Why don't they put all their shit in weekly anthologies?
No speculator autism answers.
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Why don't they put all their shit in weekly anthologies? No speculator autism answers.
You get 3 guesses and the first 2 are wrong.
Anthologies don’t sell in the west, digital is the future anyway
Nobody pays for comics as is, they aren’t paying for the anthologies they do make because for every story I would read there’s one by a homosexual Portland creator.
Digital sells worse than any format. Floppies still sell better than trades. You’re moronic if you think digital is the future in any industry, they all but killed digital sales for digital streaming which is not at all the same despite them both being “digital”.
This is not true. Speculators are not what drive sales. The only “speculation” taking place outside of three to for individual issues industry wide every year is owners “speculating” how many of each issue they’ll sell.
Anybody saying what you just said would improve discussions of comics sales by never speaking again or just flat out killing yourself.
You are correct.
Again, please, have a nice day or shut the frick up. Those are back issues not ongoings.
thank fricking god we got the redditor over here to give his input on every post in the thread
There are nothing but redditors on Cinemaphile these days. I got my post deleted for dropping the n-word in another thread. The only reason the jannies comply is to avoid having to deal with more reports.
>it’s Reddit
”Reddit” is a diminutive you throw at casuals who tout meme opinions you massive fricking homosexual. You’re the fricking casual who doesn’t understand how sales work, doesn’t understand the industry, yet makes claims about how it should change to your casual whims because posting on places like Reddit gave you some sort of fricking delusion that you were anything less than drop dead fricking moronic.
have a nice day. Stream it. I’ll make a Reddit account just to give you a thumbs up.
thats a lot of words to admit youre a redditor
t. Massively butthurt LCS owner homosexual
I would never buy an LCS, it’s smarter to light money on fire. I find it amusing your NEET zoomer ass has grasped at two meaningless monoliths to cling to because you refuse to attempt to prove why “digital is the future” when all evidence suggests it’s not.
The future is now, grampa
>I have nothing more to say
I accept your concession, redditor
>treat digital like a red headed step child when literally every other entertainment medium was switching to digital
>moderately embrace it with Comixology but match (the ridiculous) print price to appease LCS owners
>Marvel and DC make their own “streaming service” but at ridiculous monthly prices AND have an at-least three month delay on putting in new content
>”see guis digital is a total failure we didn’t sabotage it for our LCS massas no one wants digital!”
digital like a red headed step child when literally every other entertainment medium was switching to digital
And as I said they all died, and in their place streaming took over. Which is not the same.
>moderately embrace it with Comixology but match (the ridiculous) print price to appease LCS owners
Funny that you believe the companies when they say this when in reality it’s that they found lowering the price of their comics in one format lowered the overall value of them.
Trade sales were being effected because they were seen as too expensive if and when the individual issues were 99 cents.
>Marvel and DC make their own “streaming service” but at ridiculous monthly prices AND have an at-least three month delay on putting in new content
This circles back to you claiming they treated them like a red headed step child. This is exactly what the movie studios did and all of it failed, leading to streaming, which marvel and dc now do for comics.
>SABOTAGE
Consumer buying trends dictate corporate movement. The idea that they sabotaged a distribution approach ghat removed middle men and overhead costs is absurd.
Please discuss reality like an adult.
Funny I made both those posts, which is why I specifically called you a Redditor you massive homosexual.
You’re the casual spewing Reddit opinions.
Reddit is against floppies because they’re casuals.
>Funny I made both those posts
yeah we can all tell because you type like a redditor and even use reddit spacing go back
You’d think it would be because it was a threaded conversation but you’re new here so I’ll excuse it.
>Digital sells worse than any format.
It's not just about sales, but keeping this medium viable in the future. I would say most people reading manga in America are reading them digitally, but it also means a lot of those readers will support the official releases. That same energy needs to happen in American comics
>Floppies still sell better than trades.
I completely understand this point; I think Cinemaphile's usual idea to get rid of floppies and just do anthologies is fricking stupid. Floppies/monthly releases are how discussions and engagement thrive. In some scenario where print doesn't exist, the monthly issues would just be released digitally month to month.
>You’re moronic if you think digital is the future in any industry,
Its going to be an absolute necessity at some point. People are going out less and doing most of their reading on screen. They need to find a way to make it profitable, or at least engage new readers.
Marvel and DC could put out decades of old comics they aren't reprinting for free and just support the site with a ton of ads or something.
Viable would mean sustainable. How does getting rid of floppies, the only self-sustained format in American comics, improve that viability?
