Jim Lee, DC Comics President, Chief Creative Officer, and Publisher, spoke to Nikkei XTrend about his career, current trends, and the advantages that Japanese manga and anime have over Western comics. Lee says that Japanese storytelling (and Asian content more broadly) is booming because young people want to discover something that is “uniquely their own,” perhaps rather than just inheriting current trends, and because of the nature of the stories compared to Western comics:The stories told in Japanese manga and anime are incredibly powerful. I often find myself wondering, ‘What is missing in Western comics, and why aren’t they able to achieve the same flavor?’ Also, I think manga has an ‘advantage’ over American comics, which are mostly about superheroes, and that’s where the majority of sales and readers are concentrated.““In Japan, it’s closer to ‘literature,’ and anyone can read it, and it’s not just hero stories. There’s a much wider range of genres, like stories about cooking and soccer. You can draw stories from that. So I’m very happy that the manga has been so successful, because it gives me a ‘goal’ to aim for. The manga market is bigger than our industry, so the question becomes, ‘What can we learn from this?’“Lee says that it’s not just art style, but the “sensibility” of Japanese stories, and later adds, “Another thing to add is that in the West, comics and animation have been considered ‘children’s media.’ As people grow up, they move on to live-action. But in Japan, that’s not the case. Not only is there a wide range of genres, but adults also read manga and watch anime. As a culture, it’s an ‘art’ that isn’t limited to a specific age group.“
Elaborating on young people wanting something that is “uniquely their own,” Lee spoke about cycles in popularity, citing the huge manga boom in the 90s. This was followed by a decline and then bust in the mid to late 2000s, caused by several factors, including market oversaturation, quality declines, the rise in Internet piracy, and the financial crisis, leading to crashes in the adjacent anime market and bookstore closures. Manga sales saw two years of consecutive growth in 2013 and 2014 for the first time since 2006-2007 (ICv2), continued its growth during the 2010s, and saw an explosive COVID-era boom.https://animecorner.me/dc-comics-boss-says-anime-mangas-advantage-over-western-storytelling-lies-in-storytelling-young-peoples-desire-to-have-something-of-their-own/
>>152294119If Jim Lee actually cared about manga outselling them he would bring STRAIGHT kid Jon Kent back from space, ship gay teen Jon Kent off to the nebulous future with the LOSH and relaunch super sons under tomasi who he’d pay whatever it took to get back.That is the only way at the moment to compete. A shonen series with Batman and Superman’s sons being released monthly and then immediately into the compact line. Super sons by tomasi and nobody else should have 200 issues by now and like 20 volumes. Instead they continue to push a bunch of faggotry and woke ass writers like king Taylor Aaron fraction brombal thomsoon blah blah blah.Tomasi backSuper sons backJon is STRAIGHT and a kidWe ignore everything that has happened since 2018Profit.Unless he does that he doesn’t care and it’s all bullshit.
>DC Storytelling Almost as compelling and meaningful as WWE Storytelling
>>152294239This. They had a perfect answer to shonen manga and killed it because bendis wanted to tweet out a fortnight joke and taylor wanted social media clout.
>>152294239Damian himself has matured and moved beyond Super Sons anon.It’s time to let it go.You still get your Wonder Woman backups with adult super sons and Trinity.
>>152294239Him being straight is meaningless to the whole equation of manga’s successReminder lgbt is so prominent in manga they have full lgbt genres called yaoi and yuri
>>152294261>We ignore everything that has happened since 2018Damian hasnt done anything significant since then. Legit not one beat of character growth. Why imagine something that hasn’t happened?>You still get your Wonder Woman backups with adult super sons and TrinityOhhh you were just joking, well played anonHappy we agree.
>>152294275No it isn’t. Him being straight, them both being straight, makes them normal relatable young men for other boys to read and relate to.The comic doesn’t work unless they’re both normal. Jon only ever showed interest in girls. He’s straight. Gay teen Alt-u Jon-El can be gay all he likes off in the future.Gay Jon doesnt need to stop existing. They can relaunch LOSH make it full of gay shit and the 6 gay people who pay for comics can read that.
>>152294275> Reminder lgbt is so prominent in manga they have full lgbt genres called yaoi and yuriThese dont sell as well as shonen titles which are1. The direct analog for cape comics2. the ones beating cape comics domestically
>>152294239Absolutely hilarious you fucks thinks this would change anything
>>152294119>>152294141Jim you're literally bringing back Vertigo
I think the ironic thing is that Jim Lee himself is responsible for prioritizing pin up shots and over naturalistic, easy storytelling that makes pages readable and breezy like mangaBogging down pages in busy shots, fight scenes are all just big punches in stiff posing with ugly noisy lines everywhere. the pacing of most manga is very easy for most people to get into. Like even despite readint he opposite of western style, normies can read them easily. Not just because "start at volume 1", the literal pages themselves are very digestible and engaging.
