Why does no one give a shit about comics?

Why does no one give a shit about comics? Stuff like manga is a huge industry in Japan and a big chunk of the anime industry is built on the back of manga. Manga even has western appeal and it's only getting bigger and bigger alongside anime.

Why then, is it that no one cares about comic books or graphic novels? No one talks about it and all people tend to read is capeshit. People love stuff related to comics like movies and games but no one cares enough to actually read comics. What's going on here? Do you think the industry will continue to shrink? What could be done to induce growth?

Hop in for some general discussion.

Other urls found in this thread:

comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bookscan-16-Top-750_sheet.htm
bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38636362/john-lewis-book-sales-soar-after-donald-trump-row
washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/15/rep-john-lewiss-books-sell-out-following-donald-trumps-attacks/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

People like you insist in buying capeshit aimed at kids, and that includes mature titles like Deadpool or punisher. The industry can't expand as long as almost all the money goes to spiderman shitty comics. We can like it, we can love our manchildren shit, but let's not pretend it's anything more than glorified shit for kids, we rejected final crisis and we choose blackest night, we don't care about indie shit, only men in tights. Storytelling and art has not improved in 30 years in mainstream crap.

I don't read capeshit tho, I even said that most people tend to read cape shot while skipping over actual original comics. I agree with you

Because a large portion of the fan base are troglodytes who resent anyone trying to get into the hobby

Yeah, you nailed it; the only people who actually buy comics are to blame.
Those fuckers!

Repetitiveness of capeshit, where most of the market is

>we rejected final crisis and we choose blackest night, we don't care about indie shit, only men in tights.
And when I read my capeshit, I'll think of this user's plight
Because these elitist indiefags will never take our capeshit rights

Those fuckers!

You leave our lord and savior Frank Castle out of this

Comics are more popular than you think.

The problem is you; you're looking at the wrong sales charts.

Comics inside the direct market (your local LCS shop) sell thousands of copies, but comics outside the direct market (bookstores and online stores) sell millions of copies.

However, you wouldn't know that from reading Sup Forums, because Sup Forums is a bunch of plebeian casuals who only care about the Big Two, meaning that Sup Forums only wants to discuss the direct market (where Marvel and DC dominate) and never discusses the non-direct market (where DC and Marvel are dwarfed by the rest).

For example, pic related is the best-selling comic of 2017, but you'll never see any threads about it on Sup Forums because Sup Forums is too busy discussing the latest Marvel Rebirth or DC Generations or whatever other shit marketing gimmick they have coming out next.

Because America has reading problems
The only thing that propels interest in non cape work is when it gets adapted (Scott Pilgrim, Walking Dead especially, etc).
I remember seeing people getting surprised at how The Wolf Among Us was based on a comic

Even if they sell that much why don't people hear about it? I'm not super into anime/manga but I always hear about whatever the next big thing is and all the "geek culture" news sites are reporting on it whereas no one even knows about the next big comic series. I mean I browse a fucking comic book forum, that already puts me ahead of 99.9% of people in terms of interest in comics and no one on here talks about that shit. So if no one on a dedicated comic forum talks about or hears about this shit than how is the general public supposed to?

>Do you think the industry will continue to shrink?
This isn't happening. The industry grows every year.

It's not as big as in Japan because they have this big animation industry that pushes the manga and light novels sales, while here we have blockbusters every now and then that are loosely based on a bunch of stories.

Look at "The Killing Joke". The animated movie doubled the number of sales.

Japans comics scene is different than ours for a MYRIAD of reasons so complex and spread out over time that it is not something the North American industry can duplicate especially not in 2017

Because comics don't drive the clicks

Comics Adjacent Coverage does

This looks like something ordered for a million college classes on diversity.

>Even if they sell that much why don't people hear about it?
Because your "geek culture" sites are only interested in discussing Marvel and DC.

Go read TCJ if you want news about the rest of the medium.

Here are the Top 20 comics in the Bookstore Market for 2016

2016 sales

comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bookscan-16-Top-750_sheet.htm

"March" is behind Dc and Image books.

fuck no.

The point is that indie shit isn't popular and the big sites don't cover it. Of course if you go to some uber niche site you'll find people reporting on it.

i give a shit, faggot.

>The point is that indie shit isn't popular
Indie shit isn't popular as a clickbait """news""" story, but in actual sales it sells more than Marvel or DC.

I said 2017. Sales shot up massively after the inauguration.

>but in actual sales it sells more than Marvel or DC.
lol sauce that shit. I don't believe it. Why would indie shit sell more than marketing power houses like Marvel and DC who have billions of dollars behind them?

