Why I think manga is outselling American comics

[Jongriffin]

I can't speak for everyone, but the reason I think manga is outselling American comic books is because the individual stories don't get as stale. Sure, they have tropes. Every culture has tropes. But that's not what I mean by stale. To put this into perspective, I used to read Marvel comics heavily. But I got bored of them for rehashing the same stories and too many retcons in their mainline comics. 

Take Spider-man. He started out as a nerdy high schooler, graduated and went to college, dated different women and lost one to death, finally got married, made friends with Flash, moved from being a photographer of the Bugle to a high school teacher, and eventually revealed his identity to Aunt May. Sadly, once the Civil War arc came into the Marvel Universe, they started retconning all of Spider-man's progress. Aunt May was brought back from the dead, Spider-man was no longer a high school science teacher, and it was like the 60s and 70s Spider-man all over again; old and cliche. 

X-Men was another good case in point. Grant Morrison pushed the characters forwarded whereas Joss Whedon wrote an inferior version of Chris Claremount's X-Men with his Astonishing X-Men, in which character and story progress was retconned to make things more comfortable for the nostalgia crowd. The number of times X-Men, both heroes and villains, have died, only to always be resurrected cheapened the story and made the so-called 'dangerous world' they lived in appear vanilla and less dangerous. 

I could go on and on. Of course, it's hared to keep stories fresh and relevant when they have been around for 50 years or more. You can only do so much with a character and a story before it becomes stale. You can only develop the character so much. It's an unfortunate reality of mainstream comics. 

However, from what I understand, manga is owned by the creators. Am I correct? Because of it, the stories usually (with a few exceptions) have a beginning, a middle, and an end, full of good character development without needless retconning. I love my stories to have beginnings and ends. Most of these stories (again with a few exceptions) can go out on a high note. This is why I think manga is doing better than mainstream comics. What do you all think? 


https://ultramunch.com/worldwide-manga- ... an-comics/

P.S. I forget, how do you get the link to show a thumbnail? It's so annoying that it doesn't automatically do that.

[Momogari]

I have basically never read an american comic.

I hardly ever read manga these days and when I do it's the ones already known to be really good.

Light novels, on the other hand, I read plenty of, and I'm here just to express surprise at this:

Because of it, the [manga] stories usually (with a few exceptions) have a beginning, a middle, and an end, full of good character development without needless retconning.

Really?
Light novels definitely don't have a good baseline quality. And a 3-act structure seems pretty optional to LNs. I think I read more that don't have a beginning, middle, and end than those that do.
Also writing quality is just all over the place.
Granted LNs are a pretty accessible medium for anyone who wants to write, whereas manga usually needs a team (or a variety of skills and lots of time) before getting picked up by a publisher. That's what I understand anyway. It's apparent for LNs because a lot of LNs have just...awful writing. And it's not always the translation, you can tell when the author just isn't a very good writer, or, separately, a very good storyteller.

But still, the 3-act structure is optional even for well-edited LNs. It's not a hard rule compared to western novels. So I'd be surprised to hear that it is a common feature of manga.

P.S. I forget, how do you get the link to show a thumbnail? It's so annoying that it doesn't automatically do that.

This is an oldschool phpbb forum. You'd have to do it in bbcode on your own like this:

Code: Select all

[url="https://ultramunch.com/worldwide-manga-is-outselling-american-comics/"][img]https://r7s4k2g2.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/manga-outsells-feature-800x450.png[/img]
https://ultramunch.com/worldwide-manga-is-outselling-american-comics/[/url]

[Nishizono Shinji]

The retconning, as you alluded to, is due to the fact that DC and Marvel characters have been around for decades and writers have at times written themselves into a corner. So to progress a character or story they have to retcon.
This has however given rise to some of the best storytelling, the rebirth series of DC comics are some of the best comics in the history of the company and were created almost solely to retcon/rewrite origin stories or certain plot points so they could continue a characters development beyond that which was previously possible.

Also not every manga follows such a structured pattern, there are many (particularly longer ones) which meander and go all over the place before coming back and tieing up (or at least attempting to) all the loose ends. I think the meteoric rise in popularity manga reading is a great thing, there is certainly a big difference in storytelling styles between east and west and the more people are exposed to different ways of approaching the same medium the better is will be for all involved.

[Ryuuko]

I mean there are elements that are common across manga but they aren’t a beginning, middle and end. Nor is it good writing in fact most manga isn’t. Most manga actually never gets finished.

Like I said there are common elements like use of the same cliches. Now that isn’t any every manga but it’s common.

If Manga is out selling American comics which it might be it’s because it’s new to the western audience in general. The culture in them is different which often more interesting then the same especially when it’s a real one. It’s difficult to create a culture that’s different and continues to be interesting. Good writing and ideas, however, do make intriguing fictions ones.

Manga in general despite being around for a bit is still broadly picking up in the west and most of it never gets published or fan translated into English.

[Vivix]

A manga may cater to the shounen genre, but the way its written, its characters, its development, it also attracts other audiences. American comics tend to not do that. Simply put, manga attracts every possible audience even within its specific catered genre and subgenre. Plus there is a huge variety of stories all different in plot, depth, development, writing, genre, subgenre, etc that attract a wide range of people. As much as I love powers and fantasy and fiction, I would 100% find more interesting reading My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, and Naruto than pick up an X-men, Spider-man, or Superman comic.

[LikkleMel]

I find there is more to it than just a couple of pictures and a couple of dialogue. Manga it feels like you are reading a proper book...hope that makes sense