IS THE COMICS INDUSTRY COLLAPSING? DOES THE FIRE RISE?

Comic books really need more naked females these days, I hate how marvel is trying to appeal to "that people".

But those brick-and-mortar places do just fine when it comes to games and other nerd merchandise.

Card games are a lot more old fashioned than comic books are, and plenty of kids go into comic shops to purchase "overpriced" packages of Magic and Pokemon cards (game franchises that are 20-25 years old).

How is sitting around playing Warhammer or Magic in a comic shop any more old fashioned than buying physical comics?

The problem is the comic industry itself, and all of these other scapegoats are just that. Sure, Diamond has its flaws, as does physical media and retail. But it seems like people just [insert random complaint here] and act like it's an inherent and inevitable fatal flaw for comics.

Example: pricing. Yeah, $3.99 is a lot for a comic. But the price of Pokemon and Magic cards has gone up even more, and that hasn't impeded those industries. Because people LIKE Pokemon and Magic cards. They like what the companies there have done in terms of content creating and facilitating a community.

You only have to look at Marvel to see how the exact opposite has happened. Who wants to pay $4-$6 for a comic that insults the preexisting fandom, created by Marvel employees who actively troll the fans on Twitter?

Monthy printed comics aren't a dead industry. Just a few years ago people were talking about how the initial year of New 52, then Marvel Now (the first one) and then Rebirth all had surprisingly good sales. Sales were way up. They crashed in the last year or so, for Marvel especially. It's not hard to figure out why this happened, when you look at the content and the public personas of the creators.

Digital's fine, but sales there haven't skyrocketed and no the price point of digital isn't being kept artificially high to support comic shops. There are extra costs involved and Apple and Amazon needs their cuts just like Diamond needs theirs for physical.

...

200 to 250, generally, with a few exceptions and several that technically wouldn't could because they were numerous empires that rose and fell dozens of times for hundreds of years before stabilizing.

Card games, like MtG and Pokemon TCG sell well at brick and mortar stores specifically because those stores double as locations for tournaments, set release events, drafts, and simply playing against other customers.

Printed comics, as a format, are something of a victim of their own structure. Because they are monthly, there will always be another one, which means old issues need to go, which means a store will intentionally only order a scant few more than they expect to sell to make room for the next issue, because rent is expensive and shelf-space is limited… but it gets worse. Because they need to sell as many comics as possible before releasing the next issue, publishers purposefully rely on gimmicks and misleading covers. This is why there's a universe shaking event every few months, where someone is killed or replaced or someplace important is blown up. This means, instead of telling a focused story, they are constantly writing these things with the intent to trick readers into thinking they need to read it.

Effectively it's too much business bullshit hampered by a bad distribution model, which does more harm than good and causes your FLCS to become a FLGS because WotC and Hasbro's business model directly benefits from brick and mortar distribution.

Something to remember is that the comics industry is doing fine in Japan. There's a lot of variety and a shitload of different publishers, and people buy both physical and digital versions of comics.
People still read comics, people WANT to read comics, it's just that most people involved in making comics in the US are doing a piss-poor job at basically everything.

...

Wonder who's behind this post.

This quote sums up what's wrong right now: There's too many comics and too many gimmicks. Because of that instability, the audience for floppies is moving to books, which they see as a safer investment.

All of the Big Two's short sighted sales stunts in the last decade are finally catching up to them.

That's summarizes it very well. And comics is not the only one. Several SJW who work in the entertainment (movies, news, music, videogames, etc.) are going to bankrupt several enterprises, but they are going to blame everybody but themselves and their virtue signaling.

>>>/tumblr/

I cannot wait for summer to be over.

I'm surprised they lasted this long honestly. After all the shit DC and Marvel pulled with the Comic's Code it was inevitable that this was going to happen.

It's not like they helped.

...

If you don't understand why the current mindset of the "creative talents" in today's industry is a big part of why the industry is unable to recover their losses then I don't know what to say. It's not even a virtual or imaginary problem, it's not something people are guessing will happen, it's known and observable that pandering to people that are not your audience not only does not increase your audience, it alienates your old consumers. It's happened before, it's happening now, and it will keep happening as long as they do it. This problem isn't exclusive to comics either.
You're the casual here if you don't see the current problems catalyzing the well established, decades old problems.

What could have saved the comic book industry, Holla Forums?

