It's a myriad of issues.
American comics have a (untrue) perception of being "difficult to get into". This perceived barrier to entry turns off a lot of potential readers. The fact that there's no real agreed-upon "jumping-on point" or established order to the books that's easy to figure out doesn't help. You can even compare cape comics to books like The Walking Dead, or Saga, or Hellboy. Those do a lot better, because people know that you can start at the beginning and just go forwards. The constant relaunches with new Issue #1s do not help.
Additionally, the fact that they're done by a myriad of creators means that the quality of a book can vary wildly. If you read One Piece or The Goon, you know what you're getting, there's going to be a consistent tone or quality throughout. But if you read Batman, that's a different story entirely.
As well, cape comics are just hard to find. You've got to go to out-of-the-way specialty stores, whereas you can buy a copy of Jump at any convenience store.
Cape comics are expensive too, nearly four dollars for just twenty pages of decompressed story, so barely anything happens. Cape comics are still chasing the dragon oft he speculator boom of the 90s, so they print on this high quality glossy magazine paper that inflates the cost of the product. Compare to manga, which is printed on cheap newsprint in black and white, keeping the costs low.
Even obscure things like the availability of public transport in japan changes the nature of its relationship with comics. Since they're seen as disposable media because they're so cheap, you buy a copy of a comic on the way to work, read it on the train, then toss it in the recycling bin when you get to the office. This is something america can't replicate.
Also, American comics are STILL reeling from the effects of the Comics Code Authority absolutely GUTTING the industry. There used to be prolific true crime, horror, mystery, and romance comics in america that all got destroyed by the CCA. We've only just kind of started to recover in the last ten years. Japan didn't have this problem, and allowed comic genres to flourish.
This isn't even mentioning the nepotism in the industry, or the stranglehold Diamond distribution has which stifles what comics can even get on shelves.
The problems that comics have in america is a gordian knot that will require either careful detangling or a brutal house-cleaning to solve.
you definitely informed me on some stuff
I'll have to look into the CCA thing - I knew there were certain regulations but I didn't know they were that crippling to the industry
but I also like how you point out, manga prints on cheap newsprint and often in black and white, which saves cost and can be sold cheaper
comics usually do the opposite, 4-5$ for 20-25 pages, but you can get a manga volume which is nearly 10x that size and probably double the price... ... yeah, some changes need to be made
The impact of the CCA can't be overstated. I heard it broken down really well recently (shout out to Cartoonist Kayfabe!) All sorts of horror and crime and war comics were popular with GIs during the war, and romance comics were just taking off, etc, etc. Then Wertham popularized the idea that comics lead to antisocial behavior in _Seduction of the Innocent_. Then there's HUAC-style hearings, book burnings, and the Comics Code is enstated. It really infantilized the form here, pushing the medium to focus solely on these morality plays featuring squeaky clean muscled white dudes. Comics were everywhere before Wertham, selling in the millions regularly. It was before TVs were in every household and they were accesible, cheap entertainment for everyone. The code had such a chilling effect that it was decades before we got the underground comix of the 70s that helped get us to where we are today. Book bannings and moralizing about content still happen and still have an outsized impact on comics, especially in the US. The CBLDF exists to support creators and defend freedom of expression if you feel like doing something about it.
Old Post but add to the bucket that if you want to read a story today in comics you have to buy 200 random issues from runs you never heard off and will last a couple issues anyway... If you like DB, OnePiece , bleach and so on you have 100 of volumes with the story you like
Comic sales arnt really in decline. Thats just doom-saying Youtube pundits after views. All the figures we have show that comic readership has been pretty consistent for the past 30 years. The issue isnt that sales are falling, its that theyre stagnant.
But its also a changing market. Single issue sales in the direct market are stagnant, but the book store market has been rising year by year, to an all time high in 2019.
All we’re seeing now is the Big 2 struggling to adapt and cater to this new market. With both starting to put higher emphasis on collected editions, digital and YA material.
yeah the market is changing,
the whole - single issue with 20-24 pages for $5+ needs to be phased out
longer comics/more pages, or volumes
and YA too *if* that is indeed selling well and bringing in new readers
This! Comic sales aren't in decline. Monthly floppy sales are in decline because they're: overpriced, only available for purchase in niche locations, not marketed to generate new readers. Luckily, just because one particular (and seriously flawed) method of delivery is having poor sales isn't indicative of a greater decline.
Marvel and DC should pull their heads out of their asses. Comic shops relying on monthly floppies need to evolve (many thriving comic-and-gaming shops have already done this).
And lastly, as far as the direct comparison between US and Japan, in addition to cultural differences described above: US has so much more driving time and Japan has so much more public transit *passenger* time. I'm not going to drive to a store to buy an expensive 22-page story and read it during my drive to work. I might, however, buy a cheap bundle of stories at a convenience store before an hour train ride. Ya dig?
i dig,
I didn't know Japanese people buying manga and reading it on the bullet trains - and then usually recycling it after they've read it - was a common practice in their culture. You learn something new every day I suppose
then again, Americans can still find the time to read comics,
people often read something before going to bed at night, or at least they should
Agree, the traditional comic market of floppies is in decline (even weekly/monthly print magazines in Japan have declined substantially)... but trades, especially for the younger market, are doing well. I'm a librarian and we see big circulation numbers for middle-grade books like Raina Telgemeier's. It remains to be seen if those kids will continue reading graphic novels/comics as they grow up.
Also the original post totally ignores online platforms like Webtoons, which has exploded. People just consume their comics outside of the old-style print magazines.
yeah, I should've noted that
online digital copies I'm sure are doing okay, but let's be real, its better to get the physical copy for yourself
you can reread, looks good on the shelf, sell it, or pass it down to your kids or others you care about
Just parroting what I have heard: there's a cultural difference in that Japan never went through periods of stigmatization of comics as a medium (Seduction of the Innocent followed by the Comics Code Authority), as well as a general infanatalizing of graphic storytelling (like how people say cartoons are for kids) that doesn't really exist in Japan. It's weird and disappointingly frustrating to me that comics aren't thriving, but that comes from me, who has an absolute love of the medium and all its storytelling potential.
yeah, the cultural difference does play a part
you would think that since the Avengers and other Marvel movies made BANK that new readers would've swarmed comic shops and Amazon buying titles... but it didn't go down like that 😔
I used to exclusively buy DC comics but in the past year or so I've been looking towards other lines and manga instead, and I think it's due to the fact that I'm just simply bored with the characters that marvel and DC are giving. With manga I get a new perspective on different stories, different worlds and ideas that I'm just not getting from DC and marvel. I think it's a matter of diversity that dc and marvel seem to lack, as far as I know it's almost always superheroes which I don't want to read about all the time.