>>152294119>I think manga has an ‘advantage’ over American comics, which are mostly about superheroes, and that’s where the majority of sales and readers are concentrated.“>“In Japan, it’s closer to ‘literature,’ and anyone can read it, and it’s not just hero stories. There’s a much wider range of genres, like stories about cooking and soccer. You can draw stories from that.seems to be right on the money to me
>>152294327I’m starting to feel sorry for the anon. He really thinks DC, who just got bought out by Netflix, is going to change Jon back permanently to a kid. And have him be not queer, etc. All to please him.Face it anon. Whether he’s a teen or a kid, Jon will always be queer now.You’ll have to live with that.
>>152294499Pretty much. Manga can make a story about a tween getting her period for the first time which accidentally summons a ghost. Making it relatable to the age range and market.Comics could never pull that off. They’d rather create something like “The Pro” when a hooker gains powers from giving a blow job.Which one of these are going to be the marketable popular choice? It’s pretty obvious.
>>152294119>Lee says that it’s not just art style, but the “sensibility” of Japanese storiesHow the fuck did it take them so long to figure this out?Do they actually think people just like manga because of the art and nothing else?Fucking the original OPM webmanga looks like a 10 year old's napkin doodles, and people still liked it because of how it was made and what it was about
>>152294239>>152294304This is pointless shit, no one except Superman fans are gonna care about superman's son, which is exactly the point. You don't give a shit about new readers or building new avenues of interest, just hyperspecific details of existing characters that are already niche.
>>152294239>>152294250You're being delusional because of your personal grievances. The issues of western cape comics are fundamental to the medium itself. It's utterly moronic to think>it'd all be fixed if there was a straight white boy comicjust because you want one. Wild to think that someone's first thought about what manga is doing right is "Boruto".
>>152294119Fucking finally
>>152294611This anon gets it.
>>152294565this but unironically
>>152294539As someone who thought Super Sons was absolute pandering dreck, I will never feel sorry for him. I hope he suffers forever. I may normally hate Bendis, but I'll give him accolades for utterly mind-breaking that Super Sons anon and making him suffer every day. It delights me to know he will never move on either, he will sit here, screaming and pissing and moaning impotently for times that will NEVER return to him.
>>152294638it is funny that a man of asian origin is the one saying it too
>>152294610The American comic industry is full of people spinning wheels for decades. Now they see real competition.
>>152294610In all fairness the art is a big part of it and not just eyes and speed lines. even though the OPM webcomic is simply drawn, it's also just more appealing, visually, than most American comics.
>>152294694>it's also just more appealing, visuallyspecially to women and that's half the market
>>152294694The OPM webmanga has pretty good panelling, but even then, I don't know if that's considered part of the artstyle itself.It just blows my mind that so many people in comics and who read comics unironically believe that if you just copy the artstyle of some popular manga it'll be just as popular, like the people who read them do so exclusively for the art while ignoring literally everything else.Just baffling.
>>152294638>>152294686Jim is speaking in the perspective of someone who indulges only in capeshitThe problem with genre variety (what isn't there and how what IS there is hardly acknowledged/supported) and demographic problems has been discussed plenty of times
this reminds me to that comic about a dude that was playing baseball in college and it was pretty decent, more stuffs like that would definetly be a good thing for the comic's industry
Storytelling is the #1 aspect, but I’d also include a better relationship with fans and what they want, and a focus on appealing drawings.No that doesn’t mean comics should look like manga but quality control is in order when it comes to who’s illustrating your material. The drawings themselves should be a major draw in themselves.
>>152294610>Do they actually think people just like manga because of the art and nothing else?Yes. Remember Marvel Mangaverse?
>>152294788I mean, would you expect better from fucking Marvel?
>I can't wait to read about Batman fighting the Joker for the 59th time! Why are Western readers like this?
>>152294739>but even then, I don't know if that's considered part of the artstyle itself.Its definitely part of the artstyle,but there's also a uniqueness to simple Japanese doodles than American ones that's also appealing.American simple art is very flat and intentionally crude, OPM is clearly trying to exceed ONE's meager skills and looks more visually interesting that say, stick figures.
Western comics have spent too long basically telling everyone who's not a white Karen or someone who wishes they were a white Karen to pound sand and eat shit, so I think this might be too little too late. The markets are just too different, the people into manga aren't going to go pick up your comic about fat disabled brown lesbian space pirates having long talks about their feelings and crying instead of doing anything actually piratey like going around raping women and raiding ships and participating in the space slave trade just because you changed the artstyle.Best to just focus on your market of capeshit fans and double down, not like money will be an issue now that they're owned by Netflix.
Jim Lee is correct.
