Serialized comics vs. graphic novels

[zuludelta]

There's been some debate among publishers, editors, and creative-types about the merits of serialized comics vs. the graphic novel (and the resulting compromise between the two formats... the "written-for-a-trade" serial comic book). Writer Steven Grant weighs in with some of his own thoughts on the matter:

http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=15924

A choice quote from the article:

Our problem as an industry and a creative culture in this regard is that most of us are hardcore comics fans, we're so intimately familiar with our own artificial constructs that automatically accept that there is no problem. But the structures we impose didn't develop for art or communication, they're strictly financial considerations, the result of some now long ago bookkeeper working out the most cost-effective balance of price and content, that floating decimal point where the publisher could make the most profit for the least outlay the market would tolerate. 22 pages it was. But that's the only reason it's 22 pages. The only one. It's the only reason the pamphlet exists in its current form. Economics, not art, is the only reason there's usually only one story per 22 page comic. But almost nobody creating comics is particularly happy with any of these boundaries. Which is why so many talents think in terms of expansive stories that cover 6, 12, 100 issues...

...  Sure, you may love reading comics serialized 22 pages per issue (which is one of the main comments I get anytime I bring this up: "But I like it that way!") but it's hard to explain this to people who don't write comics, you have to experience it yourself. 22 pages sure isn't a length many of us would have chosen left to our own discretion. Hopefully it wasn't awfully apparent to most readers but more than a few comics stories, both the standalone in one issue and the serialized over several issues kinds, have been uncomfortably twisted into 22 pages when the creative team would have preferred otherwise, when even just a page more or often a page less would have left it more balanced and complete. Or 8 pages or 6 or whatever the publisher decided was the "proper" length for a story.

But there's really no reason to do that anymore.

[Talavar]

An interesting article, though one whose argument I don't even really see as necessary - I only buy trade paperbacks/graphic novels already.  I hate the wait that is generated by the time between all the issues.  The serialization of comics can end any time now, as far as I'm concerned.  Go graphic novels!

[Ajax]

I agree. Graphic Novels are cheaper in the long run and it's easier to get into a story when you have more than one issue to work with. Plus, it's harder to find the individual comics in my area since all the comic book shops have closed. It would not surprise me if the industry starts shifting toward graphic novels (which major book store chains carry) and de-emphasizing the magazines (especially since comic shops are the only places you can find them and the comic shop is a dying breed. At least in my area).

[Podmark]

I wouldn't really have a problem if comics switched from monthly 22 page comics to regularly released graphic novels of a series. But I really have no interest in losing the idea of a continuing series.

[tommyboy]

Whilst it may appear at first glance that losing the 'pamphlet' monthlies and switching to 'graphic novels' is mostly a 'win' move, (they are better money makers, sold in 'proper' stores, a better read etc), there are some things the industry would lose if 'pamphlets' disappeared.
Small publishers, self publishers, independents, these all tend to not do as well from graphic novels, as the big stores that happily carry Batman and Wolverine trades may be less interested in a 'Nexus' or 'TMNT' or 'Powers' when they are new and unknown. And as a reader, I'd rather risk the smaller cover price to try something new than stump up for a Graphic Novel thats an unknown quantity, and theres only so much 'Byrne-stealing' can tell you.
Even the Big Publishers may be reluctant to risk the investment of a new Graphic Novel with an untried hero/premise/storytelling approach, which they would have printed a few issues of as monthlies to see where it went.
So I think that theres a risk that we will just see the same creators with the same 'products' over and over in a diminishing spiral of 'what sells' in the Big stores, with an almost Samizdat independent market confined to the shrinking ghetto of the Real Comic Shop.
Other than that concern, I like reading more than one comic in one sitting, and its even better if they are the same story, so I'd be happy(-ish) with a move to out and out GN productions and the continued withering of the Monthly.

[zuludelta]

Small publishers, self publishers, independents, these all tend to not do as well from graphic novels, as the big stores that happily carry Batman and Wolverine trades may be less interested in a 'Nexus' or 'TMNT' or 'Powers' when they are new and unknown. And as a reader, I'd rather risk the smaller cover price to try something new than stump up for a Graphic Novel thats an unknown quantity, and theres only so much 'Byrne-stealing' can tell you.

Not sure if it's true of all the smaller publishers, but Image Comics publisher Erik Larsen, IIRC, stated that they make more money off of graphic novels and trade collections and they lose money with single issue sales (not that Image Comics, as a company, makes any money, mind you, all of their profits go to paying their creative teams and covering costs of publishing).

