novel.You do see more graphic novels in bookshops now.
Tony: Films don’t just sell graphic novels. In France graphic novels work in their own right, not just to accompany a film, but we’re not quite there yet in the UK. It is interesting to see what gets big in the graphic novel market and then makes it onto the big screen.
Karrie: You get paid more if your story is serialised, and publishers are now looking at serialising old graphic novels. Digital is also a huge boost to graphic novels as they lend themselves to tablets. The reader’s experience can be enhanced in ways that a few years ago were impossible. You can now walk into a story and move through the plot line.
Doug: Our Johnny Cash title was made as a book app as well as a physical graphic novel. There was music that played throughout poignant moments of Cash’s life in the story and the app scanned your iTunes to see if you had any of the songs. If you didn’t you could buy the songs. The complete app and accompanying music was the same price as the graphic novel. As a digital publisher you do have to make friends with programmers who you wouldn’t normally be working with, although some books don’t need digital enhancements.

What are the limitations of digital adaptations?

Tony: Putting an image onto a platform where it doesn’t fit is hard. The content needs to be tailored to the digital device and made specifically for that purpose.
Doug: You really need to adapt your content so the reader doesn’t miss anything when they are scrolling through.
Karrie: There shouldn’t be boundaries for graphic novels. Soon publishers will be commissioning work specifically for the iPad.

Thank you to all of our wonderful panellists and for Gosh! Comics for lending us their shop for the evening!

All the photos from the event can be found on our Facebook page and are courtesy of Bim Hjortronsteen.