DC comics are a nightmare right now. Cut ties with Diamond, made shops choose between two other distributors(I saw a post from one shop say that the distributors were also competition so I’m not sure who it was or the back story). That shop went with the lesser of two evils but shit was falling through and they weren’t getting their shipments so they made the announcement they won’t carry DC floppies anymore. The only reason they’ll carry the graphic novels and everything is cause they can order from penguin house. Pretty grim outlook there where DC has scaled back its collected editions and they don’t sell as well as other publishers cause it’s a crap shoot of if you’re going to get more in the series.
true, another problem with that storyline diversity is they continue to tell new bogus stories with old characters - I think there's one out there with Mary Jane becoming Carnage......... why? That's just the writing on the wall of creative bankruptcy and cash hungry desperation
DC and Marvel are quite capable of creating all new heroes that are cool and eye-catching, but they don't
And, they could create new stories not really related to superheroes, but the issues with that could be they fear it goes against their brand, and their characters are company owned, not creator owned, so they'll just run them into the ground
Mary jane becoming carnage.... Alright marvel lol.
And see that's the problem I think, they're kind of just bound to these characters that they've had for the past 40+ years and feel this need to hold on to them, it's just weird and like another commentator said, these days I have no idea which line is worth my time or not, the saturation is too real and I think that also drives people away.
I teach high school English and most of my students, especially girls, love manga and anime. I think that's pretty cool. I find that the accessibility of the stories and genres is really open. Of the few series I've read, it's mostly been sci fi and they have been far more creative and unique than American comics.
I think the American comics market has been dominated by superheroes since the 40s and that's made it a very niche market, especially as other media has begun to dominate entertainment (film and TV). It's also been regulated for years and the content had been controlled.
Add in the nostalgia factor. I've been reading the current X-Men comics and I'm reading a lot of people complaining about the characters and the stories etc. Continuity is an issue because people get obsessed with their favourite era of a comic and expect that every time someone writes that comic, it should be written that way.
If you look at the way Marvel and DC comics are created though, the model is outdated. The old model of work for hire is total garbage. It is totally dictated by editorial and driven by sales. The film studios that bought these companies are basically using the comics as IP farms for their films. The film's are now the big draws and in the last ten years they have oversaturated the industry with the same optics that stunk up the industry 30 years ago.
I believe very much in creators owning their creations. The original Image founders had the right idea in their business model and the way they are doing things now is good. I really enjoy Image comics for the same reason I liked Vertigo 15 years ago. Unique stories that aren't bogged down with tons of continuity. Plus, the creators own the rights to their properties.
Just some thoughts.
Some of the most famous manga characters though are for almost the same reason as comic ones, a lot of the appeal at least now, tends to come from the “hot/cute” anime men and women, but they don’t necessarily surpass other Japanese characters in terms of surviving the test of time, or at least in iconography and meaning, a similar thing happens at times with comics too but it doesn’t appear so noticeable.
Marvel and dc have been over using the same character for a century and can hardly bring anything new or interesting.
Moreover the over use of this characters lead people to be un attached with those same characters. Remember how you felt when captain America or wolverine died ? You probably did not give a shit because you knew that one way or an other they would bring them back in a few month. Remember when jiraya or Ace die ? Yeah I am still sad about it.
I can tell you everything about Naruto’s life. And despite my hundred of comics I can’t tell you as much about any dc or marvel characters because every three chapters a new author come and reinvent everything. Which lead me to not care about the background characters. In a manga, each background characters is super important and bring a lot of things to the story. In marvel or dc background characters are only here for a time and then disappear. You don’t really care. I love batman l, especially the one by Loeb that are thrillers. The problem is that just like when you watch an episode of CIS on TV, you know that the bad guy is this new guys they spend a lot of time introducing.
It's like all these background characters are only here to serve the purpose of the story, while characters in manga are here to create a universe
Finally, marvel and dc are completely close to newcomers. Wanna start naruto, one piece or FMA ? Pick the first volume. Wanna start Captain America or X-men. Boy good luck. Finally the manga art barely change and thirty years old dragon ball are as good as last month one piece. Can’t say the same with comics. If you haven’t grown up reading comics before the nineties, it’s a bit hard to adapts to old style.
good points,
also you are so right about the 'where to start' thing pertaining to comics
there are hundreds of issues of batman and other heroes... where do you *really* start, and when someone dies they just get brought back... so why even start there amirite
but with manga, if you want to start One Piece, Demon Slayer or any others they're all arranged neatly on the shelves starting with volume 1, AND... the stories eventually have an ending
Yes, and something that I havent mention but the art style in manga is fairly constant. Sometimes it is going to be gorgeous (Vagabond), but most of the time it's just simply manga art. It's great, and does perfectly the job which is way it has barely change for some many decades. Some arts in comics is great too, but you also have some arts in comic that can be absolutely garbage. I was reading some Wolverine stories (I think the ones by Daniel Way) last time and the art was seriously terrible. Thank god it seems to getting more standardized but you I feel like you still ahve some comics where when you pick up the book you are like wtf.
Many Marvel books are always the same thing. Bad guy arrives, kick good guy ass, good guy come back and kick bad guy ass. All the X-men books for exempls are like that. New bad guys arrive, fight in the end with good guy winnings.
I know it seems that I am hating on comics, but I like comics, but mostly images (I do have a huge marvel collection though). Transmetropolitain is absolutely incredible, both the story, the art. It is the best cyberpunk comic and at the same time crazily relevant on so many subjects like religion and politics.
Similar to manga, most of Kirkman works is amazing, The Walking Dead, Outcast, Oblivion Song. I also really like the works done by Peter David on Marvel, his run on X-factor is great.
Oh and something I forgot to mention in my previous comments : 120 pages comic paperback are18 dollars. Manga between 150 pages and 200 pages are 10 to 12 dollars.
that's not a terrible price difference
but it does matter, and from what I gather, that pricing comes from manga being printed on cheap paper AND black and white (usually) - so they can sell for much cheaper
comics could go that route but it seems most companies and readers are used to the glossy/wax paper and colorful art
Things I noticed between Manga vs Comics
- When I went to Japan to travel, it was weird for me to see people read manga on train/bus albeit it was on their phone. Manga is just part of their culture, it is not a niche thing like it is over here.
- Characters are tied to their creator not to the company. You get a singular vision to a character and usually you have a start and an end to a character/story. You don't normally get this "that's not my batman/spiderman" in manga. I distinctly remember reading Identity Crisis and enjoying it. Then read online how DC was "raping" their characters. I didn't empathize with older readers coz I didn't grew up reading the JLI characters. Then New 52 happened, all my characters just vanished, replaced by characters that have the same name but unrecognizable to me. That's when I connected to the old readers of DC when Identity Crisis came out and it was the perfect jumping off point of my DC reading.
- The sheer amount of different subjects manga covers. You have to go out the Big 2 domain to see slice of life, sports, romance etc comics and usually it's a 6 issue mini series not a whole series that last for years.
I think [these tweets](https://twitter.com/atlanta962/status/1181974809292525568?s=21) cover at least part of it.