If we included newspaper comics and children's books, people do care about the comic as an art medium.

The problem is why a single genre with high barriers to entry dominates a niche industry that is built to serve a niche audience. Why would you ever expect that to be competitive with manga?

Hold on, I misread your post.

I'm going to look for some actual numbers, but here's the BBC talking about a massive surge of interest in March.

bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38636362/john-lewis-book-sales-soar-after-donald-trump-row

Not a good enough excuse.

Raina Telgemeier's comics outsell Marvel and DC too, but for completely different reasons.

I wasn't making an observation not an excuse.
I don't care what sells and what doesn't.

holy shit your pleb opinions are ridiculous, March is a great comic and was on the NYTimes best seller list. It has tons and tons of appeal outside of classes

Gotten to

Calling someone a pleb using the NYT Best Seller list is kinda funny user.

Are you a bunch of retards? I'm serious here, because not even a week ago there was a thread where we examined comic sales, both direct market and in bookstores, and guess what: the comic industry and capeshit are both growing every year. In fact, comics are the only print medium still growing.


Capeshit, especially DC, dominates in bookstores, online, and digitally.

it was the counter the guy who said "it was just ordered for classes" but yeah using proof to back up your claim sure is funny and plebish you fucking tard.

Because there are very few quality comics and 99% of them are shit.

Look at pic related. Name a single comic book that's better. Or name a single comic book with better art work.
Pro tip: YOU CAN'T

Telgemeier's books dont outsell DC in bookstores. Maybe single volumes do here and there, but overall DC has some of the highest selling books in bookstores.

Okay, here we are.

washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/15/rep-john-lewiss-books-sell-out-following-donald-trumps-attacks/
>Sales for [March] had ballooned more than 100,000 percent

They're not naming actual numbers, but there's a massive amount of sales for March that your link doesn't cover.

Do you expect people to know about every thread that happens on Sup Forums? You fucking mong.

easy, Airtight Garage and Contract With God are both better. Good job showing off your casual levels.

>In fact, comics are the only print medium still growing.
well, clearly the demise of print on general is the fault of capefans.

Berserk is your goto user really?

Really?

Sure it looks good but Best?

I expect people not to make retarded assumptions about this board and the industry as a whole without the proper information to do so.

Graphic Novel sales from Bookscan over the past few years

Note the %s

Class sales don't count on the NYT? And that guy said nothing anout the appeal of the book, spaz.

Is there any comic artist in the West as good as Kaoru Mori?

I do. So there goes your chucklefuck of an argument.

Every DC comic combined sells more than Telgemeier, but a single Telgemeier sells more than any single DC book.

See .

Sure but we probably aren't going to agree because how good something is is not generally something two people will completely agree with.

You're a nobody tho so it doesn't matter what you read.

Throw out some examples of what you consider to be equivalent technical proficiency?

Angry anti-cape fags are always good for a laugh.

Some of those posts don't disagree with you. Are you clicking randomly?

>This looks like something ordered for a million college classes on diversity.

is what the user said. No book JUST ordered for college classes gets on the NYTimes best seller list. Goddamn you dumb faggot, learn to read.

Richard McGuire
Michel Fiffe
Michael Deforge
Aidan Koch
Connor Willumsen
Sam Alden
Julia Gfrörer
Blutch

I can keep going if you want.

Killing Joke has sold more over its lifetime than any single Telgemeier book. My point was that while some months one of her books might sell more, over lifetime sales DC has many more single books that sell more.

What about sad ones

>hurr durr you made one mistake so it was all random

no one likes to read dude

>and that includes mature titles like Deadpool

Oh my!

>My point was that while some months one of her books might sell more
That chart covers an entire year, not a month. And she has been a powerhouse for a few years now.

You can go back and add up all the decades together if you want to see whether or not TKJ still comes out ahead, but AT THIS MOMENT her comics outsell DC's comics.

most people just don't sit and read anymore

People love comics, just not cape comics. Creator-driven stuff that has a definitive beginning and forward progression does pretty well in America.

>Why would indie shit sell more than marketing power houses like Marvel and DC who have billions of dollars behind them?
Because Marvel and DC only have marketing budgets for their movies, not their comics.

March outsold DC and Marvel because it has the power of Trump behind it.

>comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bookscan-16-Top-750_sheet.htm
Marvel's trades sell like shit, huh?

Only Deadpool and Kamala. Crazy how X-Men, Avengers and the big guys (Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk and Thor) don't sell at all.

People give a shit about comics, just not the ones you want them to give a shit about. It sucks, but what do you expect when most of the attention is either on adaptations and best-seller lists?