Probably some other things too.

nigger we wouldn't regularly have insane writing full of PC jargon if it wasn't specifically for the egotistical hipster faggots that the suits hired in an attempt to gel with modern day comic consumers
give me soulless 90's edge and gore and ridiculousness any day over what we have now

I thought monopolies were illegal. Why is this allowed?
Why can't there be competition?

Any kind of variety in comics. Not just that it's overwhelmingly superheroes, but that most even share the same setting and universe. Just look at Japan which is not nearly in the same crisis. Sure shonen is by far the most popular genre you can find a lot of works in a lot of different genres and styles. Each shonen series is also unique from the rest so they're far less samey than the "guy with cool powers in the modern day" deal that most American comics are in.

No matter your age or preference you can certainly find a manga that appeals to you, but good luck finding much beyond superhero action here. If you do the same thing with all your works you're appealing to too narrow a band of people.

1. Major downsizing. Put out only about 15 comics a month instead of 100. Hire only the best writers/artists because paying $50 to 3 people is better than paying $10 to 30. You're appealing to a niche market, act like it.

2. Keep big events fairly self-contained and don't linger on plotlines for more than a couple months. Make your comics accessible even if you're thirty issues in.

3. Be less strict with continuity. If someone's like "Hulk can't appear in Avengers! Howard the Duck Issue 74 says he's trapped in an intergalactic prison!" you tell them "fuck off you awful nerd, nobody cares."

4. Put out simple starter-series that follow the comics code and sell them in grocery stores.

Basically, there's a lot you can do to fix the comics industry because nobody has done anything right in years.

Every single notable civilization lasted far longer than that. Even the short lived African "civilizations" lasted longer than your limit. 200 years is not that much time in history. Are you an American by any chance?

They are not the sole root of the problem, but are definitively a significant part of it. SJWs and other ideologues who want to censor comics and use them as propaganda cripple the medium, as do faggots who let outsiders obsessed wit their ideology call the shots.

Censorship limits creators, alienates segments of the audience, makes quality plummet, destroys variety, and can even kill entire genres, causing market to shrink because of all that. CCA killed most non-cape books in the U.S., moral hysteria in Germany killed their comic industry (and later their games industry) for good, over-regulation in Belgium was one of the causes for decline of their comic market, censorship in Spain and China prevented proper development of comic industry and so on. Japs and French didn't have to put up with as much censorship as others, and they have great comic scenes.

If American comic creators fought like French did when there heard rumors of an organization that would dictate what can be sold and what can't.
As of today, has a good idea. Other than that, I'd say that some creators need to let go of the whole monthly, 20 to 30 page issue thing. From my personal experience, newcomers to comics prefer to buy trades over individual issues. Reading complete story arc is more satisfying and less disorienting than a small snippet that yo get in a floppy.

Is shonen even the most popular "genre" (in quotes because of how big of an umbrela term it is, even inside the shonen magazines you find a bunch of different stuff)? And if it is, is it that much more popular than the runner ups? I know there's a shitload of shonen magazine and those focus mostly on battle manga which is usually what we call shonen, but there's also a lot of shoujo magazines that focus mostly on romance, and there's also slice of life things that are spread everywhere, in shonen, shojo, even seinen and josei magazines. If I had to guess I'd say slice of life might be as popular than battle manga right now, maybe even more so.
Another thing Japan has over the US I'd say is comiket. Comiket is a huge opportunity for artists, from extremely new amateurs trying to sell their first janky Pretty Cure doujin in the cheapest spot there is to rent to well known self published artist with a following of thousands of people doing promotions to their stuff in the most visible areas of the event floor. They also have manga competitions for people to participate in, and winners actually do get their stuff published and are scouted. That's how Oda started when he was 17 or so, he won some short story contest, it was published, and then he got a job as an assistant, drawing with Ruroni Kenshin's author.
Where are the things like this in America? I don't think there is any major convention focused on independent artists, and even in the ones where independent artists do set up boots to sell their stuff it usually ends there, they make a few bucks from curious convention goers, make a few more bucks than they normally would compared to their usual online sales, but they don't get hired by major companies (or do they? Tell me if I'm mistaken on this one, but I have a really bad impression on how companies hire new talent in the US, it seems like it's mostly based on cronyism).

This is the most important part of my suggestions, because it would really help struggling comic stores that have to constantly choose what comics out of the 100+ shitshow marvel is publishing are worth it.