>>152294119Elephant in the room is that comics will never catch up so long as you have>To understand what Batman is referring to go read Green Lantern #493>Oh you like [character]? Okay here's your reading list, do NOT read "Character #1" it assumes you've read all their other books, instead start from Super Team #63, then jump to Other Character #10. Oh and all of that just got retconned but don't worry there's an event going on that's partially undoing the retcon>Heh, Villain Man's death was pretty impactful, right? A shame that it'll be undone 5 issues down the line because of cloning/time travel/multiverse shenanigans/a reveal they never died in the first place. They're part of the status quo after all
>>152294930YeahKeep preaching to a non-existant choir of dying fansThat will keep them from shuttering the entire fucking thing and hiring manga artists to do it on the cheap.
>>152294683The funny thing is that he’s a grown old ass canNo little kid reader, that the SuperSons comic was originally marketed to, are the ones bitching and complaining about Jon. It’s just grown ass men.
He completely ignored a main reason. Western comics abandoned the kids/teen market ages ago to appeal to adults and then manga/anime came in and ate up that entire market they abandoned. After generations of this young people just now consume manga/anime and have no real interest in comics outside movies or TV adaptations.
>>152294908>but even then, I don't know if that's considered part of the artstyle itself.>>152294739Compare how comics show throwing a "punch" vs. how mangas show throwing a punch. It's like night and day.
>>152294981Yes. Grown ass men are the ones who, surprise surprise, the ones who create the media for little boys. They tend to remember what it was like to be a little boy or have a little boy and know what sells. The grown ass adult...."people" who push for fag adult Jon are the fucking losers who wanted this disaster to happen and maintain it. They can't sell XXXL black dildos to dykes in an amazon commune.
Color in general is usually a bad idea for comics and digital color especially is just ugly and busy.
>>152295017manga punch for comparison. Which of these actions feel like they have more "weight"? Which is actually selling the "impact" of a punch? Which is using the visual language of static images to better sell the idea of "action"?
>>152295081Western artists should have learned this by now.
>>152294119>because young people want to discover something that is “uniquely their own,"I don't think that's it, I think part of the appeal is that mangaka generally AREN'T trying to appeal to western zoomers, or some old person's idea of western zoomers.The manga is typically made based on what the creator wants it to be and what story they want to tell, which is why you'll usually see that reflected in the author notes and omakes at the end of every volume.Cynical stories obviously exist just like everywhere else, but even there the creators are likely to be open about that, like Redo of Healer's creator basically going "yea, I wanted to make something over-the-top and edgy with lots of rape, so I wrote this shit, who doesn't love a little rape from time to time?" but for the most part there's more of that genuine weirdo spirit where some random fucking weirdo makes a story based on ideas that have been rattling around in their head for years.Sometimes those weirdos even see major success, like with Made in Abyss, because it turns out that people are not nearly as turned off by weirdness as American creators pretend, so long as it's genuine and attached to something interesting that the creator is actually passionate about.
>>152294119I think whats really frustrating is how gimped the non-superhero part of the American industry is. The medium has been ostracized for so long so many writers have a chip on their shoulder about working in an industry associated with icky escapism. You got people going "haha, this isnt your grandma's comics! They swear and do drugs!". You got a bunch of bland pulpy shit and failed TV screenplays. You got the umpteenth autobiography or pastel colored comfy gay adventure/mystery. Comics really dont attract all that much talent. Theres been good stuff I've liked for sure, but unless you want to deal with floppies you got to keep a story in one graphic novel and hope it sells.
>>152295476The top comics in america are bone, sandman, dog boy, and captain underpants.I think it's time to realize that the problem is that indie comics are openly ostracized by the big two out of fear and spite. Mainly because I believe the big two know they can't function in an open market without the big two.
>>152294239Anyone that disagrees with this is delusional
>>152295534More like they are shotas and don’t realize it
>>152295476Part of the issue is that they just don't want to appeal to anyone outside of specific markets, while manga appeals to literally everyone.When you turn up your nose at half the market, you can't be surprised when they turn elsewhere.
>>152295017>>152295081>>152295141You want to know why this is? Look at the figure throwing the punch in the manga example vs the comic one. face obscured, body rendered as a blur very effective for selling the motion. The comic image is a pinup.Full on obscured figure of Superman. It's bad for showing motion, but you know what it is good for?Resale of the original page. For having the image clipped out and used in merchandising. Using the image for marketing since you can clearly recognize the characters. This goes back to what, ironically, Jim Lee and the image guys pushed for, big visuals over storytelling.
>>152295559>>152294261>>152294275>>152294327>>152294635>>152294611Whisper network faggot absolutely melting down. Pathetic.
>>152295476So many indie guys have a chip on their shoulder about superhero comics, this is less the case now but used to be all over. "This isn't your dumb superhero comics! this is real artsy comics!"It's like if I read a housewife manga and they seethed about shonen out of nowhere. Or if you watched a mystery movie and they seethed about dumb action movies being too popular.
>>152294635I agree. But even in manga, no one is reading a story about a fag lead story where they do performative bitching about hot button topic for twitter bots.
>>152295519How would you say they're ostracized exactly?
