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How Wonderful! posted:Corto Maltese is such a masterpiece. It's also frustrating to learn that the back half of Lone Wolf and Club is difficult to find these days-- it becomes something so interesting and thorny by the end, I think if the first couple volumes are all that's available to an English audience they're really getting cheated out of something special. The post-Pratt albums are kinda poo poo. The "art" looks like it was made 100% with a computer, which obviously means it's unviewable.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:11
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Frog Act posted:I am going to drive myself to complete madness trying to locate a copy of Corto Maltese: The Secret Rose. I just spent a completely absurd $200 buying The Golden House of Samarkand and Tango which leaves me with only one missing. I feel like they might be the best adventure/"real world" comics ever written and it is just so frustrating how difficult they are to find. While I'm at it, it is completely bonkers that Lone Wolf and Cub has a 28 volume reprint from 2016 and the only ones actually available anymore are 1-10. I don't understand why so many important classic historical comics are so utterly neglected The Lone Wolf & Cub reprint was twelve volumes; it was Dark Horse's original version that ran twenty-eight volumes. I'm waiting for them to do an unflipped version; I'd buy it all over again.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:24
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I'm not sure I'd call something that's readily available digitally "difficult to find," myself.
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Mar 30, 2023 20:30
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Endless Mike posted:I'm not sure I'd call something that's readily available digitally "difficult to find," myself. They are not talking about digital
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Mar 30, 2023 20:42
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Mr Hootington posted:They are not talking about digital
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Mar 30, 2023 20:54
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Endless Mike posted:Doesn't matter. Not being in print in dead tree format does not make something difficult to find or unavailable to English audiences via completely legal means, nevermind less than methods. Shut up
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Mar 30, 2023 21:16
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Good luck on finding the difficult to obtain books Frig Act. I hope you happen across one!
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Mar 30, 2023 21:19
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Endless Mike posted:Doesn't matter. Not being in print in dead tree format does not make something difficult to find or unavailable to English audiences via completely legal means, nevermind less than methods. It sounded like Mr. Frog wanted physical editions, apologies if I misconstrued their post. Although to be fair I was also quite foolish to just go "oh yeah sounds rough" without verifying the availability of the books so yeah, fair call, I was dumb. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 22:47
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3D Megadoodoo posted:ACTUALLY Corto Maltese is (and I can't believe I'm using this phrase) magical realism. that is a fair point and the correct term Mr Hootington posted:They are not talking about digital Mr Hootington posted:Shut up agreed. I am looking for physical copies. if I want a digital copy I will just read it online via one of the many websites where that does not cost money, I don't do digital editions How Wonderful! posted:Corto Maltese is such a masterpiece. It's also frustrating to learn that the back half of Lone Wolf and Club is difficult to find these days-- it becomes something so interesting and thorny by the end, I think if the first couple volumes are all that's available to an English audience they're really getting cheated out of something special. Yeah, I'm glad to hear at least I was mixed up and it is only the last two that are hard to find and not the last eighteen. I've been having a whale of a time reading through them (on number 6 now) and was very upset to think I wouldn't be able to see it through to the end, which I am certain will be a spectacular piece of work Action Jacktion posted:The Lone Wolf & Cub reprint was twelve volumes; it was Dark Horse's original version that ran twenty-eight volumes. Oh that's great, I was wondering if that was the case - I did manage to find 11 and 12, which are seemingly OOP and not available, from the 2016 printing, but they cost $40 each and have a shipping time of 2 months so I'm suspicious the seller doesn't actually have them and just thinks they'll be able to find a copy in time. I have the first ten already, at least so if that doesn't work out they'll just be my two books I am eternally looking for now that I miraculously found a copy of the second Nemesis The Warlock omnibus How Wonderful! posted:It sounded like Mr. Frog wanted physical editions, apologies if I misconstrued their post. Although to be fair I was also quite foolish to just go "oh yeah sounds rough" without verifying the availability of the books so yeah, fair call, I was dumb. You are absolutely right and it really is completely impossible to find a copy of The Secret Rose printed on "dead trees" or whatever derisive term for a physical copy you can retain and enjoy forever in a particular way people are using now Mr Hootington posted:Good luck on finding the difficult to obtain books Frig Act. I hope you happen across one! Thanks friend! I've only been into comics/collecting for about a year and while it is frustrating that things are so elusive unless you want superhero stuff, it is quite thrilling to obtain something rare and coveted after a lot of effort and money
