Are reprints cheaper to use than new comic work?

[Peter Gray]

Steve Bright asked this and it made me think...
With all the fiddling around of word balloons...recolouring it...checking the social aspect of the strip...records beoming cds...changing names...dates in the drawing..

Also it can't be that expensive to pay for an artist to draw a new page instead.

Doesn't reprints just cause more bother...could it even loose readers..isn't the comic better for it to have no reprints..


Are reprints cheaper to use than new comic work?

[Shaqui]

Funny enough I've just been listening to an interview with a comics art editor from the 1960s/1970s, and if artwork was re-used, the agency representing the artist got a fee - I think somewhere around 5-10%.

Redan, among possible others, bought total rights to the art so had free reign to re-use it.

It has to be considered, and this has been echoed for most comics I've interviewed staff on from the 50s to present, the usual readership would only last a maximum of 3-4 years, by which time they would have outgrown the subject matter. Obviously there will be cores of fans who stay for longer, but if material can be used cheaply, and readers would usually have moved on after 3 years, then it does make some business sense to use material which works out cheaper...

Not saying I agree with it but I can understand it.

[Matthew]

I have to confess that as a child I once wrote in to the Beano editor to tell him that I'd noticed he'd reprinted a Bash Street strip from (I think) eleven years previous and that I hoped he wouldn't be making a habit of it!

Mr Kerr replied to my rather precocious/pedantic letter and very kindly and tolerantly explained that reprints were only resorted to in cases where a "ghost" artist wasn't available to cover for a regular artist's illness or holidays.

He should have told me to clear off.

[Raven]

Obviously there will be cores of fans who stay for longer, but if material can be used cheaply, and readers would usually have moved on after 3 years, then it does make some business sense to use material which works out cheaper...

Though old material does often seem dated, which might put some readers off. The old material in the likes of 2000AD specials really stood out.

One bizarre example of reprinting is TV Comic's Doctor Who strip which for part of its Tom Baker run apparently reprinted Jon Pertwee strips, with Baker drawn over Pertwee.

[LauraH]

In an ideal world it would be great if, say, the Beano was wall-to-wall new material. But if that could only be achieved by dropping the per-page rate for the artists, increasing the number of ads or raising the cover price substantially, then mostly new material with a few reprints mixed in seems like the best solution...

[AndyB]

The rules about advertising to kids mean that there is now substantially less scope for ad space in the Beano and Dandy - it has to be all games, dvds and parks, because sweets and turkey twizzlers are off-limits. This week's Beano has one page of paid-for traditional advertising, where a few years ago it might have had two or three - and less paid-for adspace means less money coming in to go towards new strips.

Reprints are here to stay, but they get coloured (remember most of them were printed in black and white originally, or with added red) and the lettering gets replaced and dialogue updated. Either we put up with them, or, as Laura says, the cover price goes up, or the page rate goes down and the artists decide it's not worth their while working for DCT - so you get even more reprints, or the comic becomes completely unsustainable.

[Ally Sloper]

I have to confess that as a child I once wrote in to the Beano editor to tell him that I'd noticed he'd reprinted a Bash Street strip from (I think) eleven years previous and that I hoped he wouldn't be making a habit of it!

Mr Kerr replied to my rather precocious/pedantic letter and very kindly and tolerantly explained that reprints were only resorted to in cases where a "ghost" artist wasn't available to cover for a regular artist's illness or holidays.

He should have told me to clear off.

What a great post Matthew, thankyou for sharing that!

[Muffy]

I have an old 1978 TV comic (Issue 1388) with the 4th Doctor Who, fighting the Quarks- which is clearly Tom Baker's curly hair re-drawn over Patrick Troughton's 'Beatle style' hair

Poor TV comic - it lasted for so long too. Loved Mighty Moth, wonder if other story's like Tom and Jerry or Basil Brush had reprints towards the end??

[Raven]

Poor TV comic - it lasted for so long too. Loved Mighty Moth, wonder if other story's like Tom and Jerry or Basil Brush had reprints towards the end??

Yes, once a fab comic. I suspect that towards the end it would have been full of reprints.