I read comics, but I’m cutting way back.
The economy is part.
But comics are so busy being soap operas that they forget to be fun.
Agreed. Many artists today, while able to draw more “realistically,” seem to have lost the ability to draw action scenes in a way that the reader can follow them easily. There’s too much attention to detail and not enough to coherence. Sure, I appreciate the effort to draw and color scenes in a more true-to-life fashion, but sometimes simplicity works better. Call it the Michael Bay-ifying of comics if you will. Ugh.
Also, for all their complexity, the crossover events of today seem awfully rushed. Crisis on Infinite Earths was a great story that had room to breath over its twelve issues (and it wasn’t necessary to read the various and not-too-numerous crossovers). Today you’ll get the same kind of far-reaching story told in five issues with way too many superfluous tie-ins.
I’m also on a tight budget so jumping into modern comics (I was a big reader back in the day but quit in the late eighties) is very hard to do. For instance I love zombies and wanted to get into Blackest Night, but Jesus Christ, trying to wade through the excess of it is mind-numbing - there are so many trade paperback collections dealing with that storyline that I said screw it.
And talk about your Dark Knighting - I used to enjoy reading the tpb collections of the Ultimate versions of Spider-man, Avengers and X-Men - good stuff. Kinda lost track of them when I got married. Decided to revisit them after the divorce and did some research on the Ultimatum arc. Are they fucking serious? What a turn-off. :rolleyes:
That’s it. And it’s about four miles from my house, in a direction that I never travel.
I agree that I don’t care much for much of the current superhero art (it’s just third rate Neal Adams) and glossy pages, but that isn’t a reason for me not to buy a comic.
Exactly. I want to know where the characters are relative to each other, what they’re doing, and what expressions they have on their faces. My imagnation can fill in the rest.
wow. makes me wonder how many times i’ve been pitted without me even knowing.
::checking::
no matches for pancakes3 in thread titles.
for now…
as for comics? when i was a kid, there were a million other things that i did in my free time: sports, video games, television, violin, boy choir, homework, church, chasing people around with boogers on my fingers outstretched, etc. that my parents didn’t feel the need to pay for comic books as well. having cheap parents is also the reason i didn’t get into magic: the gathering, baseball/basketball cards, or warhammer.
People can entertain themselves however they want. But I find some of the responses I’m seeing here amusing.
I don’t like comic books because the stories are spread out over months: You mean like Battlestar Galactica or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Lost or The West Wing or The X-Files? All of which were shows that had devoted fanbases on this board - in part because of the depth that long storylines allowed.
I don’t read comic books because some of them are really stupid: There’s no denying that some comic books are really stupid. But this argument is the equivalent of saying “I didn’t watch Black Swan or The Social Contract or True Grit because watching Clash of the Titans convinced me movies are worthless.”
I don’t like comic books because I rather use my imagination: No doubt you prefer radio dramas over televison for the same reason.
Comic books are pandering because the women have big breasts: And TV and movies don’t pander by casting attractive women? Or music for that matter.
I used to read them back in the olden days - I was a FIEND for X-Men and the Fantastic Four, all of Marvel comics (didn’t care for Superman or Batman). I was the only girl I’d ever heard of who was in the Merry Marvel Marching Society! I thought the artwork for Conan the Barbarian was just gorgeous in the early days. But then I got into other things, I guess. Music, sports, dating. The funny thing is, my mom actually did toss out my comic book collection… A year or two ago we were walking through Target and I pointed out to her the t-shirts with Spiderman and Iron Man and such, and said “if you hadn’t thrown away my comics 30 some years ago, we could have cashed them in and taken a trip to Florida now”.
it looks like i’m one of the FEW people that actually flat out didn’t read comics. most everyone else here is a “stopped reading”-er.
This crossed my mind as well, but TV shows are free (well, you’re paying for the TV itself and service) and you don’t have to put any effort into getting them. You just have to be at home or at least near a TV at the right time, and these days you can often catch up online for free if you missed an episode.
If following Lost, etc., had required people to faithfully go out to the TV show store once a week and purchase the latest episode then I don’t think many people would have bothered.
