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COMICS!!! |OT| March 2020 | According to Ireland, St. Patrick threw all the snakes out of ComicERA. He missed some.

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whatsinaname

whatsinaname

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Messi said:
The first point is what he is saying will do more damage that continuing on digitally. I think it's crazy to try appease 10% of the market vs 90%.
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90%:10% is in favour of physical right? I was actually thinkng about the 90% when I suggested stopping monthly shipments! With the unemployment situation and comic shops not being allowed to open, how will the comics even get to the end users?

I actually like the mail order thing that one publisher is trying. They ship the comics to the end customer. And still give LCS a share in the proceedings. Like a referral fee.
 
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Messi

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whatsinaname said:
90%:10% is in favour of physical right? I was actually thinkng about the 90% when I suggested stopping monthly shipments! With the unemployment situation and comic shops not being allowed to open, how will the comics even get to the end users?

I actually like the mail order thing that one publisher is trying. They ship the comics to the end customer. And still give LCS a share in the proceedings. Like a referral fee.
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It's in favour of physical yes.

Comic fans are fickle especially floppy buyers. If something is a few days old they don't want it. Now they will be months late along this magical curve to bring them back in line with the 10%. DC and Marvel are gonna make books for 10% of the market and hope the 90% are still interested in 6 months? I say this as a 95% digital reader.
 
MHWilliams

MHWilliams

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bluexy said:
i'll say the same thing I said to messi. this is a made up problem. if marvel/dc do go digital for the several months of quarantine we're looking at, comics aren't going to just keep getting made. orders aren't going to just be kept rolling out with diamond and printers shut down, then instantly when the direct market opens suddenly there's 4+ comics dropped for each series. if all-digital does happen, the direct market return would have to be rolled out slow.

and the bigger point, even if floppies did "stack up," it would still be better for comic shops than killing the industry for 4+ months. the industry would lose so many readers, so much talent. if it survived, it'd take years to recuperate. digital only for several months would at least be life support.
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Digital isn't big enough. Take 2018 sales, where comics overall made $1.095 billion, and digital was $100 million.

This could be the shift to push digital, but Marvel and DC probably don't want to chance it. A similar situation is the film industry and a lack of movie theaters; current run films moved to digital, but what's happening with upcoming films? Delays. No theaters, no product. They could go digital, but most of the money is in theatrical and they don't want to spit in the face of theater owners. (Well, except Universal.) And most of those productions aren't working now. Maybe some pre- or post-production, but right now... those folks making movies and TV are largely not getting paid.

Many industries are in the same place. The truth is there's nowhere for the talent to go. They can't work on shows. They can barely work on movies. Most game studios are currently WFH, with likely depressed hiring. Their best hope is personal stuff, like Patreon, which is a growing question as unemployment rises.

whatsinaname said:
90%:10% is in favour of physical right? I was actually thinkng about the 90% when I suggested stopping monthly shipments! With the unemployment situation and comic shops not being allowed to open, how will the comics even get to the end users?

I actually like the mail order thing that one publisher is trying. They ship the comics to the end customer. And still give LCS a share in the proceedings. Like a referral fee.
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That's probably the best option, but it requires the major pubs to step up, and I doubt their parent companies think it's worth it.

Basically, everyone is fucked. Films, restaurants, hospitality, tourism. Here's book publishing:

Blauner is just one member of the homebound publishing community still trying to find a way to work, even if it means giving away a book that sold a respectable 17,000 copies when it was published in 2011. The editors and writers who create books, most based in the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, New York, and the retailers across the country who put them into customers' hands are not considered essential businesses. They are effectively on hiatus.
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First, there is the short-term tragedy of the independent bookstores, which some segment of the population considers essential — especially store owners themselves. Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the Strand bookstore in Manhattan, filed a request with the New York governor's office to stay open just a day after laying off 188 booksellers. "We strongly believe that our 18 miles of books are a vital resource the world could really use right now," she said in a statement posted online. If anyone understands the levers of government power, she does: her husband is Ronald Lee Wyden, the senior U.S. Senator from Oregon, whom she is said to have met while visiting the famous Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. — a bookstore chain that, incidentally, laid off more than 360 of its own unionized employees last week.
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"If [the book distributors] shut down, it's going to be a nightmare for us," said Mitchell Kaplan, who runs Books & Books, which has five stores in Miami and is now online-only after letting 90 employees go.
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This is just comics' own version of fucked.
 