>>152294611>>152295695This is, legitimately no schizo shit, a bot, or a dedicated schizo copy-paating. I saw a similar thread yesterday with the EXACT same responses and you can search the text and find it in the archive. The fuck is going on with anything anymore, man? Does Eglin have a dedicated Supersons fan or something?
Didn't we have this thread already?
>>152295689So once again, collectors have ruined everything.
>>152295801it's just losers anon, it's not as exciting as it seems, it's just some miserable guy who had everything go wrong for him in his pathetic life having a premade post to repost when his autistic fixation comes up in a tertiary way.
>>152295834That, and also a lack of secure pay or proper retirement plans. comic artists rely on marketing and selling pages because there simply is no job security and limited social security benefits as a freelancer.
>>152294119Western comics are ossesed with identity politics and subversion. They are also expensive as hell and only give you a short ammount of story every month. Manga is affordable and gives fans what they want every week. Why is this so hard to admit?
>>152295865It's not exciting, it's frustrating because this used to be one of the last places that wasn't totally fucked by techbro bullshit or government overreach. At least we're still anonymous. I know there's several people like that on /co/ especially (Like the Pole to be unnamed), but it was other replies REPLYING TO HIM that were also the same. Maybe a real dedicated strawman, dunno. I miss when everything wasn't under fifty layers of irony, schizos, and shills.
>>152295801And? So was OP.
>>152294119>“Another thing to add is that in the West, comics and animation have been considered ‘children’s media.’And that will continue until these industries realize that there's more to being "adult" than saying fuck and having lots of gore.There are a lot of stories in manga and anime that comics and cartoons would never dream of touching.
>>1522958014chan is just dead internet theory.
>>152295801>post same thread over and over >expect all the replies to be differentAlso how would you know unless you were the shill trying to tailor discussion in every thread?
>>152294119It’s truly not the story telling, it’s the extremely linear and easy reading pattern. With comics you often times have to read issues from other lines of comics to understand certain characters that show up or new character arcs i think DC KO is a perfect example with it having the main storylines comics but then all the characters features comics also are progressing with the story so have their own important plot progressions and the additional comics made just for this story line that arent considers as the main issue number. It’s a clusterfuck for most people and even as someone who actively follows it can sometimes be hard to remember which one to read first especially with release dates being on the same day at time. It’s a mess.
>>152296557>It’s truly not the story tellingIt absolutely is a major factor, if it wasn't then American non-cape comics would be just as popular, since they don't have to worry about dumb event comics or crossovers or other shit written by completely different writers.
Comics are more interesting when they are stylized. A lot of old capeshit looks really cool but nowadays it often just looks like a bunch of reference photographs.
>>152294119> Not only is there a wide range of genres, but adults also read manga and watch anime. As a culture, it’s an ‘art’ that isn’t limited to a specific age group.“Is he implying comics are made for kids then? Why is there so much fag shit in comics then? lmao
>>152296617They are more niche and arent as focused on by comic fans so casuals dont know non capeshit really exists. Plus the price of comics makes it so they will never make it big again honestly, you can sometimes get manga with 100+ pages for like 8 bucks and comics are sometimes around only 40 and want you to pay 6
>>152294239I think you're missing the point.Manga has more than just shounen, so there's an manga for everyone to get into. Comics don't offer the diversity of genres that manga has, so it only appeals to a certain niche.
>>152294119Truthfully it’s a mixture of multiple things. Around 30 pages for 6 bucks is just not worth it to most people when you can get a manga for the same price and quadruple the page count
>>152296684There’s still been plenty of opportunities for normies to read noncape comics, scholastic book fairs have been selling them for over 20 years, walking dead was huge, there’s adult graphic novels in book stores targeting women But they don’t stick aroundCause ultimately they’re just not that engaging
>>152296780Yeah you can get a volume of CSM for like 11 bucks and walk away with almost 200 pages while you would be lucky for two comics costing the same price giving you even 100
>>152296684>>152296780Manga and comic page counts aren’t comparable. Comics tend to have more in a page than a manga page. As a general average. I get the visual value difference . But that’s something that also should be considered, and I’d be for American comics attempting Japanese page economy and structure too.
>>152296637Well most capeshit is supposedly aimed at teens given the age rating, but I honestly doubt teens are reading any capeshit aside from the Absolute books or whatever Marvel Rivals shills.
With this attitude reveal from Jim Lee. And Netflix buying Warner Bros.Will we start to see changes in DC Comics?
>>152294119I would say there are a lot of western comics with much better storytelling than manga, none of them are published or owned by Marvel and DC
>>152296812Not enough to where the 60 pages covers more of the story than 184
>>152296812Even if true most casuals do not see it that way so will be put off from comics based on that. They need to start releasing cheaper versions of their comics with no color.
>>152296787>Cause ultimately they’re just not that engagingYea, I think the difference is that comics appeal to a very specific kind of person, while manga appeals to every demographic on the planet.There's a reason why manga is liked by both commie tranny afro-latinx aspies and autistic far-right white supremacist basement dwellers, while there are basically no far right types who are into American comics, especially non-cape comics.At the end of the day, a real industry needs to have something for everyone, otherwise it will just be displaced by an industry that DOES appeal to all tastes.
