Why are comics so niche?

Why are comics so niche?

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Not many people want to invest the time into understanding the lore and comic book readers have a reputation of being losers.

>All these fucking DC covers with Rebirth on them
>All these fucking Marvel covers with Civil War II on them

I'm kinda fucking glad that I'm the loser who loves cartoons.

Because Wertham created a bottleneck in the industry that allowed only capeshit to survive. In bottleneck populations, genetic defects that would otherwise be weeded out become more and more common, until the entire population is diseased. Comics as a whole now carry the evolutionary baggage that comes with superheroes (eg., crossovers, shared universes, floppies, events, etc.).

In recent times these things are beginning to be examined again, but it will take a LONG time before comics not only regain the proliferation of the Golden Age, but gain the respect that other mediums have achieved.

The only place you can buy them is between a weave store and a smoke shop.

>regain the proliferation of the Golden Age
In the form of more indies produced than ever before thanks to progressing technology. We're in the digital age user.

Cape comics are just the same bullshit stories repeated over and over with cheap paint jobs in between reboots.

The other comics are fun to read once, and maybe again a decade later but that's it.

I'm fucking burnt out on this type of media.

jew

Waddup Hitler? Sieged any Heils lately?

>and comic book readers have a reputation of being losers

This. Just look at OP's pic.

A couple of factors 1) most comics expect the reader to have a good deal of prior knowledge of the characters and story which puts a lot of new people off 2) the endless nature of mainstream comics (and by comics i mean capeshit) is that things like status quo and characterizations will inevitably be reset or reworked 3) the fan base on whole is aggressively hostile to anyone they consider new or uninformed

>capeshit
Cred Forums detected

it was invented too early. I should have been invented when the only competion was theater and old scripts. now it has to compete between video games, movies and the internet. the only reason books aren't niche is because it's been with humanity for so long that not liking books is seen as being unintelligent.

the dc implosion of the 70s made everyone but "nerd culture" stop reading

the britbong invasion made them only appeal to fedoras and the rest of "nerd culture" moved on to video games in response especially after final fantasy 7 came out

this was you wasn't it?

If I'm going to be honest, it's because of quality -- the type of quality and marketability that everyone can get behind and support.

Comics nowadays are weird: in a *lot* of small and technical ways, they're better than they've ever been. But, I think, in the ways that really matter (action characters performing clear and beautiful action; escapist fantasies actually being escapist fantasies), they've rarely been worse.

And even some of the technical improvements are arguable. I've noticed that lettering was a lot better in the past -- and certainly, it's currently done better in manga.

There are any number of reasons -- although, certainly, they usually revolve around the fact that 1) American comic work is very divided and 2) due to being divided, the creators are rarely under the same roof working together -- usually being states, if not countries. apart.

The product usually works, but man, in the big grand scheme of things, it's usually not remarkable. Pure writers rarely train themselves to express complex ideas visually (the few who do, like Tom King currently and the old masters like Miller and Moore during their primes, tend to rise in prominence quickly), and so they shift the jobs of major critiques to the artists and editors. The artists work in solitude for long hours/days, and it's only by the end of that work that they open the floor for feedback, usually when things are locked and scrapping work is difficult.

And nevermind letterers, who nowadays are given the script and told to put the text on the page in some non-important areas, like it's a goddamn afterthought. (hence, why unlettered pages are so popular as teasers) Comparatively, lettering was of massive importance in the past and a lot of art and writing revolved around making sure the lettering worked and flowed.

I'm rambling, but maybe you get the picture. Without even needing a fresh coat of paint with new characters/series, the quality of these books could be MASSIVELY improved.

gamers have a WORSE reputation and that hasn't hurt video game sales

Men are still good.

-stigma made worse by relative inaccessibility meaning that you have to actively seek them out unlike movies or TV, you can't play getting into comics as no big deal, even if you have good taste any interest automatically brands you as a nerd among nerds
-too expensive, were originally meant to be basically disposable entertainment
-tying in with the last point, people know old comics are valuable and have decades of continuity and as a result comic readership has become synonymous with the hobby of comic collecting and the implication that you're picking up a new hobby with the associated investment of time and money and space to store shit is going to put a lot of people off
-superhero comics are the most well known but are mostly really bad in a lot of ways that don't even bear mentioning

I'd guess the best way to increase readership would probably be to make digital copies of everything really readily available and dirt cheap or to basically move to a webcomic model where you're just selling advertising space on the Marvel website. The entire print media industry is shrinking and I can't really see any point to keep it going in this case outside of stuff like nicely bound anthologies for hardcore fans who really want something they can show off on a bookshelf

I think more than this there's just an underlying lack of respect of the medium. So often you'll see writers treating their work like it's either a stepping stone to a more respected medium or they don't understand how to write to the strengths of the medium (not a specific fanbase, the medium itself). Then you have the same thing for artists where so many treat their comics as little more than glorified storyboards for a more respected medium. In addition to this, the writer and artist are the only big stars in the industry. Letterers are as much of an afterthought in general as they are in the work, and no one gives a shit enough about a high quality book for lettering or, hell even coloring, to be under the same umbrella as "artist" in general within the Big Two. Add to all this the fact the industry pays so, so poorly and even the mediocre talent could be getting paid twice as much doing the same thing in any other medium. The American comics industry is just in an extremely depressing state, where neither the fans nor the industry itself treats the creators with any real respect for their talents.

