I don’t want to put anyone on blast, but I’ve seen a few people saying, erroneously, that superhero comics sell more by the numbers, that they have the biggest sales overall and (most wrong of all) that they are the best selling comics globally. And, uh...Shounen Jump called. 📞

I’m not saying this to detract the historical and global importance of B2 comics... they were once huge. They are also old, so as far as historically, yeah they have decently big numbers. They are not doing those numbers now, or anytime in the past decade.
The best selling series, ever, by a Big 2 is Spider-man, selling 650 million since 1963. You can tally up all their series together but that’s a bit unfair so let’s stick to individuals. 650 is VERY respectable.
One Piece, Japans top selling collected manga, has sold 470 million....since 1997.
But that’s collected volumes...manga magazines are really a more equitable competitor to floppies, although not exact because, in fairness, they contain several series. That said, shounen jump has sold 7.6 billion. There are several other shounen magazines in that range.
no matter how you slice it, marvel or DC have NEVER done these kind of numbers, ever with their series combined. And manga sales are strong, getting better. Big 2 have rarely cracked 500k for single issues in recent years...their biggest steady peak was the early 90s.
Getting more recent, its really, really hard to find numbers on comics sales, and often y only see the diamond sales, which do not include traditional publishing. As effect, they leave out huge numbers of current comics from the picture and statistically make GN look small.
But look at numbers that include them, and things change. Arguments that GN have a higher sales point fall apart because...SH TPB (considered GN by diamond) sell for a HIGHER dollar amount generally.
DC by far tops that list, with Watchmen, a 35 year old comic that sold a respectable 20,000 or so in 2019. Compare to Scholastic’s best selling GN, the lower priced Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls which moved 1.1 million. The top 10 GN were all above 200,000 units (in 2019).
The only metric by which SH comics can even be a part of the conversation, is by *historical* sales. Their recent sales are pretty slumpy or steady for their old standbys, while manga and GNs published by other companies are RAPIDLY growing.
And i haven’t even gone into things like Peanuts, an strip comics or the European Market.

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The emergence of many new hypocrisies typically heralds an emerging new cultural synthesis.

Are you disturbed that you agree with one of those viewpoints? Or perhaps that other people you respect do?

1/x


Let me offer a framework for thinking about things like this, something called an “Omega Event.”

It was first described to me by Erik Martin, one of Reddit's first community managers:

In governance, Omega Events exist due to the fact that no system of beliefs, no worldview, no set of rules, can account for everything that will ever happen.

Eventually someone (or some group) will do something that lies outside the scope of all existing rules, and you will have to make decisions again from first principles.

Sometimes the Omega Event emerges from the confluence of many unrelated factors. When it does, it is wholly different from anything you’ve encountered.
big louis winthorpe III energy


i almost feel bad for the guy, because someone this absolutely clueless about how he sounds really shouldn't be allowed to post under his own name.

he seems like someone who *genuinely* means well most of the time, but it extremely easy to excite and wind up, and who is just profoundly dense about the wisdom of getting wound up the way he does in public.

on the other hand, the tara reade business was indefensible, exploitative, and gross. if there is ever a writer who desperately needs an editor to save him from himself, it's nathan robinson.

i had a few friends in high school who were well-meaning, wealthier than they realized, and in drama class, and most of them grew out of their nathan robinson stage because, well, it was oklahoma. there's almost something a little charming about the fact that he didn't.

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