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I used to watch some American cartoons when I was a kid.

But since I'm not 10 anymore, they have no real appeal to me anymore, since that's all they're written for, unless it's gross-out humor like Adult Swim junk which isn't any better.

American comics never really had anything worth noting to me. 95% of them are superheroes, which I'm not into. The non-super hero ones I read weren't all that much better, and fall into the line of thinking that "pop-culture references" and saying "fuck" makes them mature and for adults. It's like comics are still trying to outgrow the 'We're not for kids! And we're gonna prove it!' mentality

It still happens in manga, there is like 50 different Gundam Mangas all having different writers. Some tied to the animations, some not. Heck look at the fucking Amagami manga there is like 10 different manga runs each with a different writer. There are plenty of Franchises that change hands with creators.

Ontop of that a writers run in comic books usually about as long as the average manga's length. Like Geoff Johns run on 2003 Teen Titans was like 140 issues with about 24 pages per issue.

Also it's funny you bring up Ashita no Joe because it's literally credited with 2 writers and a different artist, http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=835

Plus comparing KAJIWARA Ikki and TAKAMORI Asao to Stan Lee is pretty retarded. Because Stan Lee was probably working on 20 other books when he was writing X-men.

Jigero Logic: If you can find one series that vaguely fits the criteria, twist it to say manga is just as bad as American comics.

For the record, Ikki and Asao are the same person. That's what you call having different pen names.

by krikizans logic: .....

oh wait he doesn't have any because he's an idiot who doesn't understand an argument before commenting on it.

I never said Manga is as bad as American comics.

Enjolras1830 said comics are bad simply because they have different writers, if anything that's the only thing that keeps main stream comics alive and some what interesting because when a good writer gets ahold of a property it's always a good thing and not only permeates the characters but extends to other media aswell.

If it wasn't for Miller's run on The Dark Knight everyone would have thought Batman was nothing more then what was depicted on the Adam West series.

If it wasn't for Alan Moore the Joker would still be a z list villain that made harmless jokes.

and it's not like this is totally unique to comics either. Quite a few major franchises in anime and manga have changed creative hands and have a confusing continuity.

American Comic's main problem is lack of exposure to anything that isn't super hero comic related, Editorial mandates that ruin stories and alienate readers, and the daunting continuity. But majority of these problems are solely unique to Super Hero Comics.

What retarded anime fans like to think is that's all there is in American Comic books. While Super Hero comics do make up the largest chunk of American Comic books there are still plenty of other comic books out there that are great, don't have any continuity to deal with, and never change hands with writers.

But I bet you would probably get all pissy if some one said "hurrr manga is nothing but crappy romance for grade school girls and little boys that like reading about other little boys fighting shit."

Use to read them all the time when I was younger. Loved "Death of Superman", and the Batman/Spawn crossover. If there were a site like Onemanga for comics i'd catch up on things i've missed.

I watch some kid's animation, usually because it happens to be showing. They are a little more goofy and spastic than I'd prefer, but some of the humor is actually pretty clever. This episode could have been written about our great anime vs cartoon debate
http://phineasandferb.wikia.com/wiki/Nerds_of_a_Feather

I watch Korra regularly. Part of my interest in that is to see how the american/western and japanese/asian traditions and methods merge. Also, I just like the story and the art work.

I've always been a fan of many kinds of graphic novels and graphic series including American authors. Bone. Maus. Flight, Uncle Scrooge, Ghost World... whatever, though I never got into the superheros as much.

Aside from that, I've been re-reading Tintin, Asterix, and Lucky Luke lately. Good light reading to doze off @ bed time. Those are not American, but as far as I'm concerned it's all closely related. Stories are stories and artists are artists.

Okay everyone,I believe we all stated our opinions of comics,no need to start picking on each other.
But Jigero is right when he's say most Anime fans think Superhero comic books are the only thing out there in America.
And Jigero,you forgot to say we also get mad when people thinks manga is about nothing but Big spiky hair,big boobed,Big eyed,OP-ed battles.