You've got indies doing really well and rising but even then, selling just 10k copies a month is practically superstar status for an indie. Comics are seen as possibly the lowest form of art, behind even vidya which has been seriously contentious in recent years in terms of its status as an artform. People, broadly, couldn't care less about comics themselves in the US, yet routinely comic adaptations are the biggest, most successful movies.

There's just an overwhelming lack of respect for the strengths of the medium and those who are great at it.

No, you retarded rape monkey.

They're about as niche as regular books nowadays.

Both are niche because buying shit gets expensive.

This is an actual well reasoned post, unlike most of this retarded thread which is just fedoras screaming "MUH CAPESHIT".

>They're about as niche as regular books nowadays

I'm certain people probably read much less than in the past generally but I think you're really overexaggerating or over/underestimating relative readership here

so that's a yes then

price

Where do you even get this shit, you seem to know more about it than me.

It is about quality because what sells is not high quality usually and what is high quality usually sells badly. Oh and too many writers in the industry only read comics and watch Hollywood blockbusters there's nothing wrong with capes but most of the people writing them are bad writers and people that try are rare and ignored.

>But, I think, in the ways that really matter (action characters performing clear and beautiful action; escapist fantasies actually being escapist fantasies), they've rarely been worse.

Yeah, I think this is a big part of it, even taken as lowbrow genre entertainment most aren't really very satisfying in the way lowbrow genre entertainment is supposed to be.

>Having to wait an eternity and pay a good buck for a comic written by a self-loathing hack or a CalArts reject
It's not even worth pirating these days.

I'm really not. I'm actually entirely sure if you were to compare relative readership of regular books, even just YA novels, to comic books using gross sales then you would actually see it trend equal.

No no, it's the Jews who made cape comics, user, not the ones who tried to stop it.

This is pretty true. Why read a comic or novel when you have Netflix?

But the cape greats are *mostly* british.

>inb4 laundry list of ones that aren't

I think Moore and Morrison and all them are on par with Kirby and the like.

Comic sales have increased the last 5 years while book sales have stagnated. However, in 2015 there were only about 98 million comic books sold versus 2.7 billion regular books.

People just aren't interested in longform sequential art, it's not a superhero thing.

>people that try are rare and ignored.
Who are these people tell me more.

Manga was developed before television, so this isn't a valid explanation.

To be more clear (I think you meant to say "it was invented too late"), manga was developed around the same time as comics in America.

>Not many people want to invest the time into understanding the lore

This. I've seen so many casuals saying "the cartoons ar epretty much the comics" or "why do I need to read comics when the movies/tv shows/cartoon already explore the franchise"

It's why I'm a full supporter of having the adaptations as close to the source material as possible, because changes do affect people's perception

But comics still sell like shit

>>Not many people want to invest the time into understanding the lore

Yet Manga that goes on for two decades still outsells Comics

Look at your pic

Normies just want the bare details and the movies.

The people I know are the "why read it when wikipedia has it?" Group of people.
You don't like comics? That's okay, but don't go all "oh, but in the comics" when you haven't even read anything.

Probably because long running manga are still just one title. Cape shit gets so many different comics that the average normie wanting to get into them, gets way over their head and think it is too much of a bother when they look at their book store shelves full of so many comics just for the same couple of heroes. In manga, very rarely you get the same title exploited as much as we exploit our capes.

>implying lore matters in endless manga
This was your fatal mistake.

2 decades verses 5-7.
Manga as a whole works better because there's more variety. The manga industry wouldn't be where it is with PURELY shonen action .

because today women are bitches.

Who's this curry demon of semen?

You can A to B shit like Berserk pretty easily.

Trying to A to B someone like Superman is a herculean task these days

not really fare to bring up manga since manga only really sells well in japan and nowhere elses(hence anime and manga being a niche thing).

>People, broadly, couldn't care less about comics themselves in the US, yet routinely comic adaptations are the biggest, most successful movies.

Because comics prove that the concepts can work on a large scale, but the medium they're trapped in is too niche. Comics over the years is a breeding ground and a filter, distilling and refining characters until they get perfected into a palatable for mainstream audiences nature, but still remain the essence of what the hardcore fans initially liked.

We've seen it with Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, and we're starting to see it with other comic characters getting breathed new life into them

and by niche i mean niche outside of japan.

C'mon son when was the last time Silver Age stuff was even referenced, they don't even reference shit from Infinite Crisis 10 years ago, comics struggle to keep their shit straight and people can't be bothered because their is no great payoff, no closure, just mindless events after each other that get retconned to keep the reader running on that endless hamster wheel.

>Cape comics are just the same bullshit stories repeated over and over with cheap paint jobs in between reboots.

well said dude. cheers.

Manga likely outsells American comic books internationally by a large margin. But I don't see what this has to do with what we're talking about.

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Probably because of this.

you cant afford it

Gaming itself is a socially acceptable adult hobby know. comics are not.

