Forum - View topicManga in the Comic format dying
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
isaacada1
 Posts: 779 Location: Snohomish, WA |
|
||
|
There's certainly some similarities in the anime and manga market with old ways of releasing a product coming to an end.
This year will probably be the last year that new vhs tapes of anime series will be released. As for manga, it's looking like manga being released in the comic book format will soon go away as well. Viz just announced their leaving the market. They will only be releasing their titles in anthologies, graphic novels, or trade paperbacks. Gutsoon! has gone straight to the anthology and graphic novels for their manga. Comics One goes straight to Graphic novels. I'm curious what are people's thoughts on this. Isaac |
|||
|
|||
radicaledward
 Posts: 776 |
|
||
|
I think it is a good thing for us fans. Paperbacks are easier to store, you can have more of the story to each volume (or the whole manga in one book), tend to be cheaper in comparison to buying the comics, and the books tend to hold up better too.
|
|||
|
|||
John Jakala
 Posts: 60 |
|
||
|
I agree that this shift to thicker product is a good thing from the perpective of the reader/consumer. Manga anthologies and TPB collections are simply a much better value than the traditional American 22-page "pamplet." Heck, the "bang for your buck" factor was a big part of what got me interested in manga in the first place! I'd like to see other comic book publishers follow suit, but so far only Crossgen seems to be experimenting with a variety of formats/price points. Their Compendia books (basically, reprint anthologies) have recently been resized to the manga-size trim, and the price was lowered to $7.95 (which isn't bad for 192 pages of color comics).
|
|||
|
|||
|
Guest
|
|
||
|
I agree with the "price point" analysis of anime in comic format. It gets too expensive too quickly.
Good example: Oh! My Goddess. Here's an absolutely huge series (29 GN's in length, if I'm not mistaken) that, at $6 an issue newstand, doesn't make sense compared to $18 per GN. Especially when a GN amounts to around 4 or 5 issues. Honestly, it's not particularly sad to me. I'm hooked on MARS, but I doubt that I'd be able to maintain my interest in the series if the content I got at one time was halved or quartered. |
|||
|
LordRobin
Posts: 354 Location: Akron, OH |
|
||
|
I'm all for abolishing individual issues of manga. Go straight to the books. I for one, have just decided to drop all monthly comic magazines from my collection. They take up too much room, they're a pain in the butt to store, it's way too easy to miss an issue, and having missed one, way too hard to find the issue you missed.
It'll be interesting to see how comic retailers adapt to handle this new paradigm. My retailer will have no problem, as he's been concentrating on trade paperbacks for years, but other retailers who don't change with the times could find themselves out-competed by the likes of Borders. ------RM |
|||
|
|||
|
nagash
Posts: 280 |
|
||
|
I haven't collected comics of any kind for years, but I was really into them in the 90's. They do take a lot of space, are a chore to store/maintain, and most won't go up in value over time.
There are a select few, however, which can make chasing individual issues worth the while, if you're into that sort of thing. On a monetary issue, trade paperbacks are much cheaper than buying the individual series, especially if you have to hunt for back issues. And if you missed issue #1, or there was more than one variartion of it, it can really cost you. On a collectability level, though, paperbacks aren't worth it. If individual issues are completely wiped out, that could change, though. I wouldn't mind getting the paperbacks, but I also wouldn't mind being able to pick up the first 2 issues in normal comic book format as you never know which ones might take off in the future. |
|||
|
|||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
||
|
I'm all for it. Books have much greater shelf life than pamphlets, so bookstores will stock books, which is why manga is doing so well in bookstores.
"Collectibility" is a red herring. 99.9% of all comics are virtually worthless, and if a price guide tells you otherwise, that's because price guide editors are in the business of seperating gullible fanboys from their money. Shelf life is what really matters to savvy store owners, so books are the way to go. |
|||
|
|||
Ferquin
 Posts: 297 Location: Renton, WA, USA |
|
||
|
HELL YEAH! I hate having to wait months or years just to have enough parts to a tankubon volume scraped together. I love graphic novels! Now if they would just color the first few pages like they do in Japan (and possibly do the whole right-left thing) I'd be mega happy!
The individual comics are expensive and a big waste of space and paper. Sure, the only drawback would be less colored covers, but hey, I'd rather have more manga to read. Leave the color plates for much needed artbooks for us art connoisseurs to enjoy. And it's not like there'd be a shortage of manga to print. Sure you'd go through series faster, but it leaves you open to read many more other series too, instead of having to wait years to finish one and moving on to the next. Maybe someday, we'll finally catch up to all the rest of Japan in terms of fresh manga. |
|||
|
|||
cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
|
||
Tokyopop has been publishing unflipped for quite a while and there also staring to print the first couple pages in color. The few Comics One I own all do both. |
|||
|
|||
|
Ferquin
Posts: 297 Location: Renton, WA, USA |
|
||
|
Cool. I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the tip.
|
|||
|
|||
|
nagash
Posts: 280 |
|
||
|
Collectability is all about who you know and where to go. I'd been going to comic book shows during the 90's and I still know many of those people, so for me it's probably a bit easier to offload my books if I wanted to.
Granted, you'll never get book value on the book. |
|||
|
|||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
||
|
Book stores aren't interested in "collectibility" because it's a bad gamble, but shelf life, which books retain better than traditionally formatted comics, is a good long-term investment for them. So bookstores are more willing to invest in comics in book format. If you want to run a store, books make more sense.
And if you want to make an investment, call your stockbroker, not your comics dealer. Comics speculation is a racket, and always has been. (Of course I'm not saying that if you want to sell a comic, you shouldn't try to get a good deal for it. Just that you shouldn't buy comics in the hope that they'll go up in value so you can sell them at a profit. That's a sucker's bet. Buy 'em because you want to read 'em.) |
|||
|
|||
|
nagash
Posts: 280 |
|
||
|
I don't think anyone's dumb enough to invest in comic books as a retirement plan, but if you come across something you like and it takes off, so much the better.
|
|||
|
|||
Tenchi
 Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
|
||
|
I thought English-translated manga has no collectors' value because they're, by definition (I'm not talking about American "manga" here), reprints? Except for stuff like the very first English-translated volume of Ranma 1/2 or the first English-translated volume of Mai the Psychic Girl, but even then, the value is only in the double digits, right?
I remember once my gullible friend had a copy of the first Dark Horse/Proteus issue of You're Under Arrest and was under the delusion that he could get $100 for it, until I photocopied the relevant page in the Overstreet price guide and showed him that it costs just $2, like every other issue... also he thought he'd get thousands for his issue of Amazing Spider-man #100, but it was just a couple of hundred, and he likely wouldn't get that since, even if he thought it was super-mint condition, the dealers are trained to see every tiny little flaw. Last edited by Tenchi on Thu Mar 20, 2003 5:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|||
|
|||
|
radicaledward
Posts: 776 |
|
||
|
The only reason I invest in manga is because I want to read the story. Most of the time when I am done with the book it is given to someone else. You find that most things that are "collecters items" are not worth anything - the only reason something is valuable is because of two reason:
1) The supplie is less than the demand 2) People are willing to pay the price asked 
|
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group