From Wikipedia:
Bibliography for Blackest Night:
Prelude to Blackest Night Green Lantern (vol. 4) #39–42 (May–July 2009)
Green Lantern Corps (vol. 2) #33–38 (April–August 2009)
Titans #15 (July 2009)
Solomon Grundy #7 (November 2009)
Blackest NightBlackest Night #0-8 (June 2009)
Green Lantern vol. 4, #43–52 (September 2009 – March 2010)
Green Lantern Corps vol. 2, #38–47 (September 2009 – March 2010)
Blackest Night: Tales Of the Corps #1–3 (September 2009)
Blackest Night: Batman #1–3 (October–December 2009)
Blackest Night: Superman #1–3 (October–December 2009)
Blackest Night: Titans #1–3 (October–December 2009)
Adventure Comics vol. 2, #4–5, 7 (January–February 2010)
Booster Gold vol. 2, #26–27 (January–February 2010)
The Doom Patrol vol. 5, #4–5 (January–February 2010)
Justice League of America vol. 2, #39–40 (January–February 2010)
The Outsiders vol. 4, #24–25 (January–February 2010)
R.E.B.E.L.S. vol. 2 #10–11 (January–February 2010)
Superman/Batman #66–67 (January–February 2010)
Teen Titans vol. 3, #77–78 (January–February 2010)
Blackest Night: Flash #1–3 (February–April 2010)
Blackest Night: JSA #1–3 (February–April 2010)
Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1–3 (February–April 2010)
The Atom & Hawkman #46
Catwoman #83 (Vol.3)
Phantom Stranger #42 (Vol.2)
Power of Shazam! #48 (Vol.2)
The Question #37 (Vol.1)
Secret Six Vol.3 #17-18
Starman #81 (Vol.2)
Suicide Squad #67 (Vol.1)
Weird Western Tales #71 (Vol.1)
Green Arrow/Black Canary #30
“Blackest Night” Director’s Cut, a special that features a “creator commentary” on the entire series along with “deleted scenes” and sketches.
Untold Tales of Blackest Night, a special containing extra scenes from the main story.
The series is being collected into a number of volumes:
Blackest Night (collects Blackest Night #0–8, 304 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401226930)
Blackest Night: Green Lantern (collects Green Lantern vol. 4 #43–52, 272 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401227864)
Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps (collects Green Lantern Corps vol. 2 #39–47, 264 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401227880)
Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps (collects Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1–3, “Green Lantern” #49 and “Adventures Comics” #4-5, 172 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401227902)
Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps:
Volume 1 (collects Blackest Night: Batman #1–3, Blackest Night: Superman #1–3 and Blackest Night: Titans #1–3, 240 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401227848)
Volume 2 (collects Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1–3, Blackest Night: JSA #1–3 and Blackest Night: Flash #1–3, 240 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401227856)
Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns (collects Power of Shazam! #48, Catwoman #83, Question #37, Phantom Stranger #42, Weird Western Tales #71, Atom & Hawkman #46, Adventures Comics #7, Green Arrow #30 and Starman #81, 208 pages, hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 1401227899)
:eek:
And that is typical. And doesn’t include the sequel Brightest Day!
My hobby as a kid was baseball cards so I probably didn’t have money for comics.
I don’t enjoy scifi or fantasy so would I enjoy comics?
My dad did buy me “Betty and Veronica” for a while. I was never crazy about it, just something to read.
I did pick up “The Maxx”, “Milk & Cheese” and “Johnny the Homicidal Maniac” when I was a teen, trying to be cool. But while I appreciated the stories and art, I was never “in” to them.
Actually, I do prefer radio dramas over TV, for the most part. However, radio dramas are not readily available over the air any more.
My main objection to how women are portrayed in comics and on TV is that women are usually (not always, but usually) not portrayed as people who have interests and activities separate from the main male character. That is, female characters tend to only be included to react to and with the male characters. They don’t have any interests of their own. Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test – The Hathor Legacy Again, this isn’t how ALL female characters are depicted…but for the most part, the lead character is male. His best friend is male. If there’s a female in the group, she’s the girlfriend or love interest of one of the male characters.
Former avid comics reader, both European and American.
I heard Len Wein say the Golden Age of comics was 12.
As in 12 years old.
I read American SH comics a lot from ten to twelve. That was back in towards the mid and end eighties. And the trend that would be Image’s trademark was already starting to appear everywhere in Marvel comics. More and more garish art, then the coming of the likes of Mc Farlane or Jim Lee, with drawings overcluttered with traits. Arthur Adams had kind of started the thing, but he always managed to have a dreamy quality in his drawings. The nineties generation got lost in a quest for detail, that emptied every story of its substance or of any sort of evocative power. 90 pouches on a bandolier doesnt tell me more about a character.
So my beautiful toy was broken. Where there once was stories written by adults for kids, but that could in fact being read by all, there now was masturbatory stories with all the trappings of teenage navel gazing instead of a kid’s sense of wonder.