And of course, by "best" I mean "old and new." Don't bring people in like Mark Waid, who used to be really good writers but slowly went nuts and started writing garbage like "#Woke Champions."

Falling off their high mountain is the best thing that could happen. Stop the presses now. Right now they are sitting there and continue to look down upon their peasant customers. Feeding them name recognition and familiar but different characters changed to pander to group of the week. If they can clear out all of the bitter activists drunk on their own feeling of self importance hoping to save the world one drawing at a time It might set them for a decent revival when they come back in five to ten years as a novelty.

I am tired of being tired though so maybe it is just me.

why is this webm right every time

There are very few creator-focused cons in the US because they're a niche compared to pop culture fests like SDCC and NYCC. The average con-goer cares more about cosplay and the big exhibitors than the Artist's Alley.

It's not so much cronyism than it is a desire to keep the presses moving with little fuss. Nobody wants to deal with potential basket cases and slowpokes, so editors and talent scouts only snap up the talent that can be vouched for to turn in their shit in on time. The indie scene doubles as a proving ground in that sense. And obviously networking is still important.

I heard in Japan they were trying to crackdown on hentai or something.

Zappa is so based.

Comics also do better in Japan because they are printed on cheap paper which save money and drawn with way less detail to get stories out more frequently. They also only have to ship it across an area the size the state of California which also saves a shit ton of money.

This.

Get the fuck out with this stupid meme.

Shounen is popular because it isn't a genre. It's a demographic meaning boys 10-16 years old about. In other words, Japanese comics are doing amazingly well because they actually understand who's going to buy their shit. Shoujo and Seinen comcis are present, but aren't nearly as popular. They don't treat this as a horrible oppression of those demographics, they are just aware that they don't sell as much. Nips let profitable stuff be profitable, and let niche shit remain niche.

If shit like competitions and shit happened like at Comiket I'd be interested in the Artist's Alley

ExMTG player here, quit because SJWs have infected last two expansions with agender, canon asperger planeswalker, and transgender BBEG. fuck this actually gay thing.

It's been more than two expansions, but Wizards of the Coast, as a company, is pozzed as fuck and has been taking steps for the past few years to virtue signal whenever possible.

Why?

White guilt often leads to self-destructive delusions.

You're operating from the perspective of video games. Video games are constantly getting new blood in to replace the old blood going out. It's a thriving industry.

Comics, on the other hand, are necrotic. They have to pander to audiences outside of old neckbeards because the old neckbeards are dying off. The whole reason they started going with hashtag comics was to get new audiences in (and Marvel promptly killed that audience by dumping a fucking truck of comics on them). Stores need new audiences if they're going to survive. This is shit they should've figured out back in the 2000's, but they went ahead and fucking doomed themselves by focusing on short-term sales.

SJWs are an insignificant part of the problem. Blaming them is like blaming flies for the corpse. The only reason they're even in the industry is because they're in right now and they're cheap. The big two simply don't pay enough compared to working for animation companies or getting hipster welfare. It can no longer be considered a career. It's as the saying goes "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys".

The censorship is also a non-issue, because if you're working for the big two you are already censored, which is why a lot of talent choose to simply make their own stuff than work for either of them.

If you believe your idea is absolute truth, can you believe in it's failure if it's based off of feelings?

Reported

Fucking cucking cucks every time without fail.

I remember when someone here unironically called Holla Forums "lefty Holla Forums," when it's obviously the other way around.

Oh there's a growing women's market in comics, it's just dominated by translated romance manga (almost always compilations) with absolutely no shits given about American comics.

The market should've changed back when manga started taking over. Instead, the big two didn't consider it a threat and focused on appealing to their hard-core fans. Now those hard-core fans are dying off, with nobody new to replace them.

Neckbeards are living Holla Forums's dream. Comics can't leave neckbeards behind. Neckbeards are all they have and when the neckbeards go, comics will go with them.

Finally a reason to use this image.

Seriously, simply tell good stories that aren't part of a mega event spanning trough 32 different titles during 26 months in a row. Also

Find good artists that actually believe in the media and not just only hipsters that use art commissions as boosters for their instagram or deviant art or whatever. Also

Use something akin to the vertigo imprint to grow new talent while researching new ideas and IPs. Create short and experimental stories that would cultivate a new niche public inside the niche.

user, your enter button broken or something.

That's because the Big Two's best efforts to get them into the medium have been absolute shit.