Now, the argument for retaining the 22-page floppy/pamphlet for many smaller publishers is that it's a loss-leader product, meaning that while a publisher might lose money producing floppies, their presence on the stands stimulates sales for other products made by that publisher (the eventual TPBs, similarly-themed graphic novels, etc.). But these days, there are more cost-efficient ways to stimulate graphic novel and TPB sales, ways that aren't creatively crippled by the restrictive 22-page format... internet-driven media such as webcomics, brief flash animated mini-features, creative tie-ins, not to mention that "grassroots" marketing campaigns are again in vogue with the proliferation of internet message boards, blogs, and "Web 2.0" functionality.

[steamteck]

I just don't follow why modern writers are "creatively crippled " while older writers created like crazy in that format.

[zuludelta]

I just don't follow why modern writers are "creatively crippled " while older writers created like crazy in that format.

A lot of it has to do with the earlier writers having the first pick of everything (storytelling technique-wise) at the time. Many of the methods used in parsing whole narratives into 22-page segments were novel and innovative just by virtue of it being the first time those methods were incorporated into the process. It's only natural to look back on the 1960s as an era in comics defined by the discovery of new techniques, because it really was, but I think it would be unrealistic to expect that same rate of innovation now, given the limitations of the format and what has already gone before.

To put it in an analogy, the 22-page comic book is very much like the 3-minute single in music. Like the pamphlet in comics, the 3 minute "barrier" in popular music was necessitated largely by economic reasons, not aesthetic ones. Of course, a lot of musicians in the 1960s to the early 1970s, from Elvis to The Beatles, to James Brown and everybody in-between created brilliant work to fit in the format. But if artists had stuck to the limiting notion that any pop song meant for release as a single should be done within 3 minutes or less, long format songs like The Beatles' "Hey Jude," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," or Carole King's "You've Got A Friend" would probably not have gained the exposure that they would eventually have. By the time the mid-1970s rolled around and economics was no longer limiting songwriters/musicians to 3 minute songs, I think everybody let out a collective sigh of relief that they didn't have to be held back by that artificial restraint. Sure, it's still a good idea every now and then to keep a pop single under 3 minutes, but I think most people would agree that having the option to go over that limit as the artist sees fit is a good thing, and I think the same thing can be said about the 22-page format and comics.   

A lot of it also has to do with the context of the times... comics these days are held to a much different standard than they were back in the Silver Age heyday of superhero comics. There are certain standards that are immutable, of course, but on the whole, the skewing of the current readership towards an older demographic and the high price of comics relative to other entertainment means that certain expectations must be met for comics to be competitive with other "grown-up" media such as, say, prime-time television. Most adults want more bang for their buck, and at $2.99, 22 pages of story, with at least a couple of those pages devoted (whether overtly or covertly) to recapping previous events, that just isn't a whole lot of value. Comics back in the 1960s up until the early 1980s, were priced as disposable entertainment, and as such weren't held to very high literary or aesthetic standards. Now, I'm not saying that the work wasn't good, because it was, it was, make no mistake about that. But taking off the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia for a moment, I'd say many comic books back then were riddled with inconsistency in both art and story, but it was okay, because at 5 cents or 10 cents or a quarter or even 75 cents, the naive young reader would be happy with a fun superhero romp that could keep his/her imagination engaged for a couple of hours. If Stan Lee or Dennis O'Neil would decide to write a particularly relevant story from time to time, even better. Comics today suffer from the same rate of inconsistency as they did back in the day, but the stakes are different... printing and storage costs are that much higher, there are fewer comic book readers (and many of those are a fickle bunch, clamoring for the same kinds of stories that they read as kids while at the same time wondering aloud why today's kids no longer seem interested in the medium), and yet publishers still stick to publishing, distribution, and marketing strategies that were developed in very different times.   

[zuludelta]

As a concrete example of how the 22 page format can and does hamper the use of certain storytelling techniques, we can take a look at the much-maligned trend of "decompression."

"Decompressed storytelling," as it is applied in comic books, is a technique used to lend the visuals a more cinematic feel. The basic organizing theme of the technique revolves around breaking down a temporally brief but thematically significant scene and extending it across multiple panels to lend it more gravity. While the technique is most often associated with Japanese comics (manga) and the Franco-Belgian bande dessinée, its usage isn't an entirely new thing in North America. Artists and writer-artists such as Steranko, P. Craig Russell, Will Eisner, Wally Wood, and later personalities such as Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Steve Gerber started using the technique either naturally or through the influence of film theory and/or foreign comic books.

