Support NeoGAF

[belgurdo]

Although I kinda miss the "tits tits tits" mentality of the 90s, at least comic publishers seem to put some effort into the stories nowadays, which means a lot to me (Walking Dead roxxx)

And BIG MOTHERFUCKING TIP TO WESTERN COMICS MAKERS: When fans want your shit to "go manga," they mean they want affordable books, an attempt at coherent characterization and development, and a constant, linear plotline that ENDS, not just "shrink the character down two feet, make their eyes the size of dinner plates, and make all of the secondary characters samurai"

 

[Father_Brain]

I commend DC for letting Vertigo fly. Marvel has promised a creator owned line, but so far all they've managed to do is make a total house nigger out of Bendis and keep his personal books under wraps. So far as I recall, they were supposed to take up publishing Powers from Image. To my knowledge this hasn't happened.

Uh... WTF? Marvel has put out ten issues and three trades of Powers under the Icon imprint, and in fact, Bendis will be starting another creator-owned book soon.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

You're missing the point Spike.

Naruto may well be Dragonball Z with the names changed, but it's not Dragonball Z retrofitted to be Naruto. Meaning Goku suddenly isn't a ninja student.

What Marvel did with the Ultimates was just a disgrace to the legacy of those characters. That's not how Captain America behaves. That's not how the Hulk acts. So on and so forth. If you want to do the Ultimates, make youself some new fucking characters.

Yeah, sure there are no "new" stories - but there are a shitload of ideas corporate comics are missing out on. I'm not the most well read fellow on the planet, but y'know - I've yet to run into the same dull shit corporate comics foists off on it's illiterate readers in literature.

F*ck the DBZ/Naruto comparisons, alright? You missed my point. Dissing American comics because "it's been done better before," while only moments before defending Japanese manga for churning out copycats "in new trappings," just doesn't wash. "It's been done" dismissals in general can apply just as easily to a vast majority of the stuff released over there too.

Now, dissing an American comic because it's a "disgrace to the legacy" does wash, but it's also just your opinion as a fan (well, not fan... let's say consumer). There are fans who'll agree with you, and there are fans who'll disagree because these new interpretations speak to them, are more relevant. It's the same thing with the creators and writers who've worked on these characters; unless they say something, you can't know for certain how they feel, and neither can I. You're always going to piss at least one person off in anything you do, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing. And in any case, creating a whole new cast would defeat the entire purpose of the Ultimate line, which was to produce a line of "friendly" comics for new readers, featuring established characters that aren't necessarily bogged down by 40+ years of history. It's the same idea behind Marvel Adventures.

Now, you're looking for new superheroes? They're out there. And guess what? Some of them are even at Marvel and DC. You're looking for non-superhero books? Go see Dark Horse, Image, DC's other imprints, and the indies -- but don't look to Marvel just yet.

You're inadvertantly angling this into a manga vs. Americomi dispute with what I'm about to quote:

And this is a business we're talking about here; until market research tells Marvel/DC that girls' comics, or historical dramas, or romantic comedies, or whatever are in high demand and can make them money, they're not going to take a risk and make it happen.

That's quite alright. Tokyopop has proven there's a market for it and is filling the demand for it.

You can see Marvel making half assed attempts at this with stuff like Mary Jane. Hey girls! Don't like Spiderman? Well - we can't make anything original that caters to you, but here's a book about his bitch; and hopefully it will dupe you into just reading Spiderman anyway. :lol

I'd wager that the shoujo and -esque stuff Tokyopop puts out is popular because it's MANGA!!!!!! [small print]for girls[/small print] and the like. Plus, you gotta figure there are still far more guys out there gobbling that stuff up, either because they like it or (more likely) because "OMG ITZ TEH MAHNGAAAA!!!."

Anyway, remember her?

What about her?

Would you like Marvel to bring them back? Modernize them for today's young girls? Millie almost did come back in 1997... as a sexed-up bombshell with art by Al Rio.

EDIT: ...Y'know, I missed this. This is probably the most interested I've been in GAF in a long time.

I think I'm going to make a thread soon.