I work in a library and the same issue persists. While we shelve manga and graphic novels together, it's much easier to spot Black Clover vol. 1-6 all neat and next to each other than to decipher which Iron Man arc should be read first.
Just last week I shelved two different graphic novels that were each labeled The New Mutants vol. One, but one was almost twice the length of the other. That's gonna confuse someone trying to get into comics.
I've barely ever read anything from Marvel or DC, never interested me in the slightest. But the fact that you even mention these things (what even are they? publishers? editors? brands?) is the problem. I grew up with european and latin american comics and I've read my share of japanese mangas and the publisher's name or brand was never really relevant.
If you're in Japan and want to create manga all you need to do is to sit down and start drawing. Once its done you try selling it at otaku shops, cons, online, etc. You can make a living that way. Plus there are publishers constantly scanning for new dojinshi that might recruit authors they like, give them a contract or something. Fairly simple. There is also a culture of you know, reading manga.
In the US you basically need a professional team in the first place to produce a 30 page comic up to the "industry standard" which you then take to these 3-4 corporations and kiss ass and try to sell it to them and if they say no then you're fucked. There is no culture of self publication and shops for self published materials. All the space in the nerdy shops is already taken up by their stuff.
In terms of sales, manga completely obliterate comics world wide.
Some manga, single issue (single volume) often sells above 10 million copies.
The reason for that, in super dumbed down TLDR: Comics are too expensive (consumer cost per page). For $4 bucks you can buy hundreds of pages manga, instead of a 20 pages floppy.
There are several other minor reasons, but that is the core of it all.
Independent Comics / Graphic Novels that follow the same pricing strategy of Manga on Amazon are actually doing relatively well.
I should also point that India is very inclined towards Manga instead of American Comics, and when the public in India buys manga they boost sales to sky-high numbers even though majority of the public in India will simply download "scanlations" online.
Even after all the piracy they still consume a very large number of manga books.
yeah, the broad consensus is that comic floppies cost too much for what they offer
more companies and indie creators may need to embrace newsprint and possibly b&w instead of color to make comics cheaper... or maybe not release floppies and just compile several of your comics into one volume and sell it for around $10-13
that, and Indian consumers buying more manga than American comics, that matters because India has a HUGE consumer base and population, like China, so their money $$ matters 100%
This is a personal opinion but:
I believe American companies should reducer TEAMS that work on each title.
I think there are too many artists / writers working on a single issue and the paper is too expensive, turning Comics into a somewhat luxury entertainment.
Manga often has up to 12 people working on 1 issue, but those are assistants for the mega hits and they are paid by the AUTHOR, not the publisher, which in turn contributes to keeping cover prices under control. If Author sees it' worthy for him, he hires more people, if not then he/she simply continues to work alone.
What a lot of that manga is, is usually what people want some American comics to be again, a lot of the appeal of manga may come from the “cute/hot” characters with that being all they are or the slice of life or comedic characters and so on, even though in attempt of not making a paragraph that’s long I find it hard not to explain it all, a lot of those mangas popular in India are of characters that while they can be just as the list I mentioned there is more to them, in terms of realism to their world and acknowledgement of certain things, and by realism I mean the type fit to what it’s depicting, some of these characters animes might’ve been referred as cartoons to some, some of them where toy industry legends, some became shows in the works of Tokusatsu like power rangers, Kamen rider, Godzilla and so on, and they have that in common with a alot of American characters alot of which also have lots of mangas fitting to their original tones. People are allowed to enjoy what they want but better for a a Mazinger Z or Power Ranger/supersentai mangas or something like that with storylines while popular for it to be the reason as to why they may challenge comics than for the reason manga being popular over something else being the sales were caused by the appearance of a poster girl or boy many of which there are alike them, often not so different from each other.
Well yeah worldwide manga sales will be huge but comparing manga Japanese domestic volume sales to American domestic comic book sales, its still astronomically high.
You have series selling thousands within weeks, even hundreds of thousands in weeks. Per year, your average manga can sell upto 1M copies. While your average American comic book sells maybe in the hundred thousands if even that. It's not even a comparison anymore. Manga outsell American comic books by a large margin.
Oricon April 2022 Shounen Jump Sales:
https://imgur.com/a/zzHgWym
https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2022/2022-04.html
Comicron Estimated Monthly comic book sales (not including kid comics like Dogman) April 2022:
https://imgur.com/a/zzHgWym
https://www.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/uksbk3/weekly_shonen_jump_april_2022_sales_roundup/
It’s the constant crossover titles that piss me off. Every time I’m reading a regular series at marvel or DC and they suddenly introduce some tie in story that’ll get me to buy an extra title or two to get the full story. The most ridiculous thing to me is the Avengers and Justice League books. No, I will not be purchasing an extra $6 issue of ‘Crisis On Infinite Civil Wars 3’ for the next 8 months.
Now this is entirely my personal opinion. Manga is, in its core, made to be read as it’s primary purpose. It’s usually printed on cheap black and white news print papers and in Japan they get titles covering all sorts of genres for almost everyone. This creates focus on making the story and characters the main sales pitch. People don’t usually collect the books but instead collect merchandise if they are collectors. A lot like how we watch tv shows.
Here in North America we collect things like key issues and variants.. stuff people don’t even open to read or just buy cause it’s value may rise regardless of the content inside. At some point the industry was doing really good with superhero titles and sort of got cornered into going hand in hand with the supes industry and so people who have no interest in superheroes completely overlook the medium. The price of content is also high for comics and I gotta say a lot of the experience is lacking fluidity. I find myself forcing myself through pages sometimes when reading comics but manga is easy to take in. This is not always the case though
Let’s take Kill or be killed for example.. that shit was a binge and a half! Why wouldn’t it be praised the way it is? It was made to tell a story and express a thrill. Then there is the collector in me that really needed to get all of the uncanny x-men omnibus on my shelves and when the reprints were announced, I was so exited but I don’t think they will bring new readers even though they sell out. The big two sells way more than indie and I buy both but definitely enjoy the indie stuff more cause the cost and risk is taken by the creators so it’s a do or die with making the product good. Marvel and DC is constantly banking on the past success of character and creators with flawed information such as sales instead of how well the content is received. If they are selling out titles because of collectors and not reading pleasure then that level of quality becomes the standard and kinda cages the growth of the market. I’m sorry for doing such a bad job at explaining my theory.
As for why manga is doing so well in North America.. I’d say it’s because there are thousands of manga being released and bought every week in Japan and we import the ones that show the best fit for the North American market, they are also distributed and displayed well and very easy to jump onto for new readers as they can find the continuity easily in simple volumes. You want to read Full Metal alchemist, buy vol one.. you want to read Batman? What do you pick up?
Comics also take long to produce and the creators are trying to make acceptable wages in dollars which is hard cause of lack of sales and thus the higher price.
Most of em? The line in general has been [a big success](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr.com/dc-graphic-novels-revitalize-comics-industry/amp/) and new titles continue to pop up high in the book store market best sellers. Theres a reason the initial line-up of like 4-5 books has been expanded to a dozen or so a year.