Marvel tried that. Problem is, that they did not understand the appeal of manga, and instead just copied superficial elements. Their idea of competing was creating a mangaverse.

Marvel had their own imprint called Epic Comics. Of course, Marvel decided to kill it. They tried to resurrect it in early 2000s, but it's been a long while since I have seen any comics with Epic logo.

Oh man that was a hot load. The hilarious thing is that Mark Millar genuinely believed teenage girls wanted to read about slutty Aunt May who cheats on her boyfriend, gets knocked up, and gives birth to fucking Peter Parker.

And Marvel whole-heartedly published it. Can you imagine being so disconnected from society that you think the above is a good idea?

Mangaverse was not trying. It's clear Marvel thought anime/manga was just another fad to exploit.

Mainstream publishers didn't take it as a serious threat until it was too late.

Maybe if you're in China

...

The Mandate of Heaven is real serious business.

The 200 year limit is bullshit, but I know that user is referring to a single style of government only lasting 200 years. It's still bullshit though as the Republic of Rome lasted 500 years. The various Egyptian Kingdoms went over 200 years as well. The Byzantines lasted over a thousand years. The Holy Roman Empire lasted about a thousand years as well. India even had an empire go over a thousand years as well. The Qing dynasty did last 270 years, which is what the user may have had in mind.

In the West, the Mayan's various periods went over 200 years as well.

Manga is easy to get into, because you start at issue 1 and go from there. There aren't a fuck ton of extra books that need to be read before you can follow the story. Comics are good as one-shot stories, but are terrible for long overarching stories. There's a reason why certain storylines are popular rather than the entire history of a character. In manga, it's just the story of one character and that's it.

That's because comics got too bloated and disjointed. Manga is really easy to get into as you just need to read the one series and you don't need to go pick up random books to keep up with the storyline. The Japanese weren't the first to do this, but comics got really bad at it. Then comics had the crisis and secret war events to try and bring things back a bit. What they should have done is retired more of their characters and I'm not saying to kill them off. Bruce should have gone through his Batman Beyond retirement a long time ago.

archive.is/xsBwl

Considering shit like this is the state of Marvel, I'm guessing they're all doing poorly.

Was there a harassment alarm? what the fuck happened? Also, I've never met a girl that read comics, and I know very few guys that read comics, yet it's looking like they're trying to make it half the industry. I can't even stand abysmally bad writers like Dan Slot, and Bendis. The industry NEEDS to die at this point.

...

Hopefully after the movie bubble bursts, it will follow..

Man, for being big strong powerful wonderful great awesome perfect women, they sure as fuck need constant reassurance.

You quite literally would have to spend half a day on Pixiv to find someone who could actually pencil and pen your cape comics in an anime style. But they decided to go to Deviant Art instead. The furry section at that.

I have a dyer just like that.

Open submissions and better hiring practices.

With regards to the Big Two the standing statement seems to be "if we've heard of you, then you deserve to be in comics", with the codifier "but only if you come to our conventions"

For clarity that means if you will spend an inordinate amount of money to go to SDCC and other venues, and spam your work around, and the clouds part and the sun shines on you, then you might get noticed by some company big wig who might give a shit.

This runs entirely counter to other business models that are meritocratic and have limited or regular open submissions and let untried talent at least apply for consideration. And, it is the same stagnation which increasingly locks down the fiction market for major book publishers which once were open to new submissions and paid.

If one doesn't accept new people, and pay them even a pittance to keep them, then the industry gets no new blood, has no life, and will slowly die. With the number of webcomics out there, and the number of interested parties at large, would it really hurt one or more of these companies to start accepting new work from new people?

Would it be better if Marvel and DC just did trade paperbacks?

It would have to be a slow transition. If it was fast I think the industry would tank. Around 40% of the industry is floppies. There is no guarantee all of the floppy market will follow to trades. A fast transition by the big two would have huge fallout. Tons of comic shops would probably close from lost floppy sales. Smaller companies that couldn't handle the financial losses a fast transition might bring would close. Trades only would also screw with cash flow. Instead of getting some money every 20 pages companies would be getting their money every 120 pages.

Thinking of long-term sales instead of short-term sales.

pepsi man

Maybe paying a little more for artists/ writers.