 

[Father_Brain]

The main problem with the comic industry is that the direct market (the collective term for specialty comic shops) is a ghetto. People outside the "superhero fanboy" demographic won't go to comics shops because of their stereotypes (which are often true), and they can't get regular comics shop visitors to buy books that aren't Superman/Batman/Spider-Man/X-Men in sufficient quantities to keep them alive. The bookstore market is the best bet, but DC is terrible about releasing trades for its DCU books, and while Marvel releases trades of most of its titles with only a two-month delay, they won't develop work specifically for the bookstore market.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

I think me losing Supergirl, Transmetro, and Black Panther all in like what seemed the same year didnt help, they were three of my favorite. Shit now I want to head to the shop. :lol

SUPERGIRL #1

Written by Jeph Loeb, art by Ian Churchill and Norm Rapmund, covers by Churchill and Rapmund and Michael Turner.

A new monthly series spinning out of the sell-out run in Superman/Batman featuring the adventures of Superman's cousin from Krypton, the one and only Kara Zor-el! Kara's story begins with the same brand of high-flying adventure as she begins her whirlwind tour of the DCU! And the first hero she squares off against is Power Girl! Before this tale guest-starring the JSA is complete, secrets behind the origins of both will be revealed! Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers by Ian Churchill and Norm Rapmund (75 percent) Michael Turner (25 percent).

32 pages, $2.99, in stores on Aug. 10.

BLACK PANTHER #7

Written by Reginald Hudlin, penciled by Trevor Hairsine, cover by Kaare Andrews.

"Soul Power In The House Of M." House of M tie-in. A United Africa -- ruled over by Storm and the Black Panther -- has become an economic powerhouse and a thorn in Magneto's side. When Storm speaks out about the persistence of supremacist notions in the mutant-controlled world, a furious Magneto is determined to stop her at any cost, dispatching Quicksilver and Sabretooth to kill The Black Panther. And if neither succeeds: Apocalypse waits in the wings.

32 pages, $2.99, in stores on Aug. 24.

Two out of three ain't bad.

 

[Willco]

To be fair, the new Black Panther sucks.

 

[borghe]

ttob unfortunately has flown past the point of this thread to a degree.. not saying he doesn't have some points (few), but it really is outside the scope of the thread. All I will say to your comments particularly ttob is:

You can't accuse or hold against new Marvel the transgressions of Marvel past. Of course Marvel and DC at various times have fucked over past creators. However the number of those creators are very few (the fact that they are so prominent is what makes the issue big), and Marvel and DC since the newest regime lineups took over have gone a long way to smoothing over the past.

Creator owned is great, but Marvel and DC particularly can't operate that way. There entire business is based off of intellectual properties and the marketing and licensing of said properties. They would virtually have to spinoff an entirely new subset (imprint) to operate creator owned products. Not saying it isn't possible, but when you are still trying to grow and maintain profitability (even though DC doesn't have to be profitable but still has to maintain a stock of licensable IPs) venturing out into more than likely costly and risky territory isn't the way to do it. Let's not forget Epic (old, not new) where Marvel did allow creator owned books. Epic IIRC lasted all the way up until Perlman got the company (again IIRC) and pretty much stripped everything away that wasn't insanely profitable before he ran it into the ground.

And your argument about licensing is not the way to go.. umm.. where the hell do you think manga would be in Japan without anime and movies? Where do you think anime would be in japan without manga? Hell, even the whole j-pop scene is forever intertwined into manga/anime/movies... It isn't any different over here. What do you think we are talking about in this very thread? Getting people to read the books. Getting people who read the books to watch the shows or the movies. Taking good movies or shows and turning them into comics. Throw the word books into there and it is just as appropriate. Like I said, Marvel, after almost 40 years, finally figured it out. This business isn't about making comics. It is about managing intellectual properties. And not only has Marvel learned it with superheroes, but DC has learned it with superheroes, Dark Horse has learned it with both comic->movie properties as well as movie/tv->comic properties, and for the first time ever (well, within the last 5 years or so) independent comic creators are learning it also. Your book only sells 4000 copies? Option out the screenplay. You get the screenplay optioned? Make another book with the cash. Arguing that comics aren't about managing intellectual properties is like saying movies and TV have no connection. or movies and books. or tv and books. you see the mediums crossing over all the time. and there is an obvious reason for it. because a book plays out differently than a comic. a comic plays out differently than a movie. a movie plays out differently than a tv show. a tv show plays out differently than a video game. and so forth. the next time you bitch about licensing though, seriously ask yourself where manga and anime would be in their current state if both didn''t exist. comics, tv/OVA, and movies all play off of each other. it is all one industry.

