I won't deny anime sells well. or did, sales numbers have steadily declined in the US for the past 5-7 years from its peak about 10 years ago. But look at where it sells-on the Diamond sales charts i.e. the market that services the typical American comic book consumer who frequents an LCS and buys mainstream super-hero books regularly-anime barely registers on the charts. In the book trade however, anime scores much better and nearly dominates the charts while traditional super-hero books are the ones that barely register on those charts-why-because those are tow different customer bases.

Enter a manga/anime purchase on Amazon who will market/exploit anything to anybody to make a sale no matter how tenuous the connection in their customers who bought this also bought-suggestions. Do any traditional American super-hero comics come up as a recommendation that other consumers of the product are buying? Nope. How about entering a super-hero comic to see if manga/anime come up...Nope again. Why not. Because there is not enough cross-over between those customer bases for Amazon to try to exploit. If Amazon's playground doesn't have a crossover between those markets, nobody's does and the overlap you see is much smaller than you think.

And when publishers enact a change, they immediately see a deluge of complaints (either via letters pages back in the day or online now)and loss of sales after a short peak. The longer the change stays in place the more attrition in sales. And since sales are 3 months ahead retailers reacting to their customers dropping books takes 3 months to register in upcoming sales so that short delay before sales start to drop is more a product of the ordering system than fans willing to give the change a chance. If sales start to drop immediately after these big changes nearly every time-what incentive is there for a publisher to let the change last longer? If there is a sharper attrition drop when you make a change than hen you don't-what possible reason is there to make those lasting changes? On he hope every indicator you have is wrong? That the data you continuously see in response to change will suddenly be different? How is that good business? They don't need to do a long term change to see that change negatively impacts sales and customer satisfaction and all that matters to them is the numbers in the next quarterly report. Those numbers aren't good, someone else is likely to be making the decision about what if anything to change. You can't play for the long game if the short game removes you from the competition.

Comic buyers have met the enemy and it is themselves. They get the comics their buying patterns deserve.

-M

All this talk of FMA reminded me of one of, if not the first youtube video I watched. And I don't even remember how or where I found it, but it's still funny...

Comics are not a competitive economic value for fans who like super-heroes but don't buy comics. They are also not sold (or produced in) in a format that satisfies casual readers because unlike a movie or a season of a TV series, they do not offer one coherent cohesive and complete story that can be consumed and enjoyed in and of itself (and in the TV series, each episode can stand on its own even when part of a larger season long arc for the most part unlike a single issue of a comic book). In my view, this is the single biggest reason why the success of the films and TV haven't translated into sales of monthly comics or even of most trades. The product (i.e. the traditional comic book or even traditional arc collected in a trade)in its structure and format only satisfies that small niche audience and doesn't give a fan of the content but not the medium a satisfactory entertainment experience for the cost.

However they cannot change the format without losing the traditional base of customers and it comes down to comic fans get the format their buying habits deserve, and they are their own worse enemy when it comes to the success of the industry to a broader audience.

I takes most comics 6 months to tell 1 story at a cost of $24 roughly and that story may not be cohesive, complete and able to stand on its own when all is said and done. And each issue only takes maybe 15 minutes to read so its 6 months wait for an hour and a half of entertainment for $24. For the same price I can buy a movie on blueray or an entire season of a TV show and get not only more entertainment time but a complete experience in and of itself. The current paradigm of the comic format is not one that works in a society that has an economy and entertainment system built on the principle of instant gratification and everything being complete in and of itself and available immediately. It's not just competition for price and entertainment value, it's a content delivery system that was antiquated last century and hasn't evolved at all as tastes, expectations and standards have changed. So fans of super-heroes as they experience them more commonly in the 21st century are not going to become fans of comics or even want to read comics until comics themselves deliver an entertainment experience that meets their expectations. It's unrealistic to expect the audience to accommodate the medium, the medium has to capture the audience, and comics do not capture contemporary audiences the way they are currently produced and delivered.

I love the medium of comics. It can work in the 21st century still, but not really the way Marvel and DC are still doing it.

-M

I prefer the Marvel method. Without knowing the character at all, it's just a body, and it becomes even more obvious that the character was created to be killed off, like those dudes in red shirts in the original Star Trek series.