Dave's Fanboy Sermon

Everyone likes to say that it doesn't. It appears shallow to be concerned over something so superficial as size, or for that matter, shape. But we are. We visit the comic shop with a preconceived idea of just what size and shape a comic book should be. (Oh, come on! You knew what I was talking about, didn't you?)

The 2000 Harvey Awards were presented April 28th (click here for complete list) and I was struck by how many of the awards went to books which were in a format other than the traditional 10" X 7" comic. A large number of these awards actually went to one book (a complete list appears on our news page). Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library took nine awards including a special award for excellence in presentation. If you have never picked up an issue af Acme Novelty Library, it is ingenious, baffling, fascinating, maddening and not at all what you would expect a comic to look like. More often than not, one issue doesn't even look like the issue before it, although it does seem to have settled on a single format for the last few issues. Despite being densely packed with images, you might still mistake it for anything other than a comic. I think that it is a deliberate attempt on Ware's part to try and shatter the preconceptions that readers bring to his work. Whether his success (critical, if not commercial) will inspire others to experiment outside the traditional size boundries remains to be seen. History says that those who do will face an uphill battle.

Throughout the years a number of different formats have been toyed with. In the 1970s, in the midst of a comic sales slump, the treasury format was born. Measuring roughly 10" X 14", these mammoth tomes consisted mostly of reprints. Notable exceptions included a series of Marvel/DC team-ups that began with Superman VS. The Amazing Spider-Man. Certainly someone in the comic industry must have thought that bigger was better. As the decade closed, however, these items were considered cumbersome relecs of a tacky decade. The 1980s saw a number of graphic novels published in the magazine sized 8 and 1/2" X 11" format. Eventually this was replaced by the more traditional (and better selling) 10" X 7" size. The only other notable deviation in size remained the digest format, which was used with modest success by DC in the 1980s and still exist from the Archie Comic line.

The comic book industry has been slavishly devoted to a single size and format. Comic fans are certainly a traditional bunch and have notoriously resisted anything that didn't fit in a standard comic box. A couple of years ago Dark Horse's Barry Windsor Smith: Storyteller attempted to sell itself to non-traditional fans. When it met with sales indifference, many pointed to its' unusual size as its' downfall. The general consensus is that if comic collectors can't find a convenient way to store and protect it, they are less likely to want to buy it.

When someone like Chris Ware comes along and challenges that mentality, is it enough to overcome our collector based desires? It appears that it may finally be time for the art of comics to explode into many different sizes and shapes. DC seems intent on reviving the treasury format with it's lavish series of Alex Ross illustrated books such as Batman: War On Crime, another Harvey winner for Best Graphic Album of Original Work. The recently expanding popularity of Manga has brought acceptance for a size in between the traditional comic and the digest sized book.

Perhaps, then, it is time for comics to decide what they want to be. Should they continue to mimic the magazine industry and stay within certain, easy to rack perameters? Or will they follow the example of the book industry, where new formats are often embraced. As the comic industry enters the new millennium, it is time to take a new look at what we expect from our hobby. While thus far comic fans have prefered sequential runs of uniform issues, more and more we are accepting single works that do not fit these boundries. While we love filing our collections in uniform boxes, who really wants to sacrifice seeing Alex Ross' gorgeous work cut down to less than half of its' size? Comics are a graphic medium and that medium will often demand a presentation that fits a paticular artist' individual view.

This doesn't mean that we have to sacrifice the thrill of a stack of neatly bagged and filed comics. It is simply that I think we can find additional thrills when we start accepting comics as individual works. That day may not come as soon as I would like, but I still look forward to it. Because that will be when comics finally emerge from the magazine gutter and can be veiwed by the rest of the world with the respect that we seem to so desperately crave.

Until then, I will keep bagging my comics and filing them is precise alphabetical order. But I may sneak a look or two at Acme Novelty Library. Hey, what good is being a comic fan if you can't dream about the future?