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tim1138

tim1138

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Oct 25, 2017
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At least comics lived long enough to give me this panel

8rrxLYg.jpg
 
Teenage Fansub

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They could slow it way down and only put a couple of comics out digitally each week, trying not to release more than one issue of each series over this break. Maybe supliment things by getting the newer Walmart stories in there now (if publishing agreements allow that)
 
whatsinaname

whatsinaname

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Oct 25, 2017
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Messi said:
It's in favour of physical yes.

Comic fans are fickle especially floppy buyers. If something is a few days old they don't want it. Now they will be months late along this magical curve to bring them back in line with the 10%. DC and Marvel are gonna make books for 10% of the market and hope the 90% are still interested in 6 months? I say this as a 95% digital reader.
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I have a feeling we are talking across each other here. I am suggesting no ongoing series for 6 months. So how are the 90% going to be months late when those don't exist?
 
bluexy

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Vic_Viper said:
I read earlier that Marvel tried to self distribute back in the 90s, and that helped cause their bankruptcy. Which I guess lead to Diamond becoming the only distributor going forward.

Also, I got a shot in my butt lol
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Disney could 100% afford it now. I'm guessing it's something at least being reconsidered given the current opportunity to do so. Also, flu shot?

ViewtifulJC said:
I think one big idea is just cancel comics
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another vote for messi's shonen jump supremacy eh
MHWilliams said:
Digital isn't big enough. Take 2018 sales, where comics overall made $1.095 billion, and digital was $100 million.

This could be the shift to push digital, but Marvel and DC probably don't want to chance it. A similar situation is the film industry and a lack of movie theaters; current run films moved to digital, but what's happening with upcoming films? Delays. No theaters, no product. They could go digital, but most off the money is in theatrical and they don't want to spit in the face of theater owners. (Well, except Universal.) And most of those productions aren't work now. Maybe some pre- or post-production, but right now... those folks making movies and TV are largely not getting paid.

Many industries are in the same place. The truth is there's nowhere for the talent to go. They can't work on shows. They can barely work on movies. Most game studios are currently WFH, with likely depressed hiring. Their best hope is personal stuff, like Patreon, which is a growing question as unemployment rises.
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Definitely isn't big enough to support the effort, absolutely. I see fulltime digital during the pandemic more as Marvel+DC investing in keeping their talent employed and keeping some momentum and excitement going in the industry that'll encourage readers to go back to their LCS when it reopens. Digital getting a bit of push would be good, but yeah, not worth considering over other things.

That's an interesting and sad point about talent maybe having nowhere to go. And probably one Marvel/DC are counting on.
 
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Messi

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whatsinaname said:
I have a feeling we are talking across each other here. I am suggesting no ongoing series for 6 months. So how are the 90% going to be months late when those don't exist?
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We are on the same side. I'm just saying physical readers won't come back if a book continues digitally
 
MHWilliams

MHWilliams

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bluexy said:
another vote for messi's shonen jump supremacy eh
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Actually, manga can shoulder it a little better because of a larger focus on digital in Japan.

www.animenewsnetwork.com

Digital Manga Sales Up 29.5% in Japan in 2019

Print compiled volume manga sales rise by 4% // The All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher's and Editor's Association (AJPEA) revealed on January 24 its report...
www.animenewsnetwork.com www.animenewsnetwork.com
The print market sold 1.236 trillion yen (about US$11.31 billion), while the digital publishing market sold 307.2 billion yen (about US$2.81 billion). Compared to 2015 when digital publishing sold 150.2 billion yen, digital publishing sales have doubled. Digital publishing sales made up 19.9% of the market in 2019, whereas it made up 16.1% of the market in 2018.
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Bigger part of a bigger pie.

Definitely isn't big enough to support the effort, absolutely. I see fulltime digital during the pandemic more as Marvel+DC investing in keeping their talent employed and keeping some momentum and excitement going in the industry that'll encourage readers to go back to their LCS when it reopens. Digital getting a bit of push would be good, but yeah, not worth considering over other things.

That's an interesting and sad point about talent maybe having nowhere to go. And probably one Marvel/DC are counting on.
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Yeah, we're going to come out of this with drastically changed lives in many, many industries.
 
