Forum - View topicINTEREST: Fact Check: Did Demon Slayer Really Outsell All of American Comics?
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3445 Location: Finland |
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Yeah, no surprise there. Article gives a pretty good analysis why... |
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Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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Another problem with the American comics industry is the lack of variety.
Is all about Superheros. Its fine if you only like superheros but in the end the stories end up been the same. The powers or the origin of the powers are different but in the end is always "the enemy of the week". Even worse, with all reboots, remakes and different universes, it end up been a absolute madness to try to follow a story line. How many Spidermans exist!? And the same is starting to happen with cinema with movies been infested with superheros movies, almost everything else is dying in the movie theaters. In the other end, manga are very linear and with a amazing variety of genres. Even if battle shonen are almost the same or isekai are almost the same, you can find different stories from slice of life to dark fantasy passing trough ecchi and harems and. Scyfy, robots, yuri, BL and hentai. Thing about something and you will find it on manga. |
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doubleO7
 Posts: 1069 |
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^ To be fair, there is plenty of variety in American and other non-Japanese comics. Walk into a comic shop and you can find all kinds of series in different genres for different ages and audiences. Superhero comics are the biggest chunk of that industry, and perhaps the most visible, but lets not generalize too much. That's basically the same as assuming every manga is just battle shonen and isekai because those come out in such high volumes or become the most popular when there is, like you said yourself, so much more.
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jdnation
Posts: 1995 |
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There are still good new American Comics - just not from Marvel and DC.
You'd have to turn to publishers like Image, who've put out stuff like The Walking Dead, Deadly Class, Jupiter's Legacy etc. Of course the issue is that many of those are basically for grown ups with very mature subject matter. Also manga has anime going for it which is a great way to get kids into manga. We all loved the 90's Batman and Spider-Man cartoons. Those were primarily aimed at selling toys on American television, but when the Saturday Morning Cartoon timeslots went away for 24 hour Cartoon Network channels, the shows were basically animation first - comic spin-offs and merch second. Whereas anime was always primed at getting people into the manga for most popular shows. It helped that those were direct adaptations, so once the season ended, you could pick up the exact story from whichever volume it left off at and didn't even have to start at volume 1 if you wanted to know what happens next. American comics from Image and other smaller publishers from Dark Horse etc. are also largely aiming to get TV shows and movies made and many like Mark Millar's works seem like pitches for films. Anyway, the point is that kids and teens are a big market for comics, and DC/Marvel Heroes have grown stale with nothing new by being shackled to their "universes" whereas manga creators don't have to worry about any of that stuff that has grown to confusing multiverse nonsensical levels. My Hero Academia is eating their lunch, and best of all is that you know that someday it will wrap up well without becoming a dead horse with which to beat more money out from, and at best there aren't that many spin-offs. It's fresh, it's new, it features characters their age, and isn't wrapped up in any tiresome corny U.S. politics. |
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zackdavisson
Industry Insider
Posts: 15 |
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I see this a lot from manga readers, and its not actually true. Its a mistake to equate Marvel / DC superheroes with "the American comics industry." The same mistake is often made by American comics readers who think all manga is DragonBall / Sailor Moon. Both are stereotypes. Both are untrue. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4817 |
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To be honest I don't know why it particularly matters so much whether or not manga is outselling Western comics or why anime fans keep trying to put them against each other. You're allowed to like both Western comics and manga at the same time and one of them isn't inherently superior to the other. I also notice it seems like it's only manga fans that keep trying to push this manga vs comics war. Maybe they did 20 years ago when manga was still niche and thought of as weird in the West, but nowadays I rarely see Western comic book fans putting down anime and manga and most people enjoy both. It always seems like it's mainly manga fans with an axe to grind always putting down Western comics. It's not 1997 anymore people.
Last edited by Cardcaptor Takato on Wed May 26, 2021 4:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Heart of the Foreign God
 Posts: 41 |
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It's way more difficult to be creative with so much strings attached when you write a story for a comic book. Characters are not really your creation, they can't really die and romance cannot be freely open apart from a tease here or there.
