Why do non-cape, non-licensed comics (not manga) struggle in gaining popularity of any kind?Are readers to blame?
>>150829574Cape comics are to blame. Comics stopped treating itself as actual literature even after the sandman.
>>150829574>Are readers to blame?Yes.
It's not completely impossibleJust look at The Walking Dead, Saga, Raina Telgemeier books, Scott Pilgrim, etc but comics as an overall fandom struggles with non-cape and non-licensed because the people who are into the alternatives are so spread apart regarding tastes and interestWe tried a general for it but it didn't last because nobody was reading the same thing.Really I think a core problem with stuff like Image books are the delaysWith capeshit and licenseshit you can get a new issue each month but for everything else you can expected months long delays and the hiatus ends it's back to one issue per monthThat is agonizing It's also frustrating because the metric of success for a non-cape/non-licensed comic is much lower than the ones that are cap and licensed15k - 20k a month is a death sentence for a Marvel or DC comic (which says a lot because those aren't even huge numbers to begin with) at least before COVID but those are considered great for anything else so you can have something with solid potential not being able to truly spread its wings because it's overshadowed by decades old characters.It's also kind of frustrating that we live in a time where young adults and teenagers can be superfans for Marvel. DC, and licenseshit through piracy making their decades long material available with ease but that hardly extends to them branching off into other comics (not like piracy in comics necessarily actually influences sales positively).I mean people are free to read what they want, I can't force you to read anything else but places like /co/ would be so much better if we had more people into comics as a medium period and the discussion for the industry would improve vastly when people realize problems with Marvel/DC aren't necessarily problems for comics as a whole.
>>150829922>Raina Telgemeier booksScholastic does not count.
>>150830511>Scholastic does not count.Oh please, being a Scholastic book alone doesn't guarantee salesJust ask Craig Thompson
>>150830594He didn't dumb his shit down enough, and he already had an audience of adult/young adult readers.
Diamond is to blame
>>150829574Because.Yes.
>>150830594I assumed this was Blankets vs Habibi but after looking up the dates it's more likely to be Habibi vs Space Dumplins which is some young kids graphic novel that came out in 2015. Was it that bad? I never even heard about it.
>>150831285It had positive reviews and people like Jeff Smith praised it but it just didn't find its audience
>>150829574The code killed everything else. By the time it was gone, people looking for those things from comics had moved on to media that provided more of what they wanted. Even as comics became more restricted, movies opened up. The type of sex and violence that you could get in a movie by 1970 would have been unimaginable in 1954. There was nothing on the screen in 1954 that could match Horror comics of the time, but, again movies loosened up before the code did. In 1954 TVs were not in every house. And programming was limited to certain times of day. By the time the code lifted, everyone had a TV and programming was an all day affair, which included stuff like late movies. As a matter of fact, TV killed radio drama and, for the most part, newspaper strips- and were killing newspapers in general before the internet came along and finished the job. TV would have devastated comics in the same way if the code hadn’t got there first. >are the readers to blame?What readers? They’re gone. They get what they want elsewhere. Literature and TV/Movies do nearly everything comics do better. Beyond that, people in general don’t read anything. The idea that comics would be somehow exempt from that if not for the code is just silly. Do you mean cape comic readers? They barely exist. Even the lamest TV show gets many, many times more viewers than the most popular cape comic. Further, do you really think that the audience for romance comics and horror comics were the same bitd? Also silly. Why would you get mad at someone who reads Spider-Man for not grabbing a copy of the latest Chris Ware comic? They’re two different audiences. Sure there are people who read both, myself included, but we’re weirdos and outliers. Getting mad at people for failing to share your tastes is goofy. Get mad at your friends who will watch any number of shitty horror movies but would never consider picking up even the very best horror comic.
>>150829574I think most people aren't even aware non cape comics exist
>>150831554This.
>>150829574Are implying rocketeer isnt capeshit?
>>150832666Pulp readers are weird like that
>>150831306It's too busy. Notice how successful Scholasticslop is really basic.
