4 ms·

There's probably some value in the argument of "there are missing spots in the traditional American media marketplace, and right now they're being filled with i

by hakfoo 4y ago

There's probably some value in the argument of "there are missing spots in the traditional American media marketplace, and right now they're being filled with imported products." I never really got into American comics, but I have shelves full of manga/manhwa. There's probably things that can to be cherry-picked from it: * Improved availability to consume the entire franchise. Even one of the worst of the worst, One Piece, is basically a single straight run of 101 (currently) books which are easily obtainable. If I wanted to read "all of Spider-Man", it's likely hundreds of volumes across dozens of sub-titles, some of which are essentally unobtainable except as expensive collectibles. * Little to no "Cinematic Universe" stuff; this ties into the above concept; I don't need to follow twelve other series to know about the single story I've become invested in. * The classic "Weekly Jump" style phone-book magazine format is almost a proto-subscription in terms of risk aversion and explorability. If you know you already like one or two products, you can safely buy the (impossibly cheap) book, which gives you chance to explore the other 18 titles in there. * Some of the zanier premises that work out. One of my favourites was Eyeshield 21, a 37-volume story which effectively turned high school football into a shonen battle drama. Could that have flown even in the US?

MattDemers 4y ago
It also helps that it is extremely rare to see a manga have a rotating creative team, so you get a much more consistent story and tone, the whole way through. Having a creator come onto an American comic with a specific enthusiasm for one specific character, theme or trope, and have that dominate for years of that creators' tenure, is really annoying. Also, that creator needing to be aware of previous history (or choosing to ignore it entirely) means you're getting a mixed bag. I lost interest in Western comics after DC rebooted their universe ("Which time?" you ask? New 52) and it became clear that unless your favourite character was marquee (Superman, Batman, etc), it was completely out of control what was going to change or be ignored about their history. I ended up thinking "if comics aren't going to respect me as a reader, why am I staying around?" This, of course, got worse with the advent of the MCU and its imitators. Western comics are mostly just idea factories for films now; the "big name" creatives of the past are largely retired, or writing for TV/movies, and the people replacing them have nowhere near the vision (or freedom from Marvel or DC) to create compelling stories. Manga is completely demolishing Western comics' sales at every turn, and Oda being able to craft twenty years of a narrative (while making me feel rewarded for investing) is an amazing feat.
- oreally 4y ago
  Yea this is the effect of keeping stories and characters way past a human being's shelf life and span of interest. Call it capitalism and milking money off established IP, I suppose. A good amount of manga does seem to allow their characters and works to die off (with a few exceptions). > Western comics are mostly just idea factories for films now Personally I'm still finding interesting continuations in the recent evolution of the x-men mythos, where they have an actual nation now, all mutants included. DC comics seem to have come to a standstill with supermans/batmans in different favors and what-ifs.
- toyg 4y ago
  > Western comics are mostly just idea factories for films now I'm not denying this, but I find it a hypocritical view when you then compare it with mangas. 99% of manga is produced as an attempt to generate a franchise that will spawn anime series, anime movie(s), real-life movie(s), collectibles, and boatload of related merchandise. If US comics did the same, you'd be looking at 100x the audiovideo production they currently generate. The view you expose is a typical Western position.
  - anotherman554 4y ago
    "I'm not denying this, but I find it a hypocritical view when you then compare it with mangas. 99% of manga is produced as an attempt to generate a franchise that will spawn anime series, anime movie(s), real-life movie(s), collectibles, and boatload of related merchandise." The most popular western comics tend to be owned by a corporation like Disney that hires and fires artists in search of a bottom line. The comic will stay in production until it is no longer profitable. The most popular manga seem to have some amount of ownership retained by the original author. The manga tend to come to an end when the author retires. This doesn't mean manga artists are free of capitalistic concerns and western artists are all hacks (though emotionally I feel they kind of are...) but at least when it comes to the most popular books the two systems don't seem to operate that same way.
    - toyg 4y ago
rtpg 4y ago
I wonder if the big comics publishers have ever explored something like Jump. You have to fill a lot of pages with a lot of, honestly, garbage. Stuff that gets cancelled in 3 months. Shipping all over the place costing up the wazoo. And you probably can't get away with as much massive exploitation as in the Japanese industry. There are of course a lot of short story magazines doing similar stuff, but given how labor intensive comics work is, the genre hyperfocus the major publishers suffer from, and the impracticality of the physical format for distribution in the US... maybe a digital thing could work somewhere.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  Digital as a subscription service has most of the good things about the Jump-style concept. * The pricing needs to be at a level where casual fans can say "I'm reading 2 or 3 things, and that's enough to justify the overall subscription." * The audience gets a regular drip of new series launches, so there's low-risk discovery. * A customer's tastes for individual series can change, and series can end, without having to change the overall product they're buying. They can probably get better analytics than fan surveys with an online product too. They absolutely need to present it as "the entire Marvel/DC/Top Cow/etc universe for $XX per month" though, to avoid silo-related frustration. Nobody wants to pay for a subscription to Batman and then hit a paywall that says "Batman went to the Utility Belt Accessories Trade Show in Metropolis, buy a Superman subscription to continue reading." Manga sometimes has situations where a story moves from one serialization to another, but that's less necessary when you aren't dealing with physical publishing constraints.