I could get Savage She Hulk for 40 cents in 1979 and in today’s money that’s only a little over 2 dollars. 6 dollars for comics is a scam.
>>152296787There needs to at least be a constant feed of shit like East of West, Deadly Class, Preacher, Chew, Scout, and tens more of similar comics running at the same time to create a bed of content to choose from. Imagine if these or similar comics were packaged together in monthly magazines. I'd like that, anyway.
It's about accessibility. You basically need to solve a complex sudoku puzzle to figure out what order to read Batman in, and even then the quality will be incredibly inconsistent thanks to all the different writers.Meanwhile, if you wanna read about Deku, you start at My Hero Academia volume 1 and keep going until it's over.Manga is just as political as comics, probably more so because there's way more manga being published. The difference is that manga makes it much easier to find what you want.
>>152294250So you think the "perfect answer to shonen manga" is "a comic about Superman JR where everyone knows he likes titties." Yeah, man, that'll outsell Dragon Ball, no doubt.
>>152297293>Manga is just as political as comics, probably more so because there's way more manga being published.Other way around, because there's more manga being published it's way easier to find stuff that's completely apolitical. Not to mention American creators in general tend to be far more obsessed with politics than their Japanese counterparts.
DC and Marvel will try to save Western comics by making their shit more weeb-ish. It won't work, ever, because unless all you care about is slightly increasing quarterly projections, you cannot improve your own product by just mindlessly aping the more popular thing. You have to look carefully at what makes YOUR shit less popular.Mainstream Western comics will never, ever do this because they are irrevocably deadlocked. The only way they could ever progress back into popular appeal is by alienating the small minority of whales who actually want more of the same old capeshit slop and will pay insane amounts of money for it. You cannot make comics good again without making shit they don't care about. It literally cannot be done.Instead, DC will take the wrong lessons from manga and make something that has no appeal to weebs while coming off as weird to other readers.
>>152297229That magazine would cost like 20+ due to costs of production and less being sold in general.
>>152297353name the "completely apolitical" manga you have in mind, Anon. I'm genuinely curious.
>>152297395Azumanga
>>152297395Pick any 20 random isekai manga and place 'em on a dart board and give a dart a toss.There's an entire subset of that shit that's just about people sitting around farming and cooking.
>>152294119
>>152297395Squid Girl, Lucky Star, Dr Slump, Uzumaki
>>152297395GonSlam Dunk
>>152297395Kissxsis
>>152297466>Uzumaki>Not politicalDo they just slam you people against a wall as babies until all the media literacy leaks out of your ears?
>>152297515"Politics" in retard-speak means "identity politics".
>>152297229Anon I will guarantee you that if you offered normies those comics next to manga with similar premises, normies would still choose manga almost every time. Genre variety isn't enough, the storytelling within those genres is also more engaging.
>>152297515Body horror in a small town people cant escape from and changes and morphs them metaphor for reality of these places isn’t political yes. It’s not telling you right is correct or left is correct. That’s why people mean by political
>>152297395Nukenai Seiken-chan
He's not, wrong, but also not entirely right.Manga is more accesible to the average ADHD reader because it's either weekly or they get 40 pages per month every month.
>>152297515It isn’t political
>>152296812More what? More words? Sure, but most of the time those words are superfluous. If comics had exceptional writing I'd understand, but it's just words for the sake of it from hacks.
>>152297395>The Villainous Aristocrat Loves Mom Heroines Too MuchMC gets isekai'd and runs around making a milf harem
>>152297386You do know that buying each individually comes out at at least 25 dollars, right?
>>152296812>Comics tend to have more in a page than a manga page. As a general average.3x3 paneling with heavy exposition is a very weird thing to cope about as being better
>>152297548>It’s not telling you right is correct or left is correct. That’s why people mean by politicalThis is an embarrassingly stupid way of looking at it, but also a good argument for why political subtext in comics is pointless anyhow.
>>152297559You capeshitters always coping like this... do you really not see how pathetic you look?
>>152297600also more panels and details per page. The main thing is that it likely takes more time to make a comic page, which reflects on pricing.Again I'm all for comics adapting the way manga pages are structured and laid out. I'm not sure how manga pay is handled, but American comics are paid by the page. That heavily influences how pages are made, because on top of being limited to a monthly 22 page limit, you're also making pages that are very visually dense to be worth the money to the publisher to pay for. In general, at least.
>>152297618And my point is that anything over like $7 for a magazine, maybe 10, is far above impulse buy level and at that point you're only getting dedicated fans. Manga anthologies are worth it because they're under $10. Under $5, in most cases. You'd be hard pressed to get a new American publication with that much content at that price.
>>152297395K-OnSchool Days
what happened to western indie videogames can happen to western comics. i wouldn't be surprised if western comics will be pretty huge in 20 years. probably not dc or marvel tho.
