Forum - View topicAnswerman - Are American Comics Popular In Japan?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
|
|||||||
The numbers I have access to are only for a single shop, and one in Australia, not the US, though the two are culturally close enough to be a useful enough parallel... US comics certainly sell nowhere near what they used to. The release of a comic-based movie usually drives a slight uptick in sales of the relevant comics, but certainly not to numbers anything like the heyday of comics. Also, DC does okay in terms of comic sales, but very poorly in terms of movies. Marvel, on the other hand, does really strongly in terms of movies, but pretty poorly in terms of comics. Popularity of the movies really doesn't correlate to popularity of the comics. And in comparison to manga? A popular current DC title, combined sales of single issue and the corresponding softcover and hardcover compilation (which is slightly artificially inflated by "collector" habits like buying 1 of each cover, a copy to keep pristine and a copy to read, issue and the book later, etc) sells less than a volume of a popular current manga title, combined single volume and omnibus edition sales. Marvel, as noted, less than DC.
Politics has always been present in comics, and you're in serious denial if you actually believe otherwise. (Tell me Captain America punching Adolph Hitler in the face was apolitical. Go on.) There are a number of reasons for the generally sorry state of the US comics industry currently, but "appeasing the far left" is not one of them. Long-term damage done by Fred Wertham's book is a major one, and if he had a partisan political motivation at all and if so which side is unknown, but identifying homosexual subtext as being a problem is generally more right-wing. Otherwise, the problem with US comics can ultimately be summed up as being that they do market them to the fans, to an excessive degree. Needing to be familiar with decades of continuity to make any sense of a story, much less enjoy it, doesn't sell to casual readers and grow the fanbase. Needing to buy issues from series other than the one you're following to follow a given storyline sounds like it would, but it puts off more people than it brings in to new titles. Fans who have now become editors dictating to writers what to write to further their fanboy agenda rather than let the writers just write a good story is a big one. In spite of your insistence that left-wing pandering is harming sales, one problem (particularly with Marvel) has been underpromoting minority-focused titles and cancelling them when they've sold reasonably well anyway. But what would I know? I'm clearly too infected with these far-left ideas to see the truth that you do. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Laethiel
 Posts: 42 |
|
|||||||
This is definitely the case for me. One thing I like about the vast majority of manga is that I can just start at volume one and go from there, without worrying about plot threads from other series suddenly coming up. Major continuity crossovers are a neat idea, but they're more likely to make me just ignore everything involved than get into other series. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
|
|||||||
|
I love it when Japanese manga-ka talk about their love for American superhero comics or make it obvious through their work. Cross cultural inspiration is fun!
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
|
|||||||
I think you're misconstruing and simplifying those characters' histories quite a bit. The main villain for the X-Men is a Jewish Holocaust survivor, after all.
Most of those titles were cancelled due to poor sales. The ones that still remain are some of the lowest selling books on the market. The artists and writers they hired weren't famous or anything, they were fresh out of art school and could be signed to a lowballed contract. It's pretty preditory behavior and benefits no one but the company's pocket books.
Politics have indeed been in comics, but they were more tactful back then. One of my favorite heroes is Green Arrow, and he was basically the bleeding heart liberal of DC. There's quite a big differance between him and [UNSOLICITED OPINIONS ON ISRAEL!?]. The former is what old writers used to do, the latter is what you get when you hire people who have never written a comic before in their life. And since this is the second time the Hitler thing has been mentioned, I'd like to point out that cover was WW2 propaganda, back when comics were telling us to Slap a Japanese and support concentration camps. Not sure if those are messages you'd also agree with. For more of that tact I mentioned, a later story had Captain America defended Neo Nazi rallies under the banner of free speech from violent protestors, warning them not to become that which they hate. If people think Cap would support the whole 'punch people I disagree with' meme, they're mistaken. -Stuart Smith |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Crisha
Moderator
 Posts: 4290 |
|
|||||||
|
@ulyssesjoyce89 - At this point it looks like you've come into this thread just to troll or potentially soapbox an issue. Cool it, or the mods will start editing or deleting posts.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Kadmos1
 Posts: 13566 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
|
|||||||
|
