>---Ryo <g.tabbita@agora.stm.it> wrote:
>[SNIP]
>> The key question is : do you prefer your favourate manga to last forever
>> even though the plot is obviously going downhill or you'd rather have a
>> little, but perfect, masterpiece?
>
>Interestingly, I have (thus far) seen only one western comic thst has had an
>definitive 'ending' due to the artist's decision, NOT because of faltering
>sales : The Sandman (a great piece, BTW)

Mmm. Normally in American comics, when a writer/artist/whatever decides to
leave/is fired/whatever, the comic's publishers get someone else in to
replace them. It wouldn't even occur to them to end the comic, because
western comics are never normally made with the idea of having an ending.
Plenty stop being made, but only because low sales forced the title into
cancelation, and along with the fact that the majority of western comics
suck just quite a lot, and are *always* going down hill, you get an
industry which is constantly dissapointing its readers in all ways.

"Sandman" was something different altogether. First of all, Neil Gaiman is
English (*joke* :) but mainly because it was always going to be long but
finite. Neil knew where it was going from square one. And unlike most
western comics, where readers are always trying to have only original
issues, no trade paperbacks, Sandman, being more of a series of books than
a comic series, is *so* much better as a row of volumes sitting on one's
bookshelf.

Bu the main reason it differs (and the reason I initially started this now
rather long-winded reply :) is what happenned when he finished it. As I've
said above, in a normal western comic, had the writer said after 75 issues,
"The story is finished" the publishers would've gone strait out and got
another writer to continue. In this circumstance, they instead said things
along the lines of "Yes, oh Neil, thy word is law" and didn't even try to
keep it going.

Sam