"I am Not Starfire" and the Sorry State of American Comics

[catcul]

The manga, Demon Slayer, has outsold all American comic series combined in 2020. In an apparent attempt to chip away the popularity of manga in the U.S., DC Comics came out with a visual novel called I am Not Starfire.

The professional critics apparently love it, but it's being completely destroyed by user ratings. It's being called a poorly written self-insert fan fiction with a completely unlikable protagonist. One user said you could burn the money it costs and that would be more entertaining.

Many people point to this as a reason the American comic book industry is failing.

[jackfaire]

Honestly I blame Crisis on Infinite Earths for the state of DC Comics. I grew up in a post-Crisis world and was reading my heroes, Kyle Rayner, Wally West, Tim Drake etc. Then when I was in my 20s they started bringing back old guys that had died off or become some other heroes.

Manga has a beginning middle and end. The TV shows and movies have a beginning middle and End.

DC Comics is designed to write a character for X amount of time and then reset to a 0 point erasing everything the character's been through.

It's going to lead to losing readership because it happens more frequently than it should. People can't grow up with and old with their characters anymore they can't follow a story to it's conclusion because the end of most of the stories is "then they began again"

Their reboots are also inconsistent. New 52 was supposedly a FULL reset start from 0 and for a couple characters it was but for others they kept referring to pre-New 52 canon which made it hard for lapsed readers or new readers to latch on because they still dragged all the old canon with them.

Books of Magic in my opinion did it right in terms of how to reboot.

They went back to the original miniseries and start their story right after it just like it's predecessor did.

Green Lantern shouldn't have spoken of Brightest Day he should have been talking about how he just got the ring and needed to learn how to be a Green Lantern.

At this point I'm only really interested in fleshing out my Modern Age collection and ignoring anything after because there's just too much to sift through to figure out what the hell's going on.

[gremcint]

you mean the book that stars a girl, a girl who is not conventionally attractive, a girl who is not conventionally attractive is gay and has a positive gay relationship with an accepting parent?

gee can't imagine why some users would give it a negative review.

I read it, it's a very cute story with a positive message and a very identifiable protagonist trying to live up to everyone's expectations.

This was actually the opposite of a lot of the problems plaguing the comic book industry. Rather than tell simple direct stories with the odd crossover every once in a while comics are plagued by constant events and gimmicks and continuity issues resulting in them being confusing for invested fans. Further people get attached to a character only to see them benched in favor of an old retired hero because the creators can't just let go. Or there's the continuous hiring of writers who keep telling problematic stories that put many fans off of reading the books.

Sorry but publishing a cute YA story about a young lesbian falling in love is the exact opposite of the problems with the comic industry.