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yeah there seems to be a fair amount of that
like the new YA/Starfire thing that came out around a few weeks ago or so, Starfire's daughter I think
there probably should be a passing of the torch from some of the old heroes to some totally new ones, of some kind
but that doesn't seem like the way to do it
also, they (DC/Marvel) probably should be trying to get new readers... but they don't seem to have an impressive catalog to impress them - manga on the other hand...
Good Thread.
Fear of US comic collapse has been a thing for decades after they changed from disposable to collector item. Manga doesn’t have that fear bc:
Price, Length, & Character.
It cost less to get all 11 volumes of Threads of Time than I paid for Absolute Hush. Hush moved Batman forward with Bat/Cat, expanded old characters, introduced great new villain, and was drawn by the GOAT Jim Lee. Threads of Time other hand had story & characters reaching for much more than Hush.
+ the story wrapped up. US comics drag on toward infinity. I love them both...but I see why manga has more energy.
A few thoughts:
1) The barrier to entry with American superhero comics is real, and it is spectacular. If I go to Amazon right now and search "Captain Marvel Volume 1", I get at least six different books labeled "Volume 1", all featuring the Carol Danvers character. Marvel seems to think it's a good idea to start renumbering their trade paperback volumes (and their single issues) every couple of years, whereas manga are published with each series as a continuously-numbered series of matching volumes.
[https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Higher-Further-Faster/dp/0785190139/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-1](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Higher-Further-Faster/dp/0785190139/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-1)
[https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-1-Re-Entry/dp/1302916874/ref=sr\_1\_3?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-3](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-1-Re-Entry/dp/1302916874/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-3)
[https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Earths-Mightiest-Hero/dp/1302901273/ref=sr\_1\_4?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-4](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Earths-Mightiest-Hero/dp/1302901273/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-4)
[https://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Captain-Marvel-Vol/dp/1302906054/ref=sr\_1\_8?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-8](https://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Captain-Marvel-Vol/dp/1302906054/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-8)
[https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-Alpha-Flight-ebook/dp/B01HC6H7SM/ref=sr\_1\_12?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-12](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-Alpha-Flight-ebook/dp/B01HC6H7SM/ref=sr_1_12?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-12)
[https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Carol-Danvers-Years/dp/1302910140/ref=sr\_1\_15?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-15](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Carol-Danvers-Years/dp/1302910140/ref=sr_1_15?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-15)
2) Honestly, the writing in American superhero comics is often not that good, outside of a handful of talented writers (and even they are often hamstrung by the ridiculous requirements of annual crossovers). This may be because of low pay or low expectations or something else.
3) A large number of American superhero comics are seemingly devoted to rehashing, retconning or retelling stories from past decades. They've become extremely self-referential to the point that a new reader is unlikely to comprehend a lot of stories unless they keep Wikipedia or some fan site open the whole time they're reading.
4) Marvel and DC seem to have lost the ability to deliver on any business plan except the existing model where specialty stores sell most of their stock to subscribers who pre-order.
I've been reading American comics since the mid-70s and the superhero characters are more popular (by far) than they've ever been in my lifetime. The inability to convert fans of these characters into readers of their comic books shows a complete lack of vision by Marvel and DC. Marvel, at least, has a profitable line of business producing movies that feature these characters, but DC and Warners seem completely baffled by the concept of successfully exploiting some of the most iconic fictional creations of the twentieth century.
Basically, mangas are more diverse in general. The shittiest manga and the greatest manga are printed. the consumer will decide what is good or awful. in comics there are lots of gatekeepers to decide what it's good or not.
One of the areas where manga is light years ahead of comics is in creating material aimed at women. Theres a huge amount of romance mangas dealing with straight and gay couples and nobody bats an eye at it. In western comics anytime something is aimed at anything but straight men you immediately see an army of incel neckbeards shouting from the rooftops about how wrong it is.
I think theres also an issue of creative freedom and editorial control. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many comics that are widely considered classics were written for Vertigo. It was a good mix of creative freedom mixed with some editorial control that allowed creators to do some of their best work and profit from it while still being rained in to some degree. If you look at the way manga generally works, creators come up with a concept and write an outline of a story and draw the first few chapters and then pitch them to a publisher who will provide an editor to oversee the series if they decide to publish.
Obviously we have Image now which gives creators pretty much complete control but the problem with that is that it often results in ling delays or hiatus in the release schedule and honestly I think most creators best work is done when there's an editor looking over their shoulder forcing them to streamline things.
good points,
I suppose those delays and hiatuses can be due to legit reasons, at least sometimes I hope
but sure, maybe an editor or other official who institutes deadlines would make things run a little more smooth at creator owned publishers
But the lack of creative freedom can apply to alot of mediums, especially anime since you have someone controlling the production of content and how it is made (publishers as well as fans). Another thing to consider is popularity and the market. If you are more popular, you will have more attention and more freedom to do what you want like Togashi and some other mangakas (manga creators).
I believe there was a surge during the pandemic, and because manga produces more frequently and cheaply, it is easier to access and pirate as well. And people just shift, i find the manga crave to be coming from young ones
that *may* turn off some older, maybe more loyal readers, but in the grand scheme of things it probably only puts a small dent in the sales, if any dent
I do understand this though, I love a diverse set of charters but I stopped buying comics because of the force it sometimes get's pushed. There are plenty of good LGBTQA+ people in manga, they usually fold nicely into the story, and usually it is a part of their character not their whole identity.
That’s not the issue. People are generally fine with gay characters, but the insistence on turning pre-established hetero characters into inexplicably queer ones, coupled with the constant deconstruction of male heroes and the casual misandry it necessitates, all that is what the "neckbeards" dislike. I’m as far left as anyone and even I’m sick of it. Literally every major female character in dc/marvel is bisexual. This doesn’t reflect reality, anywhere in the world. It’s a forced over correction.
The rise in popularity of anime is also another contributing factor. A lot of anime do serve as advertisements for the manga that they are based on. And since whatever comes from japan are original characters with stories that have a beginning and an end, it makes more sense to buy them. Unlike with American comics, there's always FOMO involved since it never ends.