>>150833452>Scholasticslop
bump
>>150829574I agree. We need more Luba on shirts and just huge breasted women in general.
Western comics suffer same as cartoons because adults have a weird stigma about them being for kidsFor some reason the response to this was to make superhero comics edgier and grittier rather than making different kinds of comics more often
>>150829574How are they any different?
The main issue is that they took too long to gain much of a footing (reaching their peak in the 2000s) before other markets came in to snatch up a lot of the comic-reading audience that didn't care for cape comics. Not to mention, when the internet was getting big, those "alternative" comics weren't really posted online much compared to other foreign offerings, there are entire generations of comic-readers who have literally never read a western comic because they started elsewhere when they were a tween and never looked back.
>>150835288Less likely to be part of a shared universe.
>>150836245That's not it.
>>150836556Part of it.
>>150829574I wish we had more variety the way manga does.
>>150831306>tfw praise from Jeff Smith and Joss Whedon still couldn't save your graphic novel in 2015
>>150833478Yes, Scholasticslop.
>>150829922>didn't last because nobody was reading the same thing.Just be open to read something you haven't, in fact if you want you can recommend me stuff to read and I will check it up to see if I'm interested.
>>150838611Damn...
>>150831382>The code killed everything else.No it didn't, do some actual research.
>>150829574There are plenty that do fine. They just don’t do fine in the context of the local comic shop, Wednesday Warrior crowd that frequent /co/ so they’re not really talked about.
>>150834742There have been plenty of non-superhero comics published for decades that most people who buy comics have absolutely no interest in buying themselves They tried, they failed.
It's my fault, I'm sorry.
Most comics are written by people who can't hold a candle to literary gods like Twain or Ellison. We're getting derivatives on cardboard paper while Manga continues to rape our market into the ground with shounens gayer than Boku no Pico.
>>150843128manga are even worse written than comicshow come they get sales?
>>150843279>manga are even worse written than comicslmao no
its more a marketing issue than a reader issue
>>150843313you dont read comics or manga
>>150843336
>>150839718>Just be open to read something you haven'tPeople can be picky and it's best to get a familiarity with what someone even likes to begin withI would never recommend capeshit to someone who already decided they're not interested in capeshit periodI don't care if they miss out on the great stuff from the genre but I'd still want them to get into comics as a medium because ideally there'd be something for everyone
>>150843128>>150843279No one reads comics or manga for the writing. So long as it's not awful, embarrassing, or personally offensive to them, anything works.
>>150829574No money in it, Wizard tried to alleviate this which is how we reached peak indie in the 90s but then they changed to being a le geek culture entertainment magazine and it was over
>>150843607the Comics Buyer's Guide was the better magazine anyways
>>150843363thats not how you use that fool
>>150843061f you
>>150831382People who still read Spider-Man would probably have a better time reading Ware lol
>>150843336>>150843279I literally read manga/comics and you are wrong. There of course well written western comics but on average I found way more manga with better writing. Something really simple like a spokon or a magical girl manga usually does a basic ass hero story with predictable character development that's better written than the average cape comic that fails at even doing something so simple. Of course, both manga and comics have examples of exceptional stories, but those are not that common.
>>150843607Wizard was to comics what G4 was to video gamesHad its appeal but holy fuck did it set us backwards in the long run
>>150833452>Notice how successful Scholasticslop is really basic.Wings of Fire graphic novels?
>>150829574Pulp stories suck, that's why.
>>150846263>Pulp stories suck, that's whynever stopped capeshit
>>150843279Read more
>>150846263That too
>>150829666Ah, okay.