as for your rant on ultimates, I get that it isn't your thing. I get that they took characters you seem to be fond of and did something with them that you don't find at all appealing. but the success of the ultimates, and the entire Ultimate line, can't be denied. Series like What If?, Elseworlds one shots and minis, and now the Ultimate line are huge hits with fans. Everyone has wanted to see Wolverine die at some point and time. Everyone has wanted to see Spider-Man be a criminal. Everyone has wanted to see Captain America turn from boy scout to bad ass. They have done all these types of stories in the regular books, but at the end of the day you have to change things back. It's great to kill off Magneto for 20 issues or so. But he has to come back. Kill Green Goblin, but you better have someone ready to fill the suit after him. Audiences want to see these characters fight it out. They want to see it because it's what they know and what they like. So instead you release these alternate reality books which give you liberty to do any and everything you want. Captain America is now a bad ass, hulk is a psychopath, spider-man dies, batman is born into victorian england to stop jack the ripper, etc. Not every one is going to be everyone's cup of tea. We all have our issues of What If? that we would have gone a different way with. Our Elseworlds or Ultimate stories or books which we do't like the takes on the characters. But I would rather have the Ultimate line, and the Elseworlds books, and the What If? series, than not have them. since when is variety a bad thing?

Like I said, you do have a few points. The fact that going to Barnes and Noble there are very few western TPBs that a girl might find interesting, and that no girl is going to head to a comic book shop to find these books. the fact that manga is more diversified. particularly stuff like cooking, racing, dating, etc and this stuff being prominently displayed right with all the shounen stuff.

but your arguments about licensing properties falls completely flat when you realize that japanese publishers do the exact same thing. your creator owned arguments fall flat given that marvel HAS done creative owned before, and right now is simply at a point where taking a risk like that can hurt them more than it can help them. and your ultimate argument sort of falls flat under the premise that more variety is usually a heck of a lot better than less variety.

I also think there is a large part of your argument that is seriously overestimating the impact of manga in the US. not to say it isn't huge, but by the same count there is no gauge to say it is huge. all we have to go on is the quantity being released and the display area at book stores and comic shops. though one almost has to argue that the display area is directly proportionate to the quantity of product out there. Displaying 21 volumes of Inu Yasha is going to take some space.

anyway, back to the topic at hand, I really feel companies like AiT/PlanetLar and NBM among others have to work more on getting more distribution into the bookstores. I also think one of the riskier things that can be done is that they have to break out of the bookstore ghetto. A girl (or non-comic reader) is just as unlikely to visit the graphic novel section of the local B&N as they are a comic book shop. If it is a romance TPB, stick it in the romance section of the store. If it is sci-fi, stick it in the sci-fi section. Mystery, etc. A horror reader is probably not going to head over and pick up 30 Days of Night from the TPB section. But if they saw it mixed right in with Barker, King, etc, maybe they would give it a look? Just a thought.

 

[Doc Holliday]

1. STop coloring the books the exact same way! Bring back the flat coloring!

2. Get rid of the glossy paper. Go back to high quality matte paper, cheeper and easier to read. For me anyway.

3.Less titles per character, I want one or two spidey comics...thats it.

4. I want more limited series. I'm not a fan of comics that go on forever..ala soap operas. I mean does anyone care anymore about xmen and spiderman. Give me Dark Knight returns, Elektra assasin, Kindom come, and other shit like that.

5. Stop with the shitty art! Comics needs to go back to the era where they had THE BEST illustrators around. If you're an artist with skills why in the hell would you go into the industry when it pays like shit for hard work. An artist you would make a shit load more doing video games, advertising and film work.

6. Cheaper! Cheaper! Cheaper!

 

[Belfast]

Probably by being less damn confusing. I like and appreciate comics, but there are MANY series I don't think I'll ever be able to really get into. Its not so much an issues with the precepts behind the comics as it is the loads of changes in artists/writers and spinoffs and universal PR stunts that needlessly warp the world in which the stories take place in over the span of decades.

Its just so hard to come in so late to a lot of these series without investing a respectable amount of time/money.

That's why I currently induldge mostly in manga. One creator (or a small group of them a la Clamp), one story, and a lot more consistency. More bang for your buck also helps.

The one comic book series I currently read is Y - The Last Man and that's because I was relatively able to get into it on the ground floor. The story is really cool and I like the characters, but even that isn't a full 30 pages a month and can be read through in about 5 minutes. Yeah, I realize it takes more time to color all of that stuff, but I wouldn't mind if they were in black-and-white really. I'm used to it now.