Almost none of what’s collected as a trade would be made as an OGN, it couldn’t support the cost.
The real reality is that nothing but penguin and scholastic comics would make it to market if not for the direct market sales subsidizing them.
Webtoons is so big it has billboard ads in New York city.
The industry of comics is doing well. It's the small big two slice of floppites into trades that is struggling.
Captain Underpants and other Scholastic books for stuff regular tops the charts outselling manga and "traditional" superheros alike.
When people ask questions like this they aren't really saying "what can save Western comics" the industry already answered that question, you just don't like the answer.
Spending on ads has not generated a massive amount of awareness or revenue from the American markets for webtoon. Most of their users are still in Asian markets.
I literally said that dc should do more like captain underpants when I agreed with anons billeted list. You’re having a conversation you saw on Twitter once rather than engaging with my posts.
Bulleted*
>that is struggling.
But it's not struggling. It goes up every year. It just doesn't do like the other industries, which, by the way, they're also in. DC publishes Webtoons and Children's books. You don't know what you're talking about.
it's really only North America were that issue the UK and the rest of Europe still have lots of anthology comics but it's true they don't sell in the US
>and the rest of Europe still have lots of anthology comics
Heavy metal and similar magazines died in the early 90's in Europe because that market preferred to wait for the finished albums than serials. 2000AD is basically half-dead and can't even support the creators it used to have.
Unfortunately literally because of speculator autism. It literally keeps the industry afloat. If they got away from it they would lose so much money and then they would have to actually fix their shit which no one cares to do
Who the frick speculates in comics anymore? The bubble burst 30 years ago.
>Who the frick speculates in comics anymore?
A lot of people homie. Why do you think variant covers are so abundant? Go check eBay and see how active reselling is. Type comic books into YouTube search and see how many channels you get that are all about speculating and what "keys" to buy etc
>Confuses ebay listings for resales.
If it keeps getting relisted then it doesn't sell.
It also has nothing to do with ongoings
You can make easy money on comics without even trying today anon
DC tried that. They put them in Walmarts across the country and only I bought them.
because the books were placed in the collectibles isle, should've been at the cashier
the material was mostly odd reprints instead of new + best of
in the end only collectors searched for them (because the issues were supposed to be walmart exclusive), not casuals who were the intended audience
also no parent is going to buy a big two comic since 1986
>, should've been at the cashier
They were by the front of the store by the cashier area in my local stores.
>the material was mostly odd reprints instead of new + best of
shouldn't really matter to new readers.
The real problem is being $10 + sealed in plastic.
>They were by the front of the store by the cashier area in my local stores.
right, but you couldn't see them while waiting in line, like archie digest, right? you had to know they existed and look for them. no impulse buy
because the market of comics has developed differently than japan.
in japan manga is sold in any place that could be on your way to work/school so you can read a bunch of manga on your train or bus ride. the japanese market caters to everyone because everryone can find something they like.
in america comics are mostly sold in specialty stores, which means if you're gonna there you're usually going to specifically get something. its not something you get before you go to work/school to read because you'd be driving. The american market caters to the fan market.
anthologies as a concept makes sense, and probably could have worked 20 years ago but the market has changed to much. people have smart phones and aren't acustomed to buying comics like in japan.
>in japan manga is sold in any place that could be on your way to work/school so you can read a bunch of manga on your train or bus ride
Used to be that way in America back in the day
europe has been struggling as well. italy is down to 30k newsstands (from 40k a decade or two ago), which guttered the print runs of bonelli comics
*gutted
newstands died because we stopped needing them for news and we don't spend time riding busses or trains like they do in Japan.
Two reasons
>comic fans only want the comics that “count”. Comic companies are more scared of change than a boomer republican so they never try anything different and on the rare occasion they do put out an anthology it stars literal who characters written and drawn by bottom-of-the-barrel “talent”
>the vast majority of people buying comics now aren’t interested in the story telling part of the medium but in the collecting part. It’s why there’s eight million variant covers to every comic Marvel and DC put out now. Why put money into making one good product that you can only sell one per person when you can make a mediocre product for half the production cost that you can sell five times per person?
>rare occasion they do put out an anthology it stars literal who characters written and drawn by bottom-of-the-barrel “talent”
This is a fair way to do it in theory; anthologies are a testing ground for new characters and creators. That's how DC handled anthologies for years. You see a lot of creator's early work in anthologies in general.
>the vast majority of people buying comics now aren’t interested in the story telling part of the medium but in the collecting part
This isn’t true and hasn’t been in 20 years.