The common problem with the use of "decompression" in North American comics is that the 22 page monthly pamphlet format generally restricts how it can be used. Writers and artists using decompression as a legitimate storytelling technique are often accused by readers of shortchanging and skimping on story or "writing for the trade." You generally don't see that same kind of problem in manga, where continuing comics series are cheaper and come out on a weekly or bi-weekly fashion, or in bande dessinée, where a common comic book format is an "album" that contains at least twice as many pages as a typical 22-page pamphlet with a larger page size that allows for more and/or bigger panels per page.

The continued evolution of North American comic book storytelling can't be tied down to an arbitrary format that was dictated by the economic realities of 40 years ago. I think part of the reason we have a creatively incestuous industry right now (with a static readership) is because many of today's creators have locked themselves, either willingly or unwittingly, into working patterns that were sufficient for their day, but are growing increasingly inefficient these days and whose products are largely unattractive to new audiences.           

[steamteck]

Interesting take on decompressed storytelling. Unfortunately, I still find it makes the medium way too slow moving. Even  with the expanded formats there is less actual storytelling to me. Things can often be told equally as effectively with fewer words rather than more. I wouldn't mind the TPB format but I still like less decompressed storytelling myself. If the economics dictate its probably the way to go.

[tommyboy]

Well, surely the reason 'decompression' is much maligned is that it simply isn't suited to the format it is being used in, ie the 22 page comic.
It's like saying that the 3-minute single hampered the use of the 5-minute drum solo. Of course it did, and only an idiot would think that using a 5-minute drum solo in a single was a good choice.
Every medium comes with it's own restrictions, be they technical, financial, cultural, political or physical. Sometimes ground is broken and new artistic territory exposed by people 'breaking the rules', or stretching the bounds of what is considered possible. And sometimes lazy people just make stupid decisions that make their job easier, and the product worse for the audience (though of course Art being Art, and people being people, 'worse' is subjective, and many people enjoy it taking Nine. Freaking. Months. to get from the 'big reveal' that Elektra is a skrull to the story actually starting).
There's no point in trying to make a film dependent on high resolution detail and show it on a conventional lo-def TV. That isn't the medium hampering creative freedom, thats doing the wrong thing in the wrong medium.
Now, I'm not saying that you can't have more than 22 pages, or that you can't use these allegedly 'cinematic', 'atmospheric', storytelling techniques. I'm just saying that in a 22 page comic, it's as sensible as having a four page, dense text dissertation of the economics of the 19th century spoken by a character, with little or no art. Unless it's absolutely essential to the story, it's the wrong thing in the wrong place. And 99% of the time I've seen it, it's in no way essential to the story, except to stretch it out over 6 issues.

[zuludelta]

There's no point in trying to make a film dependent on high resolution detail and show it on a conventional lo-def TV. That isn't the medium hampering creative freedom, thats doing the wrong thing in the wrong medium.

Very good points, but the point I'm trying to make is that the 22 page format is no longer a valid restriction for the medium. It used to be that 22 pages was the "magic number" where publishers could make the most money while paying a reasonable outlay... during the mid-1970s, that figure was 17 pages. I don't know what the "magic number" would be these days, but something tells me that 22 pages isn't the best number considering how much money publishers lose on their monthlies. Most small publishers lose money on the pamphlets because of the costs that come with maintaining that format (printing, shipping and storing 6 issues of a monthly 22 page comic book, in most cases, costs more than doing the same for a 132 page "graphic novel" or trade paperback once every six months or so).

Now, I'm not saying that you can't have more than 22 pages, or that you can't use these allegedly 'cinematic', 'atmospheric', storytelling techniques. I'm just saying that in a 22 page comic, it's as sensible as having a four page, dense text dissertation of the economics of the 19th century spoken by a character, with little or no art.

I'll agree that in many cases, "decompressed" storytelling isn't really used effectively in today's 22 page superhero comics. But that's the thing... there really is no reason to stick to the 22 page limit because that format no longer offers the same economic advantages it did 40 years ago. Moving to a higher page count, even if it means cutting down on the frequency of releases, will let creators use that technique more effectively if they feel like using it (while, I'm sure, opening up a new set of narrative problems). 

