Whatever happened to comics?

nerissa_js · Post by **nerissa_js** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 12:29 pm

Its seems to me an on going theme of everyone I know that read comics no longer reads them. I don't know if there was a lost interest or maybe they weren't picking up enough chicks at the comic book store or what? I would think that there would be new interest in comics since almost every movie that came out this year or last was developed from a comic. Just wondering what your thoughts were on the subject, because it really does sadden me that we are losing a form of art....

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 12:31 pm

1) I don't think comics are going anywhere. I may not be a comic book fan per se, but I see more than enough fans around me to be assured that noone's losing comics.

2) What does this have to do with anime?

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:11 pm

1) yea this has nothing to do with anime

2) it looks like you're only looking at the mainstream "superhero" comics. m I'm a huge comics fan, and you need to look to find good comics. There are still comics coming out, still graphic novels coming out. that artform isn't going to die soon. just because one small group of ppl seem to be losing interest doesn't mean it's giong to die out, just that it may be a bit tricky to find some good good titles at your local comic shop.

nerissa_js · Post by **nerissa_js** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 3:39 pm

this might do a better job of telling what I talking about when I asked

"A recent article in the Japan Times detailed the problems faced by publishers in the world's most successful comic book industry. Manga sales represent almost 40% of all units sold by Japanese publishers and bring in nearly 25% of industry revenues, and in addition the top ten anime series on Japanese TV are all based on manga, but in spite of sales figures and media penetration that would be the envy of publishers in any other country, all is not well with Japanese manga publishers. The biggest problem is with sales of the numerous manga anthologies, where earnings on the 281 different manga magazines declined a substantial 3.1% in 2002, the seventh straight year of declining sales. Shueisha's Shonen Jump, the best-selling anthology magazine has seen its sales decline from more than 6 million copies per issue in the mid 1990s to 3.2 million. Kodansha's Shukan Morning (weekly morning) has a circulation of only around 700,000 in spite of the fact that it carries Takehiko Inoue's popular Vagabond and Shuho Sato's Black Jack. "

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/2540.html

In comparsion to us sales of comics japan is way ahead of us, I am just hoping that japan is not going the way we did. In the fact that us comics are bascially around for the movies and tv.

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:12 pm

nerissa_js wrote: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/2540.html

In comparsion to us sales of comics japan is way ahead of us, I am just hoping that japan is not going the way we did. In the fact that us comics are bascially around for the movies and tv.

I think that has a lot to do with the history of manga as opposed to the history of comics. with manga, it really emerged thanks to Osamu Tezuka, who did Astro Boy in a way to bring up and give the little Japanese kiddies something to smile over after WWII. as those kids grew up, so did the way Osamu did comics, he introduced variety into manga, and those kids, now full adults and older, are still embracing that wide variety of manga.

here, comic book history is strongly tied with superheroes, so a lot of people think of comics as just that. Therefore, if one doesn't like superheroes, then one believes that he/she doesn't like comics. unfortunately, we're not that aware of the variety in comics, or i should say not a lot of ppl here are.

badmartialarts · Post by **badmartialarts** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:36 pm

Kids these days don't wanna read a comic when they can see an animated show. Or download comic scans off the Internet. It's that simple. Culture is changing.

Mroni · Post by **Mroni** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:45 pm

When I was into comics I hated japanese animation styles. Then around 93 comics started bigtime sucking so now I'm into anime and manga. They need to bring back Groo the wanderer. Anyway comics in the united states come and go it's been that way forever. If anyone thinks the niche market of manga is going to hold up in this country without a major crash they are mistaken. Right now the Market is being flooded and it is too small to handle all the titles 80% of which are utter crap.

Mr Oni

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 7:07 pm

http://brokenfrontier.com/lowdown/detai ... 5af54bb202

read what Christopher has to say about the Comics industry.

project myu · Post by **project myu** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 7:16 pm

Yeah, when I was younger I used to be a big Batman and Spider-man fan and even subscribed to all four Spidey books for a while. Unfortunately, the storyline in Spider-man started going down the crapper with the whole Clone Saga and I eventually gave it up.

Ironically enough, I just checked last night to see what Spider-man has been up to since I stopped reading. He's gone through some more retarded stuff and I learned a new term that's now prevalent in the comic book industry.. Retconning. I never heard of it before last night but apparently it's when writers decide to completely ignore what happened in the past and establish a new continuity.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 8:56 pm

badmartialarts wrote:Kids these days don't wanna read a comic when they can see an animated show. Or download comic scans off the Internet. It's that simple. Culture is changing.

And it's not just the kids. My real-life friends and I are over 20 (I'm going on 25) and we'd all much rather watch the anime than buy a few dozen books to read the exact same story with small text and black and white pictures. The reason? They're not as detailed as books or doujinshi (doujinshi often have actual stories outside of the picture-by-picture story, they're just untranslated so you can't read them if you don't know Japanese).

I'd rather read The Stand than watch the movie because the book is far more detailed. But of the few series I've read the manga for (YYH, Rayearth, CCS, Naruto) - the anime is far more detailed than the manga. You get more character (emotion, a voice) out of a voice acter than you do in a few sentences of dialogue placed next to a drawn face in a manga. Comics and manga are short and illustrated. Books and movies (even animated movies) have more depth than you can fit into a short comic where every scene has to fit into a tiny block on a packed page.

Then there's the 3-second rule. Why look at still drawings when you can see those same drawings brought to life on the screen? Half the anime I've seen English manga for, is already out on dubbed dvd long before the manga is translated. I can imagine buying a manga while I wait for the movie (anime) to come out. But they do it the other way around. I can't speak for Japanese economy, but I know why I (an American) don't buy manga. Unless I know the manga has scenes they left out of the anime, I'd rather watch it live.