ISSUES With the Comic Industry!

What's the shirt?

Monthlies are so much fun...
Letters page!
Having to wait!
Reading and talking about the story while waiting!
I wish they would simply advertise in their movie trailers that monthly comics are still coming out and there are comic book shops.
How many millions of people go to see a marvel movie? Most of those people don't even know the comics are still being printed.
If they don't advertise, they will die.
We fans don't have enough money to buy enough comics to keep the industry alive.

Better to go with something like a seasonal graphic novel that tells a self-contained story-arc, so every three months, you get a longer book with more to read. Every title would operate like this, and then would be able to lay more concrete groundwork for a major event, or for a special crossover story that would also, itself, be self-contained in its own graphic novel.

This has been living rent-free in my head for almost 2 years at this point and I've gotta agree... for the most part. While the idea of big, themed books is definitely a cool concept, I'm probably one of the few people who's not a fan of Batman, but is a fan of Nightwing, Red Hood... basically just the Robins. The problem with the "trades only" mentality is that I've recently been picking up single issues of Infinite Frontier to see if I like them, and while I have enjoyed most of then, I realized I wasn't a fan of the new Superman/Action Comics stuff because of that mentality. Doing trades only would have me spend a lot more money on things I'm not that interested in, and thus probably discourage checking out new things. I definitely see where you're coming from, though.

Holy shit comics are 4.99 now????? I haven’t bought single issues in years and that makes me wanna barf thinking about how expensive that would be.

I also have always thought comics should have “seasons” with a weekly release schedule. 12 issues in twelve weeks, once a year. I can’t keep up with a story where I only read 24 pages every month. I have ADHD I can’t remember that shit haha

I'm ready for issues to die off. The floppies are written with trade paperbacks in mind anyway. Comic book stores are an endangered species and single issues aren't really creating any new fans anymore. They're a relic of the past at this point. People have been saying this for years and I don't know how they're still a thing.

Ironically anthology books are where comics started. It would be neat to see them come full circle, but if there's anything the comics industry vehemently resists it's change.

You are correct and predicted the future. Now a single manga Demon Slayer is out selling the WHOLE AMERICA COMIC INDUSTRY, and it was well deserved.

Manga has a simpler and more accessible appeal. It's like reading a traditional book, ask book readers for their opinion and get a suggestion. It also helps that the quantity of those who read them are more dense with regular people than strictly Manga/Comic fans. Even then, it's even easier to become a fan than it can be with comics as more people can surround the media than Comics.

Honestly I avoid single issues like the plague xD

Yoooooo if DC and marvel did what shounen jump does and does like a DC jump thing every month that'd be rad as hell. I'd love it

Heavy metal been doing this since 1977 so they 50 years behind cool i dont read american comics.

I really liked this video

I never buy issues, I always buy volumes as they are more affordable and easier to organize

I said years ago that DC and Marvel should do trade paperbacks every three months. Maybe not for everything, but what if they decided to do a paperback of Superman every 3 months, which tells part of a whole year arch.

Don't forget the biggest is that those people who tend to scream manga is better then comics and comic fans rarely ever promote any other comics that aren't dc, marvel superheroes, tmnt and power rangers

“At least everybody has a wall mart” me, an Australian: yeah, totally

“At least everyone has a Walmart”

Literally the entire rest of the world: bruh

Shout out to the first time I went into an actual comic book store instead of my local library and being very confused at the single issues and wondering where the trades were. I legitimately thought comic books were just trades and omnibus’ that comic book store is closed now. Love your stuff, keep it up

It's pretty funny that the Belgian comic industry actually already has (mostly) fixes for these isues. You can buy the more populair comics in a grocery store if you want and they sell just a single story and multible stories as 1 book. The only thing that still isn't common practice is releasing new stories online so people can read it on their phone and such.

Marvel actually kind of did the different comic lines in one a while ago with the A-Force Presents books

Here in Australia, unless you are in a city, single issues are the worst. If you can even find a comic book store you'll never find a store that will consistently carry a series by single issues. And single issues have weak paper and get damaged and just suck. I buy by volumes and it feels so much better. Stronger paper and an actual fucking story. I feel that if writers focused on volumes as the lowest length you can buy we'd see better stories.

Something I think marvel and DC need to do is stop with the over the top insane massive stories. Batman does not need to fight God every other arc

My favourite comics as a kid were the Bone series; which in comparison to superhero comics were much longer for small amount more. The story was coherent and felt like a full arch by the end of the book, whereas superhero comics are over as soon as you get into it (unless you buy a 64+ page edition or a full set)

My local comic shop has it so only half the store is comics and the rest are collectibles because they weren't making as much money on comics any more

Good points brought up, but I think my issue with the issue in this video is that it kind of ignores the collectability appeal of the monthly single issue format. Think of today's comic books like sports cards or coins. Many collectors don't just buy comics for the stories, but for the collecting hobby. There is a whole industry around grading and plastic slabbing comics for collectors just as there is with baseball cards and coins. You can't do that with trade paperbacks or digital media. And just like rookie cards, comics have first appearances of characters which become sought after by collectors and are prized for their value. With the popularity of the MCU, this feeds the comic book collecting market even more and the desire for "rookie card" comics of characters who might appear in new live action comic book movies or shows. Again think of it like baseball cards, where the real life game feeds the popularity and collectability of the cards. Now, the rise of comic book movies in popular culture is feeding the collectability of physical single issue collectable comic books. While sales of baseball cards and comic books might be down in comparison to yesteryear, they are still being buoyed by their more real life counterparts. I understand the appeal of copying the streaming binge style format of today's TV shows and movies for comic books as a way to appeal to younger audiences and thus survive, but I think finding better ways to appeal to the collectability of comic books (for fun and profit, just like cards and coins) to the younger generation should not be dismissed either.

