DC Comics March 2021 Titles

[silverlantern]

James Tynion has some pretty interesting thoughts on these issues in his latest news letter. Link here: https://jamestynioniv.********.com/p...ap-up-part-one

Big takeaway, the potential emerging comics market has seceded a lot of ground to manga and video games and it's very difficult to catch up.

[skyvolt2000]

James Tynion has some pretty interesting thoughts on these issues in his latest news letter. Link here: https://jamestynioniv.********.com/p...ap-up-part-one

Big takeaway, the potential emerging comics market has seceded a lot of ground to manga and video games and it's very difficult to catch up.

Well that is what happens when you have stores willing to exclude everyone else for super hero books.

And when Marvel and Dc have tried-guess who threw fits?

Walking Dead would not have lasted 6 issues under DC or Marvel banner because certain fandom and stores would have throw fits about it existing instead of yet another Batman or X-Men book.

[Robanker]

as a manga reader from the early 2000s and now having classmates who are 2000s babies/gen z kids, the amount of manga readers now than when i was a kid has noticeably exploded. You could hardly find people who could discuss manga back when i was a youngin unless they were DEEP into nerd culture. now i'll say like 1/4 (if not a 50/50 shot) people you meet who watch the anime also read the manga. granted, i lived in a smaller town and moved around a bit, but even just the shift in the late 2000s to the 2010s i observed when i was in Toronto was pretty noticeable.

When I was coming up, comics and manga got me made fun of in short order. It was around Batman Begins in high school where suddenly comics were begrudgingly cool, and really just Batman and Spider-Man, Wolverine and the Punisher. Real shame. Manga seemed to catch on more when I hit college. Sometimes I envy kids growing up now.

[Lee Stone]

..*****ny what happens when you offer variety and not just a variety of versions of one guy.

Which reminds me of one of the reasons I miss the DC Comics of the '80s...
Super-heroes, yes... but also western, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, war comics.
They even published fewer titles per month than they do now and still managed to hit multiple genres.

DC Comics now is like if a tv network filled their primetime schedule with just CSI clones. Imagine 22 CSI clones playing each week.
It would only appeal to one type of viewer and eventually they would get burned out and change the channel or just take a few weeks off.

[km_sus]

Manga is crazy successful right now. Pretty much everyone my age (early 20's) reads manga and watches anime.

I think the important takeaway is that there absolutely is an audience for comics and print media. I was in London a few weeks back and visited the Forbidden Planet near Seven Dials. It's not a ginormous store by any stretch, but that place was packed, even during the pandemic. Sure, it was a few weeks before Christmas so that might have been a factor, but it was certainly a lot busier than I thought it would be. It wasn't all just crowded near the manga too. It's where most of the young people/teens were, but there were a lot of people - old and young, that were all through the aisles. I swear, there was this one kid looking at this Swamp Thing hardcover that was a spitting image of myself ten years ago... eerie, but cool.

The main barrier to comics compared to manga is the price. Everything manga does cape comics can do just as well, but the kids and teens and broke students can't afford or justify getting into our expensive hobby when manga is so dirt cheap. A friend of mine collects manga like I collect comics and despite spending the same amount of money on books, his collection has doubled mine easily. At least Tynion's aware of the issue. Being the Batman writer for the foreseeable future, I would imagine he has the ear of the higher ups. Hope he takes the opportunity to point out why manga dominates currently.

[Goldrake]

Manga is crazy successful right now. Pretty much everyone my age (early 20's) reads manga and watches anime.

I think the important takeaway is that there absolutely is an audience for comics and print media. I was in London a few weeks back and visited the Forbidden Planet near Seven Dials. It's not a ginormous store by any stretch, but that place was packed, even during the pandemic. Sure, it was a few weeks before Christmas so that might have been a factor, but it was certainly a lot busier than I thought it would be. It wasn't all just crowded near the manga too. It's where most of the young people/teens were, but there were a lot of people - old and young, that were all through the aisles. I swear, there was this one kid looking at this Swamp Thing hardcover that was a spitting image of myself ten years ago... eerie, but cool.

The main barrier to comics compared to manga is the price. Everything manga does cape comics can do just as well, but the kids and teens and broke students can't afford or justify getting into our expensive hobby when manga is so dirt cheap. A friend of mine collects manga like I collect comics and despite spending the same amount of money on books, his collection has doubled mine easily. At least Tynion's aware of the issue. Being the Batman writer for the foreseeable future, I would imagine he has the ear of the higher ups. Hope he takes the opportunity to point out why manga dominates currently.

I love manga and anime, The ones of the 80's and 90's are even better than the current ones, no comparison. But yeah manga is attracting more people.

[lemonpeace]

I love manga and anime, The ones of the 80's and 90's are even better than the current ones, no comparison. But yeah manga is attracting more people.

