State of Comics in 2023?

[Von Corellon]

I used to pick up and read Trade Paperback comics, but had to give them up for about a year due to vision problems. Vision has been fixed and am looking to get back into picking up TPBs again. There's been so many reboots and restarts, I'm not sure where to start anymore.

Are there any series you'd recommend or individual TPBs you'd recommend?

Generally a Marvel / DC reader.

Thanks.

You should try Marvel Unlimited free for a week and surf through all the recent titles to see what catches you eye. If you don’t see anything new you like, there is a large catalogue of past titles/events/series that could keep you busy for a while …

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Comic's Legend Keith Giffen has passed away.

Keith Giffen, Co-Creator Of Rocket Raccoon & Lobo, Has Died, Aged 70

Keith Giffen, co-creator of Lobo, Rocket Raccoon, Maxwell Lord, Jaime Reyes: Blue Beetle and the Justice League One Punch, has died, aged 70.

bleedingcool.com

 

[overgeeked]

There's been so many reboots and restarts, I'm not sure where to start anymore.

Yeah, that's why I stopped reading them back in the late '90s early '00s. I couldn't care about a story that would be rebooted in 5-7 years and I certainly wasn't going to pay for single issue floppies when cheaper graphic novels were a thing.

Are there any series you'd recommend or individual TPBs you'd recommend?

I'd recommend checking out manga titles. The storytelling is better, the books are cheaper, the genres are wide open (including superheroes), and they don't reboot their universes.

One Punch Man. My Hero Academia. Zetman. Tiger and Bunny. Astroboy.

That's because they don't really make comics for kids, do they?

The big two decided that comics were serious, adult business for serious, adult readers and stopped writing comics for kids. It's one of the many reasons why manga is doing gangbusters when compared to comics.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I can freely, without paying but legally, read manhwas online. I am surprised because even with their tropes and steterotypes the characters have got "soul". Feeling empaty for those characters is easier for me than with the new X-Men members.

Mark Millars says Marvel, DC and independient comics are only 9% of American comic market. I guess this could be a right time to kid about this time the antitrust commison could allow a merger of Marvel and DC.

 

[Clint_L]

Yeah, yeah. People have been saying THAT since 1978.

Comics have changed drastically as a medium over the decades, and it's true that the circulation of even the most popular titles is a small fraction of what it was generations ago. It's now an adult medium and, while comics are not in danger of dying off, I doubt you'll see a comics rack in every gas station and corner store ever again. Sadly.

On the other hand, I don't think the art form has ever been more diverse and vibrant. It is the golden age of the indie comic!

 

[MGibster]

The big two decided that comics were serious, adult business for serious, adult readers and stopped writing comics for kids. It's one of the many reasons why manga is doing gangbusters when compared to comics.

In the early 2000s, the store I worked at sold some DC titles like Batman Adventures that were based on Batman: The Animated Series and the series sold just fine. Part of my job was to read the comics so I could make recommendations or talk to our customers about what was going on, and these titles were pretty decent with interesting stories and content appropriate for a younger audience. It's my understanding many of these titles were cancelled because DC was concerned it was eating into their customer base for their regular Superman and Batman titles.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think both Marvel and DC would benefit from some diversification of their product. Like, something other than super heroes in their shared universes. They’re caught between trying to get new readers with new ideas or new takes on existing ideas, and with appealing to aging fans who demand fidelity to tradition.

But the manga and indie markets show that there’s an audience for the medium. They need to change or die off.

 

[Elodan]

…

I'd recommend checking out manga titles. The storytelling is better, the books are cheaper, the genres are wide open (including superheroes), and they don't reboot their universes.

One Punch Man. My Hero Academia. Zetman. Tiger and Bunny. Astroboy.

…

Went to Barnes & Noble and found their manga section to be 3 times the size of the comic section. Picked up a couple of manga. xxxHolic as I really liked the anime and Solo Leveling ( is this really manga as it’s in color and you don’t read from left to right ).

Manga has replaced comics for me. Now to find some good series to read. Will be checking out your recommendations.

 

[overgeeked]

Went to Barnes & Noble and found their manga section to be 3 times the size of the comic section. Picked up a couple of manga. xxxHolic as I really liked the anime and Solo Leveling ( is this really manga as it’s in color and you don’t read from left to right ).

Manga has replaced comics for me. Now to find some good series to read. Will be checking out your recommendations.

Cool. Hope you dig them.

What genres do you like, besides superheroes?

 

[MGibster]

No doubt the one thing everyone here is wondering is why MGibster stopped reading comic books. What? I'm not the main character your lives revolve around? Did I mature and outgrow the content? Ha! Ask my wife when we stop by the nerd store so I can buy some space orks. What happened is that DC and Marvel simply pissed me off as a customer for the last time and I simply stopped buying comics.

I was regularly going to the comic store to pick up a few titles on the reg (that means regular for those of you who are unhip). One of the titles was Nightwing whose storyline involved Dick Grayson going through the police academy to become a police officer in Budhaven. One month, his story was unceremoniously interrupted so he could take care of something for Batman during some storyline that you couldn't follow without picking up several other Bat-Family comic books. I didn't follow those other comic books so this stupid little divergence from Nightwing's plot served no particular purpose for me.

Obviously this was an effort by DC to get readers to give other titles a try. And it's not like I was a complete stranger to this kind of marketing. I remember Marvel's Acts of Vengeance storyline around 1989-1990 that revolved around the villains fighting superheroes they normally wouldn't fight and I enjoyed that at the time. But by the 2000s, I just decided I had enough and walked away. I don't read a lot of manga, but most of the ones I've read the stories are self-contained. If I were to buy an issue of Gunsmith Cats, I could continue the plot in the next issue without having to buy Sailor Moon or some other title. I can see why people might like that.