Thread 150805054

So we all know that comic distribution is a problem. The main way to buy comics is still to go to a specialty shop every week. That's a big ask for someone who is brand new to comics. There's ways to get comics by mail, which I prefer, but that way isn't perfect either. On the one hand, Midtown and DCBS offer a way to get comics shipped to you at highly discounted prices, which is great because comics are way too expensive. But on the other hand, you have to pay for shipping, and they're only allowed to ship the books on release day, so you probably won't get them until a week or so later, which is a problem if you want to keep up with discussion online. Plus you have to actively seek these services out in the first place, and we want way more people reading comics than currently are.

So I had this thought about Amazon Prime and Walmart+. A ton of people use these services, happily paying a subscription to get free shipping on all their Amazon and Walmart purchases. They sell basically everything, so people are always going to these sites. I think it would be awesome if Amazon and/or Walmart could be convinced to distribute comics. Both sites offer subscriptions to other things, vitamins, toilet paper, things like that. What if you could go to these sites and they'd have a portal to subscribe to comics? You could pick out as many as you want, and get them delivered to you every Wednesday, with free shipping.

>>150805054 (OP)
Cont.
I think that would help comics a lot. I could see a parent buying stuff on Amazon and seeing an ad for Amazing Spider-Man, thinking "my kid likes that" and just pressing the button to subscribe. I think you'd have to be preordering the books just like on Midtown or DCBS so they could know exactly how many copies they need and could give you the similar discount to these other services. It could show you on the website what issue number your subscription will start with, and you could cancel at any time.

I would love for comic companies to be able to make this happen. Price and distribution are the two biggest problems facing comics, and this could help both.

>>150805054 (OP)
>>150805061
I'm someone who doesn't like comics. This would not convince me to try them.

>>150805194
Well I think if you were interested in comics but hadn't given them a shot before, this might be just what you need.

Hock them by hand on the edges of school property during lunch period.

>>150805054 (OP)
The way to fix comic distribution is to fix those fucking prices. It's not going to happen but paying 5 dollars for a floppy is ridiculous. So many people wait for trades now because it's cheaper.

>>150805054 (OP)
You used to be able to get them next to Archie comics at Safeway and other grocery stores.

>>150805429
$5 is outrageous, but like I said, if you use DCBS you can get them at like 40% off. At least DC and Image books. That makes them a lot more attractive, and Amazon and Walmart could offer those discounts too.

>>150805054 (OP)
>Distribution is a problem

No it fucking isn't. We live in the internet age where ANYBODY with a phone, computer, or tablet has access to comics. The idea of "we need more physical comics" is a deflection.

1) The quality of the American comics books are in the gutter. Kids KNOW this which is why they don't even bother. You can put dogshit in every convenience store but you can't make people buy it.

2) They cost too much. A thing that happened cause you drove away the readerbase thus need to rely on whales, collectors, and variant covers to make a profit. "If you don't like my politics then don't buy my books", fucking retards.

To state the obvious: One Piece/Demon Slayer/Whatever the current shonen flavor of the month has the same distribution channels in the west as American trades but sells monumentally more. It ain't the distribution, it's the content.

>>150806672
Digital comics are not nearly as good. They don't work on a phone, you really need a tablet, and you have to turn it sideways for a two page spread. And people do like the collecting aspect as well.

>>150806804
>They don't work on a phone
The Shonen Jump app and Webtoons proves you wrong. Hell, Marvel has "Marvel Infinity" on webtoons where they reformat their floppies for phone users.

It ain't distribution that's the problem. It's low quality comics.

>>150806874
There's lots of good comics. You seem like you've already decided they're all bad and so you aren't reading anything right now. There's lots of good ones, but they aren't designed for phone screens. They're designed for books, and they need better distribution.

>>150806935
To us yes.
But to the normies abd first time buyers?
No.

>>150805054 (OP)
Distribution could be better but I don't think it's the main issue.

>>150806672
I don't think (1) is a problem. Even if kids were somehow informed on the state of writing in comics they could always just read the older better stuff. Plenty of kids have no issue going back to read 90's era manga nowadays.

As someone who is part of the generation who comics failed to capture the real issue is advertising and marketing imo. I loved spiderman and batman as a kid (like everyone else) loved BMTAS, SMTAS, Batman Beyond, Teen Titains, Spiderman TAS, etc... but at no point in my childhood do I remember ever running into an advertisement about the comics and the same goes for basically everyone I've ever met my age and younger.

