Forum - View topic

INTEREST: Fact Check: Did Demon Slayer Really Outsell All of American Comics?

I don't think anyone is saying that there are comic movies bigger than Marvel/DC. But to go from claiming "there are no movies made by the other comic properties" to saying there are no comic movies bigger than Marvel/DC is definitely goalpost-moving.

But from my perspective, there is a big comic market demographic that is being neglected in the USA and is clearly being serviced from abroad.

mangamuscle wrote:

Quote:

But from my perspective, there is a big comic market demographic that is being neglected in the USA and is clearly being serviced from abroad.

You mean in addition to those who already are anime/manga fans?

The movies have not notable increased the sale of comics.

When I was a kid every news stand, every Woolworth, every mom and pop corner store had racks of newspapers, magazine and a couple dozen comic series for sale. Those are all gone now, the convenience stores that replaced the news stands and the mom and pop stores sell only tabloids and puzzle books. Bookstores along with comics, magazines, newspapers and books are slowly dying. ...TV/Cable mortally wounded reading for pleasure and now it is succumbing to the internet. It is a brave new world out there.

I think you misunderstand me,Tempest. I never said I had a problem with creative people using their art to express their political views. I never said anything like that. What I do have a problem with is when the politics interferes with and overwhelms anything else in that art. It ends up turning it into propaganda and very few people can stomach that all the time.

What a lot of the comic creators of today do is act like political activists first and artists second. That means that they don't care if their art is very good or if their story is solid. All they care about is getting their message out no matter what. They don't care if no one else wants to read it,even those on their own side. Their politics is all that matters. Nothing else. Not story or artwork or anything else like that. And,they don't care if their message is given with all the grace of a sledgehammer to the stomach. It's message and politics first,everything else second. That's what I think is the main reason why comics are in the state they're in today.

They should realize that not everyone shares their politics and that they should be treated the same as those who do. Do you get what I'm saying,Tempest?

@mangamuscle
However, most of the people you envision are not interested in comics or light novels in any form. Most of them are watching TV (cable or streaming) watching Netflix, playing video games or just messing around on the internet.

It is not that they don't like superhero comics, they simply don't like to read for pleasure. Why pick up something that requires you to concentrate when it can just stream past your face, complete with sound, motion and color.

My comments about where you could once buy comics was about access. Comic books used to be available everywhere. Now you have to seek them out. In the US you usually will not find them anywhere but book stores and comic shops, and those are dying businesses.

Manga moved into book stores some twenty years ago. Since then it has been as available to anyone who wanted it as superhero comics are. If there was a much larger audience for it, they would have found it years ago.

So where is this magical balance where politics does not overwhelm everything else exactly?

I would also point out that this sort of thing is exactly why digital manga, Webtoon, etc, is a thing, with the idea of delivering content specifically for mobile devices instead of expecting people to pick up paper.

I would also point out the money thrown at web comic portals and manga’s success in adapting is far more notable than the efforts of the Big Two, which suffer from the debilitating issue of 1:1 pricing (aka you pay the same amount for 22 page floppies you do for digital).

So where is this magical balance where politics does not overwhelm everything else exactly?

But IMO what we have atm in the usa comic industry is a system where many writers and illustrators are hired as cronies gauged on their wokeness level and when sales dive, they blame the readers *facepalm*

kakugo complete wrote:

Cardcaptor Takato wrote: Though I would say manga creators aren’t as creatively free as people make them out to be as well and are often subject to the whims of their editors or magazine staff. Naoko Takeuchi tried to kill off her entire cast at the end of the first story arc of the Sailor Moon manga but was told she couldn’t do that and then was mad when the anime spoiler[killed them off anyway in the first season]. Toriyama also tried to end DBZ multiple times but had to keep going because of it’s popularity and originally wanted to have Gohan replace Goku as the MC but ended up bringing Goku back because of his popularity with fans. Do you have a direct source to him wanting to end DB earlier, or only bringing back Goku because of fans?

They won’t find a direct source because both these things have been debunked. It was Toriyama himself that thought Goku would be a better lead than Gohan and he never showed any indication of wanting to end the series early

But for some reason these myths about the series persist


This link goes over all the possible endings that certain fans insist on
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/


As for wanting to replace Goku with Gohan but changing his mind because fans here is a direct quote thag proves this is not the case

“ And then the Cell arc ended. Did you think that everyone felt you would put Gohan into the leading role?
I intended to put Gohan into the leading role. It didn’t work out. I felt that compared to Goku, he was ultimately not suited for the part.” - Toriyama

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/daizenshuu-2-akira-toriyama-super-interview/