Decline of American Comics

Decline of American Comics

Since the 1930’s American comic books have been one of the most popular forms of reading material. The reason for this is that not only does give the reader an interesting plot line to follow but it also gives good visual aids in the prints on each page. Another reason for this is that they are cheap. Action comic number 1 was only 10 cents. Now you can get most comics for a buck or two at most.

From the early 1930’s till the late 1990’s the comic book industry was dominated by American comics; the most popular comic being the Superman comics. While Superman is still the most popular comic worldwide American Comics have declined. The introduction of Anime or Manga comics from Japan in the early 90’s started a small group to turn away from American comics. This small group slowly started growing and according to the Anime News Network May of 1999 was the first month ever that an American comic book was not the best selling comic in America. That distinction went to Toshiro Ono’s manga adaptation of Pokemon. While the American comics are still flourishing they are continuing to lose fans.

In the middle to late 90’s the American comic book industry seeing the rising popularity in the Japanese based Anime comics started trying to turn the style of American comics into a bad copy on the Anime comics. While this seemed like a good idea it backfired. Many fans were upset with the new look of the American comics and switched to the Anime comics. This can be shown by looking at market trends for comic book sales. According to the Comic Buyers Guide The American comic book industry has shown a steady decrease since the late 90's. The exception to this would be Marvel and DC comics. It is noteworthy though that these are the main two companies producing movies based on comics. There is more than a slight increase in sales of these comics around the time of the movies’ openings. While the American comic book industry has been declining the Japanese industry has been on the rise. It showed a major increase in 2002-2003. That is when most American comic books tried to look more Anime.

While most people would say that this is not a big deal, I disagree. America has always been dubbed the greatest country in the world by