I'm joking but yeah, no. manga, unlike comics, have maintained a clearly consistent standard of quality over the years. I would say it due largely to them not overly inflating or overstating the quality and significance of their older stories/properties/franchises.

[iron chimp]

Manga heads can correct me here but isnt Manga produced like the old sweatshop studios in USA in the 50s?

I'm sure I saw a small documentary about it when Manga first started appearing in Europe but I could never get into Manga (I only ever read maybe 4 or 5 though so...) and thats the the sum total of my "knowledge"

[kf26]

Manga heads can correct me here but isnt Manga produced like the old sweatshop studios in USA in the 50s?

I'm sure I saw a small documentary about it when Manga first started appearing in Europe but I could never get into Manga (I only ever read maybe 4 or 5 though so...) and thats the the sum total of my "knowledge"

What do you mean by "old sweatshop studios"? overworked?

[Korath]

Manga heads can correct me here but isnt Manga produced like the old sweatshop studios in USA in the 50s?

I'm sure I saw a small documentary about it when Manga first started appearing in Europe but I could never get into Manga (I only ever read maybe 4 or 5 though so...) and thats the the sum total of my "knowledge"

Well, the wealthiest mangaka ever is certainly working more than living, if that's what you mean. The rythm is certainly horrible, even with assistants and all of that ! But I think the main force of manga is that their stories have a start, a middle and a end, and are the result - mostly - of one creator or two max, working in tandem.

[Ra-El]

I love manga and anime, The ones of the 80's and 90's are even better than the current ones, no comparison. But yeah manga is attracting more people.

It probably helps mangas are usually creator owned properties and that most have a begining, middle and ending.

[Drako]

Well, the wealthiest mangaka ever is certainly working more than living, if that's what you mean. The rythm is certainly horrible, even with assistants and all of that ! But I think the main force of manga is that their stories have a start, a middle and a end, and are the result - mostly - of one creator or two max, working in tandem.

Their schedule are always crazy tight and they work non stop for most part. Some have health conditions for the amount of work put on.

Bakuman is manga about making manga and gives a pretty cool look at the back stage of Shueisha.

The thing about having a end though, can't be said about every manga and that's because it's a work of the mind of one guy.

Berserk and Hunter X Hunter are on hiatus for years.

[vasir12]

Tbh, the most popular shounens are ongoings where creators typically only have a vague idea how the story might end. And they'll only get to that point when they run out of either sales or ideas.

I think the MAIN driver for success is the consistency. One mangaka telling a continuous story. The anime adaption (typically) follows this story exactly. People that like the anime and want to get ahead read the manga because it's a continuous timeline.

Superhero movies/cartoons don't follow comic timelines because writers and continuities change like hats.

I'm hoping with DC's new regime these March titles will keep these writers for the long haul. Not that it's the only problem. Pricing and accessibility are big ones too.

[iron chimp]

What do you mean by "old sweatshop studios"? overworked?

Yeah - churning out pages at a rate of knots - no credits given to people etc.

People day oh we should have manga style collections with say 200 pages for $10 or whatever a manga can cost these days but that has to come at a price - ie turning art studios back into old style studios which artists fought so hard to change in usa.

I dont know - i dont know much about it all tho.

[kurenai24]

I'm still trying to figure out why DC doesn't have comics in black and white, I know we have Batman: Black and White but it's an anthology, that's 48 pages and it's 5.99, but ongoings in black and white with only the covers and splash pages in color (and maybe a bonus page for character designs) and the usual page count should be cost efficient and I feel like you could sell comics a little more cheaply that way.

Manga heads can correct me here but isnt Manga produced like the old sweatshop studios in USA in the 50s?

I'm sure I saw a small documentary about it when Manga first started appearing in Europe but I could never get into Manga (I only ever read maybe 4 or 5 though so...) and thats the the sum total of my "knowledge"

They are overworked and more than likely underpaid which is why I always feel bad wanting the US comic industry to copy the Japan one.

Japan has pretty bad work culture in general, they've invented a word that means 'death by overwork' that's a legally recognized cause of death, so it wasn't surprising to find out about what mangakas go through.

And well Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has brought or will bring billions to Japan, the mangaka Koyoharu Gotōge has only made under 100k so yeah...

Outside of that, I think the US comic industry could learn a thing or two.

Yeah - churning out pages at a rate of knots - no credits given to people etc.

People day oh we should have manga style collections with say 200 pages for $10 or whatever a manga can cost these days but that has to come at a price - ie turning art studios back into old style studios which artists fought so hard to change in usa.

I dont know - i dont know much about it all tho.

What do you mean by no credit, b/c I would say they get credited ...whether that translates into money is a different story.

Also you have to remember that a mangaka draws and writes and so people wanting 200 pages for 10 dollars probably think that since US comics usually have 2 or more people working on a comic instead of the 1 to 2 on a manga, that it should be easier and faster ...unfortunately for them (and me in some cases) it's not.