TacticalNuke002 said:
What is the secret behind the relative better success of manga as compared to the recent state of western comics?
Many older readers like myself stopped reading their stuff because they were disrespecting us quite a bit, and not caring about our opinions. It's been a dying industry since at least the 80s, and Marvel specifically started to take the piss around the early 2000s, with only a few gems coming out of that company since then (many people point at Secret Invasion as the starting point of their current downfall). DC and other comic book companies unfortunately followed Marvel in some respects, and have lost the charm and great story telling they once had in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, and most importantly, their identity as comic books or superhero comics.
This is when manga and anime got their huge boost in popularity, and they understood their identities quite well, with many still going strong to this day... Of course since the Silver Age the comic industry was doing quite well until a certain point, so I'd say it's just a matter of time before something new takes over the more popular thing right now. It's what always happens, nothing reigns forever. And actually, manga's popularity/selling charts in current years are very comparable to comics back in the 50s and onwards.