Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Bring Back Anthologies

American comics used to have many anthology series. Many of the most well known superheroes - including Superman and Batman - started off in anthology books. Today it's rare to find a book with two features, and even then it's usually a feature with a back-up.

The comics industry should bring back anthologies. Look at Shonen Jump: it is an anthology of popular manga and has a circulation of 215,000 monthly. The highest selling American comic for last February were estimated at less than 72,000.

Anthologies allow readers to get many stories at once. They make introducing new features easy and guarantee the features will have a audience.

Libraries, bookstores and magazine racks will often have a copy of a monthly anthology like Shonen Jump, but good like finding American comics on the rack.

Now, I'm not saying that sales will skyrocket if American comics bring back anthologies. But given the current market, it can't hurt.

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