Friday is comics day here at Frothing-at-the-Mouth.
One of my correspondents writes about Marvel's The Truth:
Issue 2 is sooooooooooooo slowwwwwwwwwwwwww, so padded with long scenes where one panel has one word balloon and another panel has a reply, etc.This is the New Marvel Way.
My thought is that it's pacing like this that lets Bendis write sixteen issues a month. Sheesh. A script ends up being what, six pages long?
Just like any story, the pacing has to vary based on what you need. Most comics are action stories--they need to move quickly. Not "they need to read quickly".
See, manga gets away with reading fifteen pages in three minutes because it does fifteen pages a week and each page costs you pennies. U.S. comics are much more expensive and monthly. If it's coming out in 22-page form once a month at $2.95, it needs to feel like something substantial.
And if it only feels like something substantial when it's all collected together in a fat trade paperback, then release it that way. The comic magazine is dead. It's past time for publishers to commit to the comic book.
Posted by Greg at December 6, 2002 5:15 PM