Demon slayer outsold ALL american comics in 2020?

[Drako]

Give it time

Invincible Has Sold Over 100,000 Graphic Novels in 2021 Already

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/invi...c-novels-2021/

It's a success by the US comic book market, for sure. But it won't be able to sell similar numbers to what Demon Slayer did.

If Invincible sells more than a million copies, it would be incredible compared to the comic book standards and still would have to sell 90 millions more to get close to the numbers DS had in 2020 in Japan.

https://comicbook.com/anime/news/dem...sales-in-2020/

[abetterday]

DC and Marvel need to dig deep creatively to refocus and relaunch. maybe hire a creative think tank.

[Frontier]

Running animated series especially ones that have some semblance of fidelity to the source material can do this. See Invincible and how TPB sales for the series skyrocketed after season 1. This is the same for anime and not just Invincible, if a season ends on a cliffhanger, you could run to the books to quench that thirst.

Live action CBMs and comic based cartoons in general don't have the same effect. I remember how Young Justice season 1 and even 2 were popular. Imagine if there was a comic they were borrowing plotlines from, it would have sold swiftly. But there's no synergy between them.

Like I was thinking about a Wonder Woman animated show and how I'd just adapt the best Wonder Woman runs with minimal changes then compile them as one. That way, when fans ask what's next after a season, you could point them in the right direction.

It is not hard for DC themselves to know the best Superman or Batman or Flash or etc runs and adapt those in a single series with some minor tweeking while maintaining canon. This would create much needed synergy and promote these best runs even more.

I don't really see this as being all that different from adaptions are handled now.

Like, isn't B:TAS basically the best of Batman comics up to that point adapted into an animated series? I feel like any adaption usually picks and choose the best material to draw from for an adaption, it's just not a one-to-one sequence adaption (which even the Invincible cartoon wasn't). It's the same with the movies.

Marvel tried to ape movie and TV synergy hard to nebulous results.

I always found it weird that DC's (and Marvel's I guess) animated shows would just combine stuff from like 50 different sources and then put their own spin on it. Basically made it impossible to recommend anything specific to someone who watched the show and wants more of it.

That's the difference between adapting stuff with multiple creative voices compared to a work with one singular voice.

Like, Batman has evolved a lot from Bill Finger and pretty much every character has evolved across multiple creative teams and stories, so wouldn't an adaption reflect that? I guess that's the double-edged sword of Big Two comics.

A big part of that is because a lot of manga is made for kids/all ages. Whereas comic books in general (and DC higher ups even boasted) that "comics aren't for kids but a very specific demographic". Which, while DC isn't going belly-up, loses out on a much wider audience because of it.

Yes, not all DC comics strictly adhere to this line of thinking, with minis featuring crossovers between Batman and Scooby-Doo for example, but much of the mainline series do.

It depends on what manga we're talking about.

[MRP]

I am not sure this should be surprising. Manga is a mass market product available in several outlets sold in a current market-friendly format that appeals to a wide audience. Periodical comics are a niche product sold only in limited destination shops essentially only available to existing customers who preorder the product in a dinosaur of a format abandoned by the mass market at least a decade or two ago. I'd have to look at the articles sources specifically, but I am sure the manga sales numbers reflect all sales in all markets (book trade + Diamond distribution) and may reflect international sales as well, but most sales measures of comics reflect only Diamond sales to retailers, not end sales, digital sales, or sales in the book trade. So it may be a case of comparing apples to oranges (above and beyond the fact it is exactly that when you measure a mass market product sales to a niche market product sales). Even if you add in book trade sales numbers for collected editions and OGN, some of the major booksellers don't report their sales numbers to Bookscan because they don't use them, so those sales numbers are not readily available to use in compiling actual sales numbers.

But despite all that, it still shouldn't come as a surprise that a product that is sold in a format accepted by the mass market and that has mass market appeal outsells a niche industry tied to a dinosaur format the mass market long ago abandoned and only available in specialty stores that do not exist in large swaths of the US and that depends on preorders to existing customers for the bulk of their sales.

-M

[seismic-2]

Manga consistently outsells even the best-selling DC and Marvel comics, but then so do the graphic novels from Scholastic (Dogman, etc.), don't they? They just target a different audience and use a different distribution channel, so it isn't really accurate to consider them as being competitors in the comics marketplace.

[skyvolt2000]

Manga consistently outsells even the best-selling DC and Marvel comics, but then so do the graphic novels from Scholastic (Dogman, etc.), don't they? They just target a different audience and use a different distribution channel, so it isn't really accurate to consider them as being competitors in the comics marketplace.

