How To Keep Comics In Buisness
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comicsgate.
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- June 2, 2021 at 11:21 am #226922
Just a tip that might save the comic book industry’s ass:
Stop making shitty content, re-print the classics and other popular storylines, sell them cheap, old fans will return, and new fans will be won over by good content, then made enough money and won back the trust of the fans, start printing new content once again, and this time, make sure it’s fucking good!
Seriously, what’s with the fucking ridiculous pricece?? When i started reading comics the new ones at the time cost about 2 to 3.50, 4 bucks max (and the price reflects the amount of stories in the comic), and i’d get my weekly comic, sometimes even if i was not particularly interested, maybe i liked the cover, or i just needed something to read after working out, and then one day, i walk to my local newspaper stand, pick up a comic, and it’s 5 bucks!? Initially i thought it was a special edition, maybe it came with a poster, or an extra little comic, but nope, those were the new prices, and for content that was mostly mediocre if not worse
Now for the same price as these new comics, i can get a manga with 4 to 8 chapters, with content that 90% of the time i will like, so which one should i spend my money on?
I still like comics, but i haven’t bought a new one in months, i’ll buy lots of vintage ones though, even re-prints, and some comics from just a few years ago which still sell at the old retail prices, but why should i spend ridiculous amounts of money on new content i’m not interested in? And i want more superhero comics, i want more Star Wars comics, but i want them to be good
June 2, 2021 at 11:46 am #226928Anonymous
Yeah, pretty much completely switched to Manga. But Just Some Guy got me interested in Iconic Comics so I started reading some of theirs. I got into comics back when X-Men and Spider-Man was on Fox kids, in the 90’s. But I didn’t stay in it for long. That was the time of Age of Apocalypse and Maximum Cloneage. So I lost interest. I always liked the characters, until recent years. A few months ago I sold my 2/3rds of a long box for $50. Bought some tacos.
I used to really like the Marvel and DC movies. I even sorta tolerated the bad ones. Around Avengers 2, I had enough. Their activism was the last straw. Marvel, DC and all their artists have broken the customer relationship to the point where I don’t want the games, the movies, or even a bag of chips with their logo on it. There is no going back on that, because they broke it and they refuse to fix it. They are incapable of doing what is needed to repair that relationship. I honestly don’t care if ANY OF THEM survive (except Iconic Comics. I like them)
What will happen is sooner or later DC and Marvel will die. I hope very soon. If they take Disney with em, more the better.
Their characters will never die (financially speaking) and will be re-purposed as long as people still remember them.
By the way, will someone please explain to me why putting Captain America on a bag of lettuce makes me want to see a movie? Or eat a salad? Are people that fucking dumb? Oh, wait… They are. Never mind.
June 2, 2021 at 12:07 pm #2269351 word “Escapism”
This is why people read Books and Magazines, why people watched Movies and Tv Series. People want to escape from reality, that was why things sold and worked for centuries, From Ancient times and the Bards to the end of the 80’s, People knew that.
Now we have to many people with agenda’s and they are making Propagandist literature and movies, they are alienating half the audience instantly. But now the other half is getting annoyed as well. Comics are dead in America at the moment. They could be resurrected if we had creatives who wrote new Hero’s and Villains and remembers the story matters and leave all the Garbage out.
Make me pick it up and not put it down, “Heart of the Jedi” did that but few have in the last 12 to 20 years to be honest, as when I smell agenda of any kind to the trash it goes.
June 2, 2021 at 12:13 pm #226937One more thing Manga has an edge of western comics that I always like to bring up:
Manga almost always follows traditional story structure. Beginning, middle, end.
American comics follows keep milking the charactes as long as possible structure. With no narrative consistency. For going on 100 years.
DragonBall used to be a Manga structure, now it’s an American structure. It bloody feels like it, too…
June 2, 2021 at 1:26 pm #226940I got into comics when the price was below $1.00 each.
Now some new DC comics have a list price of $5.99USD.
The DC Black Label ones even more.
For example, the new Harley Quinn monthly comics.
We went from this:
To this?
Same Price, yet one looks like it was made by an amateur, and the interior art is just as cheap.
And that is even before we look at the story/dialogue.
June 2, 2021 at 2:21 pm #226942By the way, will someone please explain to me why putting Captain America on a bag of lettuce makes me want to see a movie? Or eat a salad? Are people that fucking dumb? Oh, wait… They are. Never mind.
Yup, i am that dumb, if i see anything Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or anime, you bet i bought it, yoghurt drinks, cereal, chocolate, pasta, cup-noodles, cakes, cookies, bubble gum, ice cream, easter eggs, fruit juice, chips (well this one depends on the flavour), but not lettuce, yuk 🤢
June 2, 2021 at 2:27 pm #226943But do you buy something you wouldn’t have bought anyway? For example, I enjoy Final Fantasy, but never felt the urge to buy Cup Noodles…
If your a collector, I sort of understand. But no one with a functioning brain is going to collect a bag of salad… But it is 2021…
The parents will buy the salad for their kids because it’s “healthy” and they have the money. The kids don’t have the money and don’t want the salad. I just don’t get the promotion. And if it tastes like ass, putting a comic book on it ain’t gonna make it flavorful.
