Comic Book Release Schedules

I was thinking about this the other day and I started wondering: would it be better if comic books adopted a release/shipping schedule that is more in line with how episodes of a tv series are released? Have a "season break" where the artist and writers get as many of the issues finished as possible and release them weekly rather then monthly, with a mid-season break where they finish the rest of them while different titles fill in the gaps, and then rotate to a different line titles once 12 issues have been published. We'd still get 12 issues per title a year, and it seems like this would be better for artists/writers that can't work on a monthly.

Nah.

Possibly. I'd like to see the move made to this format for certain titles, but not all of them....especially ones where they've been delayed a bunch.

Maybe, but I think it would just be better to take a longer time at the beginning to get more done before kicking off a title. Perhaps this could work for ones like Amazing Spidey, yet not so much for, say, Ultimates.

Kishimoto can pull off one issue a week, those lazy bastards should be able to get out one comic a week.

Originally posted by srankmissingnin
I was thinking about this the other day and I started wondering: would it be better if comic books adopted a release/shipping schedule that is more in line with how episodes of a tv series are released? Have a "season break" where the artist and writers get as many of the issues finished as possible and release them weekly rather then monthly, with a mid-season break where they finish the rest of them while different titles fill in the gaps, and then rotate to a different line titles once 12 issues have been published. We'd still get 12 issues per title a year, and it seems like this would be better for artists/writers that can't work on a monthly.

No, I hate the mid season gap for TV shows .... totally hate it.

Originally posted by llagrok
Kishimoto can pull off one issue a week, those lazy bastards should be able to get out one comic a week.

Well - and keep in mind I've been reading Naruto since the first scanlations started coming out (around eight years ago?) - Masashi's art is simplistic, he doesn't colour or do any complex shading, the page count is only around 16-19 pages... and half the panels are filled with closeups of faces. Thats not to say he isn't good though, while I prefer his brothers style, Masashi is still an fantastic artist. His forms are consistent, his camera angles and panel layouts are amazing, and his character designs are pretty good... but manga art is little league. If he was doing a monthly release (like his brother) he'd kick the level of detail up several notches but as a weekly his art shouldn't even be compared to what is pressented in monthly comics.

Originally posted by srankmissingnin
Well - and keep in mind I've been reading Naruto since the first scanlations started coming out (around eight years ago?) - Masashi's art is simplistic, he doesn't colour or do any complex shading, the page count is only around 16-19 pages... and half the panels are filled with closeups of faces. Thats not to say he isn't good though, while I prefer his brothers style, Masashi is still an fantastic artist. His forms are consistent, his camera angles and panel layouts are amazing, and his character designs are pretty good... but manga art is little league.

I agree, but still. It's a month.

Originally posted by Scoobless
No, I hate the mid season gap for TV shows .... totally hate it.

But wouldn't you rather read a 12 issue run of the Fantastic Four (or what ever) weekly for three months, then read the title that fills in (Uncanny or something) while the Fantastic Four creative team works on the next 12 run, instead of one issue a month?

The year would be split into four quarters (three months each) with different titles being release in each quarter while the creative teams took the rest of the year to get their shit ready for their releases.

Originally posted by srankmissingnin
But wouldn't you rather read a 12 issue run of the Fantastic Four (or what ever) weekly for three months, then read the title that fills in (Uncanny or something) while the Fantastic Four creative team works on the next 12 run, instead of one issue a month?

The year would be split into four quarters (three months each) with different titles being release in each quarter while the creative teams took the rest of the year to get their shit ready for their releases.

I thought you meant get the first 6 issues out monthly, then wait 3 months (or longer) for the next 6 which would be released weekly.

Originally posted by Scoobless
I thought you meant get the first 6 issues out monthly, then wait 3 months (or longer) for the next 6 which would be released weekly.

Opps, I wasn't very clear. 😮

I think something like that would hurt my wallet too much. I rather buy comics monthly rather than weekley like you're suggesting.