Marvel has always been behind because DC got a major head start on them in the bookstore stuff and they don't have something like a Walking Dead to goose their whole line. Marvel is still rising just so is everyone else.

Here are the 3 of those guys from that 2016 list

...

>high barriers to entry
This is a bullshit line spewed by people to justify why they don't read cape comics despite claiming to love the characters and being obssesed with the shallow pool of auxillary media. You either read the comics or you don't it's pretty fucking simple. Libraries have them, amazon sells them and there are all kinds of helpful internet guides if you somehow feel daunted.
Fuck this meme and all you faggots who perpetuate it.

...

From a cursory example of the galleries of these artists, I would say that you're conflating compositional strength and intuitive art sense with technical skill for about half of them, but I'll give it to you on the other half.

>Why does no one give a shit about comics?
Why should they?

That's just not true. Telegmier's books sell like gangbusters at School book fairs and they certainly outsell the single issues but books like Watchmen, TDKR and The Killing Joke always are top sellers in bookstores

Reading is hard.

I just don't give a shit about highly detailed comic work most of the time and care more about how things flow and move within a page

Adding more detail and more lines to a page isn't necessarily going to make your comic more interesting or exciting it often feels like a cheap trick

I am more curious what people can do with less lines

Why do you dismiss it so out of hand if you have heard it so widespread and from different people?

This is my favorite bit from the Bookscan

Who appears most on the list name wise.

>detailed art is a cheap trick
Is that the sound of rationalization I hear?

Read the chart covering the past year. Telgemeier outsold Watchmen. Telgemeier outsold TDKR. Telegemeier outsold TKJ. For all time, maybe not, but in 2016, definitely so.

Unless you have a way to specifically separate out the bookstore sales from the non-bookstore sales, I feel safe in saying that she outsold them.

No it is just what I feel from a lot of what I see posted especially here, obviously Sup Forums is often not a good place for the entire picture but Superheroes and that style is often a death sentence (see all Alex Ross comics)

No fuck off, not understanding the fundaments of page composition and paneling, then compensating with LINES LINES LINES (see: Jim Lee) is a cheap trick.
Get some fucking reading comprehension.

Detailed art requires more skill and time than simple art, calling it a cheap trick is ridiculous. You're rationalizing.

Do you actually believe the first part of your statement?

>not understanding the fundaments of page composition and paneling, then compensating with LINES LINES LINES (see: Jim Lee) is a cheap trick
That's not what he said. He said:
>Adding more detail and more lines to a page isn't necessarily going to make your comic more interesting or exciting it often feels like a cheap trick
Now fuck off.

I do because it's true.

>I just don't give a shit about highly detailed comic work most of the time and care more about how things flow and move within a page
To me that kinesthetic sense is more compositional and intuitive

>Adding more detail and more lines to a page isn't necessarily going to make your comic more interesting or exciting it often feels like a cheap trick
But I was explicitly referring to the technical artistic skill which you reductively dismiss as "more lines."

I seriously hope you don't consider something like pic related to be a cheap trick

>I am more curious what people can do with less lines
And I am interested in seeing the ability of an artists to combine detail with stylization.

You got a lot to learn about comics then I am happy for what you will find out.

>Why does no one give a shit about comics?
I think in general terms it's gotten better, at least in my lifetime I've seen comic readership on the upswing (I'm 24 and have been reading comics since 2001).

>Stuff like manga is a huge industry in Japan ... getting bigger and bigger alongside anime.
I think the thing is that in Japan people never stop reading Manga. A lot of Adult American comic reader might have read comics as a kid, but then "grew out of them", only to re-discover them later.

>Why then, is it that no one cares about comic books or graphic novels? No one talks about it and all people tend to read is capeshit.

Americans don't read enough in the whole. ANd what they do read is genre stuff like Stephen King, Dean Koontz or JK Rowling.

>People love stuff related to comics like movies and games but no one cares enough to actually read comics. What's going on here? Do you think the industry will continue to shrink? What could be done to induce growth?

The same thing has been happening for years with books and film. How many people see James Bond films, but have never read the Ian Flemming books, or play Tom Clancey's Splinter Cell but never opened a Tom Clancy paperback.

I think it starts in the schools. Get kids interest when their young and they will love to read forever. Make it a chore and they will feel like reading is punishment.

>You got a lot to learn about comics then
No I don't. This is just basic logic.

I am Stan Lee, ask me anything.

You're right user we shouldn't buy comics, That'll teach them

You shouldn't buy comics that aren't creator-owned.

