Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged:

Sex Is Cancelled, But Will Return Bigger Than Ever

Published Fri, 30 Dec 2016 10:00:16 -0600

Last updated Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:12:29 -0600

In the back of this week's issue of Sex #34, published by Image Comics, writer Joe Casey talks about the grind of the monthly creator-owned comic book.

And how things are changing. He writes,

In consultation with Image Comics publisher, Eric Stephenson, we're going to attempt a bold experiment, one that few continuing series have ever attempted. We're going to transition from the monthly comicbook format to a strictly graphic novel format.

So this is the last single issue of Sex. Instead, after the fifth volume is collected in January, the next collection, now an original graphic novel, will be published in late 2017.

I'm expecting to be talking to Image publisher Eric Stephenson soon. I might just bring it up, as well as Casey's observations about the changing comics industry.

On several different occasions in the past year or so, I've come to realize that this is probably the final, long-form, serialized, creator-owned comicbook that I'll ever write. The market is such that, unless you're some sort of runaway success right out of the gate, maintaining this kind of a narrative over years and years — in the monthly comicbook format — can be a tough row to hoe. The market may be relatively healthy at the upper sales levels, but it certainly isn't the kind of trickle-down economy we'd all like for it to be. But for a storyteller that wants to continue to tell stories, the obvious solution is to pivot to a new kind of method, a new frame of reference, a new delivery system with which to tell those stories. That's basically what we're going to be doing… and I hope you're all as juiced by the possibilities as I am.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!