>>150829574It's not just non-cape comics, all comics are struggling for popularity.They're struggling for the following reasons, in order of significance>1) floppiesFloppies are just crummy, they look worn out even when they're brand new, they feel horrible to hold, even before you've properly looked at it, it looks like rubbish.>2) bad artMore specifically: unappealing art. 99% of the art in comics is just simply ugly to look at. The characters are ugly, the poses are stupid, the panellnig is nonsensical, the environments are ugly. It just doesn't look good.This is the real hard filter. Comics are a visual medium, the writing quality only becomes apparent once you start reading, but the art is immediate, and if the art is no good, nobody will even bother to read it to see if the writing is any good.>3) bad writingEven if the art is good, it's no good if the writing is bad. 99% of comics have bad art, but of the 1% that have good art, 99% of those have bad writing.Praise Moebius and Ross all you like, but nobody talks about the writing in those comics, becaue it's not interesting.I could go on further with more points about the marketing and the pricing and all that, but really it's not necessary since the above points account for basically all the issues with comics as a whole
>>150848454contAnd here's how to fix comicsThe tl;dr is that we're just going to copy manga>1) good print quality>>a) paper Look at this image here. I've put a comic floppy and a manga tankobon on the floor. At this distance it becomes immediately obvious which one is more pleasant to look at.The paper in the manga is thicker and matte, this is far easier on the eyes and easier on the hands. The comic floppy is glossy, this produces glare in the light, the paper is thin so it tears and crumples easily in the hand, and the smooth nature of the paper makes it sweaty in the hand also.>>b) proportionsThe manga tankobon is smaller in size, and thicker due to having more pages. I own thousands of books of all different shapes and sizes, and the tankobon is the optimal size that a book should be. If it's too large, it's heavy and cumbersome to hold. If it has too many pages, you can't open the book. If it's too small, it's fiddly in the hand, and if it has too few pages it becomes floppy.Comic floppies are both too large and too few pages. They are impossible to read with one hand or at odd angles such as in bed.>2) the artThis is too deep to go into for this rant, but the most effective and simple suggestion is to reduce the number of artists working on a comic to no more than two, ideally one, but if there are two, they must be working closely together.While I have the image of the comic and the manga on the floor posted here, I'll mention the panelling.The panels in the manga are bigger, the text is bigger, the figures in the panels are bigger and zoomed in. This makes it easy to read. Comics are drawn with too many panels and text even smaller and figures even smaller in those panels, you have to squint to see what's going on.
>>150848589>3) the writingSimilar to the art, the writer needs to be working closely with the artist, ideally they be one and the same person.Consider Scott Pilgrim. The writer is also the artist. But lets imagine for a moment that it wasn't.Imagine you were the writer of Scott Pilgrim, and you are looking to employ an artist to draw your comic. How would you direct them? What information would you have to give to them for them to be able to produce Scott Pilgrim as it is in actuality?You could have to explain the entire story to them, and you would have to get them personally invested in the characters. Every panel would have to be carried by a whole lecture on the characters, their emotions, their thoughts, because that's the kind of art that Scott Pilgrim has, the simplistic art style is deceptively primitive, but it is not, it is subtle and the expressions cary significance.The writing IS the art, it is not separate. In comics you tell the story through the art. It is not a picture book, it is a comic.I haven't even spoken about the actual content of the writing, but simply the terrible flawed approach to it that is so ubiquitous in comics.You would never write a piece of music that tells a story by having the story and the music be separate, they must be one unity.
>>150848713Here's a good example of the kind of art that emerges when the artist and writer are separate.The writer here has written a sad story about Aunt May from Spider-man, but the artist does not care about these characters the same way, he is just a hired gun, he is incapable of rendering the faces with any life in them because he is not also the writer. The best he can hope to achieve is to make a vaguely sad face in a mirror and copy that into his art.This is not interesting to look at, and the writing is rendered uninteresting also as a result.It is essentially bad acting. When an actor wishes to give a good performance, he studies deeply the character he is to become. The best actors go to extreme lengths, method acting, to achieve this unity with the director's vision. But comic artists cannot do this, it's just not economical, the only way to achieve this level of quality, is for the artist to already be deeply interested and familiar with the writers story, or to simply be the writer himself.
>>150846161>>150847031Ive read more manga than comicsthats how I knowwell written comics do not sellmanga with mediocre writing do sell
>>150849411>well written comics do not sellWrong. Watchmen is still in every single bookshop. >manga with mediocre writing do sellI haven't added that in my post but of course quality doesn't mean that stuff will sell, both mediocre and comics have been ones selling the most. But that's trying to change the subject, you've initially said that "manga are even worse written than comics" which is retarded and makes me question if you have actually read manga.