I read sometime in 2008 (maybe during the summer) that "Urusei Yatsura", the earliest to have any traceable harem-type tropes, may have been inspired by the Betty or Veronica? love triangle. Heck, UY's Mendous even resembles Reggie Mantle a bit.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5976 |
|
|||||||
Which is interesting as politics wasn't what nearly killed Marvel back in the 90's
Magneto hasn't been a main villain for the X-Men in ages though. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
|
|||||||
Politics may not have nearly killed Marvel in the 1990s -- it was the buying spree of Marvel's parent company at the time (Revlon) which pushed Marvel's debt to at least $200 million by the time Revlon's owner (Ron Perlman) lost Marvel to another business outfit, a bunch of stupid decisions like Marvel trying to distribute its own comics nationally with a very small REGIONAL distributor, and putting out for too many lousy gimmick comics -- but the politics are definltely NOT helping the comic right now. The comics also are frankly not fun anymore but that's only my opinion and the opinion of many people in my age and younger who actually read Marvel Comics written before the 21st Century. Arguably Marvel's best decade was the 1960s. After the 1990s? Pfffttt!!!! The politics are overly left-wing. No question about it. It would be just as annoying if there were too conservative but that hasn't been the case for at least 20 years now. There were always plenty of left-wing writers -- always have been in comics! -- but they were also not being as blatant about the political angles as they are now and they weren't overtly insulting people who disagreed with their POV, either. They understood the importance of not ticking off half their potential audience base and didn't have the arrogance and air of entitlement a lot of the writers of today do. I've met some of these guys from the past (1970s, 1980s, 1990s writers) and they're generally nice guys. I don't know that I can say that about many people who came into the business after the mid-1990s. I'm sorry but I get a total different vibe from those guys. Some of what's written on Tumblr and Twitter doesn't help the case of current comic book writers and artists. They come off very bratty and condescending to long-term comic book readers many of whom are older than these artists and writers. We all get set in our ways but there's a matter of being respectful of people and many of the newer writers and artists aren't respectful of people. There have been a number of artists who lost contracts with Marvel because they put things into their artwork that was controversial to say the least. An artist was removed from all his contract work because he put Suras into the background of the art and Marvel caught hell for it. This was well-covered on the major comic book websites. Saleswise, Americans comics have been in decline since the end of World War II. There was a brief speculator boom in the early 1990s but it backfired and permanently crippled the industry from the mid-1990s onward. It's NEVER completely recovered from that point and it's still going down despite attempts to "write the situation up." Several titles (Superman, the original Captain Marvel, Captain America) used to sell a million books a month easy during the World War II era. The total sales for one year was over a BILLION books sold from all the different publishers during World War II. Believe it not, the cancellation basement was around 200,000 copies for a comic which meant IF the comic sold below 200,000 copies a month, it was cancelled. This was the case through at least the mid-1960s when one very popular DC Comic, The Doom Patrol, was cancelled when it sold below that cancellation point. Today, there are a number of characters like Wonder Woman who can't sell much above 20,000 copies of a comic in a given month! The average top-selling comic barely breaks over 100,000 copies in a good month. The average sales of A COMIC -- not Marvel or DC -- is something at or below 3,000 copies in a month. I've heard it's around 1,500 although they do sell less in many cases. Manga has NEVER sold well in the 32-page format although Viz and a number of companies tried to sell it that way for the better part of at least 20 years before they gave up and started selling manga in English editions of the tankobons they sell in Japan. THAT'S when manga started better but I seriously doubt any manga TPB has sold as well as Watchmen continues to sell for DC Comics. Manga definitely has a defined shelf-life of maybe a few years before it declines in popularity. Some comic book stories like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns continue to sell well in TPB reprints decades after they were originally published. They've brought back a few manga like Ranma 1/2 and OMG well after they finished but the companies involved with the English reprints got very good deals to do the new editions (usually in cheaper omnibus format) and there was enough a leftover fanbase to make it worth doing those reprints. Most manga disappear a period and you never hear of them again (just like anime). Comic book publishing is just not a very profitable business. Where they make money is in licensing -- T-shirts, videogames, toys, statues. It's a collector-driven market, yes, but it's a market mainly aimed at people well over 20 years old now! The average age of a comic book collector was probably around 12-years-old through the late 1960s, early 1970s. After the 1980s, that number went WAY up and