Often when I talk to people about comic book reading and collecting (especially if they are manga fans in a native sense) I will commonly get reasons such as the wait (again mostly from manga fans), content, and even sometimes people who just don't want to be made fun of. Granted those people will be happy to watch and glow about the Avengers, but you'll never see them wanting to crack open the Kree-Skrull War because that's for nerds. Most commonly though is the backlog of comics that push away new readers through sheer intimidation by numbers and fear of a need to know every little detail of a comic character's existence to get the character now.
I'm here to tell you that you can. You can, and it is far easier than you think. Don't worry. Mak is here to help you. He's here to cradle you softly in his arms and comfort you with tales of fantasy. I'm losing track, so let's start.
How To Get Into Comic Book Reading
We'll tackle this huge issue by breaking it down into the four points mentioned above: Wait, Content, Stigma, and Backlog.
The Dreaded Wait
Truth be told, I primarily get this complaint from manga fans. Seems odd to veteran comic-only readers, but many manga (particularly shonen) titles are weekly. Every seven days manga fans can pretty much depend on their title coming out, where American superhero comic fans tend to have to wait a month. This isn't always true, and many fans on both sides are sometimes willing to wait inordinate amounts of time such as Hunter X Hunter's odd year long hiatus where fans are treated to a burst of issues month after month and then met with a yawning gap of inactivity, and Iron Man vol. 4 was well known for taking two years of intermittent releases to finish a six issue arc (Extremis for those who don't know). The truth of the matter is, if a month long wait is your gate for patience it's a pretty crappy, fabricated, lazy ass excuse. I assume it's most likely due to the similar medium having quicker (usually) releases in manga, because no other group really has this problem. People wait years for movies, months for a mid-season hiatus, and really just about any amount of time required to pump out an entertainment medium for any reason whatsoever. Is this entitlement? Are some just so used to having more quickfire things that they just cannot handle slower issues? History says no, because people have been known to wait and come flocking back (most people) to a series which has taken it's time in many mediums. The truth of the matter is, if you cannot handle that wait then that's pathetic. You'll still be there in a month, you have several other series you most likely keep up with, and truth be told 30 days of wait is pretty good considering the massive process it takes comic books to make print. "But Mak, 52 had weekly releases. This proves comic book companies can do it, so they should if they want my money." Yes, they can do it if they plan out an entire year of stories, have several teams writing and drawing this very precise tale under super strong time constraints which remove them from any other project in the universe and has so many working cogs that the entire company has to basically push all other ideas to the back. Infinite Crisis was the event that had DC telling no other stories for an entire year but stories which were carefully plotted out by a team above. The army of writers and artists working on that basically dumped their lives into that effort, and it definitely isn't something a comic book company can normally do. "Manganka's do it. I don't see why not." False. Let's take someone like Oda Eiichiro who does definitely push himself into writing so much One Piece so often he sometimes gets sick. That's fine and all. Counting that One Piece is regularly just under 20 pages with several art assistants, rarely having color past the cover of the magazine, and if you're successful like Oda or Masashi Kishimoto and don't need to submit scripts you then only get broad instructions with little oversight to the direction of the series you want it to go. If you're not as fortunate, you have to submit a "script" to the editor who then tells you to pursue that or not. (Commonly editors will poke their heads in and make recommendations to improve the sales of a series, such as certain settings, extra characters, etc.). Comic books, particularly superhero ones, work a little differently for several reasons. Primarily because entire teams are usually utilized to make comic books. Screw the writer and drawing assistant roles. It's not uncommon to have multiple writers on the same book who are also working with others for different plots in other books at the same time. Art is usually done by one person with several inkers following after for what are usually full color comic books. A story has to be approved every single time (unless you're Bendis, then you get rubber stamped) to ensure characters can be used before you even go writing. Lastly the printing process is usually set up for monthly, and distribution usually follows, since this is the primary standard of the superhero comic book industry. This means you probably have to pay extra to have your comics printed every week at full color, forcing an entire team into extra overtime (comic writers/artists tend to work overtime as is) to complete projects which will eventually become terrible and rushed. Remember when I said One Piece averages under 20 pages? The average comic book issue is 24 pages. 24 pages multiplied against a dozen or so titles releasing each week individually from other issues. Covers, interior art, editing teams, control teams, writer/artist coordination, artist/inking coordination, printing schedules, delivery schedules, future planning, writer/artist talent crossovers. Comic books are a huge monster.
There is also the matter with how stories are distributed. Commonly many popular shonen manga are distributed as a large package every week in a anthology series which pressures a strict schedule which comics do not share, while comics do not do anthologies pretty much at all. Batman might have four titles a month, all sold individually. Thor is separate from the Avengers in sales, Constantine is his own deal, Spider-Man will have three individual titles. To have one company have that much put together and go out every month is a staggering task. Doing it weekly with that many moving parts is impossible.
So it's sort of weird when I hear things like "Manga can do it, comics can do it, I shouldn't have to wait." And while I do think sometimes companies *cough*Marvel*cough* take advantage of loyalty, I still think when people say a month is too long they're acting spoiled. This isn't a, "When I was your age we had to wait for ice all year long and we LIKED it!" scenario as much as a, "How inconvenienced are you really?" Several newspaper comics beforehand used to be daily, or every other day, and I don't hear people clamoring about how those strips are a superior format. There are huge differences in production and distribution for manga and comics, just like there is for movies and television, or books and magazine, or even tablets and computers. Because the content and methods are different, they should be thought of differently. So if a whole calendar period is the only thing stopping you, take a step back, take a deep breath, get over yourself and find a better reason. Let's face it, if One Piece/Bleach/Hunter x Hunter/Case Closed/Slam Dunk/Assassination Classroom/Hajime no Ippo/JoJo's Bizarre Adventure/etc. suddenly went into a monthly schedule, people would happily wait, and like comics the series would be broken up to distribute throughout the month.
Now if your reason IS distribution and price methods that come from the monthly model or weekly model, those are far better problems with merit.
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