How come great works don't get publicized/recognition?

[calitart]

Hello, so I was wondering... how come Japanese manga and anime get so much recognition and attention, whereas American manga/anime don't? For American anime, there's Zenos; look it up, I bet almost all of you don't even know it exist. For American manga/comic, there's amazing works on this site like Fisheye Placebo, Ghostblade, Undying Happiness, etc. It feels as though good artworks/ideas gets overlook and discourages people from even trying to draw better or make a career out of art. :/

[puppetbomb]

Marketing.

Same with indie games. Over 50% of a studio's budget on a project is marketing. If you factor in salaries of a 20+ person team per game, that's a lot, and that's how they get noticed.

[getsuart]

Japanese anime and manga get more recognition because they are well more advertised, that's all.

I'll take my personal experience as an example ;
I love what I do, some people agree and love what I'm making. But I'm popular I no way : barely got 130 likes on facebook with 2 comments some times, while someone with generic anime style got +10000 fans. Because they got more friends who tell friends to like the page who got friends who tell their friends, etc, etc + they are buying views and likes to Facebook.

Before going to Tapastic, only +10 people followed my story on SmackJeeves. Before Christmas, after I signed in, it was 20 persons. Thanks to a Christmas collaboration, I jumped to +100 readers almost instantly. I did it not for marketing, but for the real fun to do a collaboration.
Now, just imagine if this collab was a marketing plan by a big company. Boom instant recognition, my work is as popular as Naruto I rule the comic world and I eat the greatest cookies of my life.

So basically. Marketing.

[illizard]

Sorry if I'll sound a little harsh here, - but may I ask, how do you define "recognition"? Cause all the tree comics you just mentioned are recognized as hell, by my standards - the smallest of all three, Ghostblade, has more than 10K subscribers.
In most of the cases, if the great work don't get recognition, it isn't so great. It may be good, or even very good, but still not to have some important ingredient to become everybody's favorite. It can be small (or not so small) flaws in art, or trivial story - or both. Tapastic is a great example and statistics provider - If you'll try to browse all the comics, sort it by subscribers, and look to last third of the rating - you wouldn't find any hidden gems.

[Kamikaze]

If you're wondering why american made 'anime' doesn't get recognition, I can point you to a very simple fact: Japan releases broadcast rights to their anime CHEAP. In fact we're talking only a few thousand per entire seasons. They do this because of merchandising. Here in the states anime is getting hella popular, and because of this it's a huge deal to get anime on our broadcasting networks. So japanese anime broadcasters sindicate the broadcast rights at dirt cheap prices in hopes that they'll get not only merchandising from their own county, but Americans too.

Meanwhile, anime here isn't made because it's expensive, most network executives don't think that animation is a viable risk for older audiences without being fart jokes, and overall still see animation of any kind as kids stuff. It's a generational thing, and I'm sure as the older generation retires and new folks step up to the plate we'll see more animated series that have storytelling and style that's more similar to Cowboy Bebop than Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

[UzukiCheverie]

Fisheye Placebo, Ghostblade, Undying Happiness,

Sorry if I'll sound a little harsh here, - but may I ask, how do you define "recognition"? Cause all the tree comics you just mentioned are recognized as hell, by my standards - the smallest of all three, Ghostblade, has more than 10K subscribers.

I agree? Also, you categorized Fisheye Placebo as an American manga. Which it is not. And I don't think Undying Happiness is either but I can't say for sure. Alls I'm saying is, just because it doesn't have an anime doesn't mean it isn't big.

Also, marketing. Besides the fact that anime has its roots in Japan, it's just a much bigger deal over in Japan because of their target audiences and content than it is here in North America, which is ruled by action movies and superhero films (which it has been for a while now).

I'm just confused because you're talking about manga and anime on the one hand, and then webcomics on the other. If we're talking about anime, then it's no wonder it's more popular in Japan (besides, there aren't a lot of American-made animes that are actually good; just like how there aren't a lot of Canadian-made action and horror films that we can write home about either /sigh). If we're talking about webcomics, then yeah, there's a much larger demographic for webtoons and webcomics out in places like Korea, whereas you come to North America and, once again, people are more for the superhero comic books that you see from Marvel and DC because those are the things most of the generations that have been exposed to it have grown up with.

But webcomics are starting to grow in all corners of the world now, and that's just something that comes with time. It's all about marketing and catering to your target audiences.

[Caelestie]

huh popularity does have a connotation of being of some quality but that isn't always the case and something being unpopular doesn't mean it's not great. It does mean most often that it doesn't appeal to most people for a reason or an other. Like if your comic's main cast is pocs chance are they are not going to be as recognized even if they produce a quality that is similar to a very popular comic and that they did it first. Let us not forget that we are not always standing on leveled ground. Some people stand on mountains and other in holes.

[illizard]

While I tend to agree, that greatness and quality does not correlate directly, I cannot remember facing something great but unpopular. Not every great comic popular like Penny Arcade or Cyanide and Happiness, it's right. But every great or even really, really good comic has some level of popularity. People read it, and, more important - share it and talk about it.

[Caelestie]

Still the level of popularity can differ from one and an other though. You might think it is popular but in the grand scheme of things it is a really small fandom. Also there also recognition, like if a webcomic is recognized to be great but still can be not popular and that happens a lot. I know I listen to a bunch of musicians that are far from the popularity of katy perry and still people don't seem more interested in them and katy perry doesn't do very great songs.