>>152297602Thank you for bringing this to my attention, king.
WE'VE HAD THIS CONVERSATION BEFOREGFDI JIM WHAT DID YOU THINK VERTIGO WAS FOR
You know what everyone constantly ignores?The manga that get popular over here are typically popular manga in Japan, become popular anime in Japan, become popular anime/manga in the West.The structure works better because the adapted anime literally works as an advertisement for the ongoing manga when it gets TLed. There's also a lot of word of mouth. JoJo among others had the manga hyped up for a full decade before the western release.
>>152297679>also more panels and details per pageAll of that and it still ends up looking worse.
>>152297694And my point is that you're still paying more.
>>152297784>what happened to western indie videogamesAs bad as the game industry is, it's still in far better shape than Western comics.
>>152297395Ping PongFuuko in the CafeHoney Lemon SodaMy Neighbor SekiHirayasumi
>>152297873The hypothetical "you're" in this situation is someone who's presumably buying all those books. Which is a subset of a subset. Sure they exist, buy enough to support a, lets stick to that $20 figure I used, magazine? Part of the reason anthologies work is that the price is cheap enough to pick up new readers off impulse.
>>152295735I'm not asking for people to collectively get into whatever new Fantagraphics book wins an EisnerI'm not asking people to read Asterios Polyp and immediately *get* itI'm not asking peopleI'm just asking for people to get into comics that aren't capeshit and licenseshit period
>>152297906Well you did name generally well regarded ones. Obviously an anthology will be more mixed in quality but if your options are to buy each individual issue of those series or an anthology with them the anthology wins, and if you only want two of those titles and then round it up with garbage like Monstress, Saga and some licensed shit then I think the problem lies with you.
>>152297386No but he does have a point. Everyone knows the general rule by now, you can't judge a comic or manga good or bad until you've gotten a few chapters in. That's a problem when no one wants to be the guinea pig on finding out whether or not a writer is good or shit in the current economy.
>>152294119Just make original stories under the classic DC brand holy cow it can’t be that hard, no vértigo or dc black- DC presents: no way in. Some monster house mystery thriller that’s COMPLETELY seperate from the justice league verse- not even an off hand reference or metagag towards batman or metrópolis- it’s so simple you don’t need to stop batman and supermán and you don’t need more genre variety- you can still make superhero stories, JUST MAKE THEN STANDALONE AND UNRELATED TO THE BATFAG VERSE
>>152297941>I'm just asking for people to get into comics that aren't capeshit and licenseshit periodAnon, that's not how audiences work, you can't just tell people to get into something, you have to make stuff that they find interesting.Either they find it interesting or they don't.
>>152297386Yeah, I suppose that's the biggest hurdle. Shelling out 20 bucks a month, even with all that entertainment, is too much.>>152297527I'd buy both, but I see that. It would be more about what the other anon said, it being too expensive, than a storytelling issue.
>>152298000>Either they find it interesting or they don't.It's a matter of word of mouthIt's a matter of fucking exposure and deliberate ignoranceThere are comics people WOULD find interesting that they've never heard of nor would even bother trying to find because they'd just assume comics are nothing but capeshit and licenseshitIf it wasn't for the Adult Swim pilot going viral, The Eltingville Club would've stayed niche Actually having the most bare minimum sense of curiosity isn't hard to do and living in an age where piracy is easier than ever gives you no excuses to even try and find something you'd like
>>152297559Yes yes. The typical normal child teen or young adult is not smart or sophisticated enough to read about the homo adventures of supermans son or the newest clumsy quasi lesbian adventures of WWOh and batmans latest attempt at justifying not murdering the joker after he blows up an orphanage and will do it again in two days.
>>152297954I didn't name those comics, I just told anon an anthology of those would cost at least $20 in all likelihood. And the thing is, as nice as it would be to guarantee an anthology is all good stories, not even the anthologies people want to model after can guarantee that. It's why Shonen Jump keeps things coming and going. Because part of the whole game of anthologies is being enough of an impulse buy to scoop up /new/ readers. We now these comics are good enough now because they've been out for years, but starting on day one in an anthology, for $20+? That's a tall order if you don't know the quality of it.
>>152297941*I'm not asking people to entirely give up on capeshit and licenseshit either if they so choose to do so
>>152294119You'd have to build up a whole new infrastructure. Comics have decades of cultural bias, shitty marketing, shrinking shelf space outside of niche comic stores, and art practices that generally dont favor readability. A hosting app that wasn't trash like Webtoons would probably be best but then you'd need to advertise like he'll and pay those artists upfront.
>>152297395This anon really thought he had something
Manga's variety is bolstered by the fact that Americans aren't even the ones who are supporting its industry to begin with.A monthly sports manga series does well and has enough chapters to warrant a tankobon to be released overseas does so because the domestic market is already able to support it to begin with.Americans never matter to manga's success at all
>>152297849It's crazy but Amazon spent $75 million on Melania's movie. They could make 20 anime series based on western comics with that money.