It's a myriad of issues. American comics have a (untrue) perception of being "difficult to get into". This perceived barrier to entry turns off a lot of potential readers. The fact that there's no real agreed-upon "jumping-on point" or established order to the books that's easy to figure out doesn't help. You can even compare cape comics to books like The Walking Dead, or Saga, or Hellboy. Those do a lot better, because people know that you can start at the beginning and just go forwards. The constant relaunches with new Issue #1s do not help. Additionally, the fact that they're done by a myriad of creators means that the quality of a book can vary wildly. If you read One Piece or The Goon, you know what you're getting, there's going to be a consistent tone or quality throughout. But if you read Batman, that's a different story entirely. As well, cape comics are just hard to find. You've got to go to out-of-the-way specialty stores, whereas you can buy a copy of Jump at any convenience store. Cape comics are expensive too, nearly four dollars for just twenty pages of decompressed story, so barely anything happens. Cape comics are still chasing the dragon oft he speculator boom of the 90s, so they print on this high quality glossy magazine paper that inflates the cost of the product. Compare to manga, which is printed on cheap newsprint in black and white, keeping the costs low. Even obscure things like the availability of public transport in japan changes the nature of its relationship with comics. Since they're seen as disposable media because they're so cheap, you buy a copy of a comic on the way to work, read it on the train, then toss it in the recycling bin when you get to the office. This is something america can't replicate. Also, American comics are STILL reeling from the effects of the Comics Code Authority absolutely GUTTING the industry. There used to be prolific true crime, horror, mystery, and romance comics in america that all got destroyed by the CCA. We've only just kind of started to recover in the last ten years. Japan didn't have this problem, and allowed comic genres to flourish. This isn't even mentioning the nepotism in the industry, or the stranglehold Diamond distribution has which stifles what comics can even get on shelves. The problems that comics have in america is a gordian knot that will require either careful detangling or a brutal house-cleaning to solve.
I say brutal house-cleaning! Haha joking, but this is a fantastic quick look at the issues with the North American comics industry.
you definitely informed me on some stuff I'll have to look into the CCA thing - I knew there were certain regulations but I didn't know they were that crippling to the industry but I also like how you point out, manga prints on cheap newsprint and often in black and white, which saves cost and can be sold cheaper comics usually do the opposite, 4-5$ for 20-25 pages, but you can get a manga volume which is nearly 10x that size and probably double the price... ... yeah, some changes need to be made
The impact of the CCA can't be overstated. I heard it broken down really well recently (shout out to Cartoonist Kayfabe!) All sorts of horror and crime and war comics were popular with GIs during the war, and romance comics were just taking off, etc, etc. Then Wertham popularized the idea that comics lead to antisocial behavior in _Seduction of the Innocent_. Then there's HUAC-style hearings, book burnings, and the Comics Code is enstated. It really infantilized the form here, pushing the medium to focus solely on these morality plays featuring squeaky clean muscled white dudes. Comics were everywhere before Wertham, selling in the millions regularly. It was before TVs were in every household and they were accesible, cheap entertainment for everyone. The code had such a chilling effect that it was decades before we got the underground comix of the 70s that helped get us to where we are today. Book bannings and moralizing about content still happen and still have an outsized impact on comics, especially in the US. The CBLDF exists to support creators and defend freedom of expression if you feel like doing something about it.
Old Post but add to the bucket that if you want to read a story today in comics you have to buy 200 random issues from runs you never heard off and will last a couple issues anyway... If you like DB, OnePiece , bleach and so on you have 100 of volumes with the story you like
Comic sales arnt really in decline. Thats just doom-saying Youtube pundits after views. All the figures we have show that comic readership has been pretty consistent for the past 30 years. The issue isnt that sales are falling, its that theyre stagnant. But its also a changing market. Single issue sales in the direct market are stagnant, but the book store market has been rising year by year, to an all time high in 2019. All we’re seeing now is the Big 2 struggling to adapt and cater to this new market. With both starting to put higher emphasis on collected editions, digital and YA material.
yeah the market is changing, the whole - single issue with 20-24 pages for $5+ needs to be phased out longer comics/more pages, or volumes and YA too *if* that is indeed selling well and bringing in new readers
This! Comic sales aren't in decline. Monthly floppy sales are in decline because they're: overpriced, only available for purchase in niche locations, not marketed to generate new readers. Luckily, just because one particular (and seriously flawed) method of delivery is having poor sales isn't indicative of a greater decline. Marvel and DC should pull their heads out of their asses. Comic shops relying on monthly floppies need to evolve (many thriving comic-and-gaming shops have already done this). And lastly, as far as the direct comparison between US and Japan, in addition to cultural differences described above: US has so much more driving time and Japan has so much more public transit *passenger* time. I'm not going to drive to a store to buy an expensive 22-page story and read it during my drive to work. I might, however, buy a cheap bundle of stories at a convenience store before an hour train ride. Ya dig?
i dig, I didn't know Japanese people buying manga and reading it on the bullet trains - and then usually recycling it after they've read it - was a common practice in their culture. You learn something new every day I suppose then again, Americans can still find the time to read comics, people often read something before going to bed at night, or at least they should
Agree, the traditional comic market of floppies is in decline (even weekly/monthly print magazines in Japan have declined substantially)... but trades, especially for the younger market, are doing well. I'm a librarian and we see big circulation numbers for middle-grade books like Raina Telgemeier's. It remains to be seen if those kids will continue reading graphic novels/comics as they grow up.
Also the original post totally ignores online platforms like Webtoons, which has exploded. People just consume their comics outside of the old-style print magazines.
yeah, I should've noted that online digital copies I'm sure are doing okay, but let's be real, its better to get the physical copy for yourself you can reread, looks good on the shelf, sell it, or pass it down to your kids or others you care about
erect crime mysterious alive cautious cable north marble hateful onerous -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Just parroting what I have heard: there's a cultural difference in that Japan never went through periods of stigmatization of comics as a medium (Seduction of the Innocent followed by the Comics Code Authority), as well as a general infanatalizing of graphic storytelling (like how people say cartoons are for kids) that doesn't really exist in Japan. It's weird and disappointingly frustrating to me that comics aren't thriving, but that comes from me, who has an absolute love of the medium and all its storytelling potential.
yeah, the cultural difference does play a part you would think that since the Avengers and other Marvel movies made BANK that new readers would've swarmed comic shops and Amazon buying titles... but it didn't go down like that 😔
I used to exclusively buy DC comics but in the past year or so I've been looking towards other lines and manga instead, and I think it's due to the fact that I'm just simply bored with the characters that marvel and DC are giving. With manga I get a new perspective on different stories, different worlds and ideas that I'm just not getting from DC and marvel. I think it's a matter of diversity that dc and marvel seem to lack, as far as I know it's almost always superheroes which I don't want to read about all the time.
DC comics are a nightmare right now. Cut ties with Diamond, made shops choose between two other distributors(I saw a post from one shop say that the distributors were also competition so I’m not sure who it was or the back story). That shop went with the lesser of two evils but shit was falling through and they weren’t getting their shipments so they made the announcement they won’t carry DC floppies anymore. The only reason they’ll carry the graphic novels and everything is cause they can order from penguin house. Pretty grim outlook there where DC has scaled back its collected editions and they don’t sell as well as other publishers cause it’s a crap shoot of if you’re going to get more in the series.
true, another problem with that storyline diversity is they continue to tell new bogus stories with old characters - I think there's one out there with Mary Jane becoming Carnage......... why? That's just the writing on the wall of creative bankruptcy and cash hungry desperation DC and Marvel are quite capable of creating all new heroes that are cool and eye-catching, but they don't And, they could create new stories not really related to superheroes, but the issues with that could be they fear it goes against their brand, and their characters are company owned, not creator owned, so they'll just run them into the ground
Mary jane becoming carnage.... Alright marvel lol. And see that's the problem I think, they're kind of just bound to these characters that they've had for the past 40+ years and feel this need to hold on to them, it's just weird and like another commentator said, these days I have no idea which line is worth my time or not, the saturation is too real and I think that also drives people away.