Someone once said to me that every 10 years or so they kill either Batman or Superman to boost their sales only to end the "universe" that comic takes place and start fresh on another one. Compare that kind of restriction to the freedom an independent manga has creating a world or characters, all of them liable tho be changed for a narrative with stakes involved and fresh scenarios. Great as comic book heroes may be, theres only so much stories to develop their character before they start being repetitive or their character start to change. |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 348 |
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I also disagree with the idea with western comics "lineage" being the problem. Repackaging superheroes isn't new - the industry has been doing it for a long time. The steady decline of western comics also does not correlate to how popular superheroes are in other media (which can reinvent itself over and over again, and still be popular). Hence the idea that the comics industry just has too much baggage to get into isn't persuasive to me.
It's the newer iterations of superheroes that just dont catch on. If it's not popular, it wont sell. A lot of manga don't gain traction and are cancelled as well. Nature of entertainment. I'd argue that superhero comics today are simply not entertaining enough to be viable. There are a collection of factors that I'm quite sure contribute - but reusing heroes isn't one of them (in fact they are the only attraction left). Heck, just look at the recently invented ones. Those comics are going nowhere fast. |
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JR-1
Posts: 70 Location: Southeast Asia |
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I think the article could use a little more elaboration on juvenile graphic novels which drive most of American comics growth (pretty sure Raina Telgemeier outsold superhero comics by herself). Deb's comments are correct but putting it at the end of the article kinda reinforces the dichotomy between manga and American superhero comics even though most of the actual growth is from graphic novels which comes from bookstores and not comics shop.
The real problem imo is how less savvy the American comics industry is, or should I say just a plain difference in mindset where comics is just a source material and not the primary material itself. By now JP manga and US loc industry knows how to capitalize on media mix approach and release and promote the manga while the anime is airing. Meanwhile even if ignoring Marvel and DC America has less dauting properties like Invincible, Umbrella Academy, and The Boys which got well-liked adaptations but the industry doesn't seem to be interested in promoting the comics itself |
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zackdavisson
Industry Insider
Posts: 15 |
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Highly agree. That lineage is the strength of American superhero comics. its the one thing no other comic can do. The problem is the companies have not been as successful recently at leveraging that strength. |
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Jonny Mendes
Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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In my country, the comic industry is almost non existent. So we rely on imports from other countries. Talking about juvenile/ young adult comics, outside of manga, we get lots of comics from US, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy. European comics have more variety, even if is a shadow of what manga produce. But I can say 90% of we get here from US are DC/Marvel comics. So I'm base my assumption on that. The most notable exception is Frank Miller graphic novels outside of his DC/marvel works. |
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Scion Drake
Posts: 941 |
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The biggest issue I find is price. Because comic books are printed on more expensive ink and paper, they thus cost more. They just need to figure out a cost effective way to make these books cheaper but also have more content.
But hey it’s been over 20 years since he comic book crash in the 90’s (thanks Image), and it’s still all around despite people constantly saying it’s dying for decades. It will survive one way or another. Edit: Actually what I just remembered. Companies like Image and Dark Horse known for being very creator-friendly actually allow their writers full publishing rights for their stories, so not only do they have complete ownership of the characters but they are also in control of whatever merch is made for said series, giving them potentially huge cuts of profits if their stories become popular. Completely unlike how infamously the creator of Gintama gets no residuals from the live-action Gintama movies despite those films making absolute bank at the box office. |
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1294 Location: Texas, USA |
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I really don't understand comparing US comic sales in the US, to Japanese comic sales in Japan. A comparison of the former with Demon Slayer's US sales would be a better comparison, but like it's been said, English publishers don't release that info. Viz sometimes announces lifetime English sales like with My Hero Academia every couple years, but even those reveals are rare.
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Replica_Rabbit
 Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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My biggest problem with DC/Marvel comics is their big events. Every time I try to get back into comics they do a huge event that changes everything and messes with the comic story. Like when the Dark Nights Metal or Secret Empire event, don't care about OP Evil Batmen (and Batwoman) or Evil Captain America. I just want to read the story about the characters I like
Another thing I don't like about DC/Marvel comics is the fight scenes, they can be so (sometimes) boring. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4817 |
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