Why CAN'T Comics Keep up With MANGA?

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[@realdopecomics]

Manga has the luxury of having one of the best marketing and advertising mediums to younger readers…Anime.

[@thebluewind5733]

I feel that the issue is that making manga more popular is that the politics is there, but it's not beating you over the head, the media is also at fault at this because of how they look at the service level of characters interest, skin color, sexuality, gender, ect,but what about the story,the adventures, the battles against antagonists, do the politics with in the story fit and play with the themes. Characters grow in manga while keeping them consistent. Comics seem to rely to much on how to shake up the status quo then reset. Take Spider-Man for example, he was once an semi-capable teen that grew with the reader suffered the trials and pain of loss due to Gwen's death, picking himself back up due to Mary Jane and aunt May, he graduated High school, became a Teacher, later got married, loss his friend Harry due to Goblin shenanigan,then suffered an identity crisis due to clones, faught an totem eating vampire man in a deadly battle, faught a superhero civil war. However the editorial did things to keep Peter from growing up. He lost both his daughters, one by implied stillborn death,the other by dealing with the Marvel universe's version of the devil because he wanted Aunt May to live One more day. Gets retconed to be a grown man that acts like a teenager. Learns a lesson only to be reset to be an idiot and be miserable most of the time. Gets written out of character to create drama. Miles seems to be the better Spider-Man between the two nowadays and not seen much as a mentor and Pupil relationship as much. They even make Miles more mature then Peter. Also Miles seems to have high stakes plot armor a bit. Peter has died more then once, loss most of his support system during Zeb Wells' run he got some of them back but Wells seem to like taking a dunk on him every chance he gets and now what's going on now is a little uninspired in my opinion. The only thing that's going on with Miles recently was clones, Rabble and a short PTSD arc, but I gotta say Cody Ziggler did a good job with keeping Miles, not a fan of the Lightning Sword power up an going on the borderline OP and him only getting training from Misty Knight and not Peter. What's up with that? Sorry for the long rant on this but I'm just passionate of OG Spidey and not a fan of him being witten poorly in my opinion. I hope you understand. I feel that it's the Superhero Status quo issue and not letting some heroes grow and modern Politics overshadowing the story is the problem.

[@UltimatePower01]

To answer the question generally speaking, it’s that the manga that gets localized in the west, ARE already hits in Japan. There are thousands of manga titles that are never seen by the west because they flopped in their own demographic. The ones that get licensed aren’t much of a risk since there’s already implicit demand for those titles. As opposed to new indie comics that come out here which are coming out issue by issue (we get our manga in the collected version automatically, not the singles, which Japan does) and the potential readers/ western publishers don’t know if it will be a hit or not, again, generally speaking.

[@TheComicsPals]

This is a great point.

[@YonkoShaman]

This podcast was fire, I'm glad to see this wasn't just another one sided manga glaze video, you guys did a great job perfectly expressing both sides of the argument. W 🙏👀

[@Goblingraphx]

Story Genre variety, shelf-friendly volumes, easy-to-follow package sequences. Durability. Excellent multimedia adaptions. It is a long list of things that give it an advantage over western comic publishing.

[@gavin_guidry]

Aw man. I could talk about this for hours. The manga>anime pipeline is ESSENTIAL. Not to mention the Japanese government subsidizes the industry. There’s so many factors, and you could still argue it’s not even is wide of a gap as people suggest if you look at the comics medium in NA as a whole.

[@gavin_guidry]

Also, shout out to Marco for the Inio Asano shout out.

[@gavin_guidry]

There’s also PLENTY of manga that would be woke, but most of the people complaining about that don’t navigate the cultural differences between the US and Japan to pick up on the thematic nuances. Chainsaw Man heavily features a giant Gun Devil that subsists on humaniy’s fear of death that is used by multiple countries as a super weapon. It’s actively commenting on gun culture and the US’s obsession with them.

[@revolutionarydragon1123]

Does the Japanese government still subsidize the industry?

[@gavin_guidry]

The J-Lop project ended a few years ago, but the government is still actively involved with supporting the industry’s growth and appeal outside the country. Even this year, there are new initiatives in place to bolster the global manga readership. ​@@revolutionarydragon1123

[@TheComicsPals]

You make a good point about considering the entire North American comics industry. It's weird though; as big as the NA comics market is outside the "industry" of comics, it's a lot quieter success, or at least it feels that way. We KNOW how big Dogman for example is, but I've never met a single person who's read it or knows about it before I tell them.

