In a recent interview with Bounding Into Comics <https://boundingintocomics.com/comic-books/dc-jim-lee-genre-diversity-manga-advantage-over-western-comics-superhero-stories>, Jim Lee argues that manga has - or will eventually - win the comic book war? What do you think?

It really does depend on what qualifies as a win, right? If it's just overall sales, manga might win out considering it's all physical volumes that collect 6-10 chapters per $13-15 book versus single issue sales. If it's in terms of entertainment, manga might be more limited. Because it's great that a series tells its entire story through a single creator, but that also leaves so much on the cutting room floor in terms of potential stories. Comics still have the edge in terms of flexibility when it comes to its titles and characters in them, but then someone might prefer a tighter vision. At the end of the day, it's a closer fight than anyone thinks.

4 minutes ago, Valdezology said:

It really does depend on what qualifies as a win, right? If it's just overall sales, manga might win out considering it's all physical volumes that collect 6-10 chapters per $13-15 book versus single issue sales. If it's in terms of entertainment, manga might be more limited. Because it's great that a series tells its entire story through a single creator, but that also leaves so much on the cutting room floor in terms of potential stories. Comics still have the edge in terms of flexibility when it comes to its titles and characters in them, but then someone might prefer a tighter vision. At the end of the day, it's a closer fight than anyone thinks.

Interesting. The idea that comic books are more flexible in terms of having a higher story ceiling is a great point and a perspective I had not considered. But you are absolutely correct. To be sure, authors of successfully manga have sometimes followed up with "sequels" but like in the movies, their success is not guaranteed. Spider-Man has lived a hundred lives but there's really only been one Naruto.

1 minute ago, MAG said:

Interesting. The idea that comic books are more flexible in terms of having a higher story ceiling is a great point and a perspective I had not considered. But you are absolutely correct. To be sure, authors of successfully manga have sometimes followed up with "sequels" but like in the movies, their success is not guaranteed. Spider-Man has lived a hundred lives but there's really only been one Naruto.

Yes, great way to put it! Because digging into that further, there's a strength in only having a single vision and single canonical timeline for Naruto, right? But at the same time, I can't lie and say I've hated all the filler Naruto episodes that the creator didn't write haha. I wouldn't mind seeing more Naruto stories from other creators like we've seen with that recent TMNT crossover. Flipping that around, Spider-Man would benefit from having a single canonical timeline, but we wouldn't have gotten all the fun stuff from the many retcons, multiverse stories etc.

And creators themselves aren't hit makers like you've said too with either sequels or other projects. Kishimoto tried coming out with something brand new (Samurai 8), but it tanked so hard that he had to directly start writing for Boruto hahaha. That lack of flexibility in their industry then came back to bite them after that singular work had ended. I don't think western comics writers and artists are stuck on a single story/character in the same way.