>>24446608
>Why didn’t the Western comic book industry take its seat as the next evolution of popular Western “literature” alongside the novel like manga and light novels did in Japan?
Well, first of all, not all mangas are "the next step". Buraiha authors influenced gekiga mangas, which influenced shojo mangas, which influenced Banana Yoshimoto, which influenced modern day Japanese literature.
But you haven't heard much about gekiga manga authors, neither about shojo mangas.
Light novels and (shonen and seinen) mangas are slop, this is why they sell.
They are not the "next step" of japanese literature. Japanese "literature" shits on them.
>The industry is huge in Japan and seems to occupy the space formerly occupied by popular novels.
Not really. Serious literature is a different market from that which reads (even) seinen mangas. Mangas and light novels are read by pedophiles and manchildren, not librophiles.
A guy who reads Berserk might have never heard of Kenzaburō Ōe, for example.
Speaking of which Ōe himself talked about this. Mangas became famous because Japan became "a-ideological", no one is angry anymore, no one wants anything in Japan.
>And yet, Western comics can barely compete.
Western comics can be divided into three categories: Capeshit, indie and webtoons.
Capeshit are the equivalent of shonen manga, webtoons are dominated by women.
Indie comics filter the normie and the pseud alike. The pseud wants to feel smart, he won't buy a book with barely 2000 ratings on Goodreads. Imagine if that book is actually a comic book.
The average capeshit or manga consumer, do you think he will understand Rick Remender comic books? A Cormac McCarthy reference from a Rami V comic book? The "hardcore fantasy" of the Last God?
Nah, he will opt for a capeshit series like the Watchmen or Sandman and think that's the peak of Western comic intellectualism. And he will sell them as such, so that pseuds will never know what's trully complex and "literature"-tier.
>So what happened? I’m just curious about this.
Comic books have a very big format, and are like short stories, or movies. They give less profit margins, since the art is more well done, so investing into marketing is bad. You can also notice that the aforementioned "indie comics" are passion project by the same authors that publish slop.
Publishing slop requires you to have an amazing imagination, since you have to constantly produce ever new stories. For that you need to consume a huge amount of literature yourself, but not slop itself, since how could you draw inspiration from itself (otherwise you'd end up with what happened with the japanese market, either 90% shonen mangas or 90% isekai LN)? So the comic book writers are always into extremely weird shit, like https://youtu.be/KTMFBYXmvMk or Jodorowsky or the same Moore.
Mangas are cheap, dumb and "exotic" for the average Western bourgie. They are very easily sold to those who are disenchanted with your homeland slop market.

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