Mark Millar: Marvel, DC, And Independent Comics Only Make Up 9% Of Comic Book Market In North America 3 3

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 10/13/2023 at 3:37 PM, Beastfeast said:

Can’t recommend Berserk enough. The end of the Golden Age arc is one of the biggest gut punches I’ve ever read in comics. 
 

just solid character development, fantastic design, and horrifying action. 

One of the best reads ever! 

[VintageComics]

On 10/13/2023 at 3:54 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

On 10/13/2023 at 3:37 PM, Beastfeast said:

Can’t recommend Berserk enough. The end of the Golden Age arc is one of the biggest gut punches I’ve ever read in comics. 
 

just solid character development, fantastic design, and horrifying action. 

One of the best reads ever! 

So, legacy publishers should take note?

This is a repeating pattern. Old generations utterly deny that they're becoming obsolete while new generations just quietly take over. 

Interesting discussion. A decade ago I'd have NEVER thought we'd see a Manga discussion flourish.

Now we're discussing whether we need a Manga forum. 

 

CGC evolved from coins but was originally made for comic books. Since then, it's continued to expand to other collecting fields including posters and magazines but they don't do Treasuries yet or other unusual forms of collectibles. 

Does CGC grade any manga due to it's formatting?

I'm assuming they DO slab mange that fits into holders but how much of Manga DOESN'T fit into CGC holders?

Sad to say, but at this point of the evolution of hobbies have certification means if it's not getting certified they won't have much value even if they are good reads.

It's all about the Benjamin's and always will be as long as money is the sole motivator. 

[VintageComics]

On 10/13/2023 at 2:56 PM, Cat said:

You can't just say that. There's manga about tennis, for goodness sake. It caters for every taste. It's not that it sucks, it's that you haven't found the right book for you yet. 

Manga, comics, novels, music.

All the same junque. 

[D2]

On 10/13/2023 at 3:37 PM, Beastfeast said:

Can’t recommend Berserk enough. The end of the Golden Age arc is one of the biggest gut punches I’ve ever read in comics. 
 

just solid character development, fantastic design, and horrifying action. 

I’ve heard mixed bag on Berserk. 
A coworker of mine recommended it as it was his go to book, but said its flaw was that it was caught in a story loop. 
He was just frustrated that it kept repeating itself and hadn’t wrapped up any of its plot threads. 
Now with the creator gone, I don’t know if I’d want to hop on board.

[Beastfeast]

On 10/15/2023 at 7:14 AM, D2 said:

I’ve heard mixed bag on Berserk. 
A coworker of mine recommended it as it was his go to book, but said its flaw was that it was caught in a story loop. 
He was just frustrated that it kept repeating itself and hadn’t wrapped up any of its plot threads. 
Now with the creator gone, I don’t know if I’d want to hop on board.

Meant to respond to this earlier but got busy.  

That's a completely fair critique about the loops it can get into (especially the quest/character intro/battle subplots that happen a lot in serial manga).  For me, the infrequency in which I read the series helped me either forget or not notice that.  If you read it all in one shot, I bet it gets tedious - like how mid series Breaking Bad gets into loops that are tedious.  

But superficially, the visuals do a LOT of heavy lifting for series.  

Not sure what's in store for the series now that Kintaro has passed away but it's still sort of chugging along. 

[srezvan]

This is an interesting thread and there were lots of good points made.

Just to get this out of the way, Berkerk was really good. The creator died before finishing the series, but his team is supposed to be continuing it. I read all all 41 volumes over the last year.

Storytelling in comics is an issue (no pun intended). The constant rebooting has always been a big frustration to me as a 30+ year comic reader. I love the X-Men, but I can't keep up with all the changes and some of the storylines really suck. You may or may not like Berserk (as an example), but there's a 99% chance that it WON'T be rebooted. Characters you love will die and things will happen, and those things matter.

The point was made earlier about Manga being easy to read. The example of X-Men is perfect. If you love Magento (or pick a character), what do you read? 1960's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants? His random Sliver Age fights across the Marvel Universe? Stories from Uncanny X-Men low 100s when be was aged back to an adult from a baby (yes, he was turned into a baby)? His time as the headmaster of the New Mutants? His time as Joseph? When he was evil again and led the Acolytes? His short lived series? Or his mini series? House of X/Powers of X? Warzones? Age of Apocalypse? How many volumes of Uncanny X-Men are out now? It isn't just a case of a character being around for 60 years. It's an issue with continuity and accessibility. On the other hand, if you see picture of Guts (protagonist in Berserk) with a massive sword and a cannon hand, it's easy to pick up a < $10 manga and get going. As someone said above, the price is a big factor in addition to the accessibility.

Someone told a story on the boards a few years back when Thanos was the big bad in the movies. A kid walks into a local comic shop and wants to read comics about the infinity gauntlet. The owner tries describing how the movies and comics are different because of the different license owners, and there's this Thanos story that informed some themes, there's the Infinity Gauntlet TPB that's close but different, and on and on. I'm probably ruining the story, but Marvel/DC have made it very hard for new readers to get into comics with the publishing practices many have mentioned already.

Finally, as a writer of children's books (shameless plus to look at my sales thread in Mixed), I do tons of reading about writing and publishing. I'm also the member of writing groups. Nobody ever talks about writing comics. Never. Well, except for me. They talk about writing graphic novels. Self-contained stories with an ISBN that you can get at the library or bookstore. Manga as a genre and Scholastic as a publisher of graphic novels are huge. I sell at tons of local author shows, and there are rarely comics (I'm referring to book shows, not comic shows). Comics are expensive. For usually less than $20, you can get a full graphic novel in color from a local creator.