>vibes
>energy
>”reading” instead of “buying”
What American comics needs to do is focus on serving its specific audiences. That is what manga does well. If the comic is for teenage girls 100 chapters in it doesn’t become all inclusive for boys and girls who dress as boys and all ages rather than teens.
In America she-hulk, which is a female character meant to appeal to teenage boys with their penis in their hand, is now made to appeal to 35 year old women who live with three cats and are “the best aunt and bridesmaid ever”.
No discussion of sales or improvement is capable until we accept that “woke” is a moronic word but a summation of the target audience being viciously changed based on sociopolitical reasoning rather than creative or business reasoning.
>I completely understand this point; I think Cinemaphile's usual idea to get rid of floppies and just do anthologies is fricking stupid. Floppies/monthly releases are how discussions and engagement thrive. In some scenario where print doesn't exist, the monthly issues would just be released digitally month to month.
They already do this. The floppies sell far more. It is not the future it has been around for ten years, is more accessible and yet hasn’t made any growth.
>Its going to be an absolute necessity at some point. People are going out less and doing most of their reading on screen. They need to find a way to make it profitable, or at least engage new readers.
It’s not 2008, none of this is even worth responding to. It’s simply not borne out by any buying trends of the last ten years outside of 14 months surrounding COVID.
Digital sales for almost all forms of media were DOA. They never grew. No revenue was ever generated AT ALL. Which is why streaming quickly replaced digi…
>This isn’t true and hasn’t been in 20 years.
So please, oh great genius in comic book marketing, explain to me why every comic publisher puts out at least five variant covers for every book they publish?
Because they mostly sell at the same price point and most aren’t even tiered. They’re simply interchangeable. You do not follow the industry, this is clear.
DC does some card stock for higher price points but it’s mostly just to get more eyes on a book by reaching out to the cover artists fans.
There’s no “collecting” cause that implies value. It’s more akin to a rapper having a friend to a remix so they get their music into different ears.
>lookathimandlaugh.gif
>I have nothing more to say
I accept your concession
>There’s no “collecting” cause that implies value. It’s more akin to a rapper having a friend to a remix so they get their music into different ears.
No you’re right this statement here obviously is an intelligent statement that really deserves a well-thought out answer.
You don’t “collect” songs you consume them. A favorite artist collaborating with someone you don’t know might get you to consume that other artists music.
This is the idea behind variants. To get your product in front of more consumers.
You’re trying to claim people are buying variants, which are for the most part non-tiered and thus not rare or valuable, for collecting purposes and that’s just not true.
They’re consuming a product they want. The idea that most consumers are bagging and boarding most comics is absurd.
>The idea that most consumers are bagging and boarding most comics is absurd
y-you don't?
Very little. Only things I bag things I personally want to keep in good condition for myself. Like a nice pair of shoes or shirt that I’ll only wear on occasion versus a favorite shirt you wear all the time. 90 percent of what I buy, almost 100 percent of what is on my pull is read and tossed into a box. What I don’t like given away.
>Digital sales for almost all forms of media were DOA. They never grew. No revenue was ever generated AT ALL. Which is why streaming quickly replaced digi…
Which is why streaming replaced digital sales starting with iTunes and Spotify and then into all of the digital files that came with films that required apps get replaced by streaming.
Digital sales are not the future. Digital streaming, which isn’t even a lease, is the future. This has already proven much less lucrative for creators and has only allowed producers and investors to recoup investment based on outdated contracts.
With the new strikes between writers, directors and soon actors expect streaming itself to become less sustainable.
Digital is not the future.
>”reading” instead of “buying”
more readers should lead to more buyers.
>They already do this. The floppies sell far more. It is not the future it has been around for ten years, is more accessible and yet hasn’t made any growth.
This is because the same people looking at digital issues are the same as people who were buying physical. There's very little new readers. That's becoming a problem.
You misread what I meant, I don't think pushing digital means getting rid of floppies, I myself really like floppies as a format. But something needs to be done to increase readership and print won't be the way to do it.
>more readers should lead to more buyers
>theft and a devaluation of products leads to more sales at full price
Proof?
>This is because the same people looking at digital issues are the same as people who were buying physical.
This isn’t close to true. Anybody buying floppies is reading pirated if they read anything digitally. Nobody is paying for a digital comic or service to read comics they already paid for.
We agree they need new readers, but digital is not sustainable and has proven itself to be a failure. Streaming in all mediums isn’t even sustainable once creators demand get new contracts and between music and film and television thats starting rapidly leading to even more rapid studio and catalogue consolidation.