The kids of today have 0 idea what comics are running, where to start, what is hype, what is targeting them vs some other demo. The current Western comics industry has virtually 0 inroads to the youth. the 2000's should have been pumping out comics advertising like crazy on channels like CN and Nick for example.

I think the foremost issue is that comics aren't even on the average kids mind. In fact, I would even go so far as to say the usage of the term "manga" over the last 25 years has walled off whatever gains "comics" might have benefited from as Japanese media grew.
The word comics aren't even on the lips of kids these days.

>>150806993
That's why it needs to be made easier to become a first time buyer. To buy a comic on a whim. They're not in physical stores anymore besides comic shops, but they could be on Amazon and Walmart.

>>150806935
>There's lots of good comics. You seem like you've already decided they're all bad and so you aren't reading anything right now.

We're talking sales here. Say I thought the recent Eddie Brock Carnage was garbage (it was underwhelming). Well, if that comic sells a million units consistently, does it matter if I think its trash? Not really.

In that same light, it doesn't matter if YOU think comics are great. If nobody is buying them or (realistically) the amount of people buying them is miniscule to the point of not making a profit, then yes, those comics are bad. And bad comics get cancelled.

The only reason we are having this conversation is cause I'm right. I can't say anything negative about One Piece's sales. I'd be laughed at by all the millions of people who buy & read it. Especially those who read on their phones.

>>150807067
Every kid likes superheroes, and it should be easy to get them into comics if you make the books affordable and accessible.

>>150807067
For reference it's the cultural attitude. Even in terms of adaptations, the Japanese typically prefer the manga to the anime. The manga is the true "core" element of the property. The Japanese have a whole thing about not letting old forms of media die, you can still get a print newspaper or a CD over there which tends to be just as successful as the digital equivalents.
Because of this, weeb kids who like anime tend to gravitate towards the manga since that's the "true" version of the story when it comes over here

>>150807124
Well that's why I'm trying to get more people to buy them. People on /co/ for some reason get really angry when you try to think of ways to improve the comics business.

>>150807129
Read what i posted retard. I liked superhero's too. Not once did me or any of my friends even think about picking up a comic. It never even came up in conversation, we were too busy talking about how we could get ahead in naruto if we read the manga.

Affordable and accessible doesn't matter if nobody is even thinking to make a purchase. It's no different than videogames of the 2000's where stores would run out games you wanted to buy day 1. Distribution might have been lackluster but advertising was so strong you'd pick it up the moment they were available even a few weeks later.

>>150807175
Yeah the cultural aspect certainly plays a part.

>>150807175
Another thing is that a lot of the anime/manga fandom in the west are way more lax about spoilers than say, a book to movie fandom.
In the JoJo's fandom in particular, not reading the manga used to be just asking to get spoiled since they basically gatekept by openly talking about it and thus every upcoming plot detail was already being discussed. This is basically the most common form of gatekeeping in anime/manga fandoms, "you're welcome to be here but none of us are gonna wait for you to catch up to our conversation."

>>150807239
>No one would buy them if you make it much easier to buy them! No one! Stop trying!

>>150807087
Name ten comics right now that you think a new or young reader would read and stuck with.

>>150807273
>*Nobody would buy them if they would never even think about buying them

Nobody even PIRATES comics lmfao.

>>150807067
It was easy to get into comics in the 2000s, I bought Marvel Legends figures and every one came with a comic. I used to read the comics all the time. I know they dropped the comics eventually which was a terrible idea. In the 2000s you had so many ways to be introduced to them, all the various movies before cinematic universes, figures, cartoons like Teen Titans, Static Shock, Batman Beyond, Batman The Brave and The Bold, and Justice League Unlimited, video games, etc. I don't know what happened really.

>>150807067
>the real issue is advertising and marketing imo.
You are right about that but to use the obvious example:

Naruto is a successful manga. It gets an anime adaption that is faithful (barring filler arcs) to the original source material. Because that material is of a certain quality, it brings in new readers to the manga in addition to revenue from the anime. Everybody is happy.

Sounds logical right? Now let's apply that to Amazing Spider-man by Zeb Wells.

After failing, Amazing Spider-man was rebooted with a new #1. It does okay but then Paul appears and is divisive. This run gets an faithful animated adaptation and brings in NOBODY. Paul's divisiveness extends to the cartoon viewing audience. Nobody is happy, sales tank, the animated adaption is a loss, and now Amazing Spider-man is getting rebooted with a new #1 cause sales have sunken too low. Nobody is happy.

It doesn't matter how much you advertising money you sink into a bad product. Nobody's buying.

