Manga is probably more popular than it's ever been, but it still trails behind the kids' category.

 

So she's writing what she knows?

 

It’s a different market. And if you’re lucky you can pull them into other stuff too.

These YA books are a good idea as they’re the best chance that a new generation finds these characters. At least in book form. Otherwise the only way a new reader is going to learn about Starfire is from Teen Titans Go.

 

If this is true, why did they fire the person who was going to steward their YA stuff?

 

I don't know, man, they've let a lot of people go. But every major move they've made this year has been about abandoning the direct market for the book market, and the best selling comics are undeniably kids comics in the book market. The math isn't hard to do.

 

Specialized comic book stores aren't representative for anything on the print market. They're important to devoted hobbyists, but majority of sales for anything mass produced isn't devoted hobbyists.

 

Yep, as of last year comic stores were no longer the primary seller of comic publications.


I imagine when the 2020 numbers drop that's only going to have been skewed even harder in the book market direction by the pandemic and DC dropping Diamond entirely.

 

It's crazy to me that digital isn't more effective.

Or maybe it's not that crazy. It's hard to justify a $4.99 digital comic when you can get a full length novel for that. I'm entirely digital now, but most of my purchases are when things are on sale, which usually means graphic novels well under $10 (often under $5) and single issues at $0.99.

 

I heard a theory from a NYT best-selling MG author that I think speaks to it - the majority of the comic audience is kids. And kids are digitally savvy, yes. But kids also exist in a world where so much of the world is out of their control. Ownership of a physical copy of a book means something to a kid that adults tend to not consider. It's a piece of the world that is theirs. They still see a value in the printed page as a physical thing that belongs to them. And as long as they see value in that, a majority of the market will stay with the printed page.

I don't have kids of my own, so I don't know. But it rings true to my memories of childhood.

Combine that with adult comic fans carrying the old school collector mentality and digital can only get so far in the market.

 

Yeah, the main justification I keep hearing for not having digital be cheaper from the start is that they still have those prices to balance what they pay their creative teams.

 

I can see that. I know though that when I read with my kids, the ability to focus in on a single panel has made things easier to follow. They haven't had to learn the whole visual language of panel progression. And yeah, the old school "I MUST OWN A COPY!" mentality is hard to break. It took moving multiple times, and not wanting to move the long boxes, to break me of it.

Digital book pricing is pretty dumb. Back in the 90's when I worked in the comic book stores the party line was that the pricing was to pay for the cost of paper, inks, special covers, etc. Actual labor wasn't listed as the reason. Because of that I find it hard to swallow that there's a compelling reason to charge the same for digital. You don't have to print it or ship it. Those are both pretty cost intensive. Your expenses are the artists cut, the publisher cut, and creating and maintaining the digital files.

I strongly suspect that the digital prices on books of all stripes are the same so as not to undercut the physical retail. Which I just find dumb.

The good news is that back issues actually get cheaper with digital, rather than the substantial mark up with the physical books. Plus, you can usually snag them on sale for dirt cheap or wait for the price to drop as they hit the traditional back issue range.

 

I don't know what it was like in the 90s, but in my experience, if a current comic company is paying the talent fairly, the creative labor alone is tens of thousands of dollars and the printing for a small print run graphic novel or even a larger print run floppy is maybe two-to-five thousand dollars.

There's room for a lot of variance in the print cost, but I'd bet on most books labor costs outweigh print costs.

 

If that's the case, and I hope it is, then the cost of the books has better justification. But it still shouldn't be as much as a print book.

 

I understand that, but personally between the thin profit margins on print, the cut that digital comics distributors take, and the fact that digital comics allow for increased piracy, I'm happy the digital comics cost the full cover price. Helps offset the rest.

 

I understand. I just find it frustrating as it undercut what could have been the next big way to convey literature. It took Marvel in particular forever to get to same day release, and they experimented with a lot of damn silly things on the way. It was DC that really blazed that trail to same day release, and if we’d seen a cheaper digital release it would have let digital comics reach more readers. And that would have helped the industry survive.

As it is I’m pretty pessimistic about the current status quo. I just don’t see the current approach of serialized books with shared continuity lasting much longer.

 

I agree that the serialized/shared continuity book is doomed. But that's why I'm optimistic for the industry.

 

I can get on board with that. I’m pessimistic about the status quo, but what comes next could be really cool. People forget some of the best superhero comics came after the industry hit rock bottom.

 

Some stuff announced so far for post-Future State

First Announced DC Comics Launch After Future State - Swamp Thing by Ram V and Mike Perkins

Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney Launch New Green Lantern #1 in March

New Wonder Woman Creative Team at #770: Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, and Travis Moore

 

Some other stuff also.

Ram V and Xermanico on Justice League Dark in March 2021

Tim Sheridan, Rafa Sandoval's Teen Titans Academy #1 from DC in March

And a seemingly Harley Quinn and Deadshot-less Suicide Squad Book

 

So can anyone help me understand DC’s current beef with Wally West? Why are they going out of their way so often lately to mess with his character. Rebirth was meant to begin his return to glory, but ever since they’ve been making him murder people, become a god, and now gets possessed? It’s like they don’t know what to do with him anymore so they’re just going to f**k with him.