Your thoughts on the future of webcomics and manga

[miramiee]

Recently I read an article that sorta rubbed me the wrong way.

TL;DR: The article states that webtoons (and vertical scrolling, online comics for that matter) will never replace or overtake the manga/anime industry. In fact, the article mentions that these kinds of comics will just be a fad that won't take off, like UK rappers in the US. It talked specifically about Webtoons, but I'm taking his argument to mean virtual, vertical scrolling comics in general since Webtoons isn't the only site where these types of comics are featured. I'm personally uncomfortable with this statement because I want to create webcomics as my primary source of income. So are webcomics just a passing fad?

TEXT WALL ALERT
There are a lot of really debatable points this article made, but I really got caught up on two:
1) Webcomics are just a....fad? This really made me uncomfortable. I mean, I'd like to be able to write and create webcomics as my passion and primary source of income, so hearing that this format could really just be a fad shook me a little. I personally thought webcomics were the way to go since printed anything has been in a really slow but steady decline. Plus, creating and marketing your work has never been easier online. I know it's impossible to predict anything concretely, but considering the popularity of webcomics right now, are they really just a fad?

2) Webtoons are basically just another version of manga, but one that'll never gain traction like UK rappers in the US. I personally thought webcomics were increasing in popularity everywhere? Reach is important for webcomics. I've been trying to do research on where the term is popular. Usually, it's in asian countries like Indonesia or Taiwan...but how about the western market? Aren't webcomics getting more popular there nowadays?

Overall, I do recognize that webtoons will never really replace manga in Japan. It's just not a really hospitable market there. But I was under the impression that in general, the webcomic industry has been growing and improving worldwide. It's too soon to say, but I think digital comics will one day replace print, even if some people (me included) like having the physical copies. I mean anecdotally, my younger cousin (13) and her friend (16) have never owned a physical copy of a manga, whereas they all have either the Tapas or Webtoon apps installed. It's just much simpler to get to. I'm not saying print'll disappear completely--I don't know that-- but almost everything has started to transition to being online. To be honest, the real threat to the manga industry isn't webtoons or webcomics, but itself. Its refusal to really begin digitizing is going to bite it in the butt one day.

To be fair, I still read both lol. I never really pit them against each other but I will be honest when I say nowadays it's just easier to hop onto an app and start reading than it is to track down my favorite mangas and purchase/read scans online.

What are your thoughts on this article? What do you think will actually be the future of manga/webcomics?

[Freemints30]

The guy just seems like an old man with little self awareness. Unlike rapers in the Uk, webcomics are a medium that's the biggest difference. They have been here since internet was invented if you do some research. It a medium like movies, comic, video games and manga, neither replacing the other just exist.

They said video games would be a fad, wrong.
Said Youtube and online video making would be fad, dead wrong.
They said animation would be a fad, wrong
They said rap itself was a fad, wrong

Really this "This medium is a fad" is just old out of touch dudes talking about stuff they don't understand.

[DukeOfOool]

The more manga get also digitalized and the more succesfull werbcomics get printed the difference disapeares and both media melt into eachother. At the end both groups of people enjoy comics, as in storytelling though pictures and that's what counts.

[darthmongoose]

I've had to do research into this exact kind of thing for work, and my take is that Covid 19 making physical distribution harder and forcing people out of the already niche comic book shops causing the big print publishers to put their artists on hiatus, risking their livelihoods, will only speed a trend that was already in full swing; comics are going digital.

Obviously it'll take a lot longer or may not reach the same level of dominance in countries with a very strong, established print comics tradition and industry; France, the US and especially Japan (because Japanese culture is very resistant to changing structures and pipelines once they're established), but when you look at how webtoons are the biggest platform for comics in a number of east asian countries like South Korea, like they're a bigger platform than print, I don't think that's a fad, I think that's the new way people will consume content.

Here in the UK too, I think webcomics are going to overtake print, at very least in terms of home grown talent. We have SO few options if we want to get published in print, especially if we want to create original works, and distribution is so niche for comics, that the vast majority of creators under 40 are now making webcomics, even if they also do work for stuff like The Phoenix, Self Made Hero etc. on the side. I'm not even kidding, look at who is on Tapas and it's nearly every UK pro under 40 who isn't Luke Pearson.
Emma Vieceli is on Tapas with Breaks, Paul Duffield is on Tapas with Firelight Isle, Shazleen Khan is on Tapas with Buuza!, Jade Sarson is on Tapas with Cafe Suada. These are award and prize winning British creators who have done some pretty high profile print work, but to make the comics they want to make and make money off it, they're making comics on Tapas and doing Kickstarters for self-published printed editions.

The guy who wrote the article doesn't seem to understand that for this to be a short-lived fad, either people have to lose interest in comics (unlikely if comics are providing affordable and accessible entertainment that fits into people's busy schedules) OR there would need to be a means for all us creators under 40 to get back into the print industry that's been keeping us out for years, and THERE ISN'T! The print industry has been going downhill for years! They haven't raised our wages anything close to inflation, they want people to buy overpriced floppies packed with ads you can only buy in specialist shops that only exist in cities or huge, prestige coffee-table volumes and they won't provide anything for the biggest growing audience (young women) instead clinging to ageing readers who love adherence to continuity and outdated styles. Marvel actually LOSE MONEY on their print comics side; their movies are what keeps the company afloat and the comics are more like merchandise for those now.