Decades-spanning manga like Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc are still just one continuous storyline. With capes, you've got multiple different concurrent books with the same characters and continual reboots, new #1s, crossover events, etc. It's an all out sensory overload for someone who's new to it, especially in an era where all other forms of media have moved to long form storytelling. Just look at the current golden age of TV, nearly every popular, acclaimed show is a continuous storyline. The perception is that comics are extremely complex, convoluted, constantly rebooted, and ultimately unclear on where to even start. With a show, movie, game, or book you can just pick it up at the start, even with longer series. When you have shit like multiple Batman books at once plus crossover events and a new #1 plus all the pre-N52 stuff and it's just a muddy, confusing mess for someone who just wants to read Batman. "Which #1 do I start with? There's a bunch of different Batman titles running at the same time, do I get one or all of them? Why are they referencing things that don't happen in this specific book where do I go from here? You mean this section was part of a bigger event? What do I do?"

The style of storytelling the big two have is incestuous and highly exclusive. It's not conducive to increased readership by any means. Compare that to Walking Dead, which has been going on for years and years but has a very clearly defined beginning to start at. Cape comics have endless beginnings which are often middle points or endings of other things.

Yeah that fucking irks me, especially when they start making up bullshit (ex. News articles saying Misty Knight dated both Danny and Luke in the books) or when errors show up on wikipedia and they don't know better and try and pass it off as fact.

The worst offender to me is when there's multiple incarnations of a character and that casual crowd doesn't know the difference. Like with Cottonmouth on Luke Cage, I've seen so many news articles with images of Mahershala Ali next to the Serpent Society version. It's like they don't even care.

>The manga industry wouldn't be where it is with PURELY shonen action .
You don't know what you're talking about.

Excellent response.

Explain.

with Mangas you grew up and develop yourself. you have begin and the end. were you leave it go like old friend.

with cape shit your read short visual stories and drop them away.

btw. i love french shit latelly. the stories there got better but still short. french production system sucks way to hard.

>Cape comics are just the same bullshit stories repeated over and over with cheap paint jobs in between reboots.
This. I'm a cape nerd to boot.

It's accurate though.

Action Shonen dominates the manga industry. The diverse titles you're talking about can be found in comics too, they're just largely ignored and sell poorly both in the manga industry as well as the comics industry.

How?

Explain it than. It's incredibly vague

Here

>Action Shonen dominates the manga industry
So? Golgo 13 is a seinen and it's the second highest selling manga of all time.

The manga industry is waaaay more diverse and bigger than the American comic book industry. The fact that the very best-selling manga are shounen action/adventure doesn't mean everything else is irrelevant, let alone that the manga industry is exactly the same as the American comic book industry.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_manga

Adding to this, other genre has a much larger following manga-wise. Out of the top five best selling manga this week only 2 are shounen. And even within shounen there's more variety than just standard shounen jump fair. Off the top of my head, Horimiya and Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun are some popular ongoing series that don't fit that mold.

>The fact that the very best-selling comics are cape action/adventure doesn't mean everything else is irrelevant

The manga industry and the American comic book industry are two very different things.

Things are different in america than they are in japan.

that's true, it even outsells anime.

>Gaming itself is a socially acceptable adult hobby

this couldn't be less true

put "gaming" in your online dating profile and see what happens

Rebirth isn't an event like Civil War 2. It's like how they used to have The New 52 in the top right hand corner on every book.

You have to read them.

>nozaki kun
Season 2 fucking when?

If you're too dumb to understand the difference between a brand and an event, then you should stick with kids cartoons because those are more your level.

>designated shitting street.jpg

Yes, but they have been growing their audience in the past years.

>implying capeshit = comics as a medium

I want this meme to die. As a storytelling medium comics are more popular than ever before

They're expensive and only sold in hard-to-find and often uninviting specialty stores.

I see them all over in bookstores.

I think the point was that you can't get comic books at Walmart or at convenience stores. So not a lot of places with normie traffic.

True, fair enough. Occasionally you might find some bargain-bin trade on the shelf but that's about it.

I'm friends with this guy that's rad, to contribute to the thread p much because a lot of people are too "prideful" to do something nerdy

>I think the point was that you can't get comic books at Walmart or at convenience stores.
This is funny because here in Mexico these are the only places where you can still find comic books. They're placed in a shitty rack right next to the toy section.

>I want this meme to die. As a storytelling medium comics are more popular than ever before

July this year was like the highest selling month for comics since 1997.

But Image comics, Dark Horse, IDW, all the second stringers struggle to surpass the Big Two.

Walking Dead is a once in a generation fluke, something like Saga is again an uncommon success. Not everything can be a movie pitch.

Avatar Press is lucky they can get Alan Moore and Garth Ennis.

I'm pretty sure Dynamite's entire strategy is Alex Ross and Jae Lee variant covers.

But that's the public perception and has been for the past years. Look at Cred Forums, you'll see 27 Civil War 2 threads but not one Southern Bastards discussion. And Cred Forums's not even the general public. It's not even 50/50 with capes comics-wise, they dominate the whole medium and shouldn't.