There is no way in hell that you read War and Peace (1200+ pages) with that statement. Almost any neverending comic ever is easier to read in marathon sittings than Leo Tolstoy´s epics. There are some crazy dense comics like Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the later issues are WILD), Maus, some of Urasawa´s works, Berserk (it will pass 400 eps.) biographies, etc. that read slower than anything else but you can read all of Kenshin or FMA (27-28 vol.) in exactly one day with nothing else going on without melting your brain. Good luck finishing Crime and Punishment (500+ pages) in one sitting on the other hand. The horror! The horror... Something as mundane as Harry Potter is easy to plow through. I, for example, read 90% of book 6 during a night watch when I was in the military and finished the rest the next day as I had to pass my duty and get home.

I know someone who read all of Naruto in 2 days and he only started to speed up around vol. 50, as that´s where the story naturally collapses. I myself re-read all of JoJo (about 120 vol.) earlier this summer in 3 days, with the creative peak being vol. 81 to 104 (SBL). Vol. 105 to now is still amazing and that is past the 1000+ chap. point if we go by the silently assumed 20 pages = 1 chap. rule. The historical Golgo 13 through wasn't even good at vol. 5 so I mostly stopped there despite it now reaching for vol. 200. A chosen few can go for 100 vol. of comics, they just can, even if I think that 30 to 50 vol. is a good sweet spot for the decade (+) method of long-form storytelling. Others can´t even put together a coherent single chapter to save their lives.

The infamous Dave Sim´s set out to write 300 issues of creator-owned material of 300 issues worth of comics between 1977 - 2004 that "made sense". He wrote, drew and self-published (!) all of Cerebus the Aardvark but got a background artist starting with issue 65. Issue 25 to let´s issue 186 are as good as they say but he single-handedly killed his reputation with that issue. Read about it here and watch The Controversies of Cerebus' Dave Sim to learn about essential comic history. I would joke that the madness of his endeavor took him but he was outed as an actual child groomer and pedophile later. To think that a pedophile would hate women, who knew... But him bitching that his child bride ran his life and reduced him to a "housepet" is something else.
I went through all 300(+) issues in 2 days in the late 00s (half of the time at work). Day 2 was a VERY special day. Those 9/11 essays... ho boi. Start your journey into unfiltered madness today, as it´s the journey of a lifetime 😀 ! Almost every genre and lunacy under the sun gets covered.
It´s a miracle that all the work-horse mangaka that lasted for 30-50 years with little time off haven´t started to eat people yet. Some diddled kids though. Hm, hm.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 9:01 am, Oct 27 2019

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

What did you think of the last three books written by a different author, were they just as good or was it a disappointing end to the series?

Yes, I don’t think I’ve read a 300+ chapter series outside of shounen. What would you recommend for a non-shounen series of that length? I’m pretty open to subject matter.

Re book production, I just don’t find it comparable.

Re the series comment, I’ve read single books with high page counts and I’ve read long trilogies. What I was referring to with my ‘long series’ comment was the phenomenon when something is dragged on against the writer’s original intentions simply because of the popularity of initial releases.

I have lol, War and Peace used to be one of my favourite books (mainly because of the Andrei and sky scene...) before I discovered Nabokov. I’m not as high on Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment was fine but The Brothers Karamazov was a real slog for me. That being said, I can’t read manga with the rapidity you describe, even if I like it. So maybe I’m unusually quick at reading novels and unusually slow at reading manga.

I love the mention of Maus, I read that ages ago and remember really liking it.

You guys DO realize that you're comparing sequential art books with descriptors (Which comics are) to a collection of papers with thousands of fancy words printed on each page (Which books are), right? Both mediums are aiming to do different things.

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The List of manga series by volume count isn´t a perfect list due the weird schedules and sequels many entries have but it´ the most convenient source out there. Let´s make this a though exercise. Here are all the good (7/10 or above) entries on it with the vol. count:

Seinen: Azumi - 66 (reboots after vol. 48), Berserk - 40+, Ryuu - Ron - 40, Yamikin Ushijima-kun - 46 and Wangan Midnight - 56.

Shounen: Baby Steps - 47, Dragon Ball - 42, Hajime no Ippo - 126+, Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken - 124+ (Seinen after vol. 80), Major - 78 (skip the sequel), Rokudenashi Blues - 43, and Naruto - 73.

The list features an actual Yaoi manga and there is an equal amount of manga for adults as for teens/kids. The theory that Shounen manga typically lasts the longest is disproven and 2 mangaka made it past vol. 100 without running out of ideas. The entries for women are sadly sub-par, somewhat rare too.

