Comics/Manga Discussion Thread

[Daikun]

Boycott Seven Seas Entertainment.
https://twitter.com/t_orleskv/status/1531661645658763264

[LumRanmaYasha]

The Union is not calling for a boycott at this time, but yeah, it's a really bad look for Jason DeAngelis and other higher-ups at SS that they'd rather pay lawyers and union busters probably more than double what they would spend just increasing all their employees' wages. 

[Daikun]

Berserk will indeed continue.

[Daikun]

Kodansha has teamed with Humble Bundle. All proceeds go to the Trevor Project.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Found a recent Top 71 DC Comics poll list.

Spoiler

[close]

I was going to say I'm surprised by all the Wally love, but I suppose his endless shafting across all DC media lately's given Wally fans a huge push.

[Avaitor]

With everything Ezra Miller has going against him lately, DC would be smart to push Wally after the upcoming Flash movie.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Surprised they didn't use Wally in the first place to differentiate themselves from the show, or at least use Bart. Ezra's Barry always felt more like Bart than Barry to me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So glad to see both Animal Man and Starman in relatively high spots on that list.

[Daikun]

R.I.P. Kazuki Takahashi, creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!

[Avaitor]

A tragic loss, for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh! was a big part of my pre-teen years, and I enjoyed reading the first few volumes a couple of years ago when I found them for cheap. He left behind a hell of a legacy.

[Daikun]

Love Hina author Ken Akamatsu has entered the realm of Japanese politics and recently won his election. He's the first manga artist to do so.
He's also enacting some interesting policies regarding video game preservation.

https://nichegamer.com/ken-akamatsu-task-force-classic-games

[Daikun]

Junji Ito is now making NFTs.

[Daikun]

ANN has been acquired by Kadokawa

Wow. Um, ok.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, while I've personally never cared for the age-old debate between whether Marvel or DC has had the better output (mostly because it's a moot point to idolize one corporate giant over another who by all accounts were complete dicks to their actual creators and artists), I do think that it can be somewhat interesting to compare them during specific eras. While the 60's and 70's definitely tend to be associated with Marvel being the more dominant brand both in terms of sales and critical reception from fans (though I'd argue DC had its hits with writers like Dennis O'Neil and Steve Englehart, as well as artists like Neal Adams), it's interesting how I don't see DC's post-COIE era being brought up more often. While Marvel still had the dominant market share, I'd say that having read a decent amount of comics from both from that era, DC more frequently had the better output from an artistic standpoint, IMO. A lot of the relaunches were actually quite successful between the mid-80's to early 90's, and we got more experimental stuff as well, whether it be stuff like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Watchmen, or Grant Morrison's Animal Man run, among other titles. However, I have read or am currently reading several other titles from around that era, and many of them still hold up remarkably well, IMO, and feel ahead of their time in many ways. We got Ostrander's Suicide Squad run, which essentially modernized the team and is still largely influential in terms of how we see them today, as well as his stuff with Hawkworld in the early 90's. Booster Gold got a great mini-run, and we also got John Byrne's Superman run, George Perez's Wonder Woman run, Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol in the early 90's, and another one of my all-time favorites in Keith Giffen and J. M. Demateis's excellent run on Justice Leage International, which is still my favorite team book of all time.

Marvel had great titles and stories of it's own during that time, but from what I've read they weren't really doing much new either, and were kind of just sticking to their guns of formulaic story-telling that had worked for them in the past. It's kind of like that era's version of the MCU by Phase Three, where they had perfected their style, but they were also kind of relying a bit too heavily on it to the point that it was starting to feel a bit old even though when done well by better writers and artists, it was still undeniably entertaining.

Anyways, that's just my observation and personal opinion, specifically regarding that era between both publishers. That said, I'm hardly an expert on the subject and not as well-read as others would be, so I could find that my opinion would change were I to expose myself to even more titles. Who knows.

[Avaitor]

I do think DC was doing more interesting things come the mid 80's and into the 90's, as well as allowing Vertigo to blossom. It's telling that this was around the time that Marvel was going bankrupt, although they definitely had their commercial successes as well, like how anything with an X would break records, or the height of Venom-mania.