 

[Lyte Edge]

I think Marvel's Ultimate line and the upcoming All-Star line from DC is the way to go as far as possibly getting new readers to jump on. These books take familar characters and make it easy for anyone to jump on without having 30+ years of backstory that they need to know. I don't care to read them (although the new Defenders book looks amusing), but it's definitely the type of direction that's needed for potential new readers.

But the real problem here is that virtually none of these comics are getting tons of new readers. Kids don't really seem to care about comics at all, and you can tell the big companies know this and are moving to other projects; Marvel is turning all of its properties into movies now, which can attract a much larger audience. Makes you wonder if comics are even going to be around in their current form 10 years from now; it seems like those of us reading comics are the "last generation" and that they are going to "die" with us.

 

[Shig]

Another sore point for the industry is that they seem to miss a lot of opportunities. They really don't cross market well. For instance, Batman Begins comes out next week... DC should have put out something marketed at the magazine market that contains a couple of recent (mostly self-contained) Batman issues, some previews of other DC offerings, a simple guide of good starting points for various series, and a coupon or two for a couple bucks off of any DC TPB. It wouldn't be too hard to convince the more casual magazine carriers, such as supermarkets, to carry that, and I'm sure it would sell very well, riding on the movie's hype. DVDs of comic properties should contain coupons, or at least ads, for their relative TPBs.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I am a comics reader, but I suspect the major reason comics don't sell more is subject matter, not format (althoguh format plays a part). Or at least perception of subject matter.

There *are* a lot of comics not about super-heroes. They're mostly overlooked even by comics fans. Of the non-super comics, most are sci-fi/fantasy. Still marginal. How many people read Ghost World before it become a movie (or even after)? Crime is probably the next-most successful genre, and more acceptable to the general public, at least.

I keep thinking that some sort of ongoing sports drama woudl make a great comic. Sports movies do well, there's built-in conflict, and an ongoing (or long format) story could be very compelling. You could even license some real teams or people.

I do agree that I want comics to be better financially to support the form. I love all kinds of comics from Manga to super-heroes to Peep Show and American Splendor. From Raw to JLA. But I kow I am a minority within a minority, and that means that the rare end of those is always struggling.

 

[borghe]

the comics indsutry needs a mass marketed version of EC Comics. Crime, Suspense, War, and Horror, and ship those off to the magazine racks or intermingle trade paperbacks in with the rest of the books in those sections.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Another sore point for the industry is that they seem to miss a lot of opportunities. They really don't cross market well. For instance, Batman Begins comes out next week... DC should have put out something marketed at the magazine market that contains a couple of recent (mostly self-contained) Batman issues, some previews of other DC offerings, a simple guide of good starting points for various series, and a coupon or two for a couple bucks off of any DC TPB. It wouldn't be too hard to convince the more casual magazine carriers, such as supermarkets, to carry that, and I'm sure it would sell very well, riding on the movie's hype. DVDs of comic properties should contain coupons, or at least ads, for their relative TPBs.

You mean, something like this? :lol

 

[Shig]

Heh, that was weird, right after I posted that I saw that. They sure jumped on my advice quick. :lol

Even so, that's only available to one city.

 

[DaveH]

I don't know how you'd do it, but if they could fix the way TPBs are sold in [large chain] bookstores that could help a lot, at least in my experience... your milage may vary at your local B&N/Borders/etc.

As it stands, you've got one maybe two shelves set up for TPBs. They're all assorted shapes and sizes, typically with fairly thin and non-standardized spines... maybe they're somewhat organized... more typically mixed up because of the sizes and crossovers and what not (do you organize by book title, writer, team, publisher, etc?). So you've got this confusing array to look at surrounded by- let's say- mouth breathing 10 year-olds mesmerized by a Scott Campbell book abandoned by their parents... where do you begin? Seems like you wouldn't know what to look for unless you already knew what you wanted. Sure in some cases they reserve a few front facing top shelves (like a magazine stand) so you can see the covers (or the top of them) of maybe a dozen trades but that's not a whole lot (and more typically the oversized stuff goes there). Should you pick something out they're usually not much thicker than a magazine but pushing $20 or more. Yikes!

Then you turn around.

The manga takes up at least an entire row, sometimes two. Everything is neatly organized and uniform in shape. You can see entire series of volumes lined up and- often- they form some kind of mural that can pique your interest. At the very least the volumes tend to have fat spines... graphical real-estate to grab your attention. Sure, there's a smelly otaku thumbing through pages, but he's further down the row meanwhile there's a cute Asian chick checking out a manga nearby. Anything you pick up is around $15 and closer to $10 and at least 90 pgs, closer to 150 pgs with Vol1 almost always being thicker at the same price to help you get into a series.