Canucked

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bluexy said:
Disney could 100% afford it now. I'm guessing it's something at least being reconsidered given the current opportunity to do so.
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Disney can't reconsider it now because part of diamonds problem is the people who make the books are shut down. No matter who distributes them, no one can get them unless they are printed in a state that isn't on lockdown.

If Diamond decides to ship books tomorrow you still wouldn't see most of image's books in stores. I'm not sure where other companies print but a chunk of marvel and dc floppies wouldnt make it either.
 
hipsterpants

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I'm gonna pull an mreddie and not link it because I'm lazy but Newsarama it's stated that Marvel and Diamond are working on a "large scale plan" and it's presumable DC is doing the same.
 
bluexy

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Aurica

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MHWilliams said:
Actually, manga can shoulder it a little better because of a larger focus on digital in Japan.
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What's crazy is there are hardly ever good sales, a number of Japanese publishers provide very low-resolution copies of the comics, and it's harder to find a single, solid site/app that has all the manga you'd want. I'm specifically talking about in Japan. If I were still living there, I'd say fuck digital, because you can get huge collections of complete series for 20% of the price in physical from Jamazon or Book Off. Given, they're used, but Japanese used is typically pristine.

I think a lot of Japanese people use sites/apps where they rent a manga, similar what the Japanese store Tsutaya offers for physical comics, and that's surely giving digital a huge increase in revenue.

Also, last year saw the shutdown of the biggest illegal manga hosting site in Japan, so I bet a lot of people just couldn't as easily read manga for free. haha
 
Aurica

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Canucked said:
So do I have to get into manga now?

Where do I start?
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You can start with whatever. Manga is extremely diverse. Remind me of your favorite comics and what you generally like. Do you want character driven emotional adventure stories? Complex plot driven scifi? Slice of life comedy? Melodramatic sports stories with a focus on friendship and rivalry? We can recommend you shit for whatever you wanna read.

But Messi is right. You could just try out a ton of shit on the cheap doing what he said. The downside is there is an overwhelming amount of great stuff that isn't published in the shonen jump magazine.
 
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Messi

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First 3 and 3 most recent chapters are free if you wanna try it. Check out My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Promised Neverland, One Piece, One Punch Man, Chainsaw Man, Spy x Family, Tokyo Ghoul, Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, Death Note , Dr Stone and so on
 
MHWilliams

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Canucked said:
So do I have to get into manga now?

Where do I start?
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Shonen Jump (free first and last chapters, $1.99 a month for the full catalog)

Line Webtoon (free chapters for everything, but getting the latest 2-3 chapters early is a weird paid scheme)
 
bluexy

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From Dark Horse:

"Digital Update March 26: We will not be releasing any comics digitally that are not also available in print. We still have collections, original graphic novels, and art books shipping through our bookstore distributor Penguin Random House (from whom comics retailers can also order). Those respective titles will be made available digitally the same day they are available from retailers."
 
Freezasaurus

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bluexy said:
From Dark Horse:

"Digital Update March 26: We will not be releasing any comics digitally that are not also available in print. We still have collections, original graphic novels, and art books shipping through our bookstore distributor Penguin Random House (from whom comics retailers can also order). Those respective titles will be made available digitally the same day they are available from retailers."
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Wow, comics really are cancelled.
 
Vic_Viper

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lol, well I guess im glad ive built up a giant stock pile of stuff to read in case of an emergency.

Then I guess I can read some manga when I go through it.
 

Deleted member 64377

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Canucked said:
So do I have to get into manga now?

Where do I start?
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A good starter selection:

Tits! Tits! Tits!
Tittylating!
Melty Lover
Let Loose With Lewd Boobs!
Curiosity XXXed the Cat
Peachy-Butt Girls

These are just some of the most common things that everyone reads when they're new.

Yes, these are all real. Yes, the exclamation points are actually in the titles. No, I haven't read any of them.
 

Tyrant Rave

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I'll be the one to say it, I don't think this is really the spot to post porn as recommendations to people
 
Einchy

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Look, I've never read Prison School but the ass and tits argument automatically makes it one of the best mangas ever.
 

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It was clearly a joke. The joke being that they're the most obviously trashy garbage titles you could imagine, and the opposite of a good recommendation.
 
bluexy

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