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Mar 30, 2023 23:29
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There was a Lone Wolf and Cub humble bundle last year that I think was complete, but of course that would be digital as well
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Mar 30, 2023 23:39
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Opopanax posted:There was a Lone Wolf and Cub humble bundle last year that I think was complete, but of course that would be digital as well Yeah I mean I don't have any abstract problem with digital, I just really, really, really like having a durable set of physical books I know I won't lose with a hard drive or when readcomiconline finally goes down forever. It's so nice to have a shelf full of things I know I'll be able to pass down to my progeny one day, that (at least a portion of them) will grow in value over time, etc. If I didn't have the money or space I'd read digital versions since ofc the most important thing is just being able to engage with the story
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Mar 30, 2023 23:42
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A couple years ago I didn’t buy a full set of lone wolf and cub, and I’m kicking myself for it. I also didn’t buy a whole stack of corto maltese, but the older English print versions were very bad so I’m not too fussed about that. I love my physical comics. I also read on digital, but just looking at the actual books brings me a lot of joy.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:45
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Jordan7hm posted:A couple years ago I didn’t buy a full set of lone wolf and cub, and I’m kicking myself for it. A few of them aren't so bad, instead of IDW I bought an eighties version of The Ethiopian printed when it was still called In Africa and a 1996 Harvill edition of The Celts and they're both pretty much as good as the newer ones. But yeah a ton of the various English editions and other random European collections look like they are of extremely poor quality or insufficient size or both. This panel is from the 1996 one and the only real problem is there's a bit of bleedthrough but I don't really notice in practice  and yeah dang I'd also be feeling ticked about passing that over. I'm actually astonished it isn't more popular, it's a masterpiece and, equally importantly, it is characterized by a degree of historicity basically nobody else (I've read) but Pratt manages to achieve. Like obviously it isn't 100% accurate or a primary source but all of the stuff about Edo governance seems to be fairly accurate based on my google searches and it is quite cool to see historical fiction like that focusing on a context I am not really familiar with
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Mar 30, 2023 23:52
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I've seen some of you acquisitions and they have been very cool. Have you tried Mercari?
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Mar 31, 2023 00:00
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Mr Hootington posted:I've seen some of you acquisitions and they have been very cool. Have you tried Mercari? oh snap no I've never even heard of them but that looks like a potentially very fruitful avenue. My other bête noire now that I finally found the second Nemesis book is Slaine: Grail War, the 8th book in the recent reprinting, so another place to look for that + possibly LWAC as it seems to emphasize Japanese stuff might be just the ticket
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Mar 31, 2023 00:05
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Frog Act posted:oh snap no I've never even heard of them but that looks like a potentially very fruitful avenue. My other bête noire now that I finally found the second Nemesis book is Slaine: Grail War, the 8th book in the recent reprinting, so another place to look for that + possibly LWAC as it seems to emphasize Japanese stuff might be just the ticket I hope you have good luck. Sometimes you can find what you are looking for and for a decent price too!
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Mar 31, 2023 00:19
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I'm curious: is the Lone Wolf and Cub manga as full of stylized hyperviolence as the films, or is it a different vibe?
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Mar 31, 2023 01:24
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Rental Sting posted:I'm curious: is the Lone Wolf and Cub manga as full of stylized hyperviolence as the films, or is it a different vibe? It feels very similar, at least to the first three movies.
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Mar 31, 2023 01:26
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How Wonderful! posted:Corto Maltese is such a masterpiece. It's also frustrating to learn that the back half of Lone Wolf and Club is difficult to find these days-- it becomes something so interesting and thorny by the end, I think if the first couple volumes are all that's available to an English audience they're really getting cheated out of something special. I'm so glad I got those digests they published back in the day, even if I hate digests and I'm now to old to even read something that small!