It’s a shame, cuz I can still read the comics made before those days and really enjoy the ride, I just cant read the crap that was delivered in the nineties. A great craft was lost. Well, I just ambled back to European comics, and the nineties were truly a golden age for European comics.
I still watch the DC cartoons, when I can, because I never read DC, and those shows are good at getting you acquainted with the universe while being entertaining. Something long gone in actual comic books. If I saw that kind of spirit again as a major trend, maybe I’d get back in.
Still read some few selected series pointed out by critics like Powers or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But those comics tend to feel more like their European counterparts than the ole’ US comics of yesterday.
*OP checking back in
*
I’ve been pretty silent in the thread despite following it intensely and wanted to thank everyone for sharing their viewpoint. Occasionally some misperceptions crop up, but even a misperception is helpful to illustrate some prevailing attitudes about comics.
Anyway, thanks for everything so far and keep 'em coming!
When I was a kid, I wasn’t interested in superheroes at all, and for the most part I wasn’t interested in action/adventure comics. The one exception was Tintin. I still have a collection of all the Tintin books in the original French.
The comics I did like were the humor ones, mainly Archie and Mad Magazine. Those I bought and read a lot of. But they really aren’t meant for adults.
I used to read comic books. I also used to have to move those huge white boxes full o’ comics every time I moved. Occasionally I’d go back and reread them- but mostly, they just stayed in my closet. Eventually I got tired of the wasted space and sold 'em off.
And now, of course, they’re pretty damn expensive. $2-4 dollars per issue, when I can easily read an entire issue within thirty minutes? That’s too much.
Marvel offers a monthly subscription service to read their funny books online. I’d do this, except I don’t want to read comic books on my computer. They also have an iPhone/iPad reader app, which is really good- except you can’t get the subscription on that app, you have to buy each individual issue… for about the same amount as buying the actual comic book.
If Marvel offered a monthly subscription on the iPhone app, I’d snap that up in a heartbeat.
I’ve never read comics regularly. I’m sure that I have, at one time or another, read a comic book. I know it wasn’t anything I normally did at any age.
They’ve never appeared to be a good story-telling or information-delivering medium. Even as a youngin’ I would prefer to read a non-fiction book or a novel. Nowadays, there are plenty of TV shows and movies I could watch instead of reading anything.
BIFF! POW! BANG!
I read comic books casually as a kid in the late 70s before I had a computer. Once I got my first computer in the early 80s, I got into programming and lost interest in comics.
I think buying individual paper comics is a little old fashioned in the era of downloads. There are so many other more immediate web-based entertainment options.
I recently bought two collections of the original Batman comics. There are crude from an art and story perspective but each issue was a self-contained story.
I followed Lost, until about S2 then I gave up on it because it drove me nuts for the same reason. Most TV that I watch is a self-contained story in each episode, which tends to have an over arching story/plot but each episode is complete and has a satisfying ending. I might watch it again, now that I can sit down and watch as much as I want/can at once instead of having to wait week after week.
The same reason for waiting for a graphic novel to come out, I can read them all at once if I have the time.
I read tons of comics. Just not NEW comics. Why don’t I read new comics? Pete Bagge quit writing/drawing HATE, the Hernandez Brothers only come out with Love & Rockets once a year, Dan Clowes is making stand alone books, ditto Chris Ware. Jim Woodring is inking with a giant pen in auditoriums and museums. Who knows WHAT Mark Martin is up to. Aline Crumb let WEIRDO drop like a hot potato and Robert is illustrating the Bible now. S. Clay Wilson had a dreadful head injury. Gilbert Shelton is somewhere in France doing comics in French. What’s Mary Fleener up to? Wayno is writing a daily strip. Sam “Magic Whistle” Henderson is blogging and Facebooking. What happened to Spain? Art Spiegelman is busy lecturing. Matt Groening is a zillionaire. Lynda Barry is writing books and lecturing. Danny Hellman is illustrating books. Seth makes stand alone books. Chester Brown is… did he finish LOUIS RIEL? Joe Matt is probably abusing himself at the moment.
So yeah, when I go in to a comic shop these days, and that’s BIZARRO WUXTRY in Athens GA when I’m in the States and THE BEGUILING when I’m in Toronto, usually I walk out with Harvey comics or the latest volume of BLACK JACK by Osamu Tezuka. Or issues of “Tippy Teen” if they have any.
The best new comics right now are by KATE BEATON and LISA HANAWALT. You heard it here first.