They are ok, But its hard to find something interesting.
Superman was boring because there was no challenge for him.
Batman was better, but it had to be the darker Batman stories and not the kiddy ones.
Robo cop was interesting to read.
Judge Dredd as well. Something about the darker comics are always better then the super hero ones.

Cartoons are ok, There were a few I watched as a child, the one with the rings was one of them, and another one about police. Spiderman was just rubbish, and Batman was to childish.

Simpsons was funny, same with American dad, family guy, cleveland show needs more work, The Boondocks is a gem, shame its taking forever for the fourth season.

Avatar was diffinately a gem aswell. but Not sure about korra will need to check that out.

Oddly, though being into all the other 'nerdy' stuff (scifi, video games, anime, paper and pencil rpgs etc.) american comics never grabbed an interest in me. This is complete ignorance talking, but I never really saw the appeal of men in masks and costumes fighting each other. Only one I might get into is green latern because the universe seems cool. It's a very big might too. I enjoyed the watchman movie for what it's worth though.

There's really only 3 american animations that I watch,

home movies (loosely scripted dry humor)
king of the hill (more dry humor)

Arthur - It's like a slice of life anime, kinda... suprisingly good.

I could never get into anything seth mcfarle, I don't get the pop culture references and dragging on jokes and fart jokes and trying to offend people isn't really funny, or offensive for that matter. South park does a better job of it, and event that i'll only watch if there is nothing on.

Not to sure about comic... but...

For animated series.

I loved Zeta Project... but it got canceled...

I love buying graphic novels if anything. Mainly Batman and John Constantine: Hellblazer. Though I've read more Hellblazer GNs from libraries. I don't mind Justice League material but as one poster said it's hard to keep up due to different continuities. I sort of didn't care for the new 52 much either. If there's one JLA graphic novel everyone should read it's Kingdom Come.



For anyone who dislikes superheroes and loves horror then Hellblazer is a must, or anything from Vertigo (a non-superhero branch of DC).

Regarding Marvel, as much as I like to I don't read their material. This is purely because I was brought up with mainly DC around me and I really wouldn't know where to begin if I was to start now. I have read some of the Civil War story-line which is pretty awesome, I might buy the trade paper backs sometime this week.

I'd really love to read more independent comics as well.

Oh, I love animation in general. 80s cartoons were pretty awesome regardless of how corny they were. 90s cartoons to early 2000s were the best and today's stuff can't touch them. But I do love Adventure Time. The thing is 90s-00s never treated you like a child: Batman TAS, Justice League, Batman of the Future (basically anything Bruce Timm touched), and Gargoyles, Jonny Quest and X-men Evolution and the 90's X-men. They were all great cartoons which never felt too preachy, never talked down at you and felt more mature than cartoons today.

On the list of cartoons above, the DC titles were mainly by Bruce Timm. If you ever bother to watch his work (Mainly Batman and Batman of the future, also watch his Batman films) they were pretty dark and you can tell Timm wanted to push things further in terms of mature content. I remember one episode of Batman which had some innuendo joke. The stories were thought-provoking, fun and clever. Sometimes some of the fight scenes were got pretty intense and violent. If Timm had overall control over cartoons I strongly believe there'd be better content for all to watch. I even believe US cartoons would be on par with most anime that is aimed for adults. I do know there is South Park and Family Guy which is for adults, but I'm talking about non-comedies and something more serious.

If you don't take US animation seriously, I advise you to watch Batman The Mask of Phantasm and you'll see what US cartoons could have been.

Ben 10 is okay I guess (a bit lame to the point it becomes just a guilty pleasure), but it willl always be in the shadow of Timm's work.

Timm also draws great erotic art, his NGE fan art is pretty faptastic.

Young Justice hasn't been aired in the UK so I dunno what that's like even though people keep on suggesting it to me.

As a kid I was into a variety of comics, I loved the hero style comics, the avengers, x-men, Superman etc. As I got older I gravitated towards other comics, what some call graphic novels, if you choose to differentiate the two. I loved Frank Miller's works (Sin City especially) of course like others here I enjoyed Sandman, as well as Maus. Although Maus arguably is not a comic. There are a lot of great comics out there that are not written by Stan Lee, even if his works are what immediately come to mind.