by hakfoo 4y ago

MattDemers 4y ago

It also helps that it is extremely rare to see a manga have a rotating creative team, so you get a much more consistent story and tone, the whole way through. Having a creator come onto an American comic with a specific enthusiasm for one specific character, theme or trope, and have that dominate for years of that creators' tenure, is really annoying. Also, that creator needing to be aware of previous history (or choosing to ignore it entirely) means you're getting a mixed bag. I lost interest in Western comics after DC rebooted their universe ("Which time?" you ask? New 52) and it became clear that unless your favourite character was marquee (Superman, Batman, etc), it was completely out of control what was going to change or be ignored about their history. I ended up thinking "if comics aren't going to respect me as a reader, why am I staying around?" This, of course, got worse with the advent of the MCU and its imitators. Western comics are mostly just idea factories for films now; the "big name" creatives of the past are largely retired, or writing for TV/movies, and the people replacing them have nowhere near the vision (or freedom from Marvel or DC) to create compelling stories. Manga is completely demolishing Western comics' sales at every turn, and Oda being able to craft twenty years of a narrative (while making me feel rewarded for investing) is an amazing feat.

oreally 4y ago
Yea this is the effect of keeping stories and characters way past a human being's shelf life and span of interest. Call it capitalism and milking money off established IP, I suppose. A good amount of manga does seem to allow their characters and works to die off (with a few exceptions). > Western comics are mostly just idea factories for films now Personally I'm still finding interesting continuations in the recent evolution of the x-men mythos, where they have an actual nation now, all mutants included. DC comics seem to have come to a standstill with supermans/batmans in different favors and what-ifs.
toyg 4y ago
> Western comics are mostly just idea factories for films now I'm not denying this, but I find it a hypocritical view when you then compare it with mangas. 99% of manga is produced as an attempt to generate a franchise that will spawn anime series, anime movie(s), real-life movie(s), collectibles, and boatload of related merchandise. If US comics did the same, you'd be looking at 100x the audiovideo production they currently generate. The view you expose is a typical Western position.
- anotherman554 4y ago
  "I'm not denying this, but I find it a hypocritical view when you then compare it with mangas. 99% of manga is produced as an attempt to generate a franchise that will spawn anime series, anime movie(s), real-life movie(s), collectibles, and boatload of related merchandise." The most popular western comics tend to be owned by a corporation like Disney that hires and fires artists in search of a bottom line. The comic will stay in production until it is no longer profitable. The most popular manga seem to have some amount of ownership retained by the original author. The manga tend to come to an end when the author retires. This doesn't mean manga artists are free of capitalistic concerns and western artists are all hacks (though emotionally I feel they kind of are...) but at least when it comes to the most popular books the two systems don't seem to operate that same way.
  - toyg 4y ago

rtpg 4y ago

I wonder if the big comics publishers have ever explored something like Jump. You have to fill a lot of pages with a lot of, honestly, garbage. Stuff that gets cancelled in 3 months. Shipping all over the place costing up the wazoo. And you probably can't get away with as much massive exploitation as in the Japanese industry. There are of course a lot of short story magazines doing similar stuff, but given how labor intensive comics work is, the genre hyperfocus the major publishers suffer from, and the impracticality of the physical format for distribution in the US... maybe a digital thing could work somewhere.

hakfoo 4y ago
Digital as a subscription service has most of the good things about the Jump-style concept. * The pricing needs to be at a level where casual fans can say "I'm reading 2 or 3 things, and that's enough to justify the overall subscription." * The audience gets a regular drip of new series launches, so there's low-risk discovery. * A customer's tastes for individual series can change, and series can end, without having to change the overall product they're buying. They can probably get better analytics than fan surveys with an online product too. They absolutely need to present it as "the entire Marvel/DC/Top Cow/etc universe for $XX per month" though, to avoid silo-related frustration. Nobody wants to pay for a subscription to Batman and then hit a paywall that says "Batman went to the Utility Belt Accessories Trade Show in Metropolis, buy a Superman subscription to continue reading." Manga sometimes has situations where a story moves from one serialization to another, but that's less necessary when you aren't dealing with physical publishing constraints.