It boils down to this-

Manga tend to have the same creative team from start to finish and the adaptations try to limit what they veer from. Sailor Moon Manga is NOTHING like the 90s cartoon version while the most recent anime is.

Manga is available in more places thus you have more sales.

Comics are limited in where they are at as brand new issues-used ones can be found at places like Barnes & Nobles that have already had one owner.

Comics can and have explained the gap between a show and the comic.

Bob's Burgers Comics are done by folks on the show.

Dr. Who is not held hostage by the tv show.

Star Trek has the comics happen in-between a show or movie. Dc's Star Trek series had Spock recovered and commanding a ship after Star Trek 3 and put him back in his recovering state before Star Trek 4 came out. Kirk was in command of the USS Excelsior at that time too.

Power Rangers is pretty much filling in the gaps of the tv show in comics form.

[Iron Maiden]

1) Terribly written article.

I wish they gave the price point for the comic.

I did my own Google research. It looks like this is a $10 larger size format comic with 22 volumes, volume 23 looks to be coming out later this year. So I'm thinking that 82 million is encompasses the entire run.

This is still impressive numbers and the writers should write the news and write how impressive sales are.

Yes, this article was not well written. I think it is not surprising though. The audience for manga is huge in SE Asia, China and Japan. In the U.S., the distribution system of comic books has it's problems. Mostly you have to have a comic book shop in your area if you want to buy the printed version and not go online to Comixology. I was on a trip to SW Michigan one time and tried out the comic book locataor to see what comic book shops were nearby. It was a 100 miles or so away.

In the U.S. they sort balance out since the comic book movies based on Marvel and D.C. characters combined probably do hold up better box office wise. I don't know if there's been a manga film, if there are any, that has been a huge global success on the level of the MCU films

This article gives the box office figures for the Demon Slayer anime movie in the U.S. from April at $21 million for its opening, which is a success for a foreign language film. But for a MCU film I think it would be a disappointment if the box office was only $21 million for their opening week.

[Username taken]

I thought Manga had been outselling American comics but at least 15 years now...

Manga is available in a lot more places than US superhero comics which gives it a massive leg up on US comics.

[Iron Maiden]

I thought Manga had been outselling American comics but at least 15 years now...

Manga is available in a lot more places than US superhero comics which gives it a massive leg up on US comics.

I think that since a lot of the manga books are digests they are easier to rack, etc. in a book section at say Target, etc.

[Zauriel]

Ouch if true. Marvel, dc, idw and ALL american comics in 2020 nay have been outsold by one manga series last year!
--

Not just one but two or more manga series including One Piece

https://www.crunchyroll.com/it/anime...pies-worldwide

https://www.siliconera.com/one-piece...old-worldwide/

[Zauriel]

A big part of that is because a lot of manga is made for kids/all ages. Whereas comic books in general (and DC higher ups even boasted) that "comics aren't for kids but a very specific demographic". Which, while DC isn't going belly-up, loses out on a much wider audience because of it.

Manga is also divided into various categories; shounen (boys); shoujo (girls); seinen (men) and josei (women). Titles such as Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket and Card Captor Sakura are intended for girls. Naruto, Shaman King and One Piece are targeted for boys. Death Note and Attack on Titan are for men.


In the 1950's, several comic book Publishers used to publish romance comics aimed at young women who were still missing their boyfriends, fiancés and husbands who were fighting in the Korean War. Jack Kirby's romance comic books were just brilliant.

[shooshoomanjoe]

According to this website, American comic books are a billion dollar industry. Doesn't that mean that DC/Marvel are doing the right thing?

[Zauriel]

According to this website, American comic books are a billion dollar industry. Doesn't that mean that DC/Marvel are doing the right thing?

Correction: American comic books owned by Disney or Warner Bros are a billion dollar industry. Independent publishers are hardly a million dollar industry, much less a billion dollar industry.

[Iron Maiden]

Correction: American comic books owned by Disney or Warner Bros are a billion dollar industry. Independent publishers are hardly a million dollar industry, much less a billion dollar industry.

What about Image comics? The Walking Dead rights (comics, multiple TV shows) alone should make them a multi-million dollar company

[MRP]

What about Image comics? The Walking Dead rights (comics, multiple TV shows) along should make them a multi-million dollar company

Image doesn't own those rights, Kirkman does. Image is a publisher, on the model of traditional book publishers. They don't own the IP of the books they publish, the creators do.

-M