>>150831285it was ok but weird. not straightforward enough for most kids. he needs an editor to tell him to focus on the themes.
>>150848787this is just bad art. here's a similar example where writer and artist are two people but they're both invested and good. it helps when the creator is both writing and drawing but that's mostly slice of life. in other cases you want to choose the artist right for project and write to his strengths.
>>150849501So that’s one good comic from… *checks notes*… forty years ago that’s an extremely rare evergreen seller and thus not good example to use if you want to apply it on any larger scale
>>150849635classics do sell. maus, sandman, persepolis, asterix... same with books, about 10% actually make a profit
>>150848589is this how manga are originally published? i thought they are first printed in larger magazines. if so, why? could it be that's the sustainable model? i'm sure american publishers would switch to tpbs or phonebooks if those were profitable, but in the direct market they're not.
>>150849951The reason comic transitioned to the direct market is because newsstands were horrible business model, unreliable and you had to wait months for you to get reliable sales information due to returns
You retards will yap about manga as usual while forgetting the culture context that Japan just has a big otaku population compared to western neckbeards who are focused on gaming right now.People outgrow comics when they reach adulthood, and comics are failing to get young readers. This is an actual death spiral caused by out of touch executives, artists with a head up their asses, bad distribution, lack of variety, competition from more elaborate media, and an inherent cultural barrier.You're not magically convincing thousands of adults to start reading comics just by making them more mature, even those who like cape movies.
>>150849951>i thought they are first printed in larger magazines.They are.>if so, why?Just like comics get reprinted into trade paperbacks, manga does that with the tankobon format.>could it be that's the sustainable model?Here and there, yes.>i'm sure american publishers would switch to tpbs or phonebooks if those were profitable, but in the direct market they're not.Bro, floppies aren't profitable. Who has the money to shell out $5 for a measly 22 pages of pin art pretending to be an action book? Use the brain.
>>150850042>You're not magically convincing thousands of adults to start reading comics just by making them more mature, even those who like cape movies.Alright, bet. Put out a Batman and Spidey manga. BATTLE SHONEN this time. And with the actual characters instead of OCs. That's why Fake Red failed, because it wasn't the real Spidey. There, money.
>>150850134Why is a kid/teen going to buy a comic when they can just watch something on YouTube/Xwitter/TikTok?
>>150850042Americans, along with the rest of the world, buy a lot of manga. It's not just the otakus.
>>150850170>Why is a kid/teen going to buy a comic when they can just watch something on YouTube/Xwitter/TikTok?You sound old and out of touch. Kids and teens read a lot of manga and watch anime, bro. It's honestly to God more socially acceptable to read manga in public than reading a floppy.
>>150848787That whole 'a picture is worth a thousand words' adage has a real world practical meaning to it. That page took at absolute most 5 minutes to make in script form but the demands on the artist is way higher in terms of production cost. It's easy to say "each panel should have a lot of emotion and nuance" when those are words and you don't have to get a page done a every two hours because these are books with absurd deadlines.It's the eternal problem idea guys have when trying to work with people that actually have to *make* the thing.
>>150850087You're comparing a collected edition of an imported comic to books produced in the US. Why isn't the tankobon the primary format in Japan if it's so profitable?
>>150850042Japan also has a literacy rate that's near perfect compared to 80% (at best, it's really closer to 55%) in the US.
>>150850752>Why isn't the tankobon the primary format in Japan if it's so profitable?Bro, quit being retarded.
>>150850087>floppies aren't profitableit seems they're the only profitable format... aside from evergreen titles, but as a publisher you never know so you throw things at the wall hoping that one great book will pay for three bad ones. publishers are in a business of reselling the same thing over and over. floppies get a bit of the investment quickly. there are obviously 100k people still buying (if not reading) batman and spider-man. they'll get the monthlies and cover the cost of production. the creative team cannot afford to work a year on a tpb/tankobon that might not sell. those are creator owned projects that belong in the book market. they can get advances etc. meanwhile, periodicals are still the best way to produce new comics. then you resell it as tpb and hc and whatnot plus farm the ip. direct market is in a sad shape but it also enables small books to even exist.