The main issue as others have pointed out, is the price. It can be an expensive hobby to pursue compared to the ease of getting free manga and anime. For me especially, as I've always preferred having a physical copy...it's the same with books.

As far as American cartoons, nothing these days, but back when I was a kid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and GI Joes were something I was heavily into.

Ew. Timm's an awful artist and can only draw one female and male body type. His fanart makes them look like American cartoons.



The main difference is one is actually true, the other is not. Most American comics ARE superheroes. They dominate the sales charts and they're the most prolific. That's why American comics don't do well at all. In addition to things like them never ending, and other factors.

You can't stereotype manga into one genre, because they're all evenly distributed and no one genre dominates. You have multiple titles of various genres and themes which sell millions of copies each volume.

People who stereotype manga are just ignorant, or try to do so out of petty 'revenge' for people stereotyping comics. Doesn't work, though. While you can stereotype comics because that's one of the major flaws with them.

Of course, that's his style.



The sad thing is DC and Marvel don't like to take risks, especially in this current climate. I think DC's new 52 was just proof of how desperate they were. I'm not saying the anime/manga industries have reached points where they won't take risks especially when the mediums (at least from what I see today) is largely dominated with high school settings. But there's still a variety nevertheless.

Another thing is that DC/Marvel are up against video games, one comic book writer/artist told me to forget bother going into the industry because of video games.

I wouldn't work in their industry anyway, not after Alan Moore described their mobster mentality.

Out of interest, have you ever followed, or at least try to follow a US Comic book series or graphic novels? (I think this will be my only response to you since I don't want to be the one to turn this into a 'versus' debate.

Consistency using the same setting over and over isn't even remotely the same as using same storylines over and over.

A kid going to high school/school is equally as justifiable as a superhero needing a cubby hole to hide all his gear.

The only things that keep mainstream comics alive is their niche fanbase. Batman fanboys are always going to buy Batman. No matter what. Comics don't try to reach new audiences, they aim exclusively to their established audience because they know that's all they need to do to stay afloat.



And who's to say that's right or wrong? I've seen plenty of people who prefer the old Cesar Romero Joker to Heath Ledger Joker. And I've also seen nerds fight to the death over if Spider-Man should have organic or mechanic web shooters. If there's no established canon, then who is right? What does it say when the original creator's meaning and vision means just as much as the next guy who writes Spider-Man and has just as much weight as the guy who created him. It's pretty much nothing more than glorified fanfiction at that point.

At the end of the day, these characters have no real characters, since Batman can be a silly guy in one issue and a stone-cold killer in the next depending on who's writing it. Meanwhile: Luffy is Luffy, Naruto is Naruto, and etcetera. Your argument of 'Naruto and Bleach need new writers' is stupid. Those two series outsell any American comic a hundredfold. Clearly they don't need new writers otherwise they wouldn't be the worldwide juggernauts they are. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they should change to fit your own narrow viewpoint. They seem to be doing just fine without your seal of approval.

I don't call Bleach losing a million readers fine. Bleach plummeted out of the big three all the way down to number 8. Of course I don't think it needs a new writer I just think it needs to end at this point but maybe a writer other than Kubo could have saved the franchise from hitting that low point.

but in its main market its still preforms what most US Comics do in the US

and plz do consider that the two big manga houses are not owned by big Movie studios like DC are Marvel are

I was just pointing out Bleach is a terrible example to use when you talking about consistent writing. Kubo has been pull shit out of his ass for years to the point where the Bleach universe is complete mess of contradiction and non-sense.

As for Marvel and DC, yeah comics are much more niche in the west and don't sell the way manga does. I already posted those two universes are a mess of mixed up continuities but it's not like manga is some infallible art form. It has it's own short comings as well.

What?

Batman was already The Dark Knight before Miller even came on. Doug Moench and Marv Wolfman wrote some of the best/darkest Batman stories in the early-mid 80s before Frank Miller even wrote a single script.