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Mar 31, 2023 01:32
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Frog Act posted:A few of them aren't so bad, instead of IDW I bought an eighties version of The Ethiopian printed when it was still called In Africa and a 1996 Harvill edition of The Celts and they're both pretty much as good as the newer ones. But yeah a ton of the various English editions and other random European collections look like they are of extremely poor quality or insufficient size or both. This panel is from the 1996 one and the only real problem is there's a bit of bleedthrough but I don't really notice in practice For Corto Maltese, my favourite "editions" will always be from Non Stop magazine (because that's where I first saw the series). The colours I've not seen surpassed in any album edition - the only weird thing is the sometimes lack of speech bubbles which doesn't bother me personally.    e: I'm assuming it looked the same in whatever Continental magazine it was from. Of course the paper quality does effect the colours a lot so who knows (not me). 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 07:43
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Frog Act posted:I am going to drive myself to complete madness trying to locate a copy of Corto Maltese: The Secret Rose. I just spent a completely absurd $200 buying The Golden House of Samarkand and Tango which leaves me with only one missing. I feel like they might be the best adventure/"real world" comics ever written and it is just so frustrating how difficult they are to find. While I'm at it, it is completely bonkers that Lone Wolf and Cub has a 28 volume reprint from 2016 and the only ones actually available anymore are 1-10. I don't understand why so many important classic historical comics are so utterly neglected Classic manga unfortunately doesn’t sell anywhere near enough to justify better availability, although in Lone Wolf and Cub’s case it’s because Dark Horse is really garbage at re-printing manga that aren’t Berserk or (to a much lesser extent) Blade of the Immortal. The vast majority of the manga-buying audience wants whatever’s got a hit anime recently or what they read in middle school.
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Mar 31, 2023 08:44
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thetoughestbean posted:The vast majority of the manga-buying audience wants whatever’s got a hit anime recently or what they read in middle school. To be fair, I just want more Age of Apocalypse and Maxx...
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Mar 31, 2023 10:58
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Rental Sting posted:I'm curious: is the Lone Wolf and Cub manga as full of stylized hyperviolence as the films, or is it a different vibe? The first couple movies are the closest adaptation of a manga/comic I’ve ever seen, it’s bonkers how close they are. Verbatim dialogue, frame-by-frame shots, etc. I will say that the black and white and restrained naturalistic art style makes it much quieter, for lack of a better word, than in the movies with their bright red blood and fast cuts 3D Megadoodoo posted:For Corto Maltese, my favourite "editions" will always be from Non Stop magazine (because that's where I first saw the series). The colours I've not seen surpassed in any album edition - the only weird thing is the sometimes lack of speech bubbles which doesn't bother me personally. Dang those are gorgeous, I know some people are ambivalent about the color ones since they were originally in black and white but that works really well. If they ever reprint some kind of omnibus in color I’d want that too probably thetoughestbean posted:Classic manga unfortunately doesn’t sell anywhere near enough to justify better availability, although in Lone Wolf and Cub’s case it’s because Dark Horse is really garbage at re-printing manga that aren’t Berserk or (to a much lesser extent) Blade of the Immortal. Yeah, I suppose that’s just the grim reality for all sequential art media. Western comics are mostly unbearably awful superheroes and most manga is is named something like MAGICAL HERO GHOUL HUNTER TITAN ACADEMIA GIRLS and the actual good stuff is either long dead and ignored or super niche, at least in my experience and to my tastes Frog Act fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 13:03
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thetoughestbean posted:Classic manga unfortunately doesn’t sell anywhere near enough to justify better availability, although in Lone Wolf and Cub’s case it’s because Dark Horse is really garbage at re-printing manga that aren’t Berserk or (to a much lesser extent) Blade of the Immortal. Berserk and Gantz apparently always sell, because those are the only series Dark Horse consistently keeps in print. Which makes sense, both Berserk and Gantz are insanely sick.
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Mar 31, 2023 15:36
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The Blade of the Immortals omnis are nice, and I do think that's a manga with a ton to recommend it.
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Mar 31, 2023 18:34
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It legit took me until just now to realize LWaC isn't Blade of the Immortal. I was sitting here going "They have nice hardcovers! I saw them at the store this week!"
