A Wrinkle in Lettering

Powell’s really really really needs to add Madeleine L’Engle as a linked author on its webpage for Hope Larson’s adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time into comics form. It’ll sell more copies that way.

I was struck by this detail from MTV Geek’s interview with Larson about the particular challenges of adapting A Wrinkle in Time, with its cerebral vibe, to a graphic format:

I tried to trim the dialogue for space wherever possible, but most of the time it wasn’t. The dialogue carries the burden of almost everything that happens in this book. What saved me was doing final lettering as part of my thumbnail step, so I was sure there’d be room for everything before I put pencil to paper. There are a few panels where the characters are being crushed under a ton of text, but those are infrequent. By making the book nearly 400 pages long, I was able to air it out some.

That reminded me of the method Gene Luen Yang used for Prime Baby, as he described here:

Because Prime Baby was both text-heavy (the protagonist is a wordy little sociopath) and limited in space (it was originally published in The New York Times Magazine), I laid out the words in Photoshop first and then sketched over print-outs of the dialog.

Looking ahead to L’Engle’s sequels, Larson said:

I can’t see myself doing another adaptation. I talked to friends about this adaptation being like grad school—I got my Masters in L’Engle, and now I’m done. I’m done drawing comics, period, for the time being. I felt similarly after completing Mercury, and took a year off drawing, which was the same amount of time it took me to draw that book. Maybe I need to be off drawing for two years, since that was how long it took me to draw Wrinkle. I’ll reevaluate things next September.

So if you were the publisher, considering how long adaptations take, would you have already recruited another graphic novelist to adapt A Wind in the Door? And whom would you choose?

“Look at What Sells”

One of the interesting results of Hope Larson’s informal survey of young female comics fans is that respondents’ experiences of getting into comics don’t seem much different from those of male comics fans. For example:

• “Most respondents (about a third) were introduced to comics by a parent, usually Dad, . . . The third most popular gateway was through a male relative or male friend.”
• “The most common age to become a fan of comics was 12,” which is such a familiar experience in fandom that it’s become an aphorism.
• The superhero genre was the most popular for Larson’s respondents, with manga a close second—at least according to this self-selected group.

Another issue brought up by the survey that might turn out to be common ground:

2) A welcoming atmosphere in local comic stores is key. Many respondents reported feeling uncomfortable in comic stores. They were stared at, talked down to, and generally treated without respect.

Larson’s partner Bryan Lee O’Malley (in a response now lost in the æther) and some male commenters noted that some comics retailers treat new male customers the same way—though I suppose “stared at” might be replaced by “total lack of eye contact.”

I’m fortunate enough to live in an area with multiple comics outlets, so store owners have more incentive to treat customers decently. The shops offer friendly welcomes, but I’ve been struck by how each has its own style. I haven’t had such warm experiences in other towns, however. Furthermore, the sheer overwhelming nature of the product can intimidate newcomers.

A longer thoughtful response to Larson’s survey came from artist and art educator Stephanie Villareal. In particular, I found this point provocative:

Tween/teens as a whole - or mostly - in general, have no taste. I know this comes off as crass, but really, think about it. Look at what sells, look at what the top movies are at the box office, look at the bands they go see, the TV shows they watch and the things they wear. Most will follow the trends of the time.

Now looking specifically at tween/teen girls, look at the books they are reading. Number one is easy: Twilight. When I was placed in the high school classroom [as a student teacher] nearly every girl has a copy. . . . Teenage girls are being bombarded with sexual imagery from every angle and at any age. What’s even sadder is that they buy into it. It’s not surprising that books like Twilight are so popular (with the graphic novel itself breaking records with 66,000 copies sold the first week). Many of us scoff and think that Stephenie Meyer is the worst writer ever, the books are trash, but it’s what teens love, and if we’re going to make graphic novels that appeal to them, we need to adapt to their tastes (or lack thereof). . . .

When we knock out the pink and glittery category, we are forgetting one very big staple in the girl super hero genre: Sailor Moon. Teenage girls loved Sailor Moon.

So there’s a place for sparkles, boyfriends, and pink ponies, Villareal says, if the industry wants to grow.

My first question in response is whether tween/teen taste is really that bad compared to adults’. Or whether the trends are simply more pronounced.

“Get More Comics into Bookstores”?

Another of the conclusions from Hope Larson’s informal survey of young female comics readers was this advice to publishers about how to increase their readerships:

9) Availability is a problem. Get more comics into schools. Get more comics into libraries—especially school libraries. Get more comics into bookstores, especially large chains.

I see this sort of advice almost anytime that comics fan discuss the medium’s popularity or lack thereof, and it drives me batty.

Because I’m pretty sure those goals have already occurred to comics publishers. I don’t think they’d look at this sort of feedback and say, “Whoa! We should try to sell more! And then—look, I even checked the math—we’d make more money!”

In fact, I’m pretty sure the people who work for comics publishers (most of whom are comics fans, since there are usually higher salaries in other fields) spend at least six hours of every workday trying to make comics as widely available as profitably possible. That’s their job. That’s what pays for their food.

That doesn’t mean those companies are uncovering every opportunity, or always going about the task in the most effective way. But seriously, telling a publisher that the key to success will be putting out more copies—that won’t get them any farther than they are already.

Often well-meaning industry observers, as in this survey, follow up that advice about making comics more widely available with additional advice about spending more money. As in, “Publishers need to advertise in mainstream media…” (Advertising = $$.) “Use licensed properties to lure new readers into comics.” (Licenses for hit properties = $$$.)

Most print publishers don’t have a lot of marketing money to throw around, but they’re already aware of the strategies of paid advertising and licensed properties. The more advanced questions are:

• Are those strategies cost-effective? I always wonder if people who recommend advertising think that such techniques work on someone as intelligent as themselves.
• Do those strategies come with risky trade-offs? For example, one of the advantages of selling to comics stores is that there are no returns. Selling paperbacks to bookstores means that a company opens itself up to getting all the unsold inventory back at any time. And even then bookstores are choosy about what they put on their shelves.

I don’t expect people without experience in the peculiar publishing industry to know its wrinkles any more than I know how to price insurance. But I try not to give advice to underwriters and actuaries.

TOMORROW: Other responses to this survey.

Enough Cupcakes?

In May comics creator Hope Larson sent out a survey to “a couple hundred girls and women who reads comics in their teens or tweens” [sic] about how they got into reading books in that form, and what they liked to see. She shared the results on her LiveJournal blog, but within weeks deleted that blog in favor of a dedicated website, leaving a path strewn with dead links, as in this interview with Kelly Thompson. So one reason for this post is to share the new web address for Larson’s results.

Among her findings:

3) Pink, sparkly cutesy comics about boyfriends, ponies, cupcakes and shopping are widely reviled. Condescend to female readers at your peril, writers and comic publishers.

So I guess that’s why girls don’t like Babymouse.

To be fair, the readership for Babymouse starts younger than the teens/tweens Larson was polling. But it does suggest that the more salient finding than the above is “5) Girls need good stories in a variety of genres.”

In other words, the problem may not be “Pink, sparkly cutesy comics” but bad pink, sparkly cutesy comics and/or only pink, sparkly cutesy comics.

However, even that feedback might not be helpful to creators and publishers since some bad material in any format seems to sell just fine, and some good material fails to find the audience it deserves. Many fans of any artistic genre have difficulty accepting this, feeling that someone must be at fault somewhere.

TOMORROW: Pointing the finger of blame.