EDIT: All this "decompression" talk reminds me of my reaction to the Iron Man Extremis storyline by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov from a few years ago. That thing read quite poorly as a monthly serial. Reading everything collected, though, and it's probably one of my favourite straight superhero stories of the past few years. Had Ellis and Granov adjusted their pacing to better fit the 22 page monthly serial format, I think the overall story would have suffered greatly.

[tommyboy]

Yes, Extremis is an example where the trade worked better than the individual issues.
I guess my point is that while they are still publishing in the 22 page format, however restricting and passe it is, they should play to it's strengths. By all means they should use other formats, too and or instead, and whatever works, works, in terms of technique. But the pamphlet is what it is, and needs to be dealt with for what it is, which is 22 pages, monthly.
Even without decompression, few stories are powerful enough to read well over the course of six months. You have to have a really strong narrative, cast etc to be memorable month-in, month-out. Much of the time by issue six of a story I've forgotten or no longer care about what happened in the first issue. Read as a trade, they may work perfectly well. But paying for a monthly experience that disjointed often galls.
You are right in that they should use other formats too. But they aren't. They are cramming 132 page stories into six monthly 22 page pamphlets, and I don't think it works as well as it could, or should. Clearly, many other people are quite happy with it, and I believe sales have been going up a little in recent years, so my complaints may be largely ignorable individual taste. In which case they will probably continue as they have been for the last few years.
Now weekly spread out stories is a different matter. That I cope with better, so I tend to enjoy the 'countdowns' or '52' or even the new 'spider-man' titles more than if they were all monthly.

[The Enigma]

It's obviously a fine line that you have to walk as a writer, getting in the action so something important happens each issue without making the series too packed and overcrowded when it's in a TPB. Similarly, too much recapping of the story so far is tedious for TPB readers but very useful for anyone just picking up the book. I guess it depends a bit on how that's done.
I always find e.g. Wolverine talking to Storm about his healing factor incredibly annoying as it takes me right out of the world. There's no way with the two of them living and working  and especially fighting together for so long that she wouldn't know that Wolverine heals stuff and it just smacks of lazy writing. Heck, with the popularity of the X-Men films and Wolvie even getting a solo film, I find it very hard to believe that there are people out there who would buy a comic and not know that Wolverine has a healing factor, is a mutant, has claws etc.
At the same time, assuming that your average reader fresh from the Marvel films will know that Skrulls can shape change is probably an expectation too far. Does anyone have any good ideas about how to get that across without introducing Nooby McNoob whose sole purpose is to say "What is happen!?" and then for Wolverine or whoever to say "Ah, Nooby McNoob, I'm so glad you're here so I can give a long and boring description of the fact that Skrulls are alien shapeshifters who are infiltrating the planet earth in what I like to call a Secret Invasion TM, bub." ?
I suppose that knowing exactly where your story is going and knowing exactly how long it will be (and maybe writing for the trades a bit) allows for a better plan. If you're sure you're only going to write 60 issues, you can probably work out what you want to happen and when. You can decompress to your heart's content, whilst still ensuring that something significant happens in each issue. An obvious, but good, example of this is Y: The Last Man. There's no Lost-style stretching ideas to make more money and the series remains broadly entertaining, captivating and well-written from first to last issue. I guess if you're on an ongoing title, your X-Mens and JLAs of the world then you need to be very aware of the vast history of the title as well as the fact that, unlike with Y, someone else will take it over when you leave and equally lots of people have written the characters before. That is, to my mind, where decompression works least well because at best, people love your work and you get to be favorably compared with the people around you; but at worst your work is criticized and when you attempt your very own Y-alike, nobody wants to read it because of that nasty thing you did with Colossus that one time, or whatever.
I guess what I'm getting at is decompression good in things with a set beginning, middle and end (and more for trades than ongoing series) but decompression bad in anything where your run on the title is just another in a long line of other people; some of whom will almost inevitably have been more talented than you and had better ideas.
Seeing Writer X's take on the Justice League dynamic is all well and good, but it's very difficult to make them your own and do interesting things that have not been done before without annoying at least some people who will always prefer Writer Y's take. Admittedly, a bit of the "doing things that have not been done before" means that you have to write the characters in a way that is inconsistent with their previous action. At the same time, if you just have Superman beat up Brainiac one more time then you can be accused of being unwilling to do new things. I think that's part of what has led to the "grim and gritty" comics I see so many threads about here. You need to do something new with Captain America, so you have him use a gun (this, by the way, is just an example. I'm not slating Brubaker here, his work is rock solid and he justifies everything that Winter Soldier does to my liking, if not to everyone else's) and instantly split opinion. Half the people think it's new and edgy, the other half think that their Cap would never do such a thing and it bothers them a lot. Anyway, there's another thread for that.
This is slowly turning into a proper rant, sorry for that, guys. If you've made it this far, enjoy how I now go on to the 22-page format. In my country (the UK, specifically Swansea in Wales, with the only comic shop for miles around), single issues are prohibitively expensive. If they're $2.99 in the US, it's closer to £2.99 here (or ~$6. I exaggerate a little for effect). Trades make so much more sense economically that I know very few people who still buy singles. I stopped a few years back and happily take the waiting a little longer in exchange for paying much less in the longer term. The fact that bookstores and places like Amazon and Play also stock trades for cheaper than I can get them in my local shop means there is really little incentive for me to actually go in there any more. I find myself making trips in, looking at the new things, exchanging your standard comic shop banter and then leaving without having bought anything. My local store is much cheaper than e.g. Forbidden Planet, but still too much when I know I can get it cheaper online or with a 3 for 2 deal in Waterstone's.
If the comics companies and their printers could come up with a way to print something of a smaller or a larger size so that singles changed from loss leaders to profit makers, I'd be all for it. I could go back to my comic shop and keep them afloat as well as collect my favourite series and try the odd new thing from time to time. As it is, I can't afford roughly 1/3 of the cost of a TPB for a single issue of something I might read once and then get rid of. Ok, rant over. Feel free to explain how to make the idea of skrulls obvious to new readers or to make a criticism of my points. Heck, if you agree with me, tell me too! As one of the "younger readers" of comics today, I'd like to know how my views stack up with others'.

