Underwear Pervert Comic News

Manga/Comics
81

This could not be further from the truth. The importance of volume 1 being on the shelf can not be understated. People who enjoy serial storytelling want a complete story from beginning to end (if there is an end). They don’t want to miss anything. They don’t want any confusion about what part comes next. They want 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.

Imagine if Netflix only had only the few most recent episodes of a show up instead of every episode ever. Subscribers would drop like a rock.

You can only get significant new audience with number 1. Only a few chaotic evil type people will be happy to start in the middle somewhere. This means that number one always has to be available. Netflix always has episode 1 available. Manga always has every volume available. Underwear pervert comics only have the current issue available, and it’s rarely truly number one even if it has the number 1 printed on the cover.

My Hero Academia is one of the best selling manga in the US right now. It has about 30 volumes and has been going for years. Guess what volume is the third best selling manga volume on Amazon right now? That’s right, it’s volume 1. Volume 29 is in 4th place. Look at any best selling manga list, It’s usually about 60/40 split between the newest volumes of popular series and number 1 volumes.

Now if you bring a cross-over into play it may make sense that there is some excitement in terms of fan-service. “OMG, my favorite characters will interact with my other favorite characters.” It puts up big sales numbers because several separate audiences are all buying an additional book. But it doesn’t bring in much new audience. After its done, it may even lose audience who feels anxiety of not knowing wtf is going on if the cross-over in any way actually mattered. A dedicated person might catch up on everything, but most won’t. Readers will be lost.

To grow the audience you need to have a full story, from 1-X, available at all times, with no confusion and nothing missing whatsoever. That is the doorway through which a new person can come in. Anything else is effectively gatekeeping that can block even an interested person from getting started.

There’s actually a meme image that’s been going around on this exact topic, but I can’t find it right now. Anyone help me out?

1 Like
82

In fact, non-canon promotional crossover special chapters aren’t that uncommon.

2 Likes
83

You’re making an unfair and inaccurate comparison.

You’re comparing an individual comic issue to a collected manga edition. Naruto is published in Weekly Shonen Jump. It is then collected in trade paperbacks, the same as American comics.

I can go into pretty much any decent comic shop in American and buy the first volume of Sandman or Saga, or the first volume of Scott Snyder’s run on Batman. It is trivially easy for me to buy Scott Snyder’s run on Batman. His trades aren’t labelled by the individual issue number, they’re labelled by volume number, the same as Naruto and any other manga. After Snyder’s run, I can literally do the same thing with Tom King’s run on Batman… start on volume one and keep buying them in sequential order. That doesn’t explain why manga continues to sell orders of magnitude better than superhero comics.

Manga is popular and sells well because it has been popular and selling well for decades. It’s a self-perpetuating machine at this point. By contrast, superhero comics are the complete opposite. In order to do better sales, they would have to scrap their “machine” entirely and start over from scratch… and even then, they’d be competing with TV, videogames, and everything else that takes up leisure time.

American comics will never be as popular as manga because manga has that built in advantage already. You would need to go back in time and completely change how comics are sold and read in the US. It’s not a coincidence that the rise of manga coincided with a timer period where there were few other enjoyments for kids. When manga first started becoming popular, it didn’t have to compete against TV, or videogames, or cell phones, or any of that. It’s also not a coincidence that the time period when American comics were most popular was also when none of those other activities existed. Who knows what things would have been like if the CCA hadn’t basically killed comics in the US. I’d love to go to an alternate Earth where the CCA never existed and comics continued to flourish and become more popular. Maybe it would look a lot like Japan in terms of readership.

Japanese people have been reading manga for decades. They start reading when they’re young and they keep reading when they’re teens, and even older. That type of cultural past time doesn’t exist in the US to the same degree. That’s why manga outsells American comics.

If your theory was correct, The Walking Dead should be selling millions of copies, just like My Hero Academia. The Walking Dead follows every single rule that manga does. It is a self-contained story with a clear beginning and end. Volume 1 is always available. There is no confusion as to what to read next. Additionally, with the success and popularity of the TV show, The Walking Dead is arguably one of the most well-known comic properties right now. But is it selling anywhere near the same numbers as My Hero Academia? Of course not. It didn’t even outsell Batman #whatever when it was in print.

The reason has nothing to do with a self-contained story, the reason is that Americans don’t grow up reading comics and Japanese do.

1 Like
84

Non-canon being the key aspect.

Runs. Exactly the problem. Even if there is a “run” that is completely self-contained, requires no prerequisite knowledge, crosses over with nothing ever, and has a start and an end, it is not the only thing on the shelf. If you go to the book store or Amazon and look for Batman comics, you will see too many to know wtf. If they want that to work, they need to take all other Batman out of print except for just one. Make that the canon Batman and hide all the other ones where nobody can see. The name of it should be Batman. The writer and artist can never change ever. Not even one time. If they can manage that, they have a chance.

Walking dead has sold a lot. Sandman is on the shelves of… most nerds I know. That said, just doing these things is not some guarantee of selling millions. It’s just the bare minimum necessary. Most manga do not sell ludicrous numbers, but many do. Publishing in a clear sequence is the price of admission.

Also, all your points about the differences between Japanese and American are moot because I’m talking about the sales of manga in the United States. Manga sell so much in the US that all the major book sales charts had to separate manga from the rest of the graphic novels because non-manga could almost never make the list when they were combined.

85

Canon crossovers are less common, but not unheard of. Especially for ones with similar settings. Like, Most of boichi’s comics have canon crossovers, pretty much every CLAMP comic ends up with canon crossovers.