You can stamp your feet and cry all you want but the cold fact, anon, is floppies will go away before new digital content. Comic publishers will keep printing trades of classic shit but the Big Two printing monthly floppies will absolutely die within our lifetime. It’s only dinosaurs like you who are keeping it barely alive and you’re all dying off.
>verification not required
Depends what you define as floppies, we might see less individual issues in print but we'll absolutely still see monthly releases in some scenario where things go all digital.
I wonder just what people's issues are with floppies, the fact that they're individual print releases? Because I don't see people having the same problem with monthly magazines.
I do not think you’ll see ongoing digital monthly releases once floppies die. They do not sustain the cost of interior art.
Manga “flourishes” because of a lack of proper American product. Like English and Spanish soccer do domestically in comparison to the MLS.
In fact I’d say soccer is in some ways a very direct analog it’s domestic competition of movies and vidya are like the nfl and nba, it’s international competition is flat out better like EPL et al.
There is no simple fix. It takes a societal acceptance and embrace.
The simple fact is comics cost a frick ton per issue, thousands for art, hundreds for writing, hundreds for color, hundreds for editing, thousands for printing, thousands for shipping, hundreds for office tasks, hundreds for material cost subcharges, taxes paid kinda offset by tax breaks and lack of medical but only barely. Digital in every medium has proven a failed experiment and lead to streaming which is on the precipice of becoming unsustainable itself in industries like film which has seen three services launch and collapse just last year before being bought up, and sports which is seeing owners sell off a lot lately out of nowhere.
The revenue streams have been trickling and when they’re forced to divide them up more they’ll be minuscule.
Expect major pivots in distribution over the next decade. Consumerism requires physical goodies to make people feel good.
>again, the point is that there's no new readers who even know digital exists.
I don’t even know how to respond to something so absurd.
>Proof?
Look at how manga flourishes. We've been at the point where we get translations within hours of the Japanese release for free, or rips of the official same-day translation. Yet selling manga volumes in book stores and retail like target is viable.
>Nobody is paying for a digital comic or service to read comics they already paid for.
again, the point is that there's no new readers who even know digital exists.
and a devaluation of products leads to more sales at full price
>Proof?
personal experience (i'm not buying anything blind)
You buy floppies after having read them online?
yes. well, i'll sample the ongoing and decide. i'm not reading each and every issue online. i do browse storytimes here. i may rethink when the creative team changes. rarely do i buy something blind.
That just seems risky, if I miss the first issue of a run cause it sold out I hate having to buy it online but to each his own. I do try to check storytimes of shit if I can before I go on Wednesday’s but flipping through at the store usually lets me know if it’s shit or not.
Briar is the only stinker I bought blind recently and simply because I love Garcia’s art.
> we accept that
There is no 'we.' billionaires decided this would be the thing so it is. It's not meant to be good, moral or profitable. It's supposed to be miserable and divisive. What is taught is that real art is propaganda (that specifically benefits Billionaires)
>weekly
Because that has only worked in Japan. Nobody's going to buy that anywhere else. It's either monthly or trades.
Samegayging is pathetic
t. redditor
While I don't think this is 100% guaranteed to be successful, this is the only path I see for the future of American/western comics:
A combination of:
>Webtoon style FREE (or ad-served) webcomics. Some rotation of titles/characters, new episodes every week. Collected in digest-sized print editions
+
>Large 100 page sized anthologies. New serialized lead stories with reprints of important stories/issues. Crucial: securing some kind of distribution deal with a big box stores like Barnes&Noble, Walmart, Target and/or Walgreens. Basically combining the DC Walmart anthologies with the $1 themed "True believers/Essentials" reprints that Marvel & DC put out as back-ups
+
>Kid & young adult geared graphic novels. Emphasis on getting them sold at B&N, Scholastic book fairs, and Amazon.
+
>Surrender the direct market to adults. Smaller, shared universes with aesthetics like Vertigo, Black Label, Marvel Knights, OG Ultimates. Edgier, "sophisticated suspense" 14 & MR ratings, smaller "families" books. More artist-driven "writing for the trade" limited series.
+
>active youtube channel with animated shorts, motion comics and other short-form visually-driven bonus content. A la the DCNation shorts on Cartoon Network
+
>Licensing characters out as much as possible for video game DLC, action figure & comic book crossovers,
>Licensing characters out to international publishers for manga & Europe/French/Italian market interpretations & crossovers
+
>Consider relaunching the Essentials/Showcase line of cheap big bulky trade B&W collections
+
>Maintain an e-reader app with as much as the full library as possible
>Webtoon style FREE (or ad-served) webcomics
DC's actually doing this right now and it seems to be working well. At least in terms of building an audience. Not sure about sales
>Large 100 page sized anthologies. New serialized lead stories with reprints of important stories/issues
>Kid & young adult geared graphic novels. Emphasis on getting them sold at B&N, Scholastic book fairs, and Amazon.