>>152298200Sorry, was I supposed to rebut them and get into a protracted argument about the political messaging in "Campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill"? Get real. I was curious if they had any good examples, they don't. They're just a shitposter. Another anon even explained that "Politics" is just shorthand for "identity politics." So why should I bother? I spent my time in another thread.
>>152298316>They're shitposters because I didn't like the examples they postedIs this a serious post?
>>152298316>Ask for apolitical manga>Get them>Noooooo not like thatGrow up
>>152298351>>152298336Okay then we can concede that comics are also full of apolitical series like Garfield and Zits. What, that doesn't count?
>>152298412I don't think anyone ever said apolitical comics don't exist, that's just some shit you made up in your head thanks to your extreme victim complex.
>>152298448Yeah, anon only said that there were more apolitical manga around that appealed to readers. Not that they don't exist.
>>152298448If you're using examples like "Azumanga Diaoh" as your example of an "apolitical manga" then why can't I use Garfield as an example of an "apolitical comic"? The argument was that us westerners are so politics-brained that we just can't keep them out of comics unlike superior nipponese apolitical mangaka. So I wanted to probe that concept and see what exactly they were holding up as these aspirational series we should be emulating.
>>152298515>The argument was that us westerners are so politics-brained that we just can't keep them out of comics unlike superior nipponese apolitical mangaka.The argument was that Americans are more obsessed with politics than the Japanese, which is objectively true.It was not that apolitical comics don't exist.Seriously dude, get a grip on your victim complex.
>>152295988Correct, the reason they don’t admit it is because it would mean admitting they—and by extension their ideology—failed. Ideologues don’t believe they can fail, they can only BE failed by others.
>>152297325NTA, but I bet it would sell much better than what we’re currently getting. Doing better than where they’re at now would be a good place to start.
Never read a single manga in my life. Ask me anything.
I think it's good in theory that he's "learning" from this, but I don't think he or DC is going to learn the right lesson.The reality is, comic publishers need better standards, they need better editors, they need more interaction between actual fans and creators beyond bitching at each other on social media, and for the love of all that's fucking holy, they need to interact with people outside of their comic bubble.Comic creators only seem to draw an idea of what people are interested in from comic forums, tumblr, and bluesky, anyone in the real world who doesn't spend all day on these internet platforms is completely ignored and thus goes entirely unserved in the comic industry.If you're someone who's not active on social media and isn't obsessed with the lives of comic creators, as far as they're concerned, you don't exist, so instead of looking at actual purchasing trends and other markets for an idea of what people want, they all get stuck crawling further and further up each other's assholes online, which results in them producing nothing but shit aimed at other annoying social media dwellers.
>>152298645Given the chance, which of these 3 would you read first? Naruto (middle), Bleach (right), or One Piece (left)?
>>152298680Stop replying to yourself, you loser.
>>152298316Just take the L, bro.
/co/ doesn't want to hear this but the decline of western comics is because Gen Y adn Gen Z simply didn't want to see the same 20 superheroes rehashed over and over and even star wars has become kind of lame as gen x aged out of the young nerdy guy demographic and either went schizo and suicided or started families with asian women. The corpse of western comics was then puppetteered by rainbow people from deviantart.
>>152294239>We ignore everything that has happened since 2018supersons ended 8 years ago? Fuck dude. So much has gone wrong since then.
>>152298735>simply didn't want to see the same 20 superheroes rehashed over and over Okay, so don't read capeshit then
If there were a button that could completely erase the overseas popularity of animanga, and Japanese people could decide in a national referendum whether to press it, there's a good chance that they would press that button so actually nobody is winning
>>152298833I like how you make up schizo fantasies as a weird cope with reality Look up 'Cool Japan'
>>152298876Look up what Japs say about ''cool Japan'' on X
>>152297941>I'm just asking for people to get into comics that aren't capeshit and licenseshit periodWhat if they do and ultimately decide that most of it isn't really to their tastes outside of a small handful that they've read and enjoyed?Just because someone goes out and reads something doesn't necessarily mean they're going to like it.
>>152298833Japs just don't like foreigners on their soil. Generally they don't actively seethe about the fact that foreigners exist at all times like westoids (or browns larping as westoids) do.
I like cape comics.
>>152298943Then at the very least I can at least be glad they at least tried
>>152298953I mean the otaku culture has been creating not just weebs but also millions of non-Japanese who think Japan is an extream pedophilic racist sexist weirdos' island and Japan has to deal with both of themI think being a rich but culturally relevant European country is by far the best
>>152299091>relevant*irrelevant
>>152296693Those other genres aren’t the ones outselling capeshit in America. The manga that sells in America is shonen. Just like the comics that sell are capeshit despite the fact that there are comics of various genres released every week of the year.
>>152298764capeshit is dominant on /co/ and the comics industry at large, this is why people have been moving to manga for 25 years.