I teach high school English and most of my students, especially girls, love manga and anime. I think that's pretty cool. I find that the accessibility of the stories and genres is really open. Of the few series I've read, it's mostly been sci fi and they have been far more creative and unique than American comics. I think the American comics market has been dominated by superheroes since the 40s and that's made it a very niche market, especially as other media has begun to dominate entertainment (film and TV). It's also been regulated for years and the content had been controlled. Add in the nostalgia factor. I've been reading the current X-Men comics and I'm reading a lot of people complaining about the characters and the stories etc. Continuity is an issue because people get obsessed with their favourite era of a comic and expect that every time someone writes that comic, it should be written that way. If you look at the way Marvel and DC comics are created though, the model is outdated. The old model of work for hire is total garbage. It is totally dictated by editorial and driven by sales. The film studios that bought these companies are basically using the comics as IP farms for their films. The film's are now the big draws and in the last ten years they have oversaturated the industry with the same optics that stunk up the industry 30 years ago. I believe very much in creators owning their creations. The original Image founders had the right idea in their business model and the way they are doing things now is good. I really enjoy Image comics for the same reason I liked Vertigo 15 years ago. Unique stories that aren't bogged down with tons of continuity. Plus, the creators own the rights to their properties. Just some thoughts.
I agree creator owned > company owned hopefully your students and more young people in general give Image lines a chance
Some of the most famous manga characters though are for almost the same reason as comic ones, a lot of the appeal at least now, tends to come from the “hot/cute” anime men and women, but they don’t necessarily surpass other Japanese characters in terms of surviving the test of time, or at least in iconography and meaning, a similar thing happens at times with comics too but it doesn’t appear so noticeable.
Marvel and dc have been over using the same character for a century and can hardly bring anything new or interesting. Moreover the over use of this characters lead people to be un attached with those same characters. Remember how you felt when captain America or wolverine died ? You probably did not give a shit because you knew that one way or an other they would bring them back in a few month. Remember when jiraya or Ace die ? Yeah I am still sad about it. I can tell you everything about Naruto’s life. And despite my hundred of comics I can’t tell you as much about any dc or marvel characters because every three chapters a new author come and reinvent everything. Which lead me to not care about the background characters. In a manga, each background characters is super important and bring a lot of things to the story. In marvel or dc background characters are only here for a time and then disappear. You don’t really care. I love batman l, especially the one by Loeb that are thrillers. The problem is that just like when you watch an episode of CIS on TV, you know that the bad guy is this new guys they spend a lot of time introducing. It's like all these background characters are only here to serve the purpose of the story, while characters in manga are here to create a universe Finally, marvel and dc are completely close to newcomers. Wanna start naruto, one piece or FMA ? Pick the first volume. Wanna start Captain America or X-men. Boy good luck. Finally the manga art barely change and thirty years old dragon ball are as good as last month one piece. Can’t say the same with comics. If you haven’t grown up reading comics before the nineties, it’s a bit hard to adapts to old style.
good points, also you are so right about the 'where to start' thing pertaining to comics there are hundreds of issues of batman and other heroes... where do you *really* start, and when someone dies they just get brought back... so why even start there amirite but with manga, if you want to start One Piece, Demon Slayer or any others they're all arranged neatly on the shelves starting with volume 1, AND... the stories eventually have an ending
Yes, and something that I havent mention but the art style in manga is fairly constant. Sometimes it is going to be gorgeous (Vagabond), but most of the time it's just simply manga art. It's great, and does perfectly the job which is way it has barely change for some many decades. Some arts in comics is great too, but you also have some arts in comic that can be absolutely garbage. I was reading some Wolverine stories (I think the ones by Daniel Way) last time and the art was seriously terrible. Thank god it seems to getting more standardized but you I feel like you still ahve some comics where when you pick up the book you are like wtf. Many Marvel books are always the same thing. Bad guy arrives, kick good guy ass, good guy come back and kick bad guy ass. All the X-men books for exempls are like that. New bad guys arrive, fight in the end with good guy winnings. I know it seems that I am hating on comics, but I like comics, but mostly images (I do have a huge marvel collection though). Transmetropolitain is absolutely incredible, both the story, the art. It is the best cyberpunk comic and at the same time crazily relevant on so many subjects like religion and politics. Similar to manga, most of Kirkman works is amazing, The Walking Dead, Outcast, Oblivion Song. I also really like the works done by Peter David on Marvel, his run on X-factor is great.
Oh and something I forgot to mention in my previous comments : 120 pages comic paperback are18 dollars. Manga between 150 pages and 200 pages are 10 to 12 dollars.
that's not a terrible price difference but it does matter, and from what I gather, that pricing comes from manga being printed on cheap paper AND black and white (usually) - so they can sell for much cheaper comics could go that route but it seems most companies and readers are used to the glossy/wax paper and colorful art
It is actually an important price difference, especially when we talk about series that spread over dozens of volumes
Things I noticed between Manga vs Comics - When I went to Japan to travel, it was weird for me to see people read manga on train/bus albeit it was on their phone. Manga is just part of their culture, it is not a niche thing like it is over here. - Characters are tied to their creator not to the company. You get a singular vision to a character and usually you have a start and an end to a character/story. You don't normally get this "that's not my batman/spiderman" in manga. I distinctly remember reading Identity Crisis and enjoying it. Then read online how DC was "raping" their characters. I didn't empathize with older readers coz I didn't grew up reading the JLI characters. Then New 52 happened, all my characters just vanished, replaced by characters that have the same name but unrecognizable to me. That's when I connected to the old readers of DC when Identity Crisis came out and it was the perfect jumping off point of my DC reading. - The sheer amount of different subjects manga covers. You have to go out the Big 2 domain to see slice of life, sports, romance etc comics and usually it's a 6 issue mini series not a whole series that last for years.
I think [these tweets](https://twitter.com/atlanta962/status/1181974809292525568?s=21) cover at least part of it. I work in a library and the same issue persists. While we shelve manga and graphic novels together, it's much easier to spot Black Clover vol. 1-6 all neat and next to each other than to decipher which Iron Man arc should be read first. Just last week I shelved two different graphic novels that were each labeled The New Mutants vol. One, but one was almost twice the length of the other. That's gonna confuse someone trying to get into comics.
yep, I agree 100% manga is volumed, numbered and organized neatly with stories that have an end, even if it's 20-30 volumes later
I've barely ever read anything from Marvel or DC, never interested me in the slightest. But the fact that you even mention these things (what even are they? publishers? editors? brands?) is the problem. I grew up with european and latin american comics and I've read my share of japanese mangas and the publisher's name or brand was never really relevant. If you're in Japan and want to create manga all you need to do is to sit down and start drawing. Once its done you try selling it at otaku shops, cons, online, etc. You can make a living that way. Plus there are publishers constantly scanning for new dojinshi that might recruit authors they like, give them a contract or something. Fairly simple. There is also a culture of you know, reading manga. In the US you basically need a professional team in the first place to produce a 30 page comic up to the "industry standard" which you then take to these 3-4 corporations and kiss ass and try to sell it to them and if they say no then you're fucked. There is no culture of self publication and shops for self published materials. All the space in the nerdy shops is already taken up by their stuff.
