Even with the big weeaboo craze of the late 90s-early 00s seemingly mostly over and a big superhero craze going on right now, manga is STILL outselling Western comics.
Can we have an actual discussion about the major differences between Jap and Western comics and why Jap stuff so consistently outsells Western stuff?
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Do you mean manga is outselling western comics even in the West? Because otherwise this is going to come down purely to means of access and sheer availability if you mean manga in Japan sells more than western comics do in America.
What I think might be the cause of the sales disparity is different levels of complexity. Not in terms of narrative, but in terms of presentation.
Manga tends to be just one self-contained series written by one writer and you get the full story by just buying volume 1 and going from there. Retitling is uncommon and as far as I know renumbering is unheard of. Its a very easy medium to pick up and read.
Western stuff on the other hand is often broken up between multiple books whose titles and numbering change constantly, as do the creative teams running them. Even if you read everything about Superman, there's crossover with other characters and you're going to miss out on bits of the narrative.
I think Image and the like do Western comics in a more manga-esque style in this respect, with self-contained stories run by one creative team that rarely ever get retitled or renumbered. This may be why they were able to get such a big foot in the door in the last few years.
Well, something I noticed is that with comic books (especially with the Big Two), writers tend to change up fairly often. One issue of Spider-Man might be done by a person with a particular plotline in mind, while the next one could be completely different because the old writer got sick or taken off the book. With manga (or most other books, really), that doesn't really happen, leading to a more consistent reading experience.
Yes, solely talking about the West. I had trouble finding comparative sales figures though. Just a lot of general statements on comics sites that manga outsells Western stuff.
Also I want to make it clear that I'm a big fan of both kinds of comics. That's why I want to try to understand their relationship better.
Agreed. In the wall of text I posted above I talked generally about this, but also in my own personal reading experiences I have really felt this.
Recently when the Flash Thompson Venom got tossed aside with no regard for the narrative arc so the character could be soft-rebooted by a new team I got particularly frustrated about this lack of consistency in Western big 2 comics.
>lumping the west together
This is why you don't understand. The only thing you could possibly put together is the Anglosphere
Manga has been bigger than American comics in Europe since at least the 80's, the only time they really got popular was with the 90's Spider-man and X-Men cartoons (leading to the comics being popular)
Okay, then lets talk solely about the US. Or about Western mainstream comics' failure to catch on even with their film adaptations dominating lists of the most popular films worldwide for most of the past decade.
Same here, man. I find it easier to stick to writers I like than to characters I like, just to avoid the frustration and heartache.
So true. When I first got back into comics as an adult I asked for advice and one of the things I was most consistently told is "FOLLOW WRITERS, NOT CHARACTERS."
The nice thing about manga and indie comics is that the writers and the characters tend to stay together so you don't have to worry about that.
>The nice thing about manga and indie comics is that the writers and the characters tend to stay together so you don't have to worry about that.
On the other hand, this means good characters with bad writers will forever be wasted potential because no rotation. Full author control also means that if the mangaka is picky about certain things like not liking adaptations, you're never getting a movie or an anime, ever.
If their such a bad writer, how'd they make a good character?
What can we do? Everything has a price
Being able to come up with good concepts =/= being able to execute them well.
Its worth it IMO. If you like somebody else's character, but don't like what they're doing with them, you can just make a character who is as close to their character as legally possible and tell your own version of the story
I think the issue in the US (I am from outside the US so take this with a grain of salt) is that superhero comics (which are the ones in the spotlight) are really hard to get into.
I grow up reading cape comics, thanks to an older friend that basically bought shit ton of comics in the early 90's and grew up reading them up until the late 90's. My issue is that I can't go back to them, there have been so many different artist and authors in charge of all the characters, not including the massive events and the like, that you tend to not care.
Readers want to commit to something, then that something to end and then move on to other series for entertainment. That is why I still read manga, even if when growing up I mostly did with comics, I like to pick up a series and now that at some point the author will finish it and tie all the lose ends (if they don't get canned in the way) and I can move on, the only exception currently is Vagabond and Yotsubato that I wish both to be over soon and at the same time I want them to never finish because dear lord I love those 2 series.
That is not always an issue because a terrible author will most likely not make an interesting character. I do agree that it kinda sucks that we are never going to get a Yotsubato anime series.
this
im starting to feel that the sliding timeline that the companies created in order to be sure new readers could always start fresh ended up backfiring.
if they had kept a constant single story with old characters retiring and legacy characters taking up the mantle, whilst collecting all previous stories in an ever increasing series of omnibuses then it would be a lot easier to get into comics.
>you will never live in a timeline where comics have a comprehensive timeline like the DCAU or the MCU
>Why Jap stuff so consistently outsells Western stuff?
Because you weeabos are fucking compulsive weirdos, that's why.
It probably helps that Japanese manga have lower overhead costs than Western comics.
I think you nailed the logistical reasons.
And I think you nailed a major storytelling issue.
I know I like to collect a whole series, start to finish.
I think this is one of the reasons Hellboy works so well.
It is its own thing.
You can pick up the trades and you have a complete story.
Sliding timelines, taken to their logical conclusion, is how we got the Spiderman story One More Day.
mods are going to delete this soon
False! Westrn comics outsell Manga, at least in the bookstore market cbr.com
>Can we have an actual discussion about the major differences between Jap and Western comics and why Jap stuff so consistently outsells Western stuff?
You get more content for your money.
I have never paid for a manga, but its that simple.
they should start selling comics on cheaper paper like they do in japan, still release the more expensive higher quality comics for people willing to pay for them but offer a cheaper alternative.
Paper and ink are not major costs of comic production. It's like 25 cents an issue.
The major cost disparity is the colorist
Please distinguish American and general Western comics, it would really help my autism, and the same things don't apply to European or South-American markets.
For instance none of applies to Franco-belgian comics, and it should be noted that manga also (slightly) outsells bande dessinée in France.
How popular is our stuff in the east. Do japs like spiderman batman or superman?
Yeah mangas that go on for too damn long is an issue for me. Sometimes you feel like they stretched the plot and added depth only once they knew they could milk the title. Like I got into the comfiness of cooking in Toriko, but the more it went on the more it got to be about fights and muh saving the world and shit.
I feel the same way about One Piece.
Yes, I am a casual.
I mean that's why mangas black and white, but I've never seen theme do manga with all the pages colored like that.
This is likely a major factor. It could lead to both more creative freedom (less at stake = less reason to be cautious, you see this in low-budget films) and to the ultimate product being a lot cheaper per page.
I don't see why they would. Its stayed even more civil than I'd hoped and its a discussion about comics.
There'd be no reason to ax it other than some arbitrary vendetta against any conversation about non-Wester comics, which I've never seen the mods to have.
They do but they don't really buy comics.
There was a thread recently about the Gaiman award for foreign manga, it should still be in the archive.
From what I've read they like the characters, but rarely read the comics. Its even more niche over there than it is here.
Toriyama is such a supermanfag
that after MoS he changed goku's origin so it would be even more close to superman.
See Dragon ball minus