Comics packaging is a publishing activity in which a publishing company outsources the myriad tasks involved in putting together a comic book — writing, illustrating, editing, and even printing — to an outside service called a packager. Once the comics packager has produced the comic, they then sell it to the final publishing company.[1]
In this arrangement, the comics-packaging company acts as a liaison between a publishing company and the writers, artists, and editors that design and produce the comic book. Comics packagers thus blend the roles of agent, editor, and publisher (as distinct from syndicates, which perform a similar function in the comic strip industry).
Comics packagers, often operated by notable artists such as Will Eisner and Jack Binder, formed in the 1930s to supply cheaply produced material to the burgeoning American comics industry. Some comics publishers used packaging services in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as well. Comics packagers and art studios also played role in the British comics industry. Although not as prevalent as it once was, comics packaging still forms a segment of the modern comics industry.
Business model
There are two main reasons for utilizing a comics packager: a publisher new to the comics industry that does not have an in-house staff or access to a network of freelancers; or a business outside the comics industry that decides to produce comics for advertising or informational purposes. In these latter cases, the comic is first conceived as a marketing concept, and the packager is then hired to write and produce the comic on a work for hire basis. Some packagers only provide art for the comics, with the writing done by in-house talent.
Eisner & Iger, one of the first packagers, had 15 writers, artists and letterers on staff, according to co-founder Will Eisner: "They were working for me full-time, on salary. I tried to avoid dealing with freelancers on a per-page basis."[2] At the same time, Eisner & Iger charged publishers $5 to $7 per finished page.[3]
Historically, comics packagers (such as the Chesler shop, the Sangor Studio, and Eisner & Iger) were set up as physical studios.[4] As explained by comics historian Hames Ware, however, Lloyd Jacquet's Funnies Inc. "was distinct from the other major shops. It was set up more like a clearinghouse than a conventional shop. While at the other classic shops, there were actually buildings and offices housing... many artists who often collaborated on jobs, most of Jacquet's artists worked from home and did solo work."[4]
Remuneration and credit
While the comics-packaging sector is little-known outside the publishing world, it provides employment to many freelance authors and illustrators. Most packagers pay a flat project or page rate. Packagers do not pay royalties, which means that even if a package-produced comic becomes a bestseller, the creators do not receive additional payment.
Artist Joe Kubert recalled Harry "A" Chesler paying him $5 a week, at age 12 (c. 1938) to apprentice at his studio after school.[5] Similarly, artist Carmine Infantino remembers that, c. 1940, he was paid by Chesler "a dollar a day, just [to] study art, learn, and grow. That was damn nice of him, I thought. He did that for me for a whole summer" while Infantino was in high school.[6][7]Joe Simon said that his Funnies Inc. rate for a completed comic-book page — written, drawn, and lettered — was $7. For comparison, he recalled that at Eisner & Iger — where Eisner wrote the features and created characters, hiring novice artists — the page rate was approximately $3.50 to $5.50.[3]George Tuska, who worked for a number of packagers in the late 1930s, notes that he made $10 a week with Eisner & Iger,[8] and then, with the Chesler shop, $22 a week, increased to $42 a week within six months.[9]
In the early days of comics, creators working for comics packagers worked anonymously as ghostwriters and "ghost artists", under the packaging company name, or under an alias. (It's worth noting, however, that most comics stories produced during this period didn't contain credits, making individual attribution difficult.) In some cases, a creator's work would be credited to someone else's name, such as a celebrity, who was paid to be listed as the credited writer as a way of increasing sales.[citation needed] Historian Hames notes, however, that at Funnies Inc., most artists "got credit for whatever job they did. (Jacquet also allowed writer credits from time to time)."[4]
History
Golden Age of Comic Books
The first packagers to emerge were in the late 1930s, supplying comics features and complete comic books to publishers testing the waters of the emerging medium.[10] As early packager Will Eisner noted at this time, around 1936,
[T]the only comic books being started were all reprinting daily newspaper comic strips... and it suddenly hit me, out of the blue, that they would run out of a supply of these strips very soon, and then there'll be an opportunity to sell original material, drawn especially for these comic books. So... I told Jerry Iger about this idea and said I'd like to form a company with him and we'd produce the original art for these comic books.[11]
By the late 1930s, the packaging business was flourishing.[22] Chesler, who also acted as a publisher, recalled in a 1976 profile, "besides about 75 of my own titles, we produced comics for some 50 different publishers. At one time, there were 40 artists working for me and I had 300 comic titles on the newsstands."[5][a]
As the comics industry took hold, alumni of the packagers "went on to form the nuclei of various comics art staffs" for a number of different early comics companies.[10] They also started their own studios; in the years 1942–1945, a number of artists became packagers in their own right, including L. B. Cole, Jack Binder, Bernard Baily, Mac Raboy, and Vincent Fago.
