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I was having a discussion about comics recently with someone who said DC and Marvel should follow more like manga. And it's a nice sentiment on paper, but I realized that would be insanely difficult. So, a thread. 1/
What manga does well over average North American superhero comics is accessible formatting. Even a long running series like One Piece is easy to follow because, as far as I know, it's just one series. You can start at Volume 1 and read to 20 or higher without interruption. 2/
They're clearly labeled, easy to find as they're often kept in print, and much more affordable than the average collected edition of a DC or Marvel book.
Whereas, if want to read Jason Aaron's long Thor run, there are at least 6 different "Thor Vol 1" with Aaron's name on it. 3/
Whereas, if want to read Jason Aaron's long Thor run, there are at least 6 different "Thor Vol 1" with Aaron's name on it. 3/
But there's another way manga differs from DC and Marvel: as far as I know, you don't have multiple creators on manga giving their own interpretations of a character. Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy wasn't taken over by other writers or artists. Dragonball is Akira Toriyama's baby. 4/
You don't see Tsugumi Ohba's Death Note rebooted and taken over by an entirely new creative team.
DC and Marvel are VERY different beasts. DC's universes has been constant for 80-some years. While rebooted multiple times, they're considered the same characters. 5/
DC and Marvel are VERY different beasts. DC's universes has been constant for 80-some years. While rebooted multiple times, they're considered the same characters. 5/
The only way DC and Marvel could do exactly like manga is if they retired all their household names and essentially published creator owned runs that ended with that creator. You couldn't have multiple interpretations of characters. Their story begins and ends in one series. 6/
The other thing is - and again, correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm not well read on all manga - there's little in the way of shared universes. Akira characters don't suddenly show up in Ghost in the Shell. One Punch Man doesn't join a Dragonball tournament. 7/
Part of DC and Marvel's appeal is you have all these different characters and worlds clashing with one another. Superheroes are a mixed bag of everything. Science fiction mixes with fantasy and literally every other genre, be it crime fiction, western, space opera, etc. 8/
The shared universe is both a selling point and a detriment. It's a key feature of DC and Marvel, but it's also a barrier to new readers who might want to read just a Spider-Man adventure. The constantly shifting creative teams make it doubly inaccessible. 9/
Manga is accessible because each book is its own self contained thing, by one creator, and a clear, easy to follow format of books.
For DC and Marvel to do that, they'd have to COMPLETELY restructure everything from the ground up. Entirely new books and characters. 10/
For DC and Marvel to do that, they'd have to COMPLETELY restructure everything from the ground up. Entirely new books and characters. 10/
For the sake of accessibility, you couldn't have new stories of Batman, Superman, etc. No shared universe with titles/characters crossing over with one another.
Essentially, DC and Marvel would be more like today's Image or Dark Horse. Or like, perhaps, Vertigo was. 11/
Essentially, DC and Marvel would be more like today's Image or Dark Horse. Or like, perhaps, Vertigo was. 11/
And that's just not going to happen. Not only would you have to tell either company to stop publishing Batman or Spider-Man books, what would you do with the back catalogue of various runs over the decades? It's already an inconsistent mess of what gets collected and how. 12/
Imagine if DC and Marvel always published comics like manga. Superman would have ended with Siegel & Shuster. Fantastic Four would've just been Lee & Kirby's run. You probably wouldn't see any spin-off books like Black Panther or Silver Surfer. 13/
I fully admit that DC and Marvel are largely inaccessible. I stopped paying close attention to either years ago and now it's intimidating to check out any book unless it's relatively self contained. There are some, like Squirrel Girl or Jimmy Olsen, but they're the outliers. 13/
Oddly enough, I've enjoyed from DC's YA books in recent years. The Oracle Code and Superman Smashes the Klan are standouts for me. And there have been some amazing self contained books like All Star Superman that I'm grateful they exist. 14/
But they've never been the bread and butter of DC Comics. It's always been their event-laden, constantly rebooted, creative team shifting main universe. And that's what is so inaccessible unless you've been a long time fan or researched it. And it shouldn't involve research. 15/
There are some creative team runs that COULD be viewed as a (largely) self contained, manga-like book like Geoff Johns' Flash run or Dan Slott's Silver Surfer. But some stories might be inaccessible since they tie in with company crossovers (Identity Crisis, Secret Wars). 16/
Plus, even if those runs have a satisfying conclusion (which isn't always guaranteed with creative team runs), that's not the end for Flash or Silver Surfer. At best, a creative team gets to leave their mark on a character and maybe add to the overall mythos for future teams. 17/
So...I don't honestly know what the solution is. To be just like manga, DC and Marvel would have to scrap pretty much everything they're known for. And that's obviously not going to happen. 18/18
Jake has an excellent thread here that expands on many of the points I've made. This sums it up - and my own argument- very well. https://twitter.com/JakeEkiss/status/1343879742064308225?s=19