>LOL LE EPIC EAST VS WEST THREADScientific studies have provided irrefutable evidence that trolls are extremely severely mentally ill, dopamine addicted sociopaths. https://www.theconversation.com/amp/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-just-enjoy-hurting-others-they-also-feel-good-about-themselves-145931Therefore, each and every single troll both needs, and deserves to be subjected to immediate, involuntary and indefinite institutinalization not only for their own good, but for the greater good of human civilization. Also, trolling is against Global Rule 3, raiding is against Global Rule 4, and spamming is against Global Rule 10.Fulfill your civic duty by reporting this thread as soon as possible and as much as possible, /co/mrades.https://sys.4chan.org/co/imgboard.php?mode=report&no=152294119
Reminder of what happens when they try to move away from cape comics
>>152294119I don’t think there’s a way to fix western comics at least when it comes to the Big 2’s superheroes.The same characters have been reinvented+rewritten multiple times over the course of decades. There’s different Spider-Mans, Batmans, Supermans. They all have different universes and AU versions as well.You can’t build cohesive storytelling off that.
Looks like you guys criticized the comic industry too much so the thread will get deleted.
>>152294119Anime/Manga shits on western comics because they actually tell a story and then move on to a new story.Comics just rehash the same stories over and over, reboot the universe, re-do the story, reboot the franchise etc.It gets stale when all the comic selection boils down to 5 variations of Batman and 20 X-men comics that will inevitably be erased in favour of a new continuity.And the other big issue is artwork. Manga has consistent art start to finish. Sometimes the quality improves or dips here and there, but the style is consistent.Western comics will literally just switch artist mid story which is jarring af.
>>152299188>>152299222Marvel doesn't really reboot like that.
>>152299272They don't do line wide reboots but they reboot their characters all the time.
>>152299222Eh. Manga has its own share of dogshit art, and it's not always consistent.
>>152299298It's not about good or bad art really. It's just when they change art style mid-story. It's just dumb to switch up the artstyle completely like that unless it's a new run/story.
>>152299336I've been reading comics for over 20 years and I never stopped hating that shit.
This isn't a manga issue it's a quality one. You need to make good comics and provide the reader with trust that you will continue to do so.
>>152299450It just pisses me off. Literally seen comics where the change is so drastic that you can't tell who a character is supposed to be in the next issue because they changed everything up so much.
Only japan is inhumane enough to impose schedules like the ones manga magazines are subjected to. It's the only way to tardwrangle good stuff out of them. And even then, you get people like Togashi with a manga so beloved, yet is infamous for publishing a chapter once every blue moon.
>>152299150Stop hating on actual comic book discussion.
>>152299697You lost, /co/cksucker.
>>152299731Called it. That spammer is 100% a disgruntled /co/ resident that hates these topics being brought up.
>>152299697Again, I'm starting to think you're a falseflaggerAlso>mobilefaggot
>>152299640AnonThere is weekly, bi-weekly and monthly schedule
>>152294119>StorytellingYeah, sure, call it that.I can't think of any other medium as reliant on physical media as comic books.Movies and shows are added to streaming services before the blurays come out. Every book release has a digital version on release and you can change font size, highlight and whatever. Physical game releases are being phased out and there are many subscription options with day 1 releases and store deals more often than notYou can officially read manga weekly for free on release without accounts or subscriptions, also the average manga page will fit most phone screens and is readable without having to zoom in. Digital is a buck or two cheaper to buy than paperback editionsComic book subscriptions services don't include new releases in order to favor floppies or to squeeze an extra buck. Physical and digital releases have the same price tag. At best you have those ungodly vertical editions of butchered issues in a manhua string form that gets rid of page flow and composition and misses the point of what made manhua popular in the first placeBefore even going into storytelling, topic variety, lack of ambition and originality, release frequency, relaunches, stealth miniseries, creative team shifts, event and crossover fatigue, status quo back and forths, there's a price and inconvenience barrier standing just so LCS don't go extinct
>>152298316You got owned, retard
>>152298515Unironically Garfield has been used before to make political statements, same with Peanuts
>>152294119unless DC publishes a monthly anthology, a production line for comics (instead of just having one inker and penciller) and kicks underperforming series and creators to the curb then they won't get these breakout hits that are what drive most manga sales.
>>152298957I do too, but not most of them.
>>152294239Based. Make Jon straight (and great) again
>>152299222>Anime/Manga shits on western comics because they actually tell a story and then move on to a new story.Shonen manga doesnt do this at all though.
>>152300663Huh?Shonen manga does that all the time.
>>152300663Even Naruto had multiple arcs, and ended.
>>152299336That's sound like how the art in Hunter X Hunter went.
>>152300663Name one Shonen manga that had 3 versions of the same characters in 3 different timelines stories running simultaenously.Or name one Shonen manga that reboot it's entire universe and started a new story instead of just setting a new story with new characters in the same universe.
>>152300893Kinnikuman
