Happy May thread, comrades!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Happy May thread, comrades!

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

It's May, the first day of which is May Day, so let's celebrate our fellow workers, comrades.

# ¿ May 1, 2018 21:15

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 20:41

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Prose to comics is waaaaaay more common.

# ¿ May 2, 2018 21:53

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Sick!

# ¿ May 5, 2018 02:57

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

I fuckin' love money!

# ¿ May 7, 2018 02:37

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Soonmot posted:

Screen rotates into portrait mode, right? I'd be moving down from a 17 inch tablet, is 10 inches enough to read? Aren't floppies 12 inches long?

10" is fine. Single pages are perfectly readable - they're like 80% the size of a physical comic - and double pages are generally okay provided the tablet as a remotely modern resolution (at least 1080p), but occasionally need some zooming. Bigger is better for comics, but as much as I like my iPad Pro Huge Edition, I find it to be too big for most everything else and have a hard time recommending it as a result.

# ¿ May 11, 2018 04:44

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

CapnAndy posted:

Is the 12.9 inch at all comfortable to hold? I have a 9.7 that I'm using right now and I'm leery of the 12.9s because I'm used to the smaller ones and I'm worried it won't be comfortable to hold up with one hand when I'm reading in bed.

9.7/10.5 is plenty for comics, by the way, I've had no troubles.

I have a keyboard cover thing for it and almost exclusively hold it in landscape. If I'm reading in bed, I just have it resting on my belly and it's fine one-handed.

Jordan7hm posted:

Man I dunno. I got an iPad Pro almost exclusively for comics and it’s basically the best. I’m struggling to find other uses for it, but it’s so much nicer to read on than my 10” android that I don’t regret the purchase even a little.

That being said, it ain’t cheap.

This is pretty much exactly what I said, yes. By having a hard time recommending, I meant in general. If your main use is reading comics and you can afford it, sure, it's great, but for the vast majority of people, it's not really going to be worth it, especially now that the cheap iPad has Pencil support and is literally half the price of a Pro.

# ¿ May 11, 2018 13:18

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Yeah I have no problem reading double page spreads. That's a weird complaint.

# ¿ May 11, 2018 17:54

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

CapnAndy posted:

It was Apple and the truth is more complex. App development targets the newest hardware and over time, as your phone gets further and further away from that level of processor speed, it draws more and more power to keep up -- using silly, simplified numbers to explain that, if an app needs 40 calculations done every second, your phone can do 50 calculations per second, and the newest phone can do 100, your phone is drawing twice the power to do the same task. In an effort to conserve battery life, Apple put in a thing that'd notice phones doing that past a certain threshold and go "look just limit yourself to a certain power drain level and slow the program down if you need to". It got bad press because they did it in secret and intentionally slowing performance down is never a good look.

Also it only applies to like three models of phones and iPads were never affected. And the latest update lets you turn it off so it runs at full speed even if it will kill the battery prematurely. But yes, this is pretty much accurate.

# ¿ May 11, 2018 21:34

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

A Strange Aeon posted:

Is Waid's Archie any good? I grabbed the first trade from Half Price Books based on it having Fiona Staples art.

Have you considered reading the thing you purchased and forming your own opinion?

# ¿ May 13, 2018 20:59

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Lurdiak posted:

My dad just got diagnosed with brain damage and is losing his faculties despite not being 60 yet so I wasn't.

Dang, sorry man

# ¿ May 14, 2018 21:29

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

My favorite signing experience was back in like 2000 or 01 when Bendis was just starting to become a name (USM had probably just started) and he was sharing a booth with David Mack and chatted for a bit. He was very nice and gracious that I was enjoying Powers.

# ¿ May 15, 2018 19:58

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

It probably happens all the time to him, what with it being 4 feet off the ground.

# ¿ May 15, 2018 21:34

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

A Strange Aeon posted:

I'm realizing I've never been to a comic convention and have no idea how they work. I've gone to the gaming convention Origins at least a dozen times, but there's an implicit playing of board games and RPGs that happens there and even playing demos of forthcoming games is a social and active kind of consumption or advertising.

What's a comic convention like? I'm imagining a bunch of vendors selling back issues, some auctions for rare stuff, writer / artist time slots for signings, panels maybe about industry stuff, lots of people in costumes (maybe even a costume contest/parade), and previews of new comic related media, like a movie trailer.

You've pretty much got it, but also add panels about various topics.

And yes, lots of Harley Quinn and Deadpool cosplayers.

# ¿ May 16, 2018 13:14

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

As a Beltway Insider, I

# ¿ May 25, 2018 03:10

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

That's Oscar Award-Winner Suicide Squad to you.

# ¿ May 26, 2018 01:13

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Guy Goodbody posted:

People say Ultimate Spider-Man is good, but Ultimate Spider-Man isn't very good.

