The paperless comics shop

[avram]

Via Jim Henley comes the news that Carla Speed McNeil is going to be following the Foglio’s lead. The upcoming Finder arc, “Five Crazy Women”, will be the last published in single-issue format. Over the next few months McNeil will be moving Finder over to web publication (three pages a week, for free) with annual trade paperback collection.

I’ll miss comics stores when they’re gone, but I won’t miss pamphlet-format comics. What a fucking pain in the ass.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, only the first chapter of 5CW, issue 38, will be published as a single.

[mister-wolf.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Man, I feel validated.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I think of all the comics I read, Finder would be among the least well-served by being doled out at three pages a week. Maybe Kabuki would be even worse, and Jack Staff about the same--all three of them gain in impact in direct proportion to the amount read in a single sitting.

The up-side is that weekly deadlines will probably improve her overall pagecount from 50 pages a year (what she's been hitting for the last two years).

[(Anonymous)]

Kevin, add to the 50 pages all the work she produced for Queen & Country, plus her Apparat issue. No doubt that motherhood must have affected her productivity negatively, though. And the other news is she's expecting her second child in February. (Jim H.)

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Her Queen & Country arc ended almost exactly two years ago, so that's six issues of Finder and one issue of Frank Ironwine in the last 24 months. 70 pages per year. 70 damn good pages, admittedly, but going back up to 150 pages per year is a big step.

[avram]

What she told Jim implies that she'll be modifying her writing style slightly to fit the new format.