[zuludelta]

Yes, Extremis is an example where the trade worked better than the individual issues.
I guess my point is that while they are still publishing in the 22 page format, however restricting and passe it is, they should play to it's strengths. By all means they should use other formats, too and or instead, and whatever works, works, in terms of technique. But the pamphlet is what it is, and needs to be dealt with for what it is, which is 22 pages, monthly.

I think what we're seeing, at least in reference to Ellis' and Granov's Extremis arc and other, similar, better-in-trade-than-in-singles stories is some fracturing on the editorial end of things. On one side, there's this editorial responsibility to ensure that a single issue is a worthy stand-alone purchase, but on the other, the editors and the creative types probably realize that it's in the TPBs that they actually make their coin and gain market penetration in bookstores and libraries, so there is the tendency to not serve the 22 page format as well as it should be and "write for the trade" instead.

It's a tricky balancing act that's a result of the current realities of the market, but it's something that publishers have to address sooner or later. In some ways, it's the smaller publishers that are leading the way (probably because they stand to save the most money by skipping the "singles" stage of marketing a book)... Slave Labor Graphics, Dynamite Publishing, and Image Comics have, in limited capacities, reduced the single issue print runs of some of their series and mini-series in a move to funnel more resources into TPB and graphic novel publishing. They can distribute the TPBs and OGNs at more locations than the pamphlets (not just comic book shops, but bookstores and libraries as well) and inventory and storage of a single volume is more manageable than that of multiple single issues.

I guess if we want to trace the decline of the 22 page pamphlet historically, we can go back to the fall of the newsstand and the rise of the direct market. The original 22 page (or 17 page) pamphlet was, in many ways, best suited for sale at corner news vendors, toy stores, and the drug store magazine rack. They were printed on cheap paper, sure, but they were also priced to be impulse buys and were easy to move, something to shut the kids up on the drive home or to amuse oneself on the commute to work. It was when the specialty comic market became a significant economic factor in the early 1980s that publishers started producing pricier material (still in pamphlet form, mind you). By the mid-1980s, the bigger publishers would churn out twin editions of some of their more popular titles, a newsstand edition printed on regular newsprint and a more expensive "direct market" edition printed in better color and thicker, whiter paper stock. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the speculator boom in full force, most comics publishers had fully abandoned the newsstand (and vice versa, I suppose) in favor of the direct market.

The problem with the move is that the pamphlet format originally developed for the newsstand no longer carried the same economic advantages into the direct market. The speculator boom masked these inadequacies for a while, but by the late 1990s, it was apparent that the direct market couldn't be maintained on the sale of single issues alone (it took the bankruptcy of Marvel Comics and DC Comics going into financial life-support to hammer the point home for them). There was, however, an emerging market for comic book collections ("trade paperbacks"), and it was partly because of the sales of these collections that comic book specialty shops and Marvel Comics gained a new lease on life.