[@ANDREVILAFRANCA]

Manga has all types of stories, genres and subgenres. Generally speaking manga has great and original stories, characters, worlds, better action scenes/fights, more creativity, longer stories, better art with different styles and a core element is the vision by a single author who writes and draws the whole story. Manga actually has the type of diversity that matters, diversity of ideas. Plus it has some great anime adaptations which helps the manga sales.

[@GoreVidalComicbooks]

I think what Manga has done is what American comics used to do and that is catch the interest of kids when they were young. And this was done with the help of animated shows like Dragon Ball Z and other Asian influenced entertainment like The Power Rangers. Now those kids have grown up, and they continue viewing animated programs and reading Manga. I grew up in the 70's, with American cartoons and comics everywhere: convenience stores, supermarkets, gas stations. Magazines like The Warren publications: Vampirella, Eerie, Famous Monsters, Creepy. And so many other animated magazines like MAD, Cracked, Heavy Metal, too many to list. We only had a few channels on television, and cartoons were aired only at certain times during the day and one weekends. Comics fed our visual entertainment need. The comics and magazines were very wordy, many times the story went over our heads, but it didn't matter, the artwork, characters, and stories engaged a young imagination. Then when Battle of the Planets appeared, that type of frantic, dramatic, energetic animation captivated us. In American comic book magazines we began seeing excerpts from Japanese Manga like Spaceship Yamamato and Captain Harlock. No way we could access them, but that animated style engaged kids like me. In other words, as much as I liked American comics, if Manga had been translated into English as it is now, not just me but many of us would've been reading it as well. All my friends kids like some kind of manga or animated series. You can see it in their drawings and doodles. They like it that the adults look like kids, the big eyes, the dramatic expressions, and that the art work tells more story with less words. Literacy, ADHD, may also play a factor as to why Manga is so popular. It is much easier to read. In fact, you can look at an untranslated Japanese comic and come out with a good understanding of the story without being able to read it.

[@gangofheroes]

Manga is cheaper making it easier for younger people to access, it has the best marketing with anime, better brand cohesion there's not fifty versions of Luffy, doesn't have the stigma of comics of having to read decades of prior storylines to access (which isn't really true). Manga isn't actually doing better than comics when you really look at it in detail but it's definitely getting there.

[@BrianLCS]

I believe Manga are more accessible. Big book chains like Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, etc. carry them. To get a comic book you have to go to a comic shop or order online. Also the anime shows help drive Manga books sales.

[@TheComicsPals]

While there are comics at places like B&N, the selection and upkeep isn't great at all, and since manga are more popular and sought after, they get more attention and better placement at those kinds of stores. I agree that comics are just not "in your face" enough as far as getting them into places where curiosity could lead a non-comics reader to give them a shot.

[@EyeOfTheWatcher]

@@TheComicsPals Relators are going to sell more of what is popular and give more attention to things that sell. If comics were more popular, I think they would have similar spacing as manga. Bag writing and bad promotion, remember anime is used to market the manga, has lead comics to the position they are in today.

[@rickrivers2021]

Part of it I think is Manga sells bc of the stories, American comics sell because of the characters. The best selling Manga are all great, that's how they got to best selling. The best selling American comics can get away with being bad, like ASM for instance, because the industry is propped up by it's history rather than story in front of you

[@TheComicsPals]

But bad is subjective. I personally love ASM though it’s not perfect by any means. The internet consensus seems to be that the book isn’t good but clearly people are buying it. Do they all hate it? I don’t.

[@rickrivers2021]

@TheComicsPals And why do you enjoy it? Probably because Spider-Man is the character it's about, perhaps you like the angle they're doing with Norman, maybe the Tombstone/gang war stuff reminds you of 80s comics. Even if you disagree with it being bad, I doubt your enjoyment is absent from the backdrop of the characters history. That's what it and 90% of Big 2 comic runs stand on. Someone with no context at all can jump on My Hero Acadamia and be sucked into the story in front of them. What sucks people into most big 2 runs is the relationships, rivalries, Easter eggs, and plot threads that are contextualized by earlier stories

[@TheComicsPals]

@@rickrivers2021 I don't think that my enjoyment of the book including, in some amount, feelings for the characters negates anything. Pretty much every person who would come across a Spider-Man comic book has feelings for Spider-Man. They'll read the book or not based on quality, which is how I gauge it as well. I took a significant time off reading ASM during the Superior and Nick Spencer runs on the book, so I'm not a person buying it just because I like Spider-man.

[@osvaldo128]

The shonen is generally bad.