>>150850813Could you elaborate please?
>>150850042>compared to western neckbeards who are focused on gaming right now.Anon, I hate to tell you this, but a lot of those western gaming neckbeards also read manga.And therein lies the real issue.There's no real overlap with comics and other industries outside of cartoons.Hell, a lot of my own exposure to manga was seeing random shit dumped on /v/ back in the mid-late 2000s, because a lot of the people who like gaming also tend to like manga.Comics (and cartoons) focused exclusively on the same audience so much that even when they branch out to other mediums they end up focusing almost solely on that audience. The only time this wasn't the case was with movies, and they've fucked that up majorly in recent years.
This thread went nowhere until manga was brought up. /co/ truly does not care about comics.
>>150851028It's just one guy samefagging and talking out of school
>>150850134The next Smurfs or Mickey Mouse strip stands a better chance of reviving adult audiences than yet another gritty battle batman
>>150850720Indeed a comic page needs to be drafted up and drawn very quickly, and if that artist doesn't already know exactly what to draw to best communicate the story... he's simply not going to produce anything of any worth.But when the artist is also the writer, or atleast already intimately familiar with the story, then those important details become second nature, he already knows them, the thinking has been done long in advance.The art is better and easier to create when it is done by someone who understands what it is they're drawing.
>>150851212Sure buddy, adults with care about stuff that everyone considers you grow out of by you’re nine years old
>>150851099That guy cares more about comics than /co/.
>>150853153I don't know, man. I work in the industry. This thread is bullshit. He's just running his mouth.
>>150854097Which industry?
Comics published in the direct market need to get hot early and maintain a consistent level for shops to keep buying. If it falters for three months it'll get dropped and unless you have a pull box there won't be any more on the shelves.This means you have to be a local champion for your non-cape books and get them in a pull box.
>>150851212absolutely not, unless you mean women
Most of them are just kind of boring in terms of writing and visuals and don't feel like they're using the comic medium to it's advantage to depict engaging things. And yes I'm going to compare it to manga. When I read a slice of life manga, it's likely to look good and well drawn and if there's girls they'll be cute or pretty. If I read an American slice of life it'll probably look like it was crudely drawn
>>150854097>I work in the industry.you mean you're one of the faggots doing everything wrong and killing the industry?
>>150829922I feel like part of the reason as to why non-cape and non-licensed comics struggle to gain popularity is because no one wants to actually pick a demographic and do their best to appeal to them.Walking Dead did stupidly well with people who didn't normally buy comics (normies). The demographics that bought the book were reflective of what genres the story was using.>(neo) western (men and boys love it)>zombies (both men and women go nuts for it)>adventure (see the above)And it even had violence and sex appeal for good measure.It's kinda why Punisher fans and Jonah Hex fans keep showing up to buy their comics even if they don't really engage with other capeshit. Demographics outside of capeshit fans exist, but the non-licensed comics publishers either won't appeal to them out of ego, or can't do it on a monthly basis without crunch or people being underpaid.>>150848589Interesting that you bring up the amount of artists per comic, because manga also involves multiple artists. The difference is that in Japan...>usually the mangaka (creator of the story) is the lead artist, and is responsible for writing the story>the mangaka works with the editor (who tard wrangles them) on the story while leading a group of assistants that he pays out of pocket to help get the chapter done (they copy his style and get panels done)>the mangaka gets paid per page: if he is successful and hard-working, then he has more money to pay his assistants and even to hire more assistants so the workload isn't so bad
>>150851028such is life
>>150850042There are a million reasons why manga is more successful than comics but just looking at domestic markets alone it's because the manga industry is set up in that way that allows for it to flourish. Nip publishers actually need any new manga to sell around 10-15k for each volume to break even, but almost all newbies are allowed to continue their stories if they hit 5k or so because they're subsidized by the top sellers that do 200k+ per volume. This gives nonstandard stories a chance to build momentum. Just from a writing standpoint this gives flexibility to manga authors in terms of subect matter, as the bar to continue a story is lowered for them thanks to the big sellers of their more successful peers. On the selling front, manga publishers have agreements with local bookstores that allow the bookstores to "return" any manga volumes that they don't think will sell within 2-3 weeks of the book's release. This keeps the numerous independent bookstores from going under from 90% of new manga that flop upon release and are immediately axed. As a result, bookstores can be found on almost every block in Japan, making manga extremely accessible to even those in rural areas. In contrast bookstores are dying in the US and only the Romantasy BookTok and manga hits are keeping them alive at this point. The comics industry nor the graphic novel industry hasn't done anything in comparison to make books more accessible and cape comics becoming more "collector focused" actively works against bringing in new readers.