Someone send Diversity & Comics a group selfie of the Marvel editors drinking a milkshake (all female and all having the same look), he reacted, saying that one of the girls was pretty good at her job, then one of them lost her shit and an hour later all the major Marvel male sjwriters tipped their fedora and made a hashtag.
According to Diversity & Comics' last video, it seems like Marvel's strategy to deflect any criticism regarding the incredibly low sales of their comics is to capitalize on that hashtag/fake controversy, so that the unqualified people (the group of female editors and their numale writers) will be the "face of [current year] Marvel" and will never get fired.

They could have magazines, which would be made of few individual issues of different books. You know, just like rest of the world does it.

They seem to be quite pissed because in his previous video he said that someone tried to access his Patreon account.

Damn I am loving Gil Kane more and more now…

If anything, the french inherited the "auteur" mentality which allowed them to have comics as something cultural instead of a marketing thing. Ironically I think that's one of american comics' biggest problem is treating the whole thing as an "industry". Industry this, industry that. With that mentality, all creators are employees, and that's what you'll get when you think like that.

Also, re: Marvel doing more adult shit, I think a big part of having Marvel MAX closed was Stan Lee's opinion that Marvel comics should be more "juvenile", more youthful if you will. But then again Marvel was more of a teenager thing forever, so I don't think it's that wrong, but that means Marvel will never have its own Vertigo.

They tried that in Europe, it didn't work.

see pic

it's death

isn't Icon essentially there Vertigo?

this

...

Tintin magazine managed to last from 1946 to 1993. While Spirou magazine from 1938 to present day.
Those worked by having a namesake title comic, Eg: with Tintin magazine you segments of Tintin stories (black and white), behind the scenes details, alternative panels, interviews (and then once the Tintin story was complete it would be released as a collected album in color) and filling out the rest of the magazine was other creators with their own comics.

I feel like IDW's recent Island series was an honest attempt at doing that but didn't fare too well by not including a constant recurring story (to keep the readers coming back) with each issue but too many multi part ones. Personally think (co-editor) Brandon Graham should have had his Multiple Warheads stories as the headline comic in every issue, instead of just some of them. Also shrinking the page count and reducing the number of stories over time didn't help for the long term confidence for the series either.

The magazine could work, the key factors are:

Marvel or was it dc? at one point had a magazine style comic product around Europe. I don't recall its name but the reason they don't try it again is because how poorly its original try went.

Color was been a defining feature of comic book for ages, eliminating them now will only alienate older fans and show now variety when marketed against competitors.

Is it possible to do low cost colouring? Isn't there 4 colour method that older comics first used after they moved on b&w?
It should also be possible to keep certain comics in the magazine in color and others b&w, then going full colour throughout the entire magazine.

the point of magazine format for comics is to have multiple series in one volume

...

This kind of thinking is exactly why it must all come down.

That was published by Image.

Not sure what you are talking about specifically, but Egmont is still releasing their compilations of DC and Marvel stuff as far as I know.

Auteur mentality is pretty common outside of the U.S. Even in Japan, where manga IPs are milked for every possible yen. It's almost as if it important part of a healthy creative industry.

didnt pheonix did it this way? that one from asterix?

Not in Italy at the very least

Is there even such a thing as crossovers in manga?
I know Go Nagai has his characters show up across all of his work, but that's confirmed to be half Dark Tower reincarnation, half Jerry Cornelius alternities…
And a War-Men showed up in the Battle Angel game, but Word Of God says that doesn't imply a shared setting.

Wait, what?

Basically, they wrote a comic and decided that Aunt May couldn't be loved by the fanbase unless she was actually peter's mom, so they created a dumbass convoluted plot of her getting pregnant and giving away the baby to her sister to create an excuse as to why she didn't raise Peter in the first place until her sister died where she then adopted him. It was cancer.

This is one of the major flaws of modern comics today. The authors, editors, and associated bodies decide what you the consumer want rather than asking the consumer what they want. Everyone either loved aunt may or disliked her character but accepted her as a part of Spider-Man. Everyone either liked the wedding to Mary Jane, or accepted that it was part of a progression as a character that Peter would one day become a responsible adult instead of a responsible kid and eventually a responsible father.

But no, we can't have that. Instead to appeal to a nonexistent base that wants a kid spider-man dealing with kid problems we're told, from on high, we need to roll Spider-Man back and undo cannon. We're told, by committee, that Aunt May can't be a goodly and decent person nor can she be an Aunt. Instead she's some kind of shit whose been lying to Peter his entire life because we can't handle complicated familial connections. They think we're dumb and they treat us like it.