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Mar 31, 2023 18:38
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Gripweed posted:Berserk and Gantz apparently always sell, because those are the only series Dark Horse consistently keeps in print. Gantz doesn’t sell that well, at least not anymore.
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Mar 31, 2023 19:10
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I've been trying to fill in the holes in my Lone Wolf & Cub collection of First Publishing editions, which is a bit of an uphill climb. A friend of mine got a stack of them from a flea market for like a quarter a pop when we were in high school, and ended up passing them on to me, a real formative read. Edit: and your posts made me realize that I'm actually missing a couple Corto Maltese collections, drat it all Vulpes Vulpes fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 19:28
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:I've been trying to fill in the holes in my Lone Wolf & Cub collection of First Publishing editions, which is a bit of an uphill climb. A friend of mine got a stack of them from a flea market for like a quarter a pop when we were in high school, and ended up passing them on to me, a real formative read. That’s a really cool format to read LWAC in, do they have any additional material like reader letters or anything? Also I have been wondering and feel like this is a good place to ask: copies of Requiem: Vampire Knight are totally inaccessible at $300-$1000 despite Ledroit’s art being a series of masterpieces on par with Druillet and being written by one of the greatest comics writers of all time, Pat Mills. What do people think the likelihood that it will ever get the proper hardback large size reprinting it deserves is?
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Apr 2, 2023 02:30
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:I've been trying to fill in the holes in my Lone Wolf & Cub collection of First Publishing editions, which is a bit of an uphill climb. A friend of mine got a stack of them from a flea market for like a quarter a pop when we were in high school, and ended up passing them on to me, a real formative read. Nessus fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 06:31
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https://twitter.com/Ssnyder1835/status/1642652518504071173?s=20
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Apr 3, 2023 07:37
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Very disappointed they didn't at least try to recreate the cat's sublime facial expression.
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Apr 3, 2023 07:44
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Frog Act, bad news. I just found a copy of The Golden House of Samakand on a shelf for cover. I actually check the thread to know which book you were missing so I could offer it for cover plus shipping, but they only have that, The Ethiopian and In Siberia.
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Apr 3, 2023 18:23
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Random Stranger posted:Frog Act, bad news. I just found a copy of The Golden House of Samakand on a shelf for cover. I actually check the thread to know which book you were missing so I could offer it for cover plus shipping, but they only have that, The Ethiopian and In Siberia. Aw shucks friend that is extremely kind of you to even consider. I actually just started that last night and it is a wonderfully interesting book even by the standards of Corto Maltese, so I sincerely appreciate your generosity of spirit. I actually meant to post about it in here, CM is the only comic where I like consistently learn something new. I have a BA/MA in history and took both grad and undergrad courses on Ottoman history with a Turkish Ottomanist professor and I’m still encountering entirely new bits of history re: Mediterranean and Turkish politics from 1918-22 reading through this series. It’s really unprecedented and when I consider the amount of research Pratt must have undertaken to accumulate this tremendous knowledge of both geopolitics and mythology, it makes the roguish, always unexpected narrative turns (and just narratives in general) that much more impressive. I also finally got my copy of Ro-Busters Volume 2, and it is extremely good. The whole series is in print right now for the first time in ages and I strongly recommend it to any 2000ad fans, it’s a really neat kind of science fiction that eschews guns, mercenaries, bounty hunters, Judge Dredds, etc and focuses on Pat Mills’s incentive ideas about disaster rescues in the near-ish future. Like with anything Mills he uses it as a vehicle for hilarious and still-relevant sociopolitical allegory but what I think is so fun is the way it manages to combine that with the sort of unqualified delight a child would take in bulldozers and fire trucks. It’s a refreshing change of pace in a lot of ways
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Apr 3, 2023 22:12
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So, does Marvel Unlimited not let youj read recent (three month old) books on browsers anymore? Haven't used in a while, and wanted to catch up on Zdarsky's Daredevil, but now I can't read on my surface. Doesn't even show me what books I've previously read.
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Apr 4, 2023 03:22
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The browser version is so janky I downloaded an Android emulator onto my Surface rather than deal with it.