Most of the early crop of packagers petered out by the mid-1950s as the remaining publishers produced their comics in-house.
Modern era
With the advent of the 1970s, a number of new packagers arose, most of whom provided comics art but not stories to their clients. These included Continuity Associates and Selecciones Ilustradas.
Continuity Associates (later known as Continuity Studios),[26] was formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano in 1971.[27] At first, Continuity primarily supplied motion picturestoryboards and advertising art, but it soon became an art packager for comic book publishers, including such companies as Charlton Comics,[28]Marvel Comics, DC Comics, the one-shotBig Apple Comix, and even Adams' own Continuity Comics. Continuity served as the launching pad for the careers of a number of professional comics artists. (When doing collective comics work, the artists were often credited as "Crusty Bunkers.") More established cartoonists like Win Mortimer found work at Continuity profitable enough that they left the comics industry to work exclusively on Continuity projects.[29][30]
David Campiti, with Campiti and Associates (c. 1985–1988) and then Glass House Graphics (1993–present), operated more like a traditional comics packager, supplying complete comics to such publishers as Eternity Comics, Continuity Comics, DC Comics, Eclipse Comics, NOW Comics, and his own Innovation Publishing.[31] Campiti and Associates was active in comics packaging during the "black-and-white boom" of the mid-1980s.[32] Independent publishers whose work was produced almost exclusively by Campiti and Associates include:
Glass House Graphics played a major role in the entrée of Brazilian artists such as Ed Benes, Joe Bennett, Mike Deodato, and Luke Ross into the American comics market.
The U.K. comics market
Starting in the 1950s, the British comics market often used art packagers — often artists from Spain, from such studios as A.L.L.I. and Bardon Arts.[33]
^David Saunders, without citation of the original source, quotes Chesler saying, "At one time, there were forty artists working for me."[23] The Grand Comics Database, however, records only 19 distinct titles directly published by Chesler between 1937 and 1946,[24] leaving the meaning of "my own titles" in this quote unclear.
^Steranko, Jim (1970). The Steranko History of Comics - Volume One. Reading, Pennsylvania: Supergraphics. p. 59. Bill Everett: We'd put the whole book together, deliver the package to the publisher and get paid for it.
^Amash, Jim (May 2005). "I Always Felt Storytelling was as Important as the Artwork: Will Eisner Talks About Quality Comics, Eisner & Iger, The Spirit—and Other Stuff". Alter Ego. No. 48. p. 9.
^Fox, Margalit (April 5, 2013). "Carmine Infantino, Reviver of Batman and Flash, Dies at 87". New York Times. The young Mr. Infantino enrolled in the School of Industrial Art, a Manhattan public high school now known as the High School of Art and Design. When he was still only a freshman there, he began working part-time for the noted comic-book packager Harry Chesler.
^Wickham, Paul. "Jumbo Comics Comic Artists". Fiction House Comics (fan site). p. 4. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved August 29, 2008.
^Saunders, David. "Harry "A" Chesler". PulpArtists.com. Archived from the original on November 11, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.. Additional, archived on November 11, 2016.
^"Creig Flessel, 1912-2008". ComicsReporter.com. July 31, 2008. Archived from the original on May 27, 2011. Retrieved August 29, 2008. (Requires scrolldown to 8:25 a.m. PST post)
^Bob McCay entry, Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Accessed Jan. 14, 2012.
^Hewetson, Alan (October 1973). "Syd Shores". (interview) Now and Then Times. Archived from the original on November 20, 2003. Additional created September 26, 2010.
^ abTuska, George (July 2001). "I Didn't Stay In One Place!". Alter Ego. Vol. 3, no. 9. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing. Archived from the original on November 29, 2010. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
^"Iger Studio". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
^Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), ISBN978-0-374-18767-5, p. 26.
^Gabilliet, Jean-Paul (2009). Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. Translated by Beaty, Bart; Nguyen, Nick. University Press of Mississippi. p. 115. Retrieved December 21, 2012. ISBN978-1-60473-267-2.
^ ab"L. B. Cole". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
^ ab"Nina Albright". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
^Steranko, Jim (1972). The Steranko History of Comics 2. Supergraphics.
PageTurner — contemporary comics packager, "content producer, and book agency specializing in graphic novels, illustrated works, and comics-savvy transmedia"
