Whatever happened to comics?

Ryoko_from_Tenchi_Muyo! · Post by **Ryoko_from_Tenchi_Muyo!** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:10 pm

nerissa_js wrote: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.

you just anserd ur question!! every1 has stopped reading comics bcuz they are reading manga or watching anime!!! LONG LIVE MANGA AND ANIME!!!!!!

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:12 pm

Ryoko_from_Tenchi_Muyo! wrote:you just anserd ur question!! every1 has stopped reading comics bcuz they are reading manga or watching anime!!! LONG LIVE MANGA AND ANIME!!!!!!

No, she's talking to "comics" in referrance to anime. Not only did you misunderstand her question, but you misunderstood the answer. The problem is market saturation - There's a metric ass-ton of manga being published, and while a lot's being sold, not all of it.

And please, get some English lessons before you post something like that again...

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:13 pm

dokool wrote:No, she's talking to "comics" in referrance to anime.

-anime +manga

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:13 pm

Ryoko_from_Tenchi_Muyo! wrote: you just anserd ur question!! every1 has stopped reading comics bcuz they are reading manga or watching anime!!! LONG LIVE MANGA AND ANIME!!!!!!

and that's horrible. that we ignore our own comics and art to go and flirt with foreign art to the very point where we're killing the comics native to our culture

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:19 pm

Bulghod wrote:
Ryoko_from_Tenchi_Muyo! wrote: you just anserd ur question!! every1 has stopped reading comics bcuz they are reading manga or watching anime!!! LONG LIVE MANGA AND ANIME!!!!!!
and that's horrible. that we ignore our own comics and art to go and flirt with foreign art to the very point where we're killing the comics native to our culture

I've actually read more American (well, <i>english-language</i>) comics in the past year (Transmetropolitan, the Invisibles, and Y - The Last Man) than I've read Manga. I find most manga very hard to read more than once, while series such as the Invisibles are so intricate and complex that I've read them 5-6 times and still don't understand them.

The art's alive and well, you just gotta know where to look...

pen-pen2002 · Post by **pen-pen2002** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:01 pm

Transmet is awesome no doubt. People think of comics as shallow, but if you look hard you can find things like Sandman, which make just about everything look shallow in comparison.

The fact is that comics have gotten better but more expensive. In high school I followed "The Darkness" for a while, the artwork and story were great I just couldn't afford it.

As far as the diffrence between anime and manga, I do prefer anime (as long as the animation is good) but you can't really judge one by the other. There will always be examples like Batlle Angel Alita, where the manga iss 100 times better than the anime (I dare you to try to find someone who disagrees.

)

Sorry for the slight necropost. I'm not exactly a comic fan but it can be a worthy genre and most people who speak against it do so out of ignorance.

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:29 pm

Some proof on the decline of comics

kingmob_867 · Post by **kingmob_867** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:36 pm

#1 Money. Comics are not a necessity so if money is tight that’s the first luxury to go.

#2 They have bigger fish to fry. I know a guy who has 5 year old little girl and still collects. I don't know him all that well but if I had half the chance I'd tell to quit raise your kid. Chances are your friends got other things to do, not better, just other things.

#3 Srcew'em. Unless you're moving out of the house or saving for something else just forget about what other people are telling you. Collecting comics is not a vice.

I'm not going to tell you that they have out grown comics because if you examine where comics are today they've comics them selves have grown up. The stories richer and they deal with today’s issues. Plus Marvel and DC have come out with comic lines such as The Ultimate and DC All Stars which basically hit the reboot button on all favorite superheroes and wipe out 30+ years comic history. These titles are great for new readers.

Ryjin · Post by **Ryjin** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 1:26 pm

I actually still buy comics. Some of the newer ones and some old ones that I need to maybe finish a collection. My favorite newer comic series is the newer transformers comic. Not armada the ones that focused on the original series.

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 1:48 pm

kingmob_867 wrote:#2 They have bigger fish to fry. I know a guy who has 5 year old little girl and still collects. I don't know him all that well but if I had half the chance I'd tell to quit raise your kid. Chances are your friends got other things to do, not better, just other things.

Not <i>quite</i>. My dad continued (and continues) to collect sports memorbilia when I was born. Cards, autographed stuff, you name it. And when he passes on, it all becomes mine and my sister's.

If this guy is collecting older comics instead of the newer stuff, that gets passed on to his daughter eventually. It may not seem to make as much sense as putting money in a trust fund, but I've gone through some of my dad's collection with a copy of Tuff Stuff and, lemme tell you, I'm not sure if gold is worth that much.