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Apr 4, 2023 12:32
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 haha gently caress you resellers. gently caress you!!
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Apr 4, 2023 16:46
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I thought this was pretty interesting—here’s an analysis of comic book sales as reported to The NPD Group. A note: these are all physical sales, although the person writing up the report says that digital sales only make up around a single digit percentage of all sales, and The NPD Group itself says it gets at best 85% of American bookstores reporting to it. There’s some points I found particularly interesting, so I’ll post them here. The first is that kid’s comics reign supreme. The top four (by volume) comic books sold this year were all by Dav Pilkey. The fifth? A Five Nights at Freddies book. Dav Pilkey himself sold 9 of the top 20 books, and that’s without being able to count what was sold directly from the publisher via things like a Scholastic book fair. comics beat posted:Depending on your exact definitions of intended audiences, it appears that fifteen of the Top Twenty is intended for children or middle readers. The other five of the Top Twenty are Manga, and if you are looking for a “Marvel / DC-style superhero” comic, you are not even in the top two hundred-and-fifty! In fact, the first DC superhero comic to appear is at #257 with Batman: Year One. Jinkies! As for Marvel? Their very first appearance isn’t until all the way down at #483 with Moon Knight by Lemire & Smallwood. Ultimately this means that a comic that started as an homage/parody of Frank Miller’s writing (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) skunked their master (The Last Ronin came in at #115), and that Scholastic’s license of Marvel trounced anything that Marvel published natively (Miles Morales: Shock Waves came in at #204) Also interesting: just over ten percent of all unit sales reported where generated by the top twenty books. comics beat posted:American comics aimed at adults are a small minority at the top of the charts – of the top 100, fifty-three are manga, forty-one are kids books, and a mere six are American comics aimed at adults: three versions of Maus and three volumes of Lore Olympus. For the second year in a row, manga sells the greatest number of copies overall: of the 52 million graphic novels sold via BookScan in 2022, 29m are manga (roughly 56%) Speaking of Maus, Maus is the first title in the top 25 (Maus volume 1 is number 25) that isn’t published by Scholastic or Viz. Looking at authors, Dav Pilkey obviously reigns supreme, selling nearly double the amount of copies than the number two author, Tatsuki Fujimoti, and 4.5x the amount of the number ten place, Kentaro Miura. Of the top ten selling authors, only three aren’t Japanese—Pilkey, Raina Telgermeier, author of Teeth (and more), and Tui T. Sutherland, author of the Wings of Fire series (and, therefore, the author listed on the Wings of Fire graphic novels). 89 creators sold over 100,000 copies of their work, which made up 62% of all sales. So, uh, don’t expect your comic to be a big seller. The industry seems to be built around a relatively few hits compared to the vast amount of what gets published.  Scholastic sells four times more than DC and Marvel combined. Some other interesting bits: Dark Horse is one of the few publishers to move fewer units but make more money (they also make the most money per unit sold in the manga side of publishing). IDW had more books hit the top 750 than Marvel did (the only Marvel book that hit the top 750 was Moon Knight by Lemire & Smallwood, although other Marvel properties published by different publishers sell well), DC’s top sellers that aren’t Sandman or Batman tend to be either Alan Moore or YA/Middle School books. Marvel comics just kind of aren’t selling outside of the direct market—at least, they aren’t selling when they’re published by Marvel. This is a long post but I’d recommend reading the full article. There’s lots of good stuff in there!
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Apr 6, 2023 10:49
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That's interesting, I thought Marvel had been outselling DC for a while, but I guess I haven't paid attention to that in years. I think Scholastic has been leading by a huge margin for a while now, I remember Raina Telgermeier was top of the heap for a while. Are the scholastic books in color or on good stock? They're more pages at a lower price than Comics by a wide margin.
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Apr 6, 2023 22:16
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The direct market is a big portion of the comic sale market in NA, so that’s missing a big piece of the pie. In 2020 it was something like 60% of the more traditional book market. Even if that’s gone down, it’s a huge number for Marvel and DC in particular.
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Apr 6, 2023 22:47
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