Cady McClain involved in Soap Opera Comic Book

[EricMontreal22]

This is kinda interesting. While I have a feeling it will never raise the money, it's true that comics and soaps hold a lot of the same categories. And of course, huge volumes of Japanese manga (which are the main comics I read) are for all intents and purposes basically soap operas.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mansioncomics/whispering-hearts-an-illustrated-soap-opera-magazi

[marceline]

Graphic novels are kind of like children's books in that they've become trendy and everybody thinks they can do them. Although it's an interesting concept and soaps certainly lend themselves to that kind of serialization although I wonder how the books will find an audience given how comics skew young male. Still I give her credit for innovation. I'll probably toss her some cash.

[ER Tosh]

With all the cancelled soaps I have wondered about if a comic book soap could sell today ( i have recently read some Spider-Man issues from John Romita, Sr.s run and they are about 50 percent soap)

[EricMontreal22]

To be fair, it looks like the author approached her to essentially be a model, she's not all that involved, but your first point is valid, though the artist has good history with comics, but I have no idea if the uber soapfan/comic fan has a history or background at all.

The plan seems to be to sell it as a monthly magazine besides soap opera magazines--which in theory makes sense, but I can't see supermarkets flocking to carry it.

As for comics, the biggest by far rising market for comics is teen girls. The catch is they almost exclusively read shoujo/josei (girl/women's) manga, and they largely by them at regular book stores in those paperbacks, there was some study and there hasn't been an increase in women shopping at comic stores, despite the huge increase in girls buying them. The North America comic industry was kinda shocked by this turn of events (when manga first was being translated they wouldn't go near shoujo titles like Nana, which is classic soap and now one of the biggest sellers here and in Japan). They did things to try to compete-DC did some more romance heavy superhero spin offs with manga style art, Archie I believe briefly did the same, but they didn't work--they seem clueless about what the real appeal is.

But I do think comics are a good format for soaps (I mean radio serials somewhat came out of the very popular serialized comics of the 20s-40s. I think ones like Rex Morgan and Mary Worth still run, though not in my local paper, or Apartment 3G but they seem even more old fashioned (and at two panels a day, slow) than daytime soaps do.

[frequentsoapfan]

I don't even see Archie at the supermarket anymore and just five years ago I would flip through it while waiting in the grocery line(that's how I read SID)

[marceline]

I guess that's true. Goodness knows that when I go to cons there are plenty of girls and women there and they are dressed up as characters I don't recognize. (I don't do manga.) There's going to be a lot of trial and error but this could just be one of many ways soaps finally evolve.

[EricMontreal22]

I've never been to a comic, or anime/manga con, but there was an issue of the always interesting but often snobbish Comics Journal about 6-7 years ago all dedicated to shoujo manga and its boom. One article by a female Marvel comics writer (I really don't remember who), was interesting. She talked about going to a small loca con, where a bunch of comic book store owners were talking with deirison about the huge, sudden rise in teen and preteen girls reading these manga, and how despite their (half assed) efforts to get them into their comic stores, nothing seemed to work. Apparently it ended with them all agreeing with one man's statement that it was for the best as they really didn't want that kind of customer *anyway*( and everyone going off smuggly. To which the woman writing the article pointed out was precisely why the mainstream comic marketplace was dying.

It's not quite the same, and I'm not remembering the article as well as I should, but it honestly reminded me of clueless daytime and network execs at the time bemoaning the fate of soap operas and yet completely missing their points with their attempts to be relevent to a new audience. Of course beyond the obvious (endless stories filled with complicated backstory, character relationships, varying quality depending on who the writing and producing/editorial team is, etc) soaps and comic books share one other important trait--they both are often looked down upon as the lowest rung, and pulpiest/most disposable of their forms of fiction, and the ones with perhaps the most loyal, outspoken, but also sometimes deluded fanbase.

But I do think the idea of soap opera comics *does* have potential. While at this point I think it's beating a dead horse to revive the dead soaps, I wonder if there would have been a market to do, for example, an All My Children comic book with some of the writers as consultants... Obviously it's easier done with a fanbase a show like Buffy has (and I felt Wheedon's season 8 comic became a huge stinking mess by the end), or Dark Shadows, but...