I can´t believe I have to say this but the medium book and comic BOOK are directly connected. So are movies and written tv, as you have to write scripts and so on, but comics come closer.
The Count of Monte Cristo (1200+ pages), it may be the best booke ever, was sequentially published in a newspaper. Some of the most influential books of all time and some of the most influential genre-books (for example Dune) were published in a similar manner until things gradually changed in the 2nd half of the 20th century. The standalone publication of books as we do them now isn´t as old as many here apparently think and how many sequential web publications that were turned into manga exist on this site alone? Tens of thousands of manga and comics are based on prose novels and the point of writing Light NOVELS is to get a direct manga and even better an anime adaptation green-lit. The 2 sequels to Fight Club are both maxi-series comics written by Chuck Palahniuk himself! His first comic work btw. He just read a how-to guide to comics and keeps banging out comic scripts on time. That´s why many film scriptwriters are also novelists. Watchmen was on Time's List of the 100 Best Novels in 2010. Am I taking crazy pills here? Both have chapters (at least as TPBs/tankoubon). Both have editors. Book authors have publishers and a schedule to keep, so do comic writers/artists. Both have ISBNs (the B is for book) and book shops sell or can get you comics. Both are read. We ain´t comparing comics with video-games, recepts, ballet or architectural plans here people.

Let's close off with Comic Writing 101, how fun. Comics are first written like a (prose) novel with a ton of direction for the artist. The 12 issues Watchmen script is longer than most books and works without pictures as it took Moore 1 PAGE to describe page 1 panel 1 🤣 . Page 1 has 7 panels as seen here. So uncle Moore may have written 1000+ pages without paragraphs. Poor Dave Gibbons. Moore was likely on drugs, he just had to be. Then came the drawings, the inking, the coloring, etc. Which is how 99% of all comics are constructed. Manga scripts are called a "name". You know what, just read Bakuman..

PS: HBO´s Watchmen show is a tour de force btw. and I love how it triggered racists. Thx Lindelof.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 11:22 pm, Oct 27 2019

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

What's the actual argument that you're trying to make here? I genuinely have to ask because, if I'm reading this right, you might as well classify video games, tv, theatre, and books as all the same media simply because their delivery of the product is broken up into segments and because a character of the media is able to say a word.

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Books were written and distributed before the invention of the printing press, and continued to be produced as standalone items after the invention of the printing press. The serial form was just a fad in certain countries during a certain time period and was based on factors like price and availability, not a belief that it was the ideal way to read a novel. Books published in serial form also may or may not be episodic - Pnin is a good example of a book that was published serially and is episodic, but none of Nabokov's other books are episodic and many were published serially.

As for comparing novels and manga, I think it really depends on the work. Some mangas are very episodic (with the most extreme being something like 4-koma...) but others are more novel-esque with complex and consistently moving plots (something like Monster).

I love Brandon Sanderson. I've read all his Cosmere works. He did change the character of Mat quite a bit in his version though...

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

Voted 500, because usually by then there's a massive quality drop. However, it really depends on the series. Some are still brilliant, some just have less interesting arcs and get better, some should have been closed after max 200 chapters, looking at you, Bleach!
To be honest though, I prefer shorter mangas nowadays, with fewer volumes. It makes it more likely for me to actually read and finish them, if they aren't over ten, twenty volumes...

I usually think of my manga in terms of volumes. So, I decided to average one volume as having 5 chapters.

With that in mind, I selected 100 chapters (about 20 volumes) as being too long for me. I have read longer series, but I will have to strongly consider the title before I'm willing to dive into such a long series.

I have a few reasons for this aversion:
- It's big time and financial commitment to keep up with a long series.
- Some big series are still unfinished and you have no idea when they will end.
- Several English language publishers have dropped a long series before it was finished (or went out of business).
- Several long series that I've read have dropped in quality as the story progressed.


Last edited by ceruleantear at 10:10 pm, Oct 27 2019

Who here is looking forward to reading Brandon Sanderson´s A Dream of Spring (ASOIAF 7) and maybe even a The Winds of Winter finished by him if we get really "lucky". Or how about Brian Herbert´s and Kevin J. Anderson´s expanded ASOIAF universe with more Tales of Dunk and Egg and Fire & Blood 2 (of 2). They have the experience after all. 😀 😕 😐 😢 🤢
Dear HBO: Fire & Blood is only half-finished, why are you adapting it NOW? GoT S05-06 were a mess and S07-08 are mostly unwatchable. Just wait or you will kill your own Golden Goose!