Bookstores have sold comics for like 20 years now. I remember them being there when I was in single digits. Why does everyone who push for bookstores seem to have never actually been to one? My nephew gets graphic novels at his bookfairs, hell there were some at mine back in elementary school.
Anthologies as discussed are a crapshoot. I think you'd have better luck doing Marvel essentials/DC showcase style black and white reprints of a single character for cheap.
>Surrender the direct market to adults.
Already basically what's happening
>active youtube channel with animated shorts, motion comics and other short-form visually-driven bonus content.
This is good, a lot of fan made motion comics have been good for getting people interested in comics.
>Consider relaunching the Essentials/Showcase line of cheap big bulky trade B&W collections
agreed
>Maintain an e-reader app with as much as the full library as possible
agreed, as well as a lot of free ad supported stuff if possible.
the direct market to adults. Smaller, shared universes with aesthetics like Vertigo, Black Label, Marvel Knights, OG Ultimates. Edgier, "sophisticated suspense" 14 & MR ratings, smaller "families" books. More artist-driven "writing for the trade" limited series.
Being a floppygay I’ll tell you that I agree with your over all approach but the specifics here are self-defeating.
>smaller shared universe
Kill this.
We floppy buyers want canon. No loose canon no soft canon no everything is canon. We want canon.
We want comics Kelly sue and Tom Taylor would call milquetoast. We want meat and potatoes capes.
We do not want authorial ego and status quo shakeups. Only Spider-Man fans say this. Spider-Man fans are casuals who don’t pay for floppies. People don’t like having big changes made in their comics because they inevitably suck and are tough to undo. We want things all the current writers would hate.
We don’t want minis. We don’t want writing for trades. We don’t wait for trades.
So here’s the fix:
NEVER COLLECT ANYTHING YOU PRINT AS A FLOPPY ANY SOONER THAN TWO YEARS AFTER PUBLICATION, RELEASE THEM DIGITALLY AFTER A YEAR. FLOPPIES/ONGOINGS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE DECOMPRESSED OR TO BE WRITTEN FOR SECONDARY MARKET READERS (tradewaiters).
So make OGNs/trades, make digital shit, do all that shit for zoomers. But make floppies for straight white men who want simple capeshit to share with a son or nephew.
>Consider relaunching the Essentials/Showcase line of cheap big bulky trade B&W collections
1 billion percent behind this tho. And the archive editions hardcovers.
>make floppies for straight white men who want simple capeshit to share with a son or nephew
thank you. /thread
floppies are such a bad use of resources and a complete waste of money
You actually get more enjoyment paying $4 a pop for 20 pages of a story every 30 days?
I don’t just read them for the plot, because I don’t just read capeshit, so I get more than a single read out of many. I also just prefer the format, I read books physically still too. If you had to pay for the comics you read you would call that a waste of money too, you don’t see anything as being worth money
>inb4 manga
You don’t spend money on that and you know it
>$4 a pop for 20
They recently bumped to $5.
22 pages, $4.99.
That comic is 30 pages. Do you have to lie?
No, go to readcomicsonline and check for yourself (btw, cover and ads do not count) starts at page 3 ends at page 24.
still to much expensive, Comicbook should be one american euro per issue, drop paper quality.
When decompressed? Yes. I agree. But otherwise I actually agree with
The problem is all the floppies they make are decompressed and written for trades, as I said above they should leave that writing for graphic novels and make floppies back into monthly episodic affairs with beginning middle and ends. This makes the monthly cost feel more fulfilling.
With a decompressed format you get that feeling of fulfillment once every fiscal quarter at best and likely only twice a year. And at the cost of 25-30 dollars (albeit over six months).
If they sold more floppies prices could stagnate for a bit but when their unit totals are so low for print runs prices are higher than even just inflation would dictate as discount thresholds aren’t met at printer and distributor levels.
> No speculator autism answers
homie the big 2 publishing divisions are being held up speculator autism.
Learn to scroll dumbass
Just because.
They would charge like $40 for it, nobody would pay that.
They can't even get the art done in a month...
>It’s “Cinemaphile asks the same stupid questions and then refuses to acknowledge or listen to the answers” time again
Oh boy!