>>150807286
Aquaman
Green Lantern
Batman and Robin
Fantastic Four
Incredible Hulk
Moon Knight
Geiger
Redcoat
Rook: Exodus
Hyde Street

>>150807395
The product is good though. Much more in DC than Marvel right now, but if you pick up a random DC book you'll probably enjoy it.

>>150807419
Not with the current people running DC. Too much gay shit.

>>150805194
Why don’t you like comics?

>>150807513
Okay so you don't even read the books but you complain about how bad you imagine they are anyway. That's about what I thought.

>>150807308
>It was easy to get into comics in the 2000s
I think this is a misunderstanding. Again speaking from my own experience. The kids in my area were all interested in
>cinematic universes, figures, cartoons like Teen Titans, Static Shock, Batman Beyond, Batman The Brave and The Bold, and Justice League Unlimited, video games, etc
this stuff, but it never did a good job funneling us into purchasing a comic. I don't think it ever even crossed my mind there WAS a Static shock comic. Nobody my age was aware Teen Titians was an old comics run back in 2003, we just recognized Robin lmfao, I don't know why they were shilling a TT2003 comic 24/7 on CN with a Scholastics tie in.

It was easy to get into Comic IP's, it's just their advertising model was extremely poor at funneling that downstream into comics sales for a variety of reasons..
Starwars was huge as fuck, everyone loved the Clonewars when I was in school. At no point was it ever even slightly brought up to buy a Clonewars comic so even GOOD properties lingered (though it might be a bit different given SW isnt primarily a comics centered IP but you get the point)

>>150807395
I agree that quality is also a big problem, but I see that as more a cross that bridge when we get there I guess. Right now nobody under the age of 25 has ever thought to themselves "Huh, maybe I'll pick up that Spiderman comic" or even "Maybe I'll read a Batman comic on some freesite when I get home". It never even crosses their mind, they're too busy thinking about how peak the next gege manga is going to be after JJK.

Personally I think comics should cut their loses with the 13+ age bracket and try and build up their future reader base with the 12 and under demo. Comics have a bit of a stigma stink to them atm when they *are* brought up...

>>150807658
>...*weren't shilling a TT2003 comic 24/7 on CN with a Scholastics tie in.

>>150807595
So we're doing this huh?
>If you don't read the slop you aren't allowed to criticize

It's that mentality that drove away the readership. You won't admit your product is objectively bad so you look for every excuse to deflect.

Distribution isn't the problem. Subpar product is.

>>150807770
What did you dislike about the latest issue of Superman?

>>150806672
>muh politics
>invoking shitty comics practices vastly older than muh politics and that actually did cause the crash
>actual volumes stayed the same for decades despite your constant shrieking about how you're quitting because of muh politics
you faggots are so predictable

>>150807658
>try and build up their future reader base with the 12 and under demo.

That was Marvel's mindset with the Marvel NOW initiative. Failed spectacularly cause, not only were the comics inferior to the ones that came before them, but the retards at Disney thought zoomers wanted "diverse" characters. It failed both in the comics and in the later Disney plus adaptations.

>>150807770
you're the one revealing yourself to be a fucking idiot by pretending comics are full of gay shit. i keep hearing this criticism and wonder what books the whiners might be reading, because i sure never get any of it.

>>150807906
I never read Superman. I read Hellblazer. WTF are you asking about Superman?

>>150808005
Well you should read Superman. It's a good book.

>>150807513
This isn't Constantine.
This is Jake constanTINE. DCs oh so funny faggot bottom version.

>>150808026
Clearly not. You can't even mention anything specific about it.

>>150805054 (OP)
i remember walking into a dollar store a few months back where they had justice league comics by the entrance
that was the most amount of comics i've ever seen being sold outside a specialty shop or con in my entire life

>>150808061
Why would I spoil it for you? I'm recommending it.

>>150808051
Yeah, my boy Constantine got RAPED HARD by DC's New52 bullshit. They also gave him a black son in his last mini-series before he got ambiguously killed off.

>>150807968
it failed because all traditional capeshit comics fail with young audiences no matter what their content because the mainstream ideas that comics are too hard to get into, inconvenient, too expensive and completely pointless plot treadmills are all correct. it's certainly not your retarded faggot headcanon that somehow young consumers, who are dramatically more likely not to be straight or white men or reactionary bigots like you, are deeply offended by more characters who aren't extremist straight white men.

>>150805054 (OP)
>>150805061
Americans still buy comics, they just don't buy traditional floppies. The future is in graohic novels and webtoons.

