Odds are Manga would supplant the Comic Industry.......maybe Japan would gain the publishing rights to the US characters (and maybe have a better time at it, since Japan isn’t overtaken by all the political stuff the US and UK have been infested with)

 

I think that it already has, sales wise.

 

Bookstores Will Sell More Comics Than Comic Stores in 2019

ICV2 recently ran a presentation to the comic book industry, ICv2 Insider Talks 2019 – The Future of Comics in the Age of Streaming, with a keynote speech from founder Milton Grieppthat had two major takeaways.

The first is that kids comics – stuff like Dav Pilkey‘s Dogman, Raina Telegemeir‘s Guts andShannon Eric Hale‘s Friends, all combined, now sell more graphic novels/collections than superheroes do. No wonder the likes of Moon Girl, DC Superheroes, Titans: Raven and Ms Marvel want to try and get a crossover slice of that pie. In bookstores, manga and kids material has jumped 30% in sales in bookstores and over 100% in comic stores.

The second is the bookstores will overtake comic book stores for all comic book sales by the end of 2019. Now, there are more general bookstores than speciality comic book stores. But comic stores have a far wider range of material, and mostly contain content that isn’t available in bookstores – at least not yet.

Last year 2018, all other channels than comic stores combined, including bookstores, digital and newsstand, managed to sell more comics than comic book stores for the first time since the rise of the direct market and the decline of the newsstand. But for 2019 it looks like bookstores will be able to do it on their own.

In bookstores, graphic novel sales have risen by double digits. But in comic stores, totting up sales of comics and graphic novels, the total is very very slightly down in the previous year.

Either way, this would be a first time for bookstores to sell more comics than comic stores.

This sounds like good news, regarding the second point; comics being more accessible to the public now, thereby giving them more exposure.

Part of me wonders if in the future, comic books won’t be sold in individual issues, but instead, in volumes or magazines so that people feel like they have a better value now.

 

Most definitely. Look at what you get from a manga volume compared to comic floppies .

 

Holly molly! I did a Google search for “typical number of pages in a manga,” and it said over 150 pages! Is that correct?

 

Yep. They're usually $10-12 dollars too.

 

That's 100% the way it's going. Kids today are regularly buying 200 and 240 page graphic novels that sell for $10.00-12.00. As they grow up, they'll stick with comics as a format if the industry is giving them more adult grahic novels to read, but very few of them will come over to floppies. I think we'll all live to see the day that format will die and the graphic novel will reign supreme in a much more manga-style American comic culture.

 

So basically, trades are starting to sell more then individual issues?

 

Here they're 5,95€ while a 20 page comic is 3 99€. But they're also black and white mostly.

Floppies either have to become much cheaper, like at least more than half the price or die out. I rather buy collected editions and have something to actually read.

 

The main appeal of Manga is that they’re not bogged down by the many, many problems plaguing American Comics nowadays, it’s creators have far more freedom to tell the story they want from beginning to end.......few American Comics have that in common (excluding Invincible and Walking Dead).........there’s as chance that within a few years Manga would be for Comics what the NES was for the Video Game market, the unexpected savior......

 

Yes plus they have 3 in one books and oversize "color" versions of mangas as well.

Also you can buy used manga on amazon for $1 to $7! Single floppies comics cost around $3.95 to #5.95 for 22 pages of story that takes 2 min to read!

So for $10 you could buy 2 floppies for 4 min of reading or a over 100 page manga new or buy 2 used mangas for the same price as the two floppies!

Guess what kids and teens are going to use their money on between the two?

 

Also, I don't buy the idea that the super hero fad is passing. The movies, toys, etc. are obviously selling, and not only that, but a lot of manga that falls under the shonen category follows a lot of the standard super hero tropes. Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul, One Piece, Fairy Tail, etc. all play with the concept of super powered humans (or near-humans) who's powers and rules are very similar to what you'd find in Marvel or D.C.

 

It's not the first time heroes came in last. In the 50s the same thing happened. They were still around but last place to everything else. They didn't come back tll marvel started fantastic four and the dc reboot of the 60s.

Heroes are big still but it's the movies. My young nephew loves marvel and dc--movies and cartoons. Tried getting him to read some of the comics and he flat out said no thanks. Looked at one issue of Spider-Man and didn't really care for yet he loves spidey and plays the games, loved the lego spidey, watched the cartoons and movies and has toys of spidey but only knows him from those. He won't read the comics. He will read the super Mario manga, pokemon manga, dogman, big nate, jeff smiths bone and even simpsons comics and is getting into Naruto thanks to the anime on hulu but won't touch a hero comic from marvel or dc! I have two huge bookcases of trades with tons of marvel and dc trades and won't touch any of them!

Kids who love ant man or wonder woman have never read a comic from them in their lives. They know them from games, movies, toys and tv. Their iron man is movie iron man and NOT the comic one. Heroes are still big but not from the comics. They are movie heroes now!

 

My point is that if they made the comics worth the value, and they were similar to the classic style from the movies, games,etc. then your nephew might actually get interested in them.  

 

I think folks are looking at this from the wrong direction. Manga is successful because it’s accessible and it’s cheap—it’s basically reprints. You simply can’t replicate that with American superhero comics.

Something like The Walking Dead is closer to manga. It’s a finite story, with an easy premise and self contained.

American comics need more TWDs. The problem is the American comic book reading audience is not as big as it needs to be to support more variety and experimentation in the types of stories we get from American comic book writers and artists.

There are great indy books out there but they just don’t get any recognition.

The US comics industry got severely handicapped in the 50s/60s when they came under attack for being bad for kids. No more crime comics. No more horror comics. No more monster comics. Westerns, war, romance and sci-if comics died. Superheroes rose.

Imagine what the industry would look like today if that BS from the 50’s hadn’t happened!

Don’t look at Marvel or DC to save the day. Every time they experiment leaving the hardcore superhero fan they fail. They have some minimal success with imprints like Ultimate comics or All-Star or whatever rebooted idea.

DC did have Vertigo but eventually that got killed. Vertigo was the closest you got to “manga.” It was self contained with finite and accessible stories.

TLDR- if you are worried about this, get your friends graphic novels and tpb’s of non-superhero stuff. Like TWD or Lock and Key.

 

It's a shame, the comics could be have a similar concept and could have more sells like Manga.

 

We do know what it would be like today. It's called japan and Europe.


Another site talks about this.


2 major changes happening in comic books could shape the industry’s future — and comic shops will have to adapt to survive

 

I will never cease to hate Fredric Wertham and the society that took him seriously.

 

And dc has jumped on the young readers bandwagon! They are jumping all in!


A Brand New DC Comics Paint-Based Superhero - Ashley Rayburn, Primer, Created by Jennifer Muro, Thomas Krajewski and Gretel Lusky

Another young adult title announced! With the lumberjanes creator!

Lois Lane and the Friendship Challenge, From the Creators of Lumberjanes and Goldie Vance

 

Dc is going all out in it's kids and young reader books!





Dairy of a wimpy swamp thing!