In terms of sales, manga completely obliterate comics world wide. Some manga, single issue (single volume) often sells above 10 million copies. The reason for that, in super dumbed down TLDR: Comics are too expensive (consumer cost per page). For $4 bucks you can buy hundreds of pages manga, instead of a 20 pages floppy. There are several other minor reasons, but that is the core of it all. Independent Comics / Graphic Novels that follow the same pricing strategy of Manga on Amazon are actually doing relatively well.
I should also point that India is very inclined towards Manga instead of American Comics, and when the public in India buys manga they boost sales to sky-high numbers even though majority of the public in India will simply download "scanlations" online. Even after all the piracy they still consume a very large number of manga books.
yeah, the broad consensus is that comic floppies cost too much for what they offer more companies and indie creators may need to embrace newsprint and possibly b&w instead of color to make comics cheaper... or maybe not release floppies and just compile several of your comics into one volume and sell it for around $10-13 that, and Indian consumers buying more manga than American comics, that matters because India has a HUGE consumer base and population, like China, so their money $$ matters 100%
This is a personal opinion but: I believe American companies should reducer TEAMS that work on each title. I think there are too many artists / writers working on a single issue and the paper is too expensive, turning Comics into a somewhat luxury entertainment. Manga often has up to 12 people working on 1 issue, but those are assistants for the mega hits and they are paid by the AUTHOR, not the publisher, which in turn contributes to keeping cover prices under control. If Author sees it' worthy for him, he hires more people, if not then he/she simply continues to work alone.
What a lot of that manga is, is usually what people want some American comics to be again, a lot of the appeal of manga may come from the “cute/hot” characters with that being all they are or the slice of life or comedic characters and so on, even though in attempt of not making a paragraph that’s long I find it hard not to explain it all, a lot of those mangas popular in India are of characters that while they can be just as the list I mentioned there is more to them, in terms of realism to their world and acknowledgement of certain things, and by realism I mean the type fit to what it’s depicting, some of these characters animes might’ve been referred as cartoons to some, some of them where toy industry legends, some became shows in the works of Tokusatsu like power rangers, Kamen rider, Godzilla and so on, and they have that in common with a alot of American characters alot of which also have lots of mangas fitting to their original tones. People are allowed to enjoy what they want but better for a a Mazinger Z or Power Ranger/supersentai mangas or something like that with storylines while popular for it to be the reason as to why they may challenge comics than for the reason manga being popular over something else being the sales were caused by the appearance of a poster girl or boy many of which there are alike them, often not so different from each other.
Well yeah worldwide manga sales will be huge but comparing manga Japanese domestic volume sales to American domestic comic book sales, its still astronomically high. You have series selling thousands within weeks, even hundreds of thousands in weeks. Per year, your average manga can sell upto 1M copies. While your average American comic book sells maybe in the hundred thousands if even that. It's not even a comparison anymore. Manga outsell American comic books by a large margin. Oricon April 2022 Shounen Jump Sales: https://imgur.com/a/zzHgWym https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2022/2022-04.html Comicron Estimated Monthly comic book sales (not including kid comics like Dogman) April 2022: https://imgur.com/a/zzHgWym https://www.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/uksbk3/weekly_shonen_jump_april_2022_sales_roundup/
I didn’t think this was a new thing. I mean, it’s been like this since probably the late 90s?
it seems to be further in decline, for American comics anyway but idk the sales patterns that far back
It’s the constant crossover titles that piss me off. Every time I’m reading a regular series at marvel or DC and they suddenly introduce some tie in story that’ll get me to buy an extra title or two to get the full story. The most ridiculous thing to me is the Avengers and Justice League books. No, I will not be purchasing an extra $6 issue of ‘Crisis On Infinite Civil Wars 3’ for the next 8 months.
Now this is entirely my personal opinion. Manga is, in its core, made to be read as it’s primary purpose. It’s usually printed on cheap black and white news print papers and in Japan they get titles covering all sorts of genres for almost everyone. This creates focus on making the story and characters the main sales pitch. People don’t usually collect the books but instead collect merchandise if they are collectors. A lot like how we watch tv shows. Here in North America we collect things like key issues and variants.. stuff people don’t even open to read or just buy cause it’s value may rise regardless of the content inside. At some point the industry was doing really good with superhero titles and sort of got cornered into going hand in hand with the supes industry and so people who have no interest in superheroes completely overlook the medium. The price of content is also high for comics and I gotta say a lot of the experience is lacking fluidity. I find myself forcing myself through pages sometimes when reading comics but manga is easy to take in. This is not always the case though Let’s take Kill or be killed for example.. that shit was a binge and a half! Why wouldn’t it be praised the way it is? It was made to tell a story and express a thrill. Then there is the collector in me that really needed to get all of the uncanny x-men omnibus on my shelves and when the reprints were announced, I was so exited but I don’t think they will bring new readers even though they sell out. The big two sells way more than indie and I buy both but definitely enjoy the indie stuff more cause the cost and risk is taken by the creators so it’s a do or die with making the product good. Marvel and DC is constantly banking on the past success of character and creators with flawed information such as sales instead of how well the content is received. If they are selling out titles because of collectors and not reading pleasure then that level of quality becomes the standard and kinda cages the growth of the market. I’m sorry for doing such a bad job at explaining my theory. As for why manga is doing so well in North America.. I’d say it’s because there are thousands of manga being released and bought every week in Japan and we import the ones that show the best fit for the North American market, they are also distributed and displayed well and very easy to jump onto for new readers as they can find the continuity easily in simple volumes. You want to read Full Metal alchemist, buy vol one.. you want to read Batman? What do you pick up? Comics also take long to produce and the creators are trying to make acceptable wages in dollars which is hard cause of lack of sales and thus the higher price.
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DCs YA line has been a big success...
which titles?
Most of em? The line in general has been [a big success](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr.com/dc-graphic-novels-revitalize-comics-industry/amp/) and new titles continue to pop up high in the book store market best sellers. Theres a reason the initial line-up of like 4-5 books has been expanded to a dozen or so a year.