Anyways, easy to point out the problems, solutions? I dunno, since you can't realistically give comic books more real-estate than they "deserve". Maybe a few possibilities:

- Cover catalogs with brief synopsis or sample pages; something in an easily updated binder to flip through instead of going through the books on the shelf?
- Go digital - promote books in virtual real-estate online and in-store computer catalogs
- Standardize TPB sizes instead of having the same ridiculous size arms-race that use to plague PC game boxes
- Cross reference - Yes, monthly books are periodicals, so it makes a sort of sense to put the comics by the magazines and newspapers... and yes, TPBs appeal to manga readers, gamers, and serial comic readers (Calvin&Hobbes, Peanuts, etc)... but maybe instead of having the cookbooks, pets/animals, or foreign language sections next to the periodicals you could put the comics near the comics? Or at least provide something that says, "If you like this, check out these..."

 

[borghe]

like I said... stick TPBs in with the rest of the books. you would be amazed at how many more books you can sell when you don't have to mingle amongst the mouth breathing 10 year olds. and chicks who could buy romance TPBs in the romance section, to not have to deal with any typical comic book guy presence, I guarantee they would be more inclined.

although all of this is really out of the publishers' hands.

 

[Shig]

Yeah, I agree they should be more uniformly formatted and presented better aesthetically. One thing that manga does that looks good is to have all of a series have the same format spine... with comics you'll have one Batman or X-men TPB with a a black & white spine, one with orange, one with green, one with purple, one with red... that just looks sloppy. Designate a standard format so that they look good together, either make them all one color or place a uniform spine header up top not unlike what video game cases do with the system name.

That's yet another spot where Y: The Last Man excels, the TPB spines are uniformly formatted and look great together.

 

[SpiderJerusalem]

Bah Churchill! lol I guess I'll grab the book or wait for collection and see if I like her as much as Linda. Black Panther I'll flip through...I may have just liked the style of the last series.

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

The original question was, why does a person who doesn't read comics have no interest in the medium?

One of the points, inadvertently, raised was the lack of creator ownership. Let's take a look at the Lord of the Rings example someone mentioned. If Tolkien relinquished the rights to those characters to the publisher, then we would no
doubt be seeing some worthless serialized adventures, and the inevitable Lord of the Rings 2099. I can't think of one instance where corporate ownership of a character has ever ended sensibly, or left well alone the continuity of the original creator.

The literary equivalent of Marvel Comics are the TSR Drizzt novels. I read these a decade ago, and was really enjoying them; up until they killed off one of the main characters, only to have him miraculously come back from the dead.

If I wanted to read about morons coming back from the dead - I'd read The Bible.

Do you see the pattern?

In order for the copyright holders, the corporations, to continue to make money off of these properties; they have to drag these characters through the mud to keep the copyright holdings current. We don't want those copyrights to expire! We might be forced to do something drastic like come up with a new character
and back it for at least five to ten years.

I stopped reading Spiderman around ten years ago. Unfortunately, I'm a comic nerd; so every so often against my better judgment I'll do something foolish like read a new Spiderman comic.

Ten years ago when I stopped reading, Spiderman had found his parents, Venom and Carnage were the bad guys of the moment; although the inevitable happened and Venom went from "bad guy" to "anti hero", and IIRC Peter Parker was married. Keep in mind, this was ten years ago.

So I was at the library picking up some Polish language dictionaries, and I walked over to the Children's Section - where they keep the comics, errr "graphic novels". The library system has long since abandoned the monthlies since they're such a hassle to maintain.

Anyhow, while I was over there browsing a Spiderman book caught my eye. Terry Dodson, Spiderman, Black Cat. What the hell, it's free -right? So I checked it out.

Got home, read it - I'll never get that hour of my life back.

Ten years later. Peter Parker is unmarried, in fact - what happened ten years ago doesn't even exist anymore. He's living with Aunt May and relocating. Basically, Aunt May gets kidnapped - again, and now Peter's out looking for her
- again. The only thing that changed were the bad guys spandex, characters are magically young again, and it was now implied that Elektro takes a shot to the brown-eye every now and then.