Now, with nationwide-chain bookstores having whole sections devoted to the sale of graphic novels and TPBs, the industry has another opportunity to re-think the standard format and adapt it to better suit the emerging market.           

In my country (the UK, specifically Swansea in Wales, with the only comic shop for miles around), single issues are prohibitively expensive. If they're $2.99 in the US, it's closer to £2.99 here (or ~$6. I exaggerate a little for effect). Trades make so much more sense economically that I know very few people who still buy singles. I stopped a few years back and happily take the waiting a little longer in exchange for paying much less in the longer term. The fact that bookstores and places like Amazon and Play also stock trades for cheaper than I can get them in my local shop means there is really little incentive for me to actually go in there any more. I find myself making trips in, looking at the new things, exchanging your standard comic shop banter and then leaving without having bought anything. My local store is much cheaper than e.g. Forbidden Planet, but still too much when I know I can get it cheaper online or with a 3 for 2 deal in Waterstone's.

That's actually my experience here in Canada as well. There's just very little financial incentive to buy single issues, especially when it takes so long for Marvel and DC to change their prices to reflect the actual exchange rate between the American and Canadian dollar (my local retailer would routinely offer a 10% to 15% discount out of his own pocket off of cover price just to make up for the discrepancy). To add to the insult, a good percentage (I'd say a majority, actually) of American comic books are actually printed in Quebec (I'm betting they would save a lot off of the Canadian cover price if they simply distributed books meant for sale in Canada directly, instead of shipping them back to the States, which is adding a whole other step in the distribution process, although I don't know how happy the monopoly of Diamond Comics Distributors would be about that).   

[bredon7777]

I wouldn't really have a problem if comics switched from monthly 22 page comics to regularly released graphic novels of a series. But I really have no interest in losing the idea of a continuing series.

Me either at this moment.

However, comic book prices are at the limit of what I am prepared to pay for a 22 page story.  If they raise prices again instead of cutting some form of expenses (Proto and I both want comics to go back to being printed on newsprint)- then waiting for the trade becomes a much more attractive option.

(This attitude is probably also helped by the fact I have a comic store a few blocks from my house)

[Ajax]

This is just a suggestion that popped into my head recently but what would people think of a graphic novel that came out monthly/bi-monthly that contained individual issues of different series. The series would still be monthly but you are getting other series in GN format. Like short story collections except for comics. I'm explaining this poorly, hopefully you can get some meaning from this.

[Talavar]

This is just a suggestion that popped into my head recently but what would people think of a graphic novel that came out monthly/bi-monthly that contained individual issues of different series. The series would still be monthly but you are getting other series in GN format. Like short story collections except for comics. I'm explaining this poorly, hopefully you can get some meaning from this.

I think I understand what you mean.  The problem would be the same with variety pack cereal, or when movies are sold in theme packs: you might like one or two of the included titles, but you're probably going to end up buying things you don't want.

[zuludelta]

This is just a suggestion that popped into my head recently but what would people think of a graphic novel that came out monthly/bi-monthly that contained individual issues of different series. The series would still be monthly but you are getting other series in GN format. Like short story collections except for comics. I'm explaining this poorly, hopefully you can get some meaning from this.

You mean an anthology collection, sort of like the weekly Shonen Jump? Those have been successful in Japan and in Europe, but for some reason, they never really caught on big in the States and Canada... the closest thing to a successful anthology monthly would probably be Marvel Comics Presents and Dark Horse Presents (which is where Frank Miller's Sin City stories first appeared), although they were still printed as pamphlets (IIRC, they had more than 22 pages, but didn't have more than 28 per issue). I suppose Heavy Metal would qualify as a successful North American anthology title, but it's published in "magazine" format as opposed to "comic book" or trade format.

I wouldn't mind seeing a Marvel anthology title patterned after the monthly Shonen Jump which is sold outside of Japan... basically a monthly 300 page black and white book that sells for around $5 that collects the most popular on-going stories in one handy volume. Imagine buying a single volume that collects that month's Spider-Man, X-Men, and Avengers stories. It would be a great way to introduce fans of one set of characters to another bunch of characters (which is one of the keys to manga's success, despite the fact that they have no "strict" on-going series, which flies in the face of DC and Marvel's conventional tactic of keeping their cash-cow characters' stories running indefinitely, even to the point where the continuity starts getting too top-heavy).