There's plenty, but they're usually very small oneshot releases. A lot of them never get translated because of how minor they are. Popular shonen fighting series will throw out a "character x meets character y" omake a few times a year, classic series might get random OVA's like Devilman vs Cyborg 009 or Lupin III vs Detective Conan, and anniversary events will throw together an animation summing up a creators work. Every once and a while you'll get some crazy oddball epic like Giant Robo, but it's the exception.

CMYK Half-toning? They're still using it, it's just that advances in technology have made it indistinguishable.

I know the paper is a big cost (being glossy and all), but really, I don't think DC and Marvel would be eager to lower the cover price regardless of any changes, and what few hard-core fans that are left won't be eager to support any reduction in printing quality.

Fuck, my bad.

didnt pheonix did it this way? that one from asterix?
Are you meaning "The Phoenix" from UK weekly comic magazine that been around since 2012 or is it something French considering you mentioned Asterix?

When I was thinking of magazine, I was thinking as an independent, not a magazine from Marvel/DC. So there shouldn't be that high colour or paper quality expectation.

Manga:

Comics:

I think you didn't understand what I meant with "auteur mentality". In France that was a thing that was passed on from cinema, so you're more likely to be seen as an "artist" and book stores don't treat comics like toilet paper (in fact, the newest Asterix book was the top selling book of the year in France, this includes novels and stuff like that). If anything, comics and comic art is something seen as worth of being put in a museum, which has happened many times. There's also a bit of national pride when it comes to bande dessinée, which is seriously lacking in American comics. A very important point to consider is the lack of a self punishing economical and moral power like the Comics Code, which is also noticeable in british comics as well. I very much doubt americans could have ever made stuff like Nemesis the Warlock or even Requiem Vampire Knight after the Code.

Manga has a sense of identity compared to american comics as well, but it's far from being this sort of artistic movement that BD ended up being in France. Manga is still something that is done as some sort of assembly line product, the asisstants are never ever credited and most of the times the "author" mostly draws the main character and then the nameless guys and gals take care of everything else. What I like about manga is that they kinda supressed the muh representation problem precisely because of its extremely marketing heavy organization: girls who like comics probably end up making comics themselves for other girls like them (even though the usual shit like changing the gender of historical characters or stuff like that is still prevalent). From what I've seen (and by this I mean not just shonen and shojo), the way manga is made is in concept similar to current tv shows, they are done with the same sense of "ease" because you know there will be people buying this stuff.

To be honest, the guy who came up with this idea was Mark Millar, probably the worst mainstream comic writer in the West.

Also this.

Average wizardchan users?

I don't belong here because I don't read many comics, but god damn, have I been trying to get into them. I generally only read shit like Thulsa Doom and Swamp Thing. but I've been trying to get into Punisher, and I'm struggling knowing where to start. My friends tell me to check out Punisher MAX, and I'm fairly certain there's no way for me to buy this and have Marvel see my money. Why don't these companies have TPBs or something ready to go for newcomers who want to get started in comics? Everything is second hand, and new comers who want fucking Iron Man or something aren't going to be interested in Iron Heart in the slightest.

When discussing Dirty Pair:

When discussing Captain Harlock:

Anime and manga are the same, but it's not as bad these days. Instead, you have stuff like One Piece and Berserk, and dear god Dragon Ball, which are all going on for over 20+ years.

You know, with all the rumbling about creators not getting to own comics and not getting paid enough, I wonder if the worker co-operative model would be ideal to revitalizing creativity in the industry while making it financially stable and lucrative.

After all, it works out excellently for Motion Twin in France; they've made millions of dollars in revenue each year from video games and get to split that among the staff of eleven. Don't have to answer to numbnut executives trying to control them. They can adapt easily to the changing market; they've used to do web games but have seamlessly transitioned to desktop with Dead Cells on Steam.

I don't see why the same can't be applied to comics.

This still breaks my heart at how human nature proves time and time again to not give a shit about good art.

Because Marvel is retarded. They've tried everything to get new people into comics, except for the one thing that would actually get new people into comics.

Marvel has released their old school stuff like 4 times during the last few years. Well not four, but I do remember two different collections publishing the same content. I believe one of them is called Marvel Masterworks or something to that effect. Maybe try look for these, but be warned that most of that is stuff from the 60s to the 80s, although that's only good if you ask me.