I didn't finish it, maybe it gets really good, but from what I saw it was just a depressing slog that speeds through less interesting versions of Spider-Man stuff. I gave up sometime after Carnage killed Gwen Stacy, because goddamn. Gwen Stacy had to die because Gwen Stacy is dead in real life, so they just kill her and it's gross and then Peter Parker is very sad because being Spider-Man has brought nothing but suffering and misery to himself and everyone around him.

Gwen Stacy isn't a real person just fyi

# ¿ May 26, 2018 01:25

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Um.
https://twitter.com/ErikJLarsen/status/1000119168727900160

# ¿ May 26, 2018 04:42

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

I've been making GBS threads on Ol Musky for awhile, and I'm glad the rest of the world is starting to catch up.

# ¿ May 27, 2018 05:51

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Lurdiak posted:

Right but the other problem in the comics industry is indie people killing themselves working 6+ days a week on top of a day job to make bunkus on low selling stuff, and following the manga model is the opposite way to solve that.

I don't know what you're talking about this seems totally reasonable.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 13:50

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

https://twitter.com/zdarsky/status/1001520622898327552

# ¿ May 29, 2018 18:50

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Senior Woodchuck posted:

So am I the only one in this thread reading East of West?

I am and I couldn't actually tell you what's going on since it comes out so slow.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 00:42

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Rhyno posted:

Well if the show actually happens he might be motivated to wrap it up . Did he ever definitively end the Manhattan Projects? I fell off when it went to a mini series.

Nope. They did the one miniseries and that was it. I guess the plan is to come back to it when he has new ideas and Pitarra is free.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 13:13

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Oh, I'm happy to let Hickman and Dragotta work at whatever pace they're happy with. It's gorgeous and the world-building is great, but I think the way Hickman is scripting can make it difficult to follow since he tends to focus on one or two plot threads each issue, so it might be two or three issues before he catches up with someone since there's a LOT of plotlines running through the series, and that can be eight months of real time (they're averaging a little better than one issue every other month). I think it'll be great once it's done and collected.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 13:50

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

A Strange Aeon posted:

Do comics need to be serialized to be economically viable or is it just a holdover/nostalgia? I know there's complete stories that get published, but usually in the Fantagraphics sphere. I never buy floppies or follow ongoing series generally because I don't like reading a story in 10 minutes of content every month.

It's hard to say as Marvel and DC rarely release OGNs to give an idea of how much a single story can actually sell versus monthly comics. The most recent I can think of was Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe which sold 510 copies at $24.99 through Diamond. The issue of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl that came out that month (November 2016) sold 12,933 copies at $3.99. It's also worth noting that Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 4 also came out, selling 2,387 copies at $15.99, as did Unbeatable Squirrel Girl hardcover Vol. 1 which sold 894 copies at $34.99 which are a bit more apples to oranges, but they're also reprinting material, which would theoretically depress sales compared to the new material by the same creators. My guess is that at the very least Big 2 publishers would see a big hit in sales if they moved to a non-monthly schedule.

Indie publishers are quite a bit different. If you take an Image comic, while the creators earn almost all of the money from sales (Image takes a fixed portion per issue - last I heard it was around $5000), that also means they are only paid after sales are in, which is a lag of months after an issue is completed. Every indie writer I've ever read an interview with has made it clear they pay their artists first (and as they get pages in) since they can only really work on a single book at a time, while a writer can write multiple books. Basically, unless you are Robert Kirkman, you probably can't afford to just wait until 128 pages are done before releasing a thing.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 15:04

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Jordan7hm posted:

The direct market doesn�t seem like the biggest avenue for book sales though. Amazon and the more traditional booksellers do pretty good with trades and OGNs. Not sure how valuable that diamond info is in that context.

I know I only buy trades at my shop if my kid really wants something right now or if my shop is clearing stock (5 dollar trades heck yes). Otherwise I go online or to an actual book store usually.

I actually thought I mentioned this, but apparently not! And yes, you are right, and it would be nice to see actual sales (or even hints at them) via traditional retailers.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 15:30

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Thanks for that. Looking at the 2016 sales, USBUTMU doesn't show up at all in the top 750, which bottoms out at 4,053 copies sold (granted, these are yearly sales, and it came out in November, but it's not on the 2017 list, either). USG vols. 1 and 2 show up, selling 8,060 and 5,071 copies, respectively.

Now, we can't really predict how readers would respond in terms of sales if, tomorrow, Marvel said "NO MORE MONTHLY COMICS ONLY COMPLETE GRAPHIC NOVELS," but it sure doesn't look like it would be particularly positively.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 16:06

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 20:41

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Nope. Other than a hint here and there on specific titles (someone at Marvel once noted that with digital sales included, Ms. Marvel was outselling Uncanny X-Men), no one has really said anything substantial about digital sales.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 16:32

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Happy May thread, comrades!