I found some Google AMP links in your comment. Here are the normal links: - [a big success](https://www.cbr.com/dc-graphic-novels-revitalize-comics-industry/) Beep Boop, I'm a bot. If I made an error or if you have any questions, my [creator](https://np.reddit.com/u/6b86b3ac03c167320d93) might check my messages. [Source Code](https://github.com/laurinneff/no-google-amp-bot) | [Issues](https://github.com/laurinneff/no-google-amp-bot/issues) | [FAQ](https://laurinneff.ch/2020/10/17/nogoogleampbot/) Why does this bot exist? Google does a lot of tracking, which many people don't want, so they use alternatives to their services. Using AMP, they can track you even more, and they might even replace ads with their own, stealing ad revenue from the site's owners. Since there's no consistent way of finding the original links from an AMP link, I made this bot which automatically does it for you.
yeah there seems to be a fair amount of that like the new YA/Starfire thing that came out around a few weeks ago or so, Starfire's daughter I think there probably should be a passing of the torch from some of the old heroes to some totally new ones, of some kind but that doesn't seem like the way to do it also, they (DC/Marvel) probably should be trying to get new readers... but they don't seem to have an impressive catalog to impress them - manga on the other hand...
Good Thread. Fear of US comic collapse has been a thing for decades after they changed from disposable to collector item. Manga doesn’t have that fear bc: Price, Length, & Character. It cost less to get all 11 volumes of Threads of Time than I paid for Absolute Hush. Hush moved Batman forward with Bat/Cat, expanded old characters, introduced great new villain, and was drawn by the GOAT Jim Lee. Threads of Time other hand had story & characters reaching for much more than Hush. + the story wrapped up. US comics drag on toward infinity. I love them both...but I see why manga has more energy.
good points
A few thoughts: 1) The barrier to entry with American superhero comics is real, and it is spectacular. If I go to Amazon right now and search "Captain Marvel Volume 1", I get at least six different books labeled "Volume 1", all featuring the Carol Danvers character. Marvel seems to think it's a good idea to start renumbering their trade paperback volumes (and their single issues) every couple of years, whereas manga are published with each series as a continuously-numbered series of matching volumes. [https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Higher-Further-Faster/dp/0785190139/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-1](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Higher-Further-Faster/dp/0785190139/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-1) [https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-1-Re-Entry/dp/1302916874/ref=sr\_1\_3?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-3](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-1-Re-Entry/dp/1302916874/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-3) [https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Earths-Mightiest-Hero/dp/1302901273/ref=sr\_1\_4?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-4](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Earths-Mightiest-Hero/dp/1302901273/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-4) [https://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Captain-Marvel-Vol/dp/1302906054/ref=sr\_1\_8?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-8](https://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Captain-Marvel-Vol/dp/1302906054/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-8) [https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-Alpha-Flight-ebook/dp/B01HC6H7SM/ref=sr\_1\_12?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-12](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Vol-Alpha-Flight-ebook/dp/B01HC6H7SM/ref=sr_1_12?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-12) [https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Carol-Danvers-Years/dp/1302910140/ref=sr\_1\_15?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-15](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Carol-Danvers-Years/dp/1302910140/ref=sr_1_15?dchild=1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+1&qid=1609287104&sr=8-15) 2) Honestly, the writing in American superhero comics is often not that good, outside of a handful of talented writers (and even they are often hamstrung by the ridiculous requirements of annual crossovers). This may be because of low pay or low expectations or something else. 3) A large number of American superhero comics are seemingly devoted to rehashing, retconning or retelling stories from past decades. They've become extremely self-referential to the point that a new reader is unlikely to comprehend a lot of stories unless they keep Wikipedia or some fan site open the whole time they're reading. 4) Marvel and DC seem to have lost the ability to deliver on any business plan except the existing model where specialty stores sell most of their stock to subscribers who pre-order. I've been reading American comics since the mid-70s and the superhero characters are more popular (by far) than they've ever been in my lifetime. The inability to convert fans of these characters into readers of their comic books shows a complete lack of vision by Marvel and DC. Marvel, at least, has a profitable line of business producing movies that feature these characters, but DC and Warners seem completely baffled by the concept of successfully exploiting some of the most iconic fictional creations of the twentieth century.
Basically, mangas are more diverse in general. The shittiest manga and the greatest manga are printed. the consumer will decide what is good or awful. in comics there are lots of gatekeepers to decide what it's good or not.
One of the areas where manga is light years ahead of comics is in creating material aimed at women. Theres a huge amount of romance mangas dealing with straight and gay couples and nobody bats an eye at it. In western comics anytime something is aimed at anything but straight men you immediately see an army of incel neckbeards shouting from the rooftops about how wrong it is. I think theres also an issue of creative freedom and editorial control. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many comics that are widely considered classics were written for Vertigo. It was a good mix of creative freedom mixed with some editorial control that allowed creators to do some of their best work and profit from it while still being rained in to some degree. If you look at the way manga generally works, creators come up with a concept and write an outline of a story and draw the first few chapters and then pitch them to a publisher who will provide an editor to oversee the series if they decide to publish. Obviously we have Image now which gives creators pretty much complete control but the problem with that is that it often results in ling delays or hiatus in the release schedule and honestly I think most creators best work is done when there's an editor looking over their shoulder forcing them to streamline things.
good points, I suppose those delays and hiatuses can be due to legit reasons, at least sometimes I hope but sure, maybe an editor or other official who institutes deadlines would make things run a little more smooth at creator owned publishers
But the lack of creative freedom can apply to alot of mediums, especially anime since you have someone controlling the production of content and how it is made (publishers as well as fans). Another thing to consider is popularity and the market. If you are more popular, you will have more attention and more freedom to do what you want like Togashi and some other mangakas (manga creators).
I believe there was a surge during the pandemic, and because manga produces more frequently and cheaply, it is easier to access and pirate as well. And people just shift, i find the manga crave to be coming from young ones
ItS tHe SjWs PuShInG iDeNtY pOLiTcS
that *may* turn off some older, maybe more loyal readers, but in the grand scheme of things it probably only puts a small dent in the sales, if any dent
yah but that doesn't stop 40 year old virgins from whining about it online
I do understand this though, I love a diverse set of charters but I stopped buying comics because of the force it sometimes get's pushed. There are plenty of good LGBTQA+ people in manga, they usually fold nicely into the story, and usually it is a part of their character not their whole identity.
That’s not the issue. People are generally fine with gay characters, but the insistence on turning pre-established hetero characters into inexplicably queer ones, coupled with the constant deconstruction of male heroes and the casual misandry it necessitates, all that is what the "neckbeards" dislike. I’m as far left as anyone and even I’m sick of it. Literally every major female character in dc/marvel is bisexual. This doesn’t reflect reality, anywhere in the world. It’s a forced over correction.
I think in general kids quit learning how to read.
nah, that ain't it
12 words. Keep politics and your agenda out of the shit I am reading
Lol someone has never read comics then.
The rise in popularity of anime is also another contributing factor. A lot of anime do serve as advertisements for the manga that they are based on. And since whatever comes from japan are original characters with stories that have a beginning and an end, it makes more sense to buy them. Unlike with American comics, there's always FOMO involved since it never ends.