[@Syncratci]

So let's ignore the anime elephant in the room, which is in my opinion indisputably the biggest driving for the popularity of manga and is something western comics just don't have at the same level. Beyond that, I don't know about the US, but in Canada, we have Chapters/Indigo as our major bookstore. The manga section is often 3, sometimes 4 times bigger than the graphic novel section. The graphic novel section is dominated by Batman. Runs are constantly missing volumes. For example, Something is Killing the Children will have volumes 2 and 5 on the shelf and only a single of each. Also, I have a friend that's really into manga and generally fairly tapped into geek culture. He was over at my place and was skimming through my copy of the first vol of Batman/Superman: World's Finest by Mark Waid gushing over the art. He then makes a statement that kind of shocked me. Something to the effect of how he wished there were non-superhero comics in the West with this kind of art. Of course I immediately let him borrow Once & Future. I think it kind of speaks to the fact that there is a genuine lack of knowledge about the incredible world of comics in the West outside of the big 2. Some people really think it's just Marvel, DC, Archie, (maybe TMNT), and some random kids comics.

[@TheComicsPals]

I have the "runs are constantly missing volumes" problem even at my LCS. There have been series I wanted to jump into that I didn't because they didn't have volume 1, or series I lapsed on but they were missing the volume I'd need to catch up. You're right, there is a lack of awareness about the scope of the comic book industry, and that's something that's not likely to change as the biggest players (Marvel & DC) have no reason to promote anything other than their own books and they struggle to do that in a way that connects.

[@hyhy2200]

About manga… Just when I think a certain topic or genre has been done countless times, a new one emerges with a fresh perspective, targeting a different angle and emphasizing a unique, never-before-seen character relationship. And if I’m not satisfied with the choices in the major publishing markets, there’s an even larger doujin (fan-created, self-published works) market for me to dive into. Japanese manga truly offers a vast sea of choices that seem endless. And some new talents picked up by major publishers for their commercial debut might even have already established a well-known reputation in the doujin communities. That positive cycle is really their greatest strength, I may say. And the competition is insanely intense. No matter how established the author is or was, if their work is not well-received, the editor will mercilessly force them to change the narrative or genre, or even worse, cut the story immediately. Moreover, the anime/manga market has established an undisputed and all-age appeal in Japan, it’s really not that fair to draw any comparisons between manga and comics. Just some thoughts, peace ( ·ω· )

[@TheBlayzeman]

The irony of Marco using Naruto and Goku as examples when both those series have 2 sequels 😂 I agree with what he was tryna say though.

[@TheComicsPals]

Hilarious.

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

Book stores have comics and manga (i'm in one now) but its 74 shelves to 12.... and that's in a store that has more comics than most. Target isn't the only one that sells manga. Walmart does as well but I have never seen a comic in one of those stores. I think that comics need to be sold at 2nd and 3rd places as well as first places where it fits...

[@MoramothHauntz]

As a lover of physical media I can't justify the shelf space for manga.

[@user_Z-]

personally i think the character designs, power systems and abilities in a manga/anime are just a lot cooler and the different genres i can indulge in when i get bored of the shonen stuff

[@TheComicsPals]

Fair!

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

The manga industry go to anime over live action far more often than comics, and animation translates to more book sales because they are considered closer to kin and go hand in hand. Comics and movies are not connected to work with each other in America. One (comics) is a stepping stone to get to the other (movies) so many treat comics as an art medium to be trampled on with only the cream of the crop getting the hand up as it has beat the competition. Comic companies need to make comics to make comics and try to make animated shows and movies over trying to make live action movies and shows.

[@shuwarurusubs]

As someone who was a manga fan first and comic fan later, I'm kinda tired of the comparison because if you do research into how either is made or the beginnings of each industry, they are very different animals. Trust me, comics can learn definitely things from manga but the points some people use show they don't understand how either is made. The analogy that I think works best imo is that manga are indie comics with much better marketing and more genre-defined storytelling

[@TheComicsPals]

How is it that manga are like indie comics? Especially considering that manga has its own superheroish space of books, the Shonen manga.