the average age starts probably mid-20s but there are quite a few people in their 30s and 40s who are collectors. More of those guys have quit in recent years because of the usual -- they got bored of the hobby, monthly comics are TOO expensive (the average 32-page comic is closer to $4 now!), and the politics, of course! Where the superhero movies are affecting things is definitely in the licensing arena -- they drive toy sales and sales of videogames as well as keep the brand alive just like animated shows did in the past. The movies DO NOT impact sales measurably. That's for a variety of reasons: 1) there are fewer comic book shops than ever; way less than half of the number there was in the early 1990s when the comic book craz peaked; 2) comic book shops generally aren't in the nicest areas of town and are not very accessible for kids; many towns smaller than 50,000 people don't even have a shop and quite a few of the cities of 200,000-400,000 people MAYBE have 2-3 comic shops total; those shops are almost always in a rundown section of town or dilapidated-looking mall area; 3) the movies and comics almost NEVER look alike. That was a complaint aimed against the X-Men comics in the early 2000s!!! They chose to garb the X-Men characters in "biker gear" in the movies because, let's face it, most traditional costume designs do NOT work well in real life. They look ridiculous on most people! If you don't believe me, go to your local con and tell me how many people actually look good in spandex! I'm absolutely convinced outside of comics that the only place superhero outfits really look good is in animation. The traditional Batman and Superman outfits look good in animation but they've rarely translated well into live-action unless the tone of the show was right (campy for the 1960s live-action Batman) OR they cast an actor with the right look (Christopher Reeve for Superman in the late 1970s and 1980s). It's been the same for most other characters they've attempted live-action versions but the casting rarely lines up well for most characters. They usually get bad actors or someone completely wrong for the character. The most successful casting in recent memory probably was Robert Downey as Iron Man/Tony Stark. I think Chris Evans is also a good Captain America, too, but most of the other casting choices are "meh." |
||||||||
|
||||||||
jr240483
 Posts: 4385 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
|
|||||||
but its also why some japaneese fans and some US anime otakus hate hollywood. they tend to NOT give the other any respect for their work which leads to discussions like these on whether or not the other likes their products. not to mention on how many times anything that is popular in japan gets immediately snubbed in the west unless its under the studio ghibli banner which was proven moreso with zero oscar nods. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
TheAnimeRevolutionizer
 Posts: 329 |
|
|||||||
I honestly think the hate needs to be directed at the correct culprit of cultural self absorbed and promoted ignorance as well as questionable and now eroding (as well as nearing imploding self destruction) questionably dubious and specific hallmarks of American politics and culture. Hollywood is desperate for money- Their acts of not only producer and studio executive driven creative design and uncreative, bland, as well as stale and unmoving tropes and established conventions that have now holed them into nowhere along with the "intended demographics" they've aimed for only leave them for the birds and reboots. It's not all dead, thank heavens, but for the most part when the MCU train somehow (and inevitably) explodes/implodes, that's going to leave a big gap of power to fill in and everyone will want a foot in it. It's practically nearly 100 years since Hollywood ever made it big, and if it wants 100 more, it's going to need to do more than what they are doing now. As we've covered in the thread on animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=5001947#5001947, Hollywood's fighting that uphill battle along with TV to even make a profit nowadays.
I live near a major metropolitan area and honestly, it's shown that only the best of the best stick around. While they are few and spread throughout the city, they usually are big, they have real estate in the best parts of town, and they aren't lackluster in stock. The closest (but far from seedy and run down) one I can think of is one beyond the tracks and in the heart of the urban area, but it's largely an enormous mom and pop bookstore than just a comic books shop. Of course, only one of them is comics only and they are able to profit largely from that. The other one has to pull in money from tabletop games and manga to stay afloat, and it's pricey. There was another one near the latter, but I'll just say that the place folded when the owner was caught with illegal spec firearms one day. They do exist and the culture is nice, but that's because it's in a major city. It's lucky enough to have a twice annual small comics convention, and that's not including the anime conventions.
Overtly "realistic" and "gritty" visual thematics should die in a hole as it should. I remember when things used to have color and authentic realism, or creativity and a cinematic vision. Nowadays everyone needs brown and dirt vision to relate to their burnt out brooding souls. And everyone tells me Sasuke and Cloud Strife are "whiny emos"....