I still love my X-Men and other random stories sometimes catch my eye from the big publishers, but I buy almost exclusively TPBs now.

[Poekaymon]

On 10/20/2023 at 5:38 PM, srezvan said:

Someone told a story on the boards a few years back when Thanos was the big bad in the movies. A kid walks into a local comic shop and wants to read comics about the infinity gauntlet. The owner tries describing how the movies and comics are different because of the different license owners, and there's this Thanos story that informed some themes, there's the Infinity Gauntlet TPB that's close but different, and on and on.

What absolute rubbish.  That story sounds like it's pushing a narrative, but if it's a true story, then all it shows is that LCS owner failed.  A kid is interested in Infinity Gauntlet and wants to read more?  You give him the Infinity Gauntlet 1-6 TPB.  Easiest thing in the world.  It's like $15 and totally accessible.  It also showcases the things that you can do in comics that you still can't do in CGI.  For example, when all the cosmic gods are flinging planets at Thanos.  That is one of the most badass things I've ever seen, and the movies didn't even come close to that. 

So start him on the TPB and if he wants more, then step up to the larger Omnibus.  You don't need to complicate things about differences or themes etc.  What nonsense.  Just let the kid give it a shot.  I read the TPB as a kid when it was new and it was one of my favorite limited series of all times--and still is.    

Edited October 20, 2023 by Poekaymon

[WolverineX]

On 10/15/2023 at 10:14 PM, D2 said:

I’ve heard mixed bag on Berserk. 
A coworker of mine recommended it as it was his go to book, but said its flaw was that it was caught in a story loop. 
He was just frustrated that it kept repeating itself and hadn’t wrapped up any of its plot threads. 
Now with the creator gone, I don’t know if I’d want to hop on board.

dude Berserk is brutal.  Could not finish the 2nd book.  very well written though.  just super violent

[D2]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:35 PM, Beastfeast said:

Meant to respond to this earlier but got busy.  

That's a completely fair critique about the loops it can get into (especially the quest/character intro/battle subplots that happen a lot in serial manga).  For me, the infrequency in which I read the series helped me either forget or not notice that.  If you read it all in one shot, I bet it gets tedious - like how mid series Breaking Bad gets into loops that are tedious.  

But superficially, the visuals do a LOT of heavy lifting for series.  

Not sure what's in store for the series now that Kintaro has passed away but it's still sort of chugging along. 

interesting. I don’t mind some repetitive story threads if the story itself is entertaining to be honest. One of my biggest complaints is when stories don’t end. I can’t deal well with incomplete stories or plot holes. An example I recently got stuck with was Afterlife with Archie.

I am still finding books from time to time that I missed so I feel like I’m always playing catch-up (not necessarily a bad thing). So I heard about Afterlife, picked up the first trade AND LOVED IT. Tried to pick up the second trade, and although there were ads for it, I later realized it got cancelled aaand the writer dropped the book in favour for the tv show. Now there’s just an incomplete story.

 

On 10/22/2023 at 9:29 AM, WolverineX said:

dude Berserk is brutal.  Could not finish the 2nd book.  very well written though.  just super violent

Hmmmm… Uber violent I’m okay with. I know some people can find extreme violence to be a distraction.  I recently recommended Hard Boiled to a comic enthusiast, not realizing they did not do well with the violence  

whoops

[VintageComics]

On 10/22/2023 at 6:09 PM, D2 said:

On 10/17/2023 at 5:35 PM, Beastfeast said:

Meant to respond to this earlier but got busy.  

That's a completely fair critique about the loops it can get into (especially the quest/character intro/battle subplots that happen a lot in serial manga).  For me, the infrequency in which I read the series helped me either forget or not notice that.  If you read it all in one shot, I bet it gets tedious - like how mid series Breaking Bad gets into loops that are tedious.  

But superficially, the visuals do a LOT of heavy lifting for series.  

Not sure what's in store for the series now that Kintaro has passed away but it's still sort of chugging along. 

interesting. I don’t mind some repetitive story threads if the story itself is entertaining to be honest. One of my biggest complaints is when stories don’t end. I can’t deal well with incomplete stories or plot holes. An example I recently got stuck with was Afterlife with Archie.

I am still finding books from time to time that I missed so I feel like I’m always playing catch-up (not necessarily a bad thing). So I heard about Afterlife, picked up the first trade AND LOVED IT. Tried to pick up the second trade, and although there were ads for it, I later realized it got cancelled aaand the writer dropped the book in favour for the tv show. Now there’s just an incomplete story.

 

On 10/22/2023 at 9:29 AM, WolverineX said:

dude Berserk is brutal.  Could not finish the 2nd book.  very well written though.  just super violent

Hmmmm… Uber violent I’m okay with. I know some people can find extreme violence to be a distraction.  I recently recommended Hard Boiled to a comic enthusiast, not realizing they did not do well with the violence  

whoops

Something I've learned as I've gotten older is how differently everyone sees the same thing. 

One person can not be bothered at all by something and for someone else it can be a major roadblock. 

I think it comes down to what time of personality you are psychologically. Some people are a little more fluid and easy going and aren't bothered by small details while others ONLY notice the small details. Those people are far more detail oriented than the easy going ones, who are often largely more "big picture" people. 

But ultimately, there's no wrong or right way to enjoy something. 

Both sides need to understand that it TAKES BOTH to make the world go round in everything, whether that's society, relationships or any other aspect of life.