Week 4: Comic Books VS Comic Strips

Comic books vs. comic strips - the visual language of two is the same, but there is not much translation from one format to the other. Most of the comic strips that got published as comic books were compilations of already published material, reformatted in some way. The daily newspaper strip does not lend itself to extended story-telling. Most of the strips around are 3 and 4 panel bits. Some of them have themes that run for about a week at a time, and very few have storylines that go over several weeks or months. But typically, the strip format does not allow for much story progression, leading to the decline of long, ongoing strips. This further lends itself to comedy and the set-up/punchline format.
Comic books, on the other hand, have more time to get a story moving. At twenty-two pages, even a minimal two-strips-per-day format would give you more room to tell a story than a month's worth of comic strips. Plus, the larger format allows for greater flexibility in what the artist can/can't do.

Availability is another question. Comic books are not as easily available as they once were. In recent years, they have become easier to get a hold of, thanks to some of the larger chain bookstores as well as the checkout counter at your local grocery store, but comic strips have been much more widespread in our society. The decline of newspaper sales has hurt somewhat, but the syndicates have been able to work out alternative methods of distribution that still allow everyday readers to get their daily comics for free, such as the internet.

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