86

Super late to this, but Scott Snyder’s various New 52 Batman books were and are some of my favorite comics of all time. Batman Year Zero has some of my favorite Batman moments and stories across all mediums and there was a lot of fun in a lot of the other New 52 books even if they couldn’t follow through. I highly, highly recommend reading Batman: Year Zero.

image
image1680×1050 207 KB

1 Like
87

This is exactly the thing. A lot of these comics are really good. Not all, but plenty. They just don’t do the big systemic publishing changes necessary to actually sell.

88

I didn’t realize you were talking about manga sales in the US. That’s certainly true. I would argue that the same societal acceptance of manga in Japan extends to the US, compared to American comics, but to a much lesser degree.

That being said, the Scholastic Book Review comics outsell manga in the US, so maybe it is possible to get young kids hooked on comics early, and that the “normal” comic book industry is failing to keep them engaged as readers.

89

For me, the New 52 showed the two weaknesses that have come about and pretty much stopped me from purchasing comics.

First, I came in because of the non-superhero comics (Blackhawks, G.I. Combat, Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.) and as those were quickly canceled, I just shrugged and walked away.

Second, and Marvel and DC are both guilty of this, the ‘continuity churn’. Where every six months (or less) there is a big event or company crossover that forces you to buy extra comics or accept that a new creative team wants to pump up sales and re-invent the character.

This might be a bit nostalgic, but my favorite comic book run was Amazing Spider-Man from Issues 200-270. Roger Stern and Tom DeFalco were the primary writers and while the usual Spider-Man tropes were there, the character changed and matured in small ways. The two big ones being Parker focusing on his graduate studies and his relationship with Mary Jane Watson maturing and growing.

I did drift away from it after discovering independent titles and more non-superhero comics, but that is still my favorite comics to this day.

1 Like
90

I was struck by some of what jabrams007 said, that the #1s of Sandman, Saga, etc are on the shelves at stores everywhere.

This isn’t true, at least where I live. For some reason all the Manga has multiple #1s but for the life of me I never can find a #1 of Sandman, or even a clear understanding of which part of the Sandman story is #1. I could always find #2 for Sandman, and I’d like to read it, but it’s not something that I’m going to go out of my way for, when I find myself at BN (the only book store in my area) I check for random titles I’ve been told about. but fuck me finding a #1 is like panning for gold.

The runs of the comics makes it worse for me, I see Batman and 3 different collections that are all listed as #1, ugh, where do I start there? Pick a random one? What if this #1 happens after this other #1? I have no idea!

With the Manga, I know that MHA #1 is the first one, and that’s it.

1 Like
91

Good news. If you want to read Sandman, which you should, it’s $0 if you have Kindle Unlimited. If you don’t, the digital edition is still very very inexpensive.

Also, they have made complete boxed sets of it from time to time. Seeing as the TV show is coming, I expect it to become very easy to obtain such a boxed set in the near future.

1 Like
92

I’m not sure what it’s like at BN these days, but I remember when I used to check out their graphic novel section years ago, that it was always a disorganized mess.

Most comic book stores, and especially good comic book stories will make a point of always having the first volume of whatever book in stock so they can always get new readers.

I don’t know what’s going on with BN, whether it’s the pandemic messing with reprinting books, which I know has been an issue for comic companies, or what, but I would imagine graphic novels account for a very small percentage of their sales, so they don’t really think about it too much or even have an employee whose job it is to curate their graphic novel section and keep “ever green” books like Sandman volume 1 and Saga volume 1 in stock. A comic book shop makes most of its money on comics, and has staff who are knowledgeable, so I would imagine they do a better job at that kind of thing.

It’s the same with the various “runs” on books. Most of my local comic book shops have some type of sign or something letting readers know that this volume is a good place to start if you like Batman, Daredevil, etc. If you have people who are knowledgeable and care, I don’t think it’s as big a problem as people think.

93

It is because the vast majority of people are not going to good comic book shops. They are going to B&N or just going to Amazon. Manga can sell at B&N. It can sell on Amazon. It can sell in the grocery store. It can sell that the library. It is published in such a plain and obvious way that it doesn’t need a specialized store with expert staff to take a new customer by the hand through the gates. It’s just so obvious that someone who knows nothing can’t screw it up. Hand-holding every new customer to find them a book doesn’t scale.

1 Like
94

Another factor is population size and economics. I live in a small town, and the nearest comic shop is a near 30 minute drive to get to. My only local options for a graphic novel are a 2nd and Charles (which has no organization with their comics and graphic novels) or a family owned bookstore that can order them.

If Marvel and DC want to get new and younger readers on board, they might consider taking the route of Archie comics. Putting digest sized books of non-cannon stories in retail stores and other places the casual reader can access.

95

Sad times. What a legend.

1 Like
96

Underwear pervert comic disclosures?

image
image1000×716 312 KB

2 Likes
97

So the YA librarian at my local public library was noticing a lack of Spider-Man graphic novels and isn’t sure where to start for the shelves. Anyone out there more familiar with the recent Spider-Man comics and if any are good for a YA library shelf?

2 Likes
98

Here are some I can recommend:

  • Spider-Man: Life Story
  • Spider-Man Blue
  • Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man
  • Spidey: Freshman Year
  • Ultimate Spider-Man

Ultimate Spider-Man has some weird narrative in some issues but I guess it was a product of its time, but most volumes are legit good stuff, also it is weird to see how they handle the conclusion of Peter on the ultimate run, not sure if it is under this title’s name or if it is on “Spidermen 2”

1 Like
99

Love a quantitative approach to demonstrating this thing we already knew was true. Kind of wish they went for more covers across more comics from more companies. But acquiring this data was probably very labor intensive, and it’s not like collecting more is going to get a different overall answer even if the exact numbers might be different.

1 Like
100

NPR: DC Comics reduces Latinos to their food in Hispanic Heritage Month covers, fans say.