Now, on the other hand - I stopped reading Fred Perry's Gold Digger regularly about five years ago. The local comic shop was dumping back issues for a song and a dance during Free Comic Book Day, so I picked up four issues for two bucks.

The first thing that hits you is now the book is full color. Ignoring that, Brittany is now pregnant - I assume by Stripe. Brianna has become a more unique character. There were totally new characters running around. Older
characters had moved into the background, and formerly supporting characters were now playing a more prominent role in the story.

The difference is Fred Perry owns his characters and in order to keep his book interesting and appealing to fans, he lets his characters grow and
change. That's something no corporate owned character will ever be able to do, without the suits at some point requiring that all the changes made to a particular set of characters be undone and start over from square one.

However, they have to start over from square one by re-treading all that familiar ground, see also Ultimate Spiderman. It's just Nu Spiderman. Still corporate owned, and destined to be reset again in 15-20 years when sales taper off or
readers stop caring. Peter Parker will be a student again and be bitten by some new spider that will endow him with super powers.

Apparently the Spiderman book I read was a "mature audiences" comic. Meaning there was some implied sexuality and the color pallet was muted so as to not appear a childish - even if they're still pimping me ridiculous stories of men
running around in primary colored tights.

Why does the comic market need:

- Spiderman for toddlers
- Spiderman for teens
- Spiderman for adults
- Spiderman for Indians (I wish I were making this up)

Why? Because the corporate interests can't see past that, nor do they want to relinquish absolute control over the industry; no matter the positive effect it could have.

Going back to literature, there are instances of on-going characters - but those books (Mack Bolan, Executioner) are generally dealt with in the same manner as comic books. They've got their audience, but you're not going to see them
having a lasting impact on our cultural conscience or be looked back upon as a literary masterpieces.

Could you imagine the crap that would happen if Tolkien or Schulz relinquished the rights to their characters? It would be chaos. Fortunately these
creators made a lasting cultural impact, and their families have benefitted from this and ensure that their ancestor's contributions aren't shat upon by any douchebag that wants to run off and make a LotR or Peanuts licensed product.

Now, coming at this from another angle - another problem with comics books are the fans.

Folks like nomoment, borghe, Federman, Spike and the other regulars here who will assert - "Spiderman is as good as it's ever been! What more do you want?!"

Comic book fans are afraid of letting go of their heroes. No super hero goes quietly into the night, ever, because the fans are unwilling to let go and the corporations are more than willing to continue to fleece these sheep.

I'm a comic fan. I'll always be a comic fan. Sure I don't have gobs of cash to spend on them, so I only collect three books - but I haven't totally turned my back on the medium.

but your arguments about licensing properties falls completely flat when you realize that japanese publishers do the exact same thing.

Japanese creators retain the rights to their creations, and as I've stated the bulk of anime, gaming, and related merchandise is the direct result of the success of the comic books. Not vice versa as if the case here in the states, where cartoons, movies, and toys are used to prop up the flagging sales of comic books.

your creator owned arguments fall flat given that marvel HAS done creative owned before, and right now is simply at a point where taking a risk like that can hurt them more than it can help them.

Marvel has done creator owned? Please feel free to enlighten me, the only two instances that come to mind, and I could be wrong are the old Epic imprint
and Alan Davis's Clandestine.

My point is Marvel needs to take that risk and to hell with them if they're afraid of letting the creators run with their creations. Marvel / DC are a broken model and all you're doing is shilling for The Man. Keep at it Toby you're doing a great job.

You missed my point. Dissing American comics because "it's been done better before," while only moments before defending Japanese manga for churning
out copycats "in new trappings," just doesn't wash. "It's been done" dismissals in general can apply just as easily to a vast majority of the stuff released
over there too.

No Spike, pay attention - because it doesn't fly.

Sure, Japan is churning out comics of similar themes; but at least they're doing it and that is the correct business model. Not fifty flavors of Tenjo Tenge.

Beowulf inspired Tolkien to write Lord of the Rings, and many other fantasy authors; and I'm sure there has been a fair share of crap, but there are also a lot of really great books dealing with the same theme.

Now apply this formula to. . .

Drama
Horror
Romance
Science Fiction
Comedy

Etc.

You can argue in vain that the Japanese comic market is no better than the American comic market, but the truth is you're saying the Atlantic Ocean and a
thimble full of water are just the same because they both have water in them. Our current comic book market model is terribly broken and the destruction of Marvel and DC will be required in order for it to rise above the funnybook ghetto.