If you want a particular book you can always read Frank Miller's Daredevil, although those are thick and expensive books. I'd also reccomend Moebius' Silver Surfer, which was "written" by Stan Lee, I put that on quotes because they used the Marvel Method, which means Lee wrote a few paragraphs and Moebius basically made the comic by himself. They made a two-issue short story so it should be ok for picking up and reading.

The latter is the only Marvel comic I bought with a clear conscience, and not even in a proper comic book store, but in a second hand market venue, so at least the money went to the bro selling it and not to Marvel. The only other Marvel book I own is a very nice hardcover edition of Frank Cho's Shanna, which I bought because boobs, but then again I got that from a second hand store as well.

I buy anything with Alex Ross covers, good or bad.

Marvel Comics and The Deck Chairs of the Titanic

archive.is/9BqCI

Thread related. It looks like Marvel intends to crash the industry with no survivors.

The Masterworks TPBs have been superseded by the Epic Collections for a while now, which are published out of order but comparitively have more material. The only Masterworks being published by Marvel are $75 hardcovers aimed at collectors.

Also, the B&W Essential line, the other line you might be thinking about, is dead.

Marvel started compiling the MAX series in Complete Collections fairly recently. You can snap the entire Ennis run in the first four volumes.

That costs money, especially if they're not done in anticipation for say, the latest Marvel Studios release. It doesn't help that Marvel in particular doesn't keep their shit in print long and prices their older collections for $34

The CCA and the Code have been dead for years now though.

Thanks user.

Wow I didn't know of this. I liked Cyborg 009 as a kid.

I just went to that at the Convention on the weekend. I got this one weird comic from the artist that looked pretty fun. It was 4 issues.

Let them die.

Dubs confirm

Face-to-face networking is kind of a no-brainer though, because half the job is rubbing shoulders and building relationships with people likely to slip in a good word for you (editors, fellow creators). How else do you think even the shittiest talent keep themselves swamped with work? Expecting publishers to hand aspiring amateurs a lifeline solely through submissions is a pipe dream, because they don't expect to get anything of worth through them.
You're asking for problems if you go straight to cons like SDCC off the bat and expect to make back what you spent to get there. There's no reason not to work the local and nearby cons (if you have any) if they're within your budget.

No. You can't rush original material, so in the interim they'd just bleed money filling the gaps between OGN releases with older reprints that might not sell. Plus, there'd be resistance from people having to pay more upfront for a comic.

Wouldn't be the first time

...

Dragon Ball has been around, in one form or another, for over 30 years

While it did keep getting games and whatnot, the series itself was dead for almost 20 years after GT so I'm not quite sure what you're on about.

GT finished airing in 97'. DB and DBZ were getting their toonami runs in 2001 to 2010 when Kai aired for another few years. Then you also had the games keeping it afloat through this period as well. The Budokai games, Xenoverse and Online were there to satisfy fans. Super came out in 2015 and will soon get dubbed in the West.

Dragon Ball has yet to be put on ice since it got popular in the West. The only thing it did during the last 20 years is grow its fanbase. It never died.

One Piece has been airing and in print for 20 years and never stopped for more than couple weeks, and it will likely still be running and getting movies and likely several spin off series in the next few years as it heads to its conclusion. I don't doubt for a second that we'll even get some kind of One Piece Kai where they just redo the entire series in a condensed format.

I remember being into Dragonball Z around 96, they were airing the Raditz arc in my country. I was also in the perfect age to start consuming shonen, even though it wasn't the first anime I watched, or even the first Toriyama work I enjoyed (I remember liking Dr Slump and the Dragon Quest anime a lot).

If anything, non-american anime fans often chuckle at the thought that USA was probably the last big country to get into DB like that. And they got the censored version. And for some reason, judging by some clips I've seen in youtube, some parts had like… Pantera music? Dream Theater? Wtf?

Wut
Patrician as fuck honestly

Yanks being late to the fad doesn't mean it was still going. Go eat your burger.

A good post that farted loudly in public as the speech was ending. Now I'm laughing at you.

You are retarded if you think people want to read the absolute cringe and politically base shit they produce. If you dont think they don't add massively to an already bad buisiness model where the staff/management nuke lore, destroy characters, bust story arcs, and attacking fans, you are fuckin retarded.

When I read this, I realized why that other user may be confused and retarded. I think he was under the impression that civilization = Constitution. For instance I hear "the Constitution is the oldest constitution" from time to time. While that may be, it isnt indicative of a people and civilization.

Maybe if they were better writers but the current situation no.