For anyone reading this who is an aspiring artist/author/writer/someone who wants to work creatively in comics and animation, or who are interested fans and enthusiasts and hobbyists like me and everyone here, let me tell you some words of wisdom. Being an artist is as much of a spiritual journey as it is being an artisan and tradesman. When you create sequential art, be it a comic, animation, video game, a new form of media, anything of the nature, you are working with a lot of disciplines and it requires every ounce of your effort and being to make it work. Manga is no different. You want to know why manga and anime blew up as it did back then? Even if a lot of it were OVAs and video games when it touched down over here? There's a spirit of not just commitment but also a need to be professional and have integrity as well as sincerity. It showed us that through understanding and self improvement, even if that work wasn't as great as it was, even if that person wasn't the kind of person they needed to be at that point in time, they still put out something, at least, and did it the best they could. It's not just through mere virtues either. There's applying them. There's the need to have meaning in your work. There's the need to have research and genuine thought put in to your work. There's the need to apply your inspiration and motivations, your dreams and hopes, all of it, behind it to drive it forward. There's the need to let someone know that they deserved to be ticked off because they're doing something wrong. There's the need to stand up and stick it to them and their brains with an inescapable sense of humanity and justice. There's a need to apply that to things that go beyond all false borders and bindings and quake the world with that empathy. So if you wanted to know why the Marvel Mangaverse is at large a bad series, that's the reason why. And for those of you at Marvel and DC and even independents and small publishers, I'd advise this: It's been 22 years. Get your @#$#ing act together. Learn a thing or two, pick up the pace, or else get left in the dust. This country isn't a cultural stewpot for nothing, and I've been waiting a long time for some heroic revolution. Then again, if you won't, guess I WILL. If no one's jumping at the opportunity, go for it yourself, isn't that right? To help brighten things up.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10WvTSY6gZQ Do the Captain Atlantis with me! Come on!~ :3 Also enjoy this compilation of Marvel and DC tribute art. https://vanishingtrooper.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/superhero2-artbook-by-gainax-and-friends/ Beware, it has Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore imagined as anime schoolgirls ( :3c ) and my Main Man Lobo giving the finger (as always  ).
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5976 |
|
|||||||
Given the nature of comic book writing you're going to wind up ticking off your potential reader base even when you don't insert politics into your stories.
The fans themselves are equally bad about this. When you're calling for the firing of people who wrote something you didn't like, even when what they wrote wasn't remotely bad you can't claim to have the moral high ground.
The only one that's ever bugged me the most was Hugh Jackman I could never buy this handsome, dashing, singer from Australia as a guy whose notorious for being a violent, tenacious, and tough as nails....Canadian. Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth wasn't much better. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Nacirema
Posts: 58 |
|
|||||||
|
I would like to point out, looking at the actual data, the issue affecting comics isn't really politics or female/poc in comics. John Lewis's comic is the top selling graphic novel and Ta-Nehisi Coates comic is one of the top 20.
There are sales statistics from 2017 that back that point up. There a article with a graph of the top selling comics. https://i2.wp.com/www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/UPDATED-bookscan2017.jpg?resize=1000%2C558 Out of the top 20 graphic novels of 2017, 9 are manga, 3 are from Marvel/DC, and 8 are from publishers that tend to deal with non-superhero comics. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
|
|||||||
Bookscan is pretty useless since they never put out numbers. Also not sure what 'adult graphic novel' limits... especially when they got kids stuff on there. For comparison's sake, Coates' Black Panther sells about 20,000 a month.
I'd say any writer who came into the DC/Marvel industry after 2010 should be avoided. It's a very big tell.
Evans doesnt fit Captain america with me very well. He seems too soft. I think the worst hero casting so far is Thor. He looks like a wimp compared to the glorious muscular Fabio-looking God of Thunder. I also cant take Cumberbatch Dr. Strange seriously at all. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
|
|||||||
So, when the sales numbers don't match bias they're "useless"? Based on what? Where are the "real" sales numbers? Also, I looked at this list and there are no "kids comics" on there--the aliebn book and March are for teens, just like Tokyo Ghoul is. Not that looking at kids comics sales is a bad thing, because they tend to sell more than graphic novels/comics for adults, which brings us to a major issue--Marvel & DC could be revitalizing sales by focusing more on kids, but they keep trying to make their adult readers happy. And they keep trying to make money through direct-market, single issue print sales, as if it we weren't living in an age where the focus should be on collections and digital. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
|
|||||||
The issue is they're not sales numbers, they're ranks. #1 could have sold 10 copies, or 10 million. Hense why they're useless.
TPB and digital sales don't matter. It's actually become a running joke in the industry to snark "but we don't know the TPB and digital sales!" because of how some people continuoisly stand by them. If a book fails in the direct market, it's considered a flop. So many series have been cancelled and deemed a financial loss despite fans standing by the TPB and digital sales, which again, we never know the actual numbers to. Physical still makes up the bulk of the profits, and TPB are unreliable compared to floppies. They lack the dedicated fans of the direct market, the 'otaku' if you will.. Really, it's no different from how a manga being axed or not will come down to how it does in the magazine, not the later tankobon releases. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group