Don't justify Marvel's half assed attempts at "taking risks" because it doesn't float. Marvel drops new properties like hot potatoes. If a new character is
introduced and bombs - they're lucky to land a supporting role in an X-Book. Hell, look at the New Universe line for evidence of that.

Corporate Comics aren't taking the risks they're in the position to take, and all it's doing is maintaining the status quo.

I'd wager that the shoujo and -esque stuff Tokyopop puts out is popular because it's MANGA!!!!!!

And you don't see that it's no coincidence that every old company is attempting to rebrand books as "manga" or "manga-like"? Manga sells, we've determined that.
Manga may sell for all the wrong reasons; but manga is reaching a wider audience than the standard American comics currently do and the constant "manga" rhetoric
is being forced down our throats because in the mind of the casual consumer "manga" is not "comics".

Comic Lexicon in a nutshell:

Manga = BIG SALES
Graphic Novel = Hoity Toity
Comics = For Kids
Funnybook = SHUT UP, THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT
SPIDERMAN!

Here's a recent report on the US comic market for those interested.

Cover catalogs with brief synopsis or sample pages; something in an easily updated binder to flip through instead of going through the books on the shelf?

It's called Previews and it's available at your friendly neighborhood comic shop; but I can't promise you that it will be the best sampler. Personally, I wish they'd take this catalogue (around 300 pages every month) and go digital with it. Allow buyers to view it on a web browser using standard HTML, and give them access to larger preview images, and web-links to the publishers so they can find out more about the book.

And now - back to the subject at hand. This is for non-comic readers. Today I took a field trip and travelled 100 miles, because I love you guys that much - taking photos of the local comic establishments.

What I want to know is, as a non-comic reader, if you were to pass one of these shops and decide, "Hey! Today is the day I'll give comics a chance" - which one would you choose to go into, and why?

Shop A:

Shop B:

Shop C:

Shop D:

Shop E:

Shop F:

Shop G:

If you'd like, you can rate the order of the shops you'd choose visit as well.

This may help us get a more intimate understanding of what turns non-comic fans off of comic shops.

 

[FoneBone]

East/West allegiances aside:

You suck if you haven't read any of Alan Moore's stuff. (Or Gaiman's Sandman, though that's less accessible, brilliant as it is).

You suck if you haven't read Nausicaa.

 

[Belfast]

Man do those look nast. Thankfully the local shop here isn't *that* bad, but its still not very attractive to non-nerds.

That comic shop that they show in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was pretty nice. Clean, busy, ORGANIZED. I mean, I know it may just be a fantasy, but those are enviable elements to have in any comic shop.

This whole thing reminds me of a local competition between two LAN centers. These establishments were literally just a couple blocks from eachother. One is called WYSIWYG and the other is Gamer's Asylum.

WISYWIG was a hole in the wall. A dark, smelly place that looked like a warehouse set up with computer stations inside. I think there might've been one largeish screen TV inside. I must emphasize the smell, too. Everytime you walked in there, there was just an odd odor, no doubt stale nerd stink. They also sold bulk candy. This is not to mention the unfriendliness of the people who ran it. They weren't mean, per se, they just didn't seem to really care.

Now, Gamer's Asylum. It has plenty of nice, open space. It doesn't smell. It has two pods of 4 nice-looking TVs for console gaming, a about 30 NICE computers with custom casing and headphones and plush, high-backed swivel chairs to sit in. The climate is cool, its not stuffy. There are two party rooms in the back with huge projector screens. They have X-Men and Simpsons arcade cabinents set up near the front for a ridiculous amount of lives/continues for one quarter. The ambience is nice and clean and they sell food behind the counter. Nothing major, but credible snacks and pastries and whatnot.

Moreover, the staff is comprised of gaming enthusiasts and they're usually pretty happt to help/accomidate people. On top of this, they also sell games and hold plenty of tournaments/promotions with good prizes. I think they have a couple tournaments a week. I have gone into Gamer's Asylum to see little kids sitting there playing Spongebob or whatever on the computers. This place is essentially credible and nice enough for parents to consider it a good place to leave their kids.


Can you guess which one is still in business today?

 

[Brian Fellows]

They have X-Men and Simpsons arcade cabinents set up near the front for a ridiculous amount of lives/continues for one quarter.

Me and my friends were just talking about how these two along with the TMNT arcade game are the best games EVER!