Friendly reminder that Moon Girl got a cartoon not because the individual issues sold well (they didn't, individual sales were in the gutter), Moon Girl got a cartoon because the trade paperbacks did amazingly well in Schoolastic Book Fairs.

>>150808116
I can see comics eventually switching to publishing straight to trades instead of coming out as floppies first. I'd kind of like to see them experiment with this. Pick one ongoing title from a character people know, maybe Green Lantern or somebody, and instead of publishing monthly, just put out a couple trades a year and see how they do.

>>150808077
I don't want to read about Jon Kent fucking his pink haired boyfriend. Or Lois Lane somehow getting Superman tier powers. That shit is lame and gay.

>>150805054 (OP)
Comic book publishers should print 90% of a book's run on cheap-ass paper and sell them in grocery stores, drug stores and gas stations for noobs and casuals who'll just chuck them into a blue box after 2 reads, and the other 10% sholuld be printed on the good paper for the collectors and still sold in lcbs's.

>>150808226
They put Jon and his boyfriend in a separate containment book.

>>150808102
Vol 1 bro

It's only the Marvel and DC stuff that applies to.

There isn't a one-stop shop to get comics of all kinds anywhere and i don't even know where people even read new comics
With manga you either read leaks on twitter or you go to the official site or popular pirate site to read them
>>150807067
Comics lack the same pipe line manga has
Since animation is really popular and anime is one big advertisement for manga now, you have the perfect gateway for viewers to get into the manga
After you finish watching the anime, you can just pick up the manga to continue the story
Cape shit basically soured comics forever with a million continuities and resets and adaptations that just jumbled everything together because movies are big
The obvious answer is for cape shit to stop being capeshit and to allow non-cape shit to be in the spot light
Have adaptations be one big advertisement for the comic itself

>>150808281
I think of Marvel and DC the same way I think of WWE. You can just jump in and start watching. You'll figure out who all the characters are pretty quickly, and while there's continuity and history, they'll catch you up on everything you need to know what it comes up. It's rewarding for longtime viewers but it's okay if you're new.

>>150807658
That's fair, but again, there were always those action figures that came with comics, as a kid I got them for the figures but I always read the comic to go with them, it's genius and I don't know why they don't do it anymore. Maybe because less kids buy figures now, but it certainly got me into comics

>>150808847
I think there should've been a little slip in the case for the Spider-Man PS4 game about how you can subscribe and get Spider-Man comics.

>>150807541
That anon never learned to read :-(

Even that post was only possible via speech-to-text technology

>>150808116
LMAO
>Americans still buy comics
/co/pe & seethe /co/cksucker

>>150806672
>To state the obvious: One Piece/Demon Slayer/Whatever the current shonen flavor of the month has the same distribution channels in the west as American trades but sells monumentally more. It ain't the distribution, it's the content.
Also, Manga has more variety than Shonen. Yes, Shonen is the money maker, but you can also buy romance, horror, Isekai, and slice-of-life stories that WILL have an ending.

>>150807541
It's the only medium with a quality ceiling, and it's pretty fucking low. Comics never work because the art isn't allowed to speak for itself. It's forced to work together with silly looking speech bubbles and the other panels. But they never meld together into one single experience. It's for people too lazy to make cartoons or write books, and it has none of the things that makes either medium special. A better thing to do is just make an art book or something without a story at all. Every page would just be a painting or two that stands on their own, and they could be part of a theme or take place in the same world. If there needs to be any text, which there doesn't, it should be under the paintings or in columns off to the side and it shouldn't have dialogue or story.

>>150811188
Dog Man has sold over 3 million copies.
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, 250 million copies.
Lore Olympus, a whopping one billion readers on Webtoons.

People still read comics. They just don't read Marvel and DC superheroes.

>>150805054 (OP)
Comics aren't popular enough to warrant subscriptions, plus runs get cancelled to sporadically.

>>150811586
If a run gets canceled then your subscription will just end. There's a way to do it that makes sense.

>>150806672
>"If you don't like my politics then don't buy my books", fucking retards.
I never understood this.
But then the free market doesn't kick in. There's no third comic publisher kicking Marvel and DC in the shins.

>>150811657
If there was a market for it the service would exist. Let's just leave it at that.

>>150811188
This.
>>150811464
This style of book can also be used to teach kids about stuff in a more engaging way because it's way more engaging than comics and the format lends itself nicely to educational topics to begin with.

>>150811756
It does exist.
https://subscriptions.marvel.com/
https://subscriptions.dccomics.com/