Comic Book Titles Should Be Seasonal

If I was given the reigns of Marvel or DC Comics, my first act would be to make all titles seasonal, meaning they’d be active for a short run every year, like a TV show. Not only would this give the writers some breathing room, but would help with continuity and help give each issue a more ‘event-like’ feel.

I’d give Batman and Superman 10-issue runs every year - Batman in the Fall/Winter, Superman in the Spring/Summer. And that kind of interval would continue down the line, for Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc. Once in a while the crossover stuff can appear on it’s own - like Justice League or Teen Titans.

A big company like DC or Marvel have these large rosters of heroes and villains…why churn them all out every month? Fans can take this for granted, and stories just get more diluted and/or convoluted. This forces writers to churn out the same old stories, or resort to drastic measures like killing off the title character, albeit for a short time.

I’ve already admitted I don’t read comics anymore - it’s for this very reason. The market is over-saturated and titles are just being churned out. Looking at other mediums such as TV shows, you can see the importance of leaving your audience wanting more. Imagine if Lost appeared all year? Or in a daily format like a soap opera? It would get old pretty quick.

If you looked at the opposite end of the output spectrum, such as a Superhero franchise like Batman or Iron Man churning out a film every 2 or 3 years (even 4 for the next Batman), the appeal of the film is huge and hard to ignore. Though their film appearances are brief and stretched over a period of several years, it’s easy to regard these films as 100% canon. That is because the events that occur are finite and carry much more weight and consequence. People will digest a film for a few years, pondering those events much more distinctly than a run of several comics over any given time. Films are savored, comics have a throwaway quality.