How to fix modern comics-part 4 - Tradition vs. Today's audience? 

These are the type of guys that should be running the industry.

Hi, great set of videos! I'm a new viewer, so I'm catching up on some of your previous videos in my spare time, too. My personal 'problems' with the BIg 2 are: 1. Comics are too expensive, period. And having a 'b' story that I didn't ask for doesn't justify a price mark up. 2. Too many resets, renumbering and changing of character arcs, just to temporarily boost sales. 3. Too many events that are largely meaningless in the long term, have far too many tie-ins and break up the story of what you are reading. 4. Gimmicks like red band/alternate editions and excessive variant covers. 5. Too many titles for the same 'family' of titles - such as the X Universe and Batman Universe. I seem to be saying 'too many' alot there! I think you touched on most, if not all of those points. Believe it or not, I do love comics too, lol. Thanks, Stuart

Great talk guys. When you were talking about the big 2 switching to a release more like manga volumes, it reminded me of DC's Earth One graphic novel line. Unfortunately releases were sparse and often disappointing for me personally. However I've always thought a similar idea could probably work really well. Like if they had one graphic novel for a different character release monthly and fill out a universe, its definitely something I'd buy consistently plus it would provide a good jumping on point I could recommend to my friends. Also I agree that big 2 comics have probably gotten too adult. It would be great if they made a line roughly as mature as the old DC animated universe as that's what got me interested in comics in the first place.

13:45- 17:30 You two spoke to my soul. I couldn't agree more.

The timing of this video is very interesting. There is a video by Comics League, an episode of their SuperWonder show called "Superman: The Character Hampered By Nostalgia" that relates to this video topic here. I have my disagreements here and there but this is a topic that I'm glad to see at least some fans going in-depth on. A lot of the Comic fandom kinda refuses to talk about these issues.

Manga has a business model that is working. Working. Not kind of ok, not just surviving. But working. The big two would be majorly dumb to ignore part of what that industry has given to North American kids, and not try to replicate a bit of it themselves. The new small format, cheap budget option editions DC is putting out give me some hope. Could you imagine a Batman First Knight style story coming out in that paperback edition? Why not? The big whigs at Warner and Disney have the money to try something like that for a year. Give it a go! Format is the real problem, which makes me so sad; I've loved reading floppies. But nothing lasts forever. Maybe it'll become the less popular format for comics, but have a resurgence from time to time -- like vinyl has amongst music lovers. Great video, love hearing your guys' takes. Have you thought about doing a series talking about writers/artists/creators that are currently publishing that you're both into? I'd enjoy hearing who you two think of as the big ones to watch currently. Cheers!

It's really baffling how the American Comic Book industry keeps shooting themselves in the foot like this. They are their own worst enemy. All the avenues for success have been laid out in front of them by other people....and they just don't do it. As a comic book fan you'd be forgiven to thinking that they WANT to destroy themselves and crash the industry because it seems like every decision they make is geared toward that specific end.

We don't have insider knowledge so changing the industry is probably far more complicated than we can imagine as fans. But SOME acknowledgement of these issues and some indication that they're trying would be nice.

Pricing in the future is gonna be so confusing especially with like 20 variants for every cover

I really like the idea of transitioning monthly comics into a 64 page quarterly. The same format as an issue of Ultramega. Charge $7.99 for it. And make each issue a self contained story. Almost like every issue is a complete story arc that way if you have to switch artists around at least you are getting one artist on a complete story. And dial up the production values with cardstock covers and spot gloss and stuff like that. I would be on board

I used to make bootleg A5 miniprints of spiderman comics for my little cousin (He was 7 at the time) and not only did he love them all of the other boys in his class wanted to read them too. Just because they're old doesn't mean a (Now teenage) audience wouldn't be interested and I'd wager my nephews would love em too... although right now they're too little for reading comics. XD

Valiant (published by Alien) are experimenting with $12.99 one shots (64 pages), problem is, if I don’t like it I’ve put down $13 instead of testing the water with a $3.99 or $4.99 spend….next time I’m going to be reluctant to risk $13 on something I may not like.

I agree with all your points. My 2 cents are this. 1. I think the never-ending continuity that the big 2 do is dumb (and one of the many reasons why I stopped reading them). You quickly come to realize that nothing matters, and anything that could have a major effect on the characters or universe as a whole is either ignored or retconned. 2. Characters don't feel consistent because every writer wants to have their take on said character. So you'll have one writer on X character for 30 issues, and you get used to them acting this way. To then have that writer leave, and then the new writer comes on and has their take on said character without even reading or, in some cases, intentionally ignoring the previous writers' work. Leading to things feeling very inconsistent. You don't have that problem with manga. Mangas are done by one artist, so characters feel consistent. 3. These inconsistencies also apply to the art. Nothing i hate more than how you get used to a comic being drawn in a specific style for 20 issues to then have the next 10 issues in that series being drawn by someone else in a different style. Sometimes, it can even pull you out of the story(especially if the new artist is bad). Again, you dont have this problem with manga as 99% of the time, the art throughout the series is done by one person(the creator).

I agree with your points but I think it's interesting that I've been hearing about these issues (no pun intended) since the '90s. I went to Comic-Con in 1999 and saw Frank Miller on a panel. He was talking about the floppy and said words to the effect of it was on its way out and that it couldn't last. 25 years later it's still here. So I have to wonder are these things we agree aren't good about the industry really having a negative effect?

The biggest thing is definitely price per volume plus in general making stories that no longer appeal to children (and many times not even longtime fans). 1.50% in the 90s would be like 3 dollars today but many comics are well above 3 dollars. Marvel should reprint all their old core stories because clearly many kids and even adults have not been exposed to them for a cheaper price omnibus. Their omnibus prices are expensive so maybe make a black and white cheaper version? A code for a colored digital edition with it? Thing about Japanese comics is most are not as old as Marvel and DC so they are not as bogged down by continuity issues (though there are a few plagued with it still like Boruto, Dragon Ball Super, and One Piece). The demographic in America has moved on from single issues into volumes and such, Marvel and DC should experiment condensing their core runs into volumes that are black and white that offer the best bang for your buck as well distributing them to a wider range of stores instead of just comic specialty shops. The 90s Marvel used to have one dollar comics with over 30 pages, what happened? The problem lies with Marvel and DC caring more about merch and movie money than comic money, which is ultimately the core issue. Additionally, animation in the West is more expensive than Japan for the better and worst. Additionally many legacy superheroes expand far beyond the life span of Japanese shounen stories so the best bet is giving condensed adaptations like traditionally marvel dc cartoons have been. DC to their credit does try to make more animated adaption of their work with sometimes mixed results though.

These are all excellent solutions and I pretty much agree with all of them but the real issue is whether Marvel or DC will actually implement them or if they're too lazy to bother. Because theres plenty of fans out there providing solutions. Has either company ever done anything to fix things? Have they actually tried? Have they acknowledged the issues? From what we can tell the answer seems to be a big fat no.

What's your take on the variant covers? I hate that trend very much. Nowadays you can't even tell what's inside a comic because the illustration on the cover is some random thing that the publisher decides to put in there as "incentive". Not helpful at all if you are a new reader trying a new title.