One of my favorite formats that Marvel have done over the past few years is the Epic Collection, I’ve actually gotten two friends into comics by just telling them to look up an Epic Collection of their favorite character(s) and that was enough to get them interested. Can you imagine if Marvel promoted those books on a grander scale? Those things usually contain anywhere from 17 to 21 issues of a series, the only problem would be the price point, they’re 44.99 and that would be a big barrier to entry for a larger market. You can get them cheaper on places like Amazon if you look hard enough, but that sort of defeats the purpose of using them to reach a wider market. I would still love to see them at least TRY to promote those a little bit more.

Trades got me in. One day I was at my local library and saw a couple of star wars collections, then I'd pick up Ultimate Spiderman and X-Men and that got me into the medium.

In France, they don't even bother with individual issues. They just release them in a graphic novel format called "albums".

I don't agree with that because I would rather buy a graphic novel or singles issues because I care about that pacific character or that pacific team I don't want to read for other stories that I do not give a s*** about

Another reason for the fall of comics from the mainstream is because that kind of content is now accessible in films and TV. Not that long ago, the Spider-Man TV show was a dude walking around in a Spider-Man costume. Now CGI can replicate the visuals to match the comics. High-quality sci-fi and fantasy are accessible at a reasonable budget. What made comics special is less unique to comics now. But I agree about trades, I think single issues are for collectors these days, not readers

My biggest issue is that villains and heroes always come back to life

The Shonnen jump model only works if you actually canel books that are underperforming...and that's something DC/Marvel are not doing, they keep relaunching many of those, i love the idea....i want your idea of all the super books, batbooks, spiderbooks, etc....but they would have to be brutal with who they cancel, ignoring social media and focusing on popularity the way Shonnen jump does, you can only vote if you paid (in every Japanese book there comes a little card to be mailed, or there could come a one time use code for an online popularity pool) that's the only way that system works, competition, and if all the books are really popular you might be able to justify not canceling anything...but that might never happen

I remember I asked my grand aunt to buy me a comic book and she came back with this "X-Man" magazine, and I had to stop myself from saying, "The fuck is this?" It wasn't what I was thinking when I heard comic book especially since I got manga that was soooo much bigger with an entire storyline. That was it for me, I wasn't going to pay money for thing booklets like that.

Most manga are weekly while comics are monthly so manga will always have the upper hand 👌

I've only ever had bookstores to buy comics in, not comic shops, so i was always able to buy the bigger books and never single issues.

Another thing is that not only are DC and Marvel terrible at marketing their trades, they're also terrible at keeping them in print, especially in Marvels case. At least with DC they barely have the advantage due to keeping their most popular stories reprinted for long periods of time.

Every publisher besides Marvel & DC should be working towards side-stepping them and release a Shonen Jump style magazine for their stuff. Dark Horse, IDW, Image, Boom, Dynamite, Oni Press, Red Sun, etc have way more diversity and self-contained "Start at issue 1" style stories that would lend themselves well to such an anthology. It's time for us to stop waiting for DC and Marvel to steer things in the right direction.

I'd like to see single issues, if they stay, go digital exclusive. Still let fans give feedback. Focus physical publishing on trade paperbacks

another problem that i kept running into was that i would wait for a series to complete an arc and to be released as a book only to have the series canceled after my investment

Ollie's outlet sells discounted comics.

I have purchased a number of BDs (Franco-Belgian comics). I’m not too immersed in the industry, but it seems like hardcover copies are a lot more popular in France than in America or Japan. I cannot express how much that changes it for me. I try to be very careful with my books, but ultimately years of use degrades them. I have tons of old collections of comic strips (I have read strips a LOT more than I have read superhero comics and stuff like that in the magazines) and all of them are falling apart at the literal seams because of the years of use. My hardcovers of Tintin, Lucky Luke and Asterix are still in great condition. I feel more confident buying a hardcover because it’s more durable, it can be stored easier (for one thing it actually had a spine I can read on my shelf) and… no ads!

Comic books were the last place I'd expect advertising. I was sorely mistaken

Hi, i am from Germany, and the German Issues are a much better value then the original/American model. you pay around 5-6 € and get 3-5 US Comics, but the are usualy a few monts late and of course the are translated in German. i dont know if that changed, i stoped getting regular issues and focused on trades around 2011. i read Superman and Justice League in 1995-2000 and after mostly Batman.

I know I’m like 4 years late, but here in Brazil, Marvel and DC used to publish as themed books and collected trade paper packs! For DC’s Rebirth era, they had a Batman book (which included Detective Comics), a Superman comic (which included Action Comics), and a Green Lantern comic (which included both the GL books at the time). I think they also had 2 issues of each book packaged together? So you were getting 4 issues basically. More niche comics like Teen Titans were only released as TPBs