Marvel & DC went woke. So people switched to manga.
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I dont think even this puts into scale just how absurd the growth in Manga was. How absurd was it? The entire American comic book market, including Indies, was outsold by just the merch of Demon Slayer.
And yet, comic pros think that this is all fine and proof that the Comic industry is healthier than it has ever been.
Yep, they’ll keep drawing heroes and villains and, uh, living mosques?!? next to speech bubbles that simply copy-paste critical theory talking points for their imagined audience, and that audience will proudly retweet screen shots of the most woke pages posted to Twitter, then go about the usual habit of not buying comic books. And the industry will have no idea what’s happening.
The graphic novels section of the industry quietly added manga to itself, too.
I'd call this out as cultural appropriation, but it's clearly the case that the converged people in charge of the numbers know the score. By adding Manga, they get to look like a healthy industry AND keep posting critical theory as comics. The fact that Disney and Warner are finally getting so financially pressured that they're looking to take the long knives to their Marvel and DC comics divisions?
"Don't look at the xir behind the curtain!" "Oz is great and mighty!" "American Comics have never been healthier!" "Bigot!"
It is to laugh.
Ah MAGA manga.
It's so incredibly easy to get into manga too. Imagine that you've heard the hype about Demon Slayer, and are curious. Where do you start? Volume 1. Oh, and there's only 23 volumes. It finished three years ago. You actually get a complete story with an ending. There's no constant, mystery-box hook, story that forces you to shamble along, long after the story has gone stale.
Some manga go on forever, like One Piece. But most have some sort of ending, even if they might last for a decade. I think that we've lost appreciation for endings, as culture. It's all "content" designed to go on forever. No wonder manga is eating superhero comics' lunch.
Writer and artist.
Who sometimes ends up being both.
I see some artwork in comics with the human characters looking like sacks of stuffed shit and think to myself 'Who the hell thought this person was worth getting paid money for this abomination?'
Very rare cases where someone else comes on board is when an author dies(see Berserk as an example, 6 more days btw for anyone wondering!) and even there it's all held together by someone who knows how the author wanted it to end. They'll put their all into it so the original author wouldn't lose any honor because of it.
That's actually the exception rather than the rule. Usually when an author dies the series simply ends out of respect for the author. See: Guin Saga
I actually hadnt considered this point. It is certainly one of the things I enjoy more. And I also enjoy that the overwhelming majority of Manga/Anime has endings where the good guys win and the bad guys are defeated. It's so uncommon in this day and age that it makes it actually worthwhile again, instead of just childish things. Its the same reason why I am getting turned off from Anti-Heroes a la "The Boys" (if its a Punisher "I am doing this because the system is broken" sort of Anti-Hero, I am still fine with it though).
Absolutely not. The desire for resolutions and endings is always there, problem is those who keep the show going has financial interest to keep delaying it for as long as possible.
Franchises are not allowed to have satisfying endings.
Why? Because consumers will leave satisfied. Hard to keep getting money out of them if they leave satisfied don't you think?
It's something that has struck me as I looked back on Warcraft universe as a whole after Shadowlands and Legion ending.
We just couldn't leave Shadowlands happy and close book on it. Zovaal just HAD to drop this "what is to come" quote just to plant that itchy bug at the back of your mind. What is to come? The Void Lords? Find out later so keep paying attention to our franchise so we can have this tiny chance of you resubbing.
We just couldn't deliver a definite killing blow to Sargeras and close book on him. Sargeras just HAD to be imprisoned instead and the Burning Legion is, we pressume, scattered. What is to come after? Find out later so keep paying attention to our franchise so we can have this tiny chance of you resubbing.
They will keep moving the goal posts over and over again through plot twist or open endings just to keep you wondering what will come next. And if that will involve slow deterioration of the franchise until one last bit of engagement and good will is exhausted, then so be it.
Another egregious example was LOST. It was insanely popular so it kept just printing money, so they threw out the ending they originally planned and tacked several extra seasons on the show, with increasingly retarded plots. It's been a decade and I am still mad about the ending. Sawyer's dad called it out in the first season, and it seemed like a reasonable explanation at the time, but then there was a mysterious bunker with an old computer and a hydrogen bomb and Egyptian statues and a smoke monster and a pendulum and then in the final episode, HA HA HA NONE OF THAT MATTERED AT ALL, SAWYER'S DAD WAS RIGHT, LOOK AT US SUBVERTING YOUR EXPECTATIONS. Blergh.
By their logic the industry is doing great. They are just too stupid or to dishonest to admit that their competitors are healthier than it has ever been and that they are spiraling the drain.
You don’t understand: their logic is stupider than that.
I saw one time that a comic author was on Twitter trying to argue that Manga selling out was a good thing for Comics. How you might ask? Well, you see, people will still want their graphic novels. And so if the manga is all sold out, then they will start looking at comics to satisfy their fix.
How do you even begin to fix the problem when your own people think that their competitors eating their lunch is good for them?!
lol. Such a great business strategy of we need our competitors to sell out and hope someone buys our crap instead of just ordering it online.
When they are out of aspirin, they'll come to me for some crack! It's amazing! Will sell BEEELLIONS.
Any chance you could recover that moment? Sounds like a great bit for my business school presentation.
Unfortunately not. That was years ago and I saw it second hand, so I dont have a link.
It's healthy because they own it, regardless of how greatly diminished it has become.