 

[Dsal]

I was into comic books until they started going too much for the collectible market and shortening the content in each issue and raising the prices to ridiculous levels. The amount of entertainment per purchase was so brief... mere minutes. Compare this to any other form of entertainment like movies, games, DVDs and it just doesn't even come close to being a decent value.

I worked for Dark Horse for a few years and one of the fringe benefits was getting the new releases every week or so for free. The quality ranged from abyssmal to incredible, but honestly I don't know how many of those series I'd be able to get into unless I had the free issues to prime the pump.

Maybe they could offer some free issues of some series online to get people introduced to the story and excited to see what comes next.

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

Man do those look nast. Thankfully the local shop here isn't *that* bad, but its still not very attractive to non-nerds.

Well - to be fair, or damage control - whichever you like, Cleveland and it's suburbs aren't exactly a burgeoning metropolis of photogenic locations.

Brown, grey, and green. You get used to it.

 

[hobbitx]

I've always had a sort of casual love for comics, the only books I've ever been seriously into were the Milestone Comic's Dakota universe stuff. I think in this day in age with all the modern games, movies, and tv shows out most people young and old just don't have the patience for comics like they did back in the day. People love the hell out of Spiderman, Batman, X-men etc., but I hardly know anyone that actually buys any of the books period. I think a good way for comics to really reach out to this new generation is for them to simply join it by bringing the media to them in a fun, modern way that's accessible to the masses.

What I'm talking is going digital, I'm not trying to imply the books need to be replaced or anything, but I think the industry should be taking advantage of modern digital technology to really make this stuff more engaging for people. I've seen a few interactive comics online before and they are pretty amazing, a real comic company doing something like this would be awesome. Just imagine with something like Flash or Shockwave every panel could be it's own little animation. That would make alot of panels that don't always make sense at first come out much clearer. If I saw something like this, maybe being sold on cds every month, I'd be coming out of the store with a bag full of them each month. Just my two cents, hope I didn't piss off some of you purists too much with my digital blasphemy.

 

[DaveH]

http://www.marvel.com/dotcomics/index.htm

I haven't read them in a while but they used to have a limited form of panning-type animation. They biggest boon was how they'd cover 1-2 story arcs in the archives. They used to have a subscription model for issues after that, I'm not sure anymore. As far as digital, Marvel's also released a CD set that I've seen at Costco's... something like "40 years of Spider-Man" (and additional features) on CD for about $30.

 

[borghe]

The original question was, why does a person who doesn't read comics have no interest in the medium?

unfortunately that wasn't the original question and the thread in certain parts has merely deviated to that question.

the original question is what could comic books do to get you into them, more or less meaning the publishers.

one of my fears of this thread was that it would turn into just what you are saying. pointing out all of the obvious flaws of the current iundustry. seedy shops, arrogant patrons, superhero dominated genres, etc. What I was hoping for instead would be people coming in and either mentioning what the industry could do to fix these shortcomings, or others coming in and pointing out stuff we might not even have realized.

as for creator ownership, no one mentioned it except for you in one of your early posts. I'm not saying there HAVEN'T been creator ownership issues, but they all pretty much ended (new ones that is) almost 20 years ago. though still creator ownership among the big 2 really has nothing to do with getting casual readers to read comics.

 

[Bowser]

Price is the main reason why I dropped out of the comics industry. Right now, I'm trying to get back in, and I really need to catch up on stuff like Astonishing X-Men, New Avengers, Ultimates 2, and Sleeper: Season Two. The previous time I dropped comics (for like 9-10 months), I just had to drop whatever I was reading and start fresh. I don't know if I'm going to do the whole go the the LCS every week thing. I'm actually looking into mail-order service (www.dcbservice.com). What they do is have you look at the solits two months in advance, and pick what you want. They offer discounts between 35%-75%. For example, right now they are taking August orders, and here is what I'm ordering:

New Avengers #10 - $1.63 (35% off)
Ultimates 2 Annual #1 - $1.99 (50% off)
Ultimates 2 Vol 1 TP - $8.99 (50% off)
Astonishing X-Men Vol 2 TP - $9.74 (35% off)
Justice #1 - $0.75 (75% off)
---
Total: $22.10 (It'll end up being $28.85 after shipping)

For a whole month. Before, I'd spend $25 in one week! So, to spend ~$30 for a whole month is pretty good.

Now I just have buy Astonishing X-Men Vol 1 TP, wait for the New Avengers Vol 1 TP and buy New Avengers #7-9 and Ultimates 2 #7 to get caught up before the September solits are out!