[@shuwarurusubs]

​@@TheComicsPals To be more specific, they are more in line with how Image works than the Big 2. They come off as superheroish, but there is no shared universe between the various Shonen Jump titles or continuity they have to abide to besides their own. Every creator owns their work wholesale or as shared copyright and very few times do manga titles have other writers come in and take over their original story like Kishimoto having Kodachi write Boruto before eventually taking over himself. Any crossover between IPs are treated as bonus content, separate of the story and those mainly happen as promotions or celebrations, rather than creating events that have long lasting impact on a character in the Big 2. Btw, I hope you didn't read my original comment as saying "you guys don't know what you're talking about". It was more in reference to the general arguments I see on the internet as a whole

[@GitShiddy]

You guys touched on a lot of points & I'm not going to touch on any of them but bring up something weird. Comic, Manga, book, film whatever the medium I'm there for the story first & the visuals second. However there's something about Manga visuals. Irrespective of how detailed or well rendered, that they are typically less photo real & more willing to go "off model" to emphasize tone, mixed with predominantly being "just" line art & not coloured they become more like a book. Insomuch as the visuals of a Manga are clear and yet they fire your imagination in a way a great written sentence does. Western Comics tend to be more "on model", more real, less playful on the whole and being coloured & lit & posed to such an exceptional degree ...personally my imagination doesn't fire the same way as a Manga. Now obviously this isn't true of every Western Comic artist. But many Marvel & DC mainstream/big book artists & colourists are too specific, too serious, too consistent. It doesn't let my mind run wild, instead it often makes me look at a "lesser" panel as "bad" and have that be the takeaway. I have yet to have that with a Manga, but I am reading highly regarded works, so grain of salt.

[@yarc9]

Manga not beating comics

[@shreyanshdas7481]

I think comic industry is getting fucked by manga industry. I love reading omnibus tho. You guys probably have omnibus recommendation already.

[@Syncratci]

The woke point is funny because the people that don't realize how insanely woke One Piece is are the same types of people that don't realize that X-Men has always been very woke. Just complete media illiteracy.

[@TheComicsPals]

Very true.

[@LastMinuteGuess]

How is One Piece woke? It is quite libertarian in philosophy, sure.

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

they publish all the same characters month after month for Marvel and D.C. and we want new runs and character progression.... Then why are 95% Spider-Mans the same age as they were 50 years ago. Same for Batman and every other character in comics.... That's why - all the characters are in the same place they were the first day they were published. Comic characters need to have timelines and age (weather they are immortal or not) and that is the biggest factor. And then there is the garbage stories..... Everyone knows what should have happened in Ultimate Spider-Man that would have set the Ultimate Universe off, and they didn't go in that direction...

[@annymora-rq6vi]

También podemos culpar el monopoly y las personas que no maduran y aceptar que las cosas tienen un final

[@michaelneddeau5714]

Its very hard to pin down, but maybe just the diversity in audience. I think Marco was right when he said the narrative of western comics being too woke is basically driven by a negative local majority of people, since most people who consume western comics are white theres gonna be a negative majority of people who dont like seeing comics with differing politics or character points of view (race). This narrative probably pushes away new readers because they dont want to deal with a new toxic community, like manga communities can get pretty toxic. Its probably easier to find like less toxic communities when it comes to maga simply because more people are into it. As to why more people are in to it ....

[@michaelneddeau5714]

I think manga is just marketed way better. Sean had a point when he talks about the fact that manga get adaptations almost immediately if the manga gets a whiff of success, comics do not get the same luxury

[@TheComicsPals]

The quickest turnaround I can personally think of from inception of character to major film/tv adaption in comics is probably Naomi from DC. Her CW show flopped. You also have Ms Marvel/Miles Morales who are big characters, but their stories in the comics and the stories we've seen them in so far outside the comics aren't 1 to 1. They're actually in some cases very different, like Ms Marvel having an entirely different powerset. People clearly enjoy seeing what they read (Manga) turned into something they can watch (anime) almost entirely 1 to 1, yet in the case of comics, we always say nobody wants to watch movies or shows based on what we've already seen in the books.

[@Goblingraphx]

​@@TheComicsPals I wonder because Anime looks more like what is in the Manga, versus Western adaptations always "changing" things from source comics cause a disconnect. X-Men 97 seems to have spiked X-Men comics, was it because it looked like X-Men comics of an era?

[@TheComicsPals]

@@Goblingraphx Right that's exactly what I'm saying. The Western adaption is never 1 to 1 so it doesn't create the same "pipeline" that Manga has to anime. I think there are a few reasons why X-Men 97 connected so well, but one of the primary ones is the look and connection to not JUST the OG show, but to that era of X-Men. If the X-Men in the films at least LOOKED LIKE they did in the 90's those movies would have connected far more with people imo.

[@Goblingraphx]

@@TheComicsPals I think there is a psychological aspect of seeing what is drawn in the book and on-screen that develops an attachment and creates a fan.