Art & Story Alive! Episode 05
March 17, 2008 by Jerzy
Filed under Art & Story Alive!, Podcast
This week we’re joined by Anthony Harris of The Amateur Hour, Sally Scott, and a host of others in the chat (including Audra of nemu*nemu, Matt Munn of Zed Reckoning, Diana Nock, and Jarmo) for a discussion on production values in comics printing. Does a hardcover printing vs. a paperback printing affect the tone of the story? Do these choices contribute to the tone of the book?
We also talk for a bit about blocking/staging one’s scenes in the comics pages we design.
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I wish I could have participated in this talkcast!
I do think that hardcovers have their place in comics but not everything deserves the hard cover treatment. Perhaps something that is a small body of collected work, or perhaps a really good collection of stories is better suited.
I agree that a hardcover book does give a different feel to a comic. When i get a hardcover book, I tend to take great care of it. I do think they have their place and most of the time it’s on my bookshelf. These are usually treasured items to me. I don’t think I’d buy just anything in hard cover… for instance Ambush bug would feel wrong in hard cover while The Dark Knight Returns feels fine.
This is an interesting point–if it’s a pristine, lavishly designed hardcover it does seem to imply that there’s something special about the content. I’m a huge, huge fan of C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, and I got the hardcover editions, but I wind up going back to my paperbacks for re-readings.
After thinking about it some more, it seems pretty obvious. There’s something more “cozy” about a paperback, while a hardcover suggests “for keeps”. I guess that’s all I was wondering, and it’s certainly going to be something that I think more about with printings of future projects.