On 10/16/2017 11:21 AM, Kenneth M. Lin wrote:
"Bobbie Sellers" wrote in message news:os2npi$9cu$1@dont-email.me...
From the list you can also see that Japanese folks just aren't
reading that many manga these days as the top-selling list is
dominated by books from previous century. With competitions from
video games, movies, and other forms of entertainment, I am amazed
that there are still so many weekly and monthly manga periodicals
being published.
Yes well until the profits decline too far this will be the
case. Magazines, books can be utilized without worries about anything
but lighting. No power required to get them going or networks to
slow downloads. Hurrah for paper!
bliss
--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com
Here is the sales figures for Shonen Magazine from the past ten years.
Search for the phrase "発行部数"
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%B1%E5%88%8A%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%83%9E%E3%82%AC%E3%82%B8%E3%83%B3
In 1995 they sold average of 4.36 million copies a week but by 2008 it
has fell to 1,78 million. In 2017 they sell less than a million copies
each week.
Let's look at Shonen Jump
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%B1%E5%88%8A%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%83%97
One issue in 1995 sold 6.35 million copies but looking at Shonen
Magazine's 4.36 million, it wasn't doing tremendously better than the competitors. However, Jump is averaging 1.9 copies a week, which is
almost twice what Magazine is doing.
I assume that Jump is really selling 1.9 million copies/week?
Imagine the cost of publishing an issue is fixed, I wonder if these
magazines are still profitable. Even anime are suffering because there
just aren't as many children being born in Japan.
Then they will have to do better stories more aimed at adults.
The costs are somewhat fixed but can be adjusted
These numbers are still impressive compared to American comic-book
industry where a title is a best-seller if it sells 100,000 copies. And they have to do the constant #1s, gimmick covers, and multiple
crossovers in order to reach that figure. All the monies are in the
movie rights anyway.
Yes well in the USA newspaper comic strips are not what they
once were. Back in the 1940s we had a lot more strips in a lot more
papers. There was no visual medium in competition aside from movies
and especially movie serials. Comics are less popular now because
they don't cost a dime but about 25 dimes at a time. They are
better produced with better colors and art but the stories have
drifted from canon in order to write more exciting stories.
Most of the standard old time comics that I keep up with
are though the graphic novels from the SFPL. In the old days
there were no comics in Libraries outside the newspapers of the
day.
Since then newspapers and comics have declined due first
to direct TV competition then we tossed the Internet on top of
that to which really has smothered the newspapers. Even I
buy only two issues per week. Some of the comics are humorous
but the adults only get stress relief from them. None of
the cogency of Steve Canyon, various secret agents, Pogo the Possum
and his crew helped take down TailGunner Joe McCarthy and Daddy
Warbucks is in bad odor these days due to Arms Dealing.
Little Orphan Annie is older than I am and doubtless the Warbucks
money is spent on American based security for her.
The Phantom is gone though he always treated the Africans
as well as could be expected in those days. Which is too bad
because he could be taking out various piratical factions.
We talked about Adachi's repetition but what about Alex
Raymond and Prince Valiant? Lots of repetition there. Chester
Gould had a formula for Dick Tracy and it did fine for years as
we tried to figure out how the next sad mobsters would wind up.
After a few years we figured out that leading characters
like Tracy himself and the other good guys could not be killed.
And "B.O. Plenty" was sitting down the aisle on the bus
the other day. He is homeless and so is Gravel Gerty as the
gravel pit where he lived is being redeveloped into Luxury
Apartments.
Enough rambling reminiscence.
Gotta fix my lunch
bliss
--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com
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