>Get kids interest when their young and they will love to read forever. Make it a chore and they will feel like reading is punishment.
This is true. I have yet to meet anyone who still regularly enjoys comics who didn't get into them as a kid.

Y-You're not dying are you Stan? H-hows your health?

You are basically confirming my first statement on this that people are different and like different things about comics.

There is nothing wrong with that drawing but it is meaningless to me out of context

I feel sorry for you then user.

>Why do you dismiss it so out of hand if you have heard it so widespread and from different people?
I have several reasons
For one, it's objectively false, even if you're completely confused by the concept of modern arcs/runs/shared universe, you can still go back and read the original comics from the Golden Age which are pretty much completely self contained through mid Silver Age, with crossovers only happening in crossover titles. This is not a difficult concept to learn about or understand, it would take about 60 seconds on google to learn, a minute of talking with a comic shop clerk (which some are awful I won't deny it for a second)/librarian or it can be intrinsically understood "Huh, I want to read about this character, I should start at the very beginning!".
>b-but these comics are shit
No they're not, especially not Action, Detective, Captain America or Captain Marvel.

Second is experiential. I started reading big 2 cape comics by reading the continuity steeped weekly series 52. I absolutely loved it, I loved the mythos of the DCU and the way the book explored it, despite knowing almost nothing about it. Things you don't understand or miss tend not to be plot intensive, especially since big 2 comics constantly use expositional dialogue or flashbacks to explain things SPECIFICALLY for these types of readers. It's more like being dropped into an in medias res film than literally starting one in the middle, because you are still starting at the beginning of a narrative arc, unless you have a room temperature IQ and can't recognize that you're in the middle of a story. It's actually a genuinely enjoyable experience to learn and absorb as you go, discover what kind of characters, writers and artists you enjoy.

1/2, hitting text limit

But "detail" is not skill in making a comic page you fucking retard.

But this is all confirmation bias

I like this thing so everyone who tells me they don't is lying because I like it. Don't you see that?

People have different balances of interests and free time and mediums they want to dive in on.

So them wanting a simpler thing to jump in with Comics does not feel like an unvalid want or desire.

You feel sorry for me because I grasp basic logic? Why?

Comics consist of drawn images, you fucking retard.

That spike in 2015 tho.

Vagabond
Gantz
Terra Formars

Not saying they're better than Berserk but all of them have high quality art like Berserk

Because I specifically asked about technical proficiency, since you seem to have forgotten about that fact. Like the way Mori uses hatching to represent the "scales" for lack of a better term that come off when you whittle or carve wood, her skill with light, shadow and perspective with complex geometric figures, and even her grasp of anatomy.

2/2
The third is anecdotal on both sides. I've known about 5-10 people who have said something along the lines of "Well I want to get into cape comics but it's so confusing!" but when I ask them "What did you find confusing, what did you read?", they say "well I didn't read anything, it's to confusing to even know where to start". This is not a statement about entry barrier, this is a statement about their actual desire to read a Superhero comic. If someone said "I don't know where to start with Italian Neo Realists, it's too hard, so I don't watch the films" we don't say that there's a high barrier to the Neo Realist genre, we tell them the truth and say that they don't really want to watch these films. Minutes of low effort work (googling, talking to a clerk/librarian) would solve this "problem". You don't just get to say it's "a high entry barrier" because no one has any desire to actually read the books.
On the other side I have a friend who has a bit of OCD so he literally took every book he could find on the internet from post Crisis DC and ordered the arcs chronologically, and now is reading it all. This took less than 24 hours to set up, and he's just been rolling ever since. He made the "entry barrier" an advantage to how he likes to read. He also set up his chronology as a series of torrents, so anyone else who wants to read in this way now can with no effort. He also took that "Morrison Bat Epic" image on Sup Forums and made a torrent from it.

Frankly just overall, to claim there's any kind of "entry barrier" to any media hobby is fucking insane when hobbies like skiing, horseback riding and rock climbing exist. Things where you actually have to physically acclimate, not just read.

So in summary, fuck off with this meme, it's not real.

Not that user but I think he means that ultimately, even though a comic is a sequence of pictures, the detail of said pictures is not a necessary a skill in terms of comics. And he's right. Detail is not needed to make a good comic. Storytelling, transition of action, consistency, timing, and writing are. With those things I can make a great comic with stick figures.
Is wonderful art welcome? Of fucking course it is. Does it make a good comic better? Yes. Is it absolutely necessary? No.

Italian neo realist movies don't form a shared universe stretching back decades.

It's rationalization to claim that detailed art is a cheap trick.