According to Raymond Chandler, there are one hundred and ninety ways to be a bastard. Philip Marlowe, Chandler's fictional counterpart, deals in the entire spectrum from brutal criminal thuggery to elitist upper-class bullying. When you get so close to something that it's your all, even unpleasantness can become a fascinatingly varied thing.

Chandler's early work in the pulp boom of the thirties was parleyed into an immensely successful run of novels throughout the forties and fifties. While it could hardly be referred to as episodic fiction, it was still a series of books featuring the continuing exploits of one man. However, unlike the exploits of most comic book super-heroes, no recurring plots carried over from novel to novel.

'In sixty-plus years, Batman has had almost no character development.' I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the pulp crime boom had influenced the burgeoning comics boom more than it did. If the writers of BLACK MASK and DIME DETECTIVE had spawned the Golden Age of Comics rather than Bob Kane or Siegel & Schuster. Would we now have the pleasure of reading MARLOWE: LA KNIGHTS? Or SPECTACULAR SAM SPADE?

While the pulp fiction and superhero comics booms happened at roughly the same time, comics is the only one remaining - and in a surprisingly close approximation of how it began. It still publishes monthly comics of roughly the same page count with pretty much the same characters. A good example is DETECTIVE COMICS, which has run continuously since its inception in the late thirties with the same character at its helm for much of that time.

The two great eras of Batman - the hero who very quickly claimed DETECTIVE COMICS as his own - were the camp sixties approach and the grim 'n gritty eighties interpretation. Each was more a sign of its times than any intrinsic quality of the character. Each was also inextricably tied to a pop culture zeitgeist originating outside the comics genre. That the Batman books have yet to pull themselves out of the mire of eighties apocalyptic depression could be down to the lack of any original cultural movement since then.

The core of the character has always been the same. He is a man dressed like a bat who fights crime. Sixty-plus years of publication and nary a character development to speak of. This is the source of much irritation to some; the very idea of an "ongoing" story that never ends seeming ludicrous. But it's not an idea unique to comics.

'It needn't be the central character who experiences the emotional arc.' Marlowe may not have seen as many years in continuous serialisation, but he did appear in several novels. Indeed, the use by an author of a favourite character in a series of novels is a fairly widespread practice. But this doesn't mean the story or character is somehow neutered. Marlowe remains the same stoic, chess-playing guardian angel throughout the novels; it's the characters that guest in each work that experience the narrative change.

In film, this is a readily acknowledged approach to structuring. Christopher Vogler comments on this very idea in his text, THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, taking examples from the entire strata of film. The idea that it needn't be the central character who experiences the emotional arc of the piece; that the lead can merely be the impetus for change. This is Marlowe's role in the grand scheme.

Another way to approach the problems of continuous serialisation is the soap-opera technique. When characters have run their emotional arc, they are replaced. Because most soap-operas are based around a location rather than an individual - the street, the office, the hospital, etc - the core hook of the piece always remains. But the cast can be cycled in and out when they've run their course.

The idea that characters must go through some huge gut-wrenching change during each story is a fallacy. Death, for example, is ruled out from the outset. Characters who need to be there next month whatever happens can't possibly die, so that form of change is removed. But death is not the only change a character can go through, and it's often the least subtle.

'The medium of delivery affects the story only if the writer lets it.' THE SIMPSONS eschews the very idea of character growth and continuity, and it's one of the most popular TV series of recent time. Each story is begun and ended over the course of one short twenty-minute episode. Characters never change outside of the confines of a single episode. Next week, they will all be back where they started. And it still works.

In the end, the medium of delivery affects the story only if the writer lets it. A character that has been published for sixty-plus years can still be as vital as the moment of its inception if it is handled in the correct way. Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was released nearly fifty years after the character was created, but still breathed life into the character for a whole new audience.

Unlike cinema or prose, comics has yet to find a home that can accommodate all of its advantages. Some claim the ongoing serial allows readers to form a bond with a character that shorter, contained works rule out. Conversely, those in favour of shorter works claim that ongoing serials never let a character run their course.

While there may not be one hundred and ninety ways to publish a comic, it is a similar conceit. In the current rush to throw off the serialisation process in favour of single collections, a valuable historical and creative element of comics may be lost. Serialisation has proven its worth time and time again and while there will always be stories that work better as single volumes, they are no better or worse than their monthly brethren.

John Fellows works in the television industry providing assistive services to the deaf community.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.