Sanderson ain´t the only one to finish an unfinished genre epic. Dune 7 (of 7) never came as Frank Herbert died at the age of 65. Guess who stayed very far away from all of it but their adaptation of the outline to Dune 1 in the making-off/companion book The Road to Dune.
I would never seriously consider the further works of another person in a closed-off and unfinished series as worthwhile literature if said person wasn´t part of the writing process from very early on. Penny Arcade nailed why. Most expended fiction of fished works as Boruto is mostly the same to me. Some good Star Wars books broke the mold but how many SW books are there again? At least over 1000? It´s a miracle that Blade of the Immortal: Bakumatsu Arc reads like vol. 31.
To think that this only exists to promote the new anime "adaptation". Lol.

Christopher Tolkien´s way of doing it is the best practice. He edited his father´s often unfinished works into a cohesive structure or published them as is, with stories ending in the middle of a sentence but his stance of the films is pretty wild.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 12:02 am, Oct 28 2019

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

I have to correct this or I will lose my mind and my professional credibility My vocational education and university education have to mean something and the idea that a private person could own a book before 1493 or before even the 18th to 19th century is as unlikely as any MU user casually owning a 1kg of Platinum. Or knowing how to read for that matter. No offense to Genji monogatari and the greeks but Don Quixote (1605/1615) is known as "The first modern novel". It clearly traveled the world in a way Genji never will. I silently assume that everyone understands that I mostly talk about novels here when I say books as A. J. Jacobs´ quest to read all 32 vol. of the Encyclopædia Britannica was so worthwhile that he wrote a book about it. It´s a solid read.

The "serial" lasted for easily 400 years, until let´s say the middle of the 20th century. Which ain´t a fad unless you think that the currently popular way of publishing books is a fad as it is maybe half as old. (The process is always changing of course.) The old format never went away too. I don´t even mean the novel releases by let´s say Stephen King that we published in the classic way. Genre (sci-fi/fantasy) anthologies and LN anthologies still exist and web publication/fan fiction lead to arguably way more serialized fiction than at ANY point in history. Look up the publication history of Fifty Shades of Grey. The 150 million copies wouldn't have sold if the then-unknown author didn´t serialize her trashy rape pr0n first. Her 3 books (now 5) outsold all of ASOIAF (yes, she really did), Bond, Discworld, Hunger Games, The Wheel of Time and is about on par with Star Wars. A fad you say? Listen up party people. Any of your internet fan-fics can theoretically sink any of these entries that ain´t the bible. Peddle your smut today. I rest my case/Ted Talk.

No one here is saying that this is the ideal way to read anything, as it´s not mean to be. It´s the cheapest way to publish for a reason. The concept of "writing for the trade" is infamous in the US comics scene and manga anthologies are equally an inferior experience. There are lost manga anthologies or even never re-released manga after all as you are supposed to chug Jump and friends in the trash after your train ride and get the revised/uncensored and most importantly (semi-)properly printed tankoubon of the ones you like. Ah magazine scans, you are the worst.

No one is comparing 4-koma works (100 ch. is already pushing it there) or Dilbert to The Brothers Karamazov (a newspaper serial), Das Kapital or Atlas Shrugged (stay FAR away from Ayn Rand kidZ) for the same reason you wouldn't compare the official Game of Thornes cookbook to Game of Thornes despite both being books. I wonder, how many cook books can a person read per day... 🤣

Last edited by residentgrigo at 3:58 am, Oct 28 2019

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Buddy, HBO made over $2.3 BILLION on subscriptions alone. Imagine how much more was made from marketing and licensing across the globe with the comics, the video games, the radio shows, the toys, the prequels, the sequels, the inbetween-quels...they don't care, and that shouldn't have been more evident than how the series literally ended with the entire cast going, "Democracy, LOL!"





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I never stated/implied that the circulation of books in earlier times was as prolific as it is today. Nor was I talking about novels in particular, I was responding to your comment about 'books'. If you mean novels, say novels, the words aren't interchangeable - it's like saying 'pet' and then being like 'oh, I meant dogs'. My basic point was that books originated and have continued in the standalone form and IMO that shows itself in our idea of what a novel should be, as compared to a manga series that doesn’t know whether it’s going to be cancelled after 10 or 500 chapters and wants to sell volumes regardless of when it’s cancelled. Most manga shows an awareness of serialization, most novels don’t - that structural difference is what I’m trying to get at.

Fanfiction... is a different realm IMO, since it’s piggybacking off the success of an established author or television show or whatever and the intent is probably not to form a cohesive whole but rather to satisfy readers of the original book by introducing or continuing storylines? I’ve read very little of it and can’t say whether any of it has literary merit, certainly Fifty Shades of Grey doesn’t despite its massive sales.

Last edited by hkanz at 11:20 am, Oct 28 2019