With print so impossible to sustain in terms of cost and becoming more and more of a luxury item, webcomics are the new way that the masses read a form of entertainment originally created exactly for telling pulpy stories at a low price point for the masses. The print industry can pretend comics readers want to spend $5 for 22 pages of some fifty year old's drawings of Wolverine scowling and stabbing people interspersed with ads... but let's face it, that's a complete fantasy.

[muchazuke]

Ahaha..hahah..I'm actually doing an academic research on this topic, so I can rant a whole page about it, but I'll try not to. There are so many logical fallacies and misunderstandings in his terminology that I don't even know where to start.

First of all, his arguments are based on Google Trends. Google Trends only show interest, in how many times people look for term. The problem with the manga industry does not lie in the lack of interest, it lies in the distribution and culture. There is a big demand around the world, but most readers are still looking for scanlations which does not contribute to the industry in any monetary way. Since scanlations are free and more up to date than the legal sites, it's a problem that is still hard to tackle. Some mangaka don't want their works to be translated (since the English speaking audience can be such a bully, I've heard) and some publishers don't want to tap into the English speaking viewership since it's a big risk. The risk is real as someone from Manga Planet explained how much revenue the manga industry gets in Japan only in comparison to that in the US eventhough the US got a bigger audience (logically, with bigger population). I think it was about 4x the US? The problem is that manga in Japan is more common to read compared to comics in the US. This is without even talking about the outer competition such as webtoons.

Anime and manga are interloping industries, but they're separate. He talks about how it is not a future of anime and then goes on to compare it with manga. Nope. Then goes on to use Korean manhwa in place of webtoon. Another nope. Manhwa is just manga as it is just a translation of comics in English. Sure, nowadays it comes with a certain style assumptions and expectations, but manhwa is facing the same problem with manga. People are going digital. This is where LINE (the global subsidiary of Naver) Webtoon comes in. But even Korean webcomic creators are still facing problems with going global. Here's Mr.Comics (formerly Manga Rock)'s article on it.

I'm not sure if he knows that Webtoon is a platform, because I think part of why the community kind of merge slowly is the exposure they receive from having the same platform. Even in Tapas we have a variety of styles and you can't exactly limit yourself to just manga style or manhwa style or ligne claire style. But at their global launch, of course it would be more exciting for new readers to already have many titles you can read from the get go. What titles do they already have license for? Korean webtoons. So the Korean webtoons now gain popularity. What comes after popularity in the comics industry? Adaptation.

It might come as a surprise for Mr. Burrowes, but South Korea plays a big part in the industry of animation. A LOT of Japanese anime actually got co-produced by Korean studios (Mainichi Kaasan, La Corda d'Oro, Rurouni Kenshin, Yu-Gi-Oh). Even American animations got sent to Korea (Ben 10, Dead Space, He-Man!). And yes, they do have their own titles, it's just that those who are only into Japanese animation won't look for it. But now that the Korean webtoon titles got English speaker fans, word got out if they're going to be adapted into anime(ation). Fans rejoice. Mr.Burrowes burrowed his eyebrows.

I do have to agree that manga will not lose its future to manhwa, but more because the readers expect to read about Japanese (cultural, historical, a whole different story for another time) and because its future is in digital. Here's a screenshot of AppAnnie's Top Chart Matrix for iOS in the Books category:

Japan's Top Free and Top Grossing are all manga apps: Pikkoma, LINE Manga, Manga Park, Meccha-komikku, MangaBANG!, Shounen JUMP and Comico.
No comics-related app in the UK and only Tappytoon in the US. Tappytoon is another webtoon reading platform from Korea. So it is safe to say that webtoon is gaining popularity in the US (readers just don't use Google search to get to it).

Lastly, he's surprised by a Youtube video title. It's YT. Of course it's going to be sensationalist. It's good enough if it's not a click-bait. Calm down.
But then again, maybe his article is also a click-bait?
Damn.

[skicoak]

Not saying the article's author is correct or incorrect but...

There is a danger in the medium being so heavily focused on specific demographics of readers that it could be a logical concern in it becoming/being too niche or built around a fad.

The homogeneity of what's popular and what's being marketed towards webcomic readers SHOULD be a legitimate concern for the future of the format.

[jgfelix86]

Well just think about it for a second,
Is there any webcomic with the impact and popularity of One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, SNK or Bleach????
There's none, yes we can mention a few that got to an anime adaptation, but they're not popular out of the plattaform. One Punch man jump into print and became a huge succes. This sites are (Tapas, Webtoons, Global comix, etc) a great tool to gain exposure, but thats it. Digital Books, and comics exist at least for twenty years and physical copies still do better, by a big margin; than their digital counterpart. If you really aspire to become a great artist, you should be ready to print at some point.

[jgfelix86]

Then explain how come in COVID era KNY sold 84 million copies in FY 2020, and in FY 2021 Jujutsu Kaisen sold 32 million. And those were the number one titles each year, in terms of sales

[darthmongoose]

Got me squinting at this year-old thread and re-reading what I wrote a freaking year ago....

You revived a thread an entire year later... to refute my point, in response to a post where I literally already wrote:

Obviously it'll take a lot longer or may not reach the same level of dominance in countries with a very strong, established print comics tradition and industry; France, the US and especially Japan (because Japanese culture is very resistant to changing structures and pipelines once they're established), but when you look at how webtoons are the biggest platform for comics in a number of east asian countries like South Korea, like they're a bigger platform than print, I don't think that's a fad, I think that's the new way people will consume content.

I already explained how come.

[joannekwan]