Don’t take offense, it’s nothing personal. Just observations that make me go “huh”. Perpetually.
June 2, 2021 at 2:55 pm #226946No offense taken @shrap, i know i’m a sucker for these things, but i do draw the line at food i won’t fucking eat, that is truly a waste of money
June 2, 2021 at 3:43 pm #226948June 2, 2021 at 3:56 pm #226949@shrap When it comes to Western comics, I rarely, if ever, buy any of the on-going series. I generally wait to see if a story arc gets well-received and then get it in graphic novel format if it sounds interesting.
Many of the superheroes we know and love have been around since before we were born and come from another era. They weren’t made in mind to have a definite end or even be the modern Greek legends that they’re often regarded as today, but entertainment for children. They somehow managed to take a life of their own due to so many writers adding to the mythos over the course of several decades, that it’s now a pool from which new writers can take inspiration from. Only way for Marvel and DC to stay fresh and relevant is by having new iterations of otherwise familiar stories.
I mean, don’t me wrong, I completely agree with you that Western comics not having an “ending” is a problem. I’d take a standalone story like Frank Miller’s the Dark Knight Returns or Year One over the main Batman series because I want something that makes for good reading for an hour or two and has ending in mind rather than something just keeps going and doesn’t know when to quit.
Tbh, the manga industry isn’t entirely perfect in this regard, either. There are some manga titles which are older than Dragon Ball, and are still on-going, largely because the nature of their stories allows them to go on indefinitely (gag manga and the like, which of course won’t have the traditional story structure like FMA or SnK). Dragon Ball started out as a gag manga as well and evolved into something else due Toriyama’s love of martial arts, and it only ended because he got tired of it and wanted to move on. I think the reason why we keep getting new stories now is because Toriyama probably took took one look at Dragonball Evolution and realized he needed to take creative control asap. My issue is squeezing all the new arcs in between the Buu saga and the epilogue, which I think is pretty restrictive for creative freedom, and kinda takes away all the weight an arc may have because we all know the protagonists are going to be okay in the end. Is GT canon, or what?
June 2, 2021 at 4:13 pm #226952GT is non-canon. Which is fine with me… I never watched it.
Western comics have no weight. They can have big gotcha moments only for them to be retconed a decade later. Now, anime does the same thing in some regards, like the Code Geass movies or the Macross movies… But even they still have finality to a point.
It took a long time for Peter and MJ to hook up, just to get split a few decades later of whatever, just so they can start patching it back together now? Why bother, we know they will just split later anyway.
June 2, 2021 at 5:03 pm #226959Pfft, let the comic industry rot. Most of it is leftist fan-fiction anyway and I only tolerated the constant ‘anti-gun/gay rights/feminism/1% are bad’ gibberish because I loved the medium so much. I’m almost thankful that it has become unreadable commie propaganda because my mind feels more free when I read manga or some kick-starter stuff.
June 2, 2021 at 6:23 pm #226969So hijacking as most the usual suspects are on this thread… get your butts in the discord and have fun..
June 2, 2021 at 8:07 pm #226983Sadly, or maybe not, I have found back issues have been taking a large percentage of my comic buying dollars, especially when you can find them for half current cover price.
Not yet interested in those graphic novels collection of story arcs, nor the omnibus.
But I do have a few of those graphic novels, I admit. They just are secondary to me to getting the actual comic books.
June 3, 2021 at 2:08 pm #227081@shrap I keep seeing people assuming GT is non-canon, but I haven’t seen anyone come up with hard evidence to back that up. I know people like to think it isn’t because it wasn’t penned by Toriyama, but, far as I’m aware, neither Toriyama nor Toei Animation have come out with any statement on whether or not it’s canon.
I’m aware that Super has contradicted GT’s own lore, but you can’t expect Toei and Toriyama to care about continuity and consistency. They otherwise do seem to acknowledge GT as part of the franchise as they have avoided telling any new stories set at the same time period which would discard GT outright.
Not saying any of this in defense of GT; I get why people don’t like it. I’m just simply pointing out how saying GT is non-canon seems to be a rather non-substantiated claim. I personally don’t mind it, but if we were to get a proper Dragon Ball sequel, it should be ignored so writers would be free of its constraints and do a better job. But that’s something neither Toei nor Toriyama have shown any willingness to do.
Do agree with you on Peter and MJ. I rather enjoyed JMS’ run on Spider-Man, but breaking them up over Aunt May’s death (and in the most contrived manner…) just pissed me off enough to quit the main Spider-Man series for good. It was a serious regression from everything that had been worked towards that point and disillusioned me from Western comics well before social justice nonsense arrived (considering where I heard Dan Slott had taken the series since, I’m glad I quit while I was ahead).
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