>>150829574can't fucking afford but so many comicspeople go for stuff they know, safer bet, even if it isn't, really
>>150829574Comics are a niche. Some characters are a niche of a niche.
A lot of people are saying things like "it's because the writing is bad" or "the art is bad" and maybe the latter is closer but at the end of the day, people have to know the stuff's out there to begin with. Cape stuff has SOME staying power because there's TV shows and movies. How are people going to know Ain't No Grave exists? Where do you hear of something like Nocterra? You ever seen an ad for Monstress?Nobody goes into a fucking comic shop but old nerds and poor kids anymore. That's not going to shake up enough sales to move a needle in a meaningful way. Sure you could find some stuff on amazon or whatever but that's almost down to luck because of how fucky that algorithm is since they somehow managed to make Comixology's system worse.You can't sell a product nobody knows about.
>>150858865Walking Dead sold because of the TV show was popular. And before anyone starts yapping about anime adaptations TWD was not faithful to the comic at all
>>150858865>It's kinda why Punisher fans and Jonah Hex fans keep showing up to buy their comicsComics that always sell low numbers? Wow. Also lol at the notion only normies buy these comics
>>150850882Variant covers & individual floppies need to be done away with. Compile them into monthly volume releases like manga companies do then release the individual trades later.
I wish good comics didn't exist. There are very few, but strong enough to present a false promise. That way, I wouldn't waste time with comics.
>>150861895I can think of a solution to your problem.
>>150861985What is it?
>>150829922This. The problem is that Manga took over the nom-cape and non-action genre.Pirate comic? Read One Piece.Need sci-fi fantasy? Read Dragon BallsTeenanger angst? Read K-OnRomcom? Read Sailor Moon
>>150863794>K-OnThat's about angst?
>>150861153Monthly volumes would be prohibitively expensive here. Even just translating monthly Shonen Jump ended up like four times the price they were in Japan for less pages. The reason the format works so well is cheapness which is bought on by the sheer volume they sell.
>>150864864Well the current model isn't selling. Series are cancelled within 10 issues at least constantly. They're only sold in specific comic book stores that are only kept alive as venues for tabletop gaming. The method needs to be drastically changed somehow.
>>150864884The key is targeting online marketing more and releasing new chapters digitally, not trying to imitate a format that thrives on another country's specific set of circumstances.Most people in the western world read manga online.Yes, a lot of physical manga is sold..because it's so popular already from people who started reading online, or watched the anime, and enjoy it enough that they want to buy a physical copy even if they've read it already.Given how fast scanlations and even official translations are chapter to chapter these days, I'd wager most people who buy manga volumes have already read the material by the time it's published in the US
>>150863794>Dragon Ballslul
>>150864939Yes but it's already extremely easy to pirate comics. Especially with digital releases already. What incentive would anyone have to pay for a subscription service for comics most people don't want to read anyway? Now if they offered that option at least for their still unreprinted backlog then that's at least some incentive. This digital problem doesn't exist for manga because most scantalation sites are limited, taken down eventually, or only use shitty fan translations. So unless the official release is bad, people are more incentivized to buy physical. Plus any mistakes that do crop up have a potential of being fixed in reprints. Unlike scans where the group will never fix them.
>>150864603No idea.
>>150867252what's the point of you
