I almost count as a “never read 'em”, because while I liked people giving me comic books as a child and I would read them, I never actively sought or asked for them.
I don’t read them nowadays because I don’t have trust that the authors will tell a story that matters. Unlike many here, I like story arcs and do not mind stories told over several issues.
But not when the major characters will be back to normal within a year of the story’s end, and wash rinse repeat as needed. It’s sort of like why I prefer tabletop RPGs to online, because when you can respawn as much as you want, nothing you just did matters at all.
For this reason, I am open to reading graphic novels, but because of Sturgeon’s Law, I have not ran into any of them that appeal to me, and I am not actively seeking them out.
Huh? Uderzo is alive and well. Most Asterix fans, though the comic still sell very well, consider that the post Goscinny Asterix books are shitty. But Uderzo cranks out Asterix regularly. Sadly.
As for Tintin, the Tintin books were done and remade (that is the whole books were redrawn and resold) by his assistants in the end. So, his death in truth had little impact on the Tintin making process.
I didn’t read them very often growing up in the 1960s and neither did most of my friends. Not sure why, probably because my parents grew up in the depression and were very thrifty. I’ve seen some graphic novels and “Heavy Metal” magazine and have been unimpressed. Also most of the movies made recently from comic books…the Chris Reeve “Superman”, the X Men, the “batman” films leave me unimpressed (although first “Spiderman” and “Iron Man” were well done exceptions).
:smack: It was supposed to say “When Uderzo will die”
The post-Goscinny books are not nearly as good, but I’ll give Uderzo a pass on continuing them, seeing as how he was one of the original creators. However, when he dies, I (and his heirs) think they should stop.
What do you mean, little impact? His death had a huge impact, in that no Tintin stories will ever come out again. The Tintin making process is defunct.
Originally Posted by B. Serum View Post
Why don’t YOU read comic books?!
…oh yeah, and the other reason why i quit reading comics, is because they raised the price of a comic. The last comic I bought was 10 cents, and I would never pay more than 10 cents for a comic.
I got priced out of the market at 12 cents a comic.
I read a lot of comic during the Silver Age, both DC and the just before superhero Marvel comics and the very early Marvel hero comics. (If I saved them all I’d be a zillionaire now. ) Also cool stuff like Herbie.
I gave it all up when I hit junior high age, about 1964. Now, they seem just too expensive for what you get (going from 10 cents to 12 cents was bad enough,) and, as has been said, too complicated. The characters now are nothing like the ones I knew as a kid, having been rebooted, killed, resurrected, depowered, repowered, and costume changed a million times. So, just not worth it.
comic books had the same appeal to me as a child as “professional wrestling” has on me as an adult which is none. It’s the over-the-top lack of reality that prevents interest.
This. I liked Superman and Batman* when I was younger, mainly because I could buy a comic book featuring them, and it would contain one or two fully self-contained stories featuring the hero. The action took place in the contemporary world; where cars, technology, clothing, and so forth, were no different from what you’d see everyday.
Now, we have to deal with different “universes” and what’s happening in them and the characters who inhabit each universe (Justice League? Justice Society?); and we have to recall whether (for example) the Metropolis where our story is set is a Metropolis in the future or a Metropolis in a different universe, or a Metropolis in the here-and-now. Couple this with the fact that certain things are introduced that are only familiar if you’ve read Title X from last March, and Title Y from last November, and Title Z from July of 2003; and you’ve lost me.
I do like graphic novels, and I have quite enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and its offshoots Lucifer and Thessaly; and Bill Willingham’s Fables series; and I’d like to see more of the latest installations of Mike Grell’s Jon Sable, Freelance work. But as for following Superman and Batman as I used to do, that’s not going to happen. It’s too difficult.
I was never a Marvel fan, so I cannot comment on its characters.
Well I was clearly saying that his death didnt affect the way the books were produced, since he didnt draw anymore, and the books were given a new look, in his style, by his assistants. He wasnt working on anything new before his death.
It’s a completely different problem from the “Asterix Affair” Uderzo will probably keep on for a long time, and only his death will prevent further ravaging of the Asterix legacy (ok, a bit over the top, but Uderzo really cant write, and the principal strengths of Asterix always were dialogue and plot).
Hey back in those dark days before the internet, those were all I could get! Don’t judge me! clutches his collection of Jim Lee Image Comics swimsuit issues
I don’t read comics because when I was a kid I never new when new ones would come out for some reason I’d end up in a bookstore two weekends in a row and there would be all of the same comics from a week before but then I wouldn’t go back for several months and I wouldn’t know what was happening in the stories any more.
I just bought a book last summer but I haven’t been back to the bookstore I bought it at since and it was probably two months before I went to any book store and the story, even though I enjoyed it, didn’t hold my attention well enough that I wanted to continue it two months later.
I think that’s the big difference between TV serials and comics I go home every night but I only go to the bookstore monthly at best. So even if I forget when a show comes on, like over the summer, I’m home looking to watch something and I have adds to help me remember when it comes on, I have to care enough to make a trip whenever a new episode of the comic comes out and there is nothing telling me when that is.
Used to read them (DC stuff, Superman, Batman, Legion) as a kid in the 60s and 70s. You could get a single comic and read a self contained story. Now it’s a continuous story and the casual reader has been shown the door.
I would probably read comic books if someone had a collection and essentially held my hand as I learned what was what.
Many of the points mentioned in the thread don’t bother me, but I’m not particularly driven to read them and there is a high enough barrier to entry (knowledge, for the most part) that I just don’t bother.
I’m 57. I read comics faithfully when I was a kid. I grew up and found other interests. I’m not so smug as to say they are just for kids. I rediscovered them when the superhero movies came out, but those heroes are based on the silver age comics, the heroes I grew up with. The comics nowadays seem meaner, i.e. the rape of Sue Dibny. I can’t relate to them.
I am an avid comic book reader. I currently own reprints of the original runs of x-men, spiderman, captain america, etc. and also own the originals of flash vol 2, justice league international, and many more.
The last one I bought was ~2006. I purchased the entire run of the Amazing Spiderman on CD, ~300 issues or something.
Imho, what ruined the industry is that the fanboys grew up and became writers. Comics today don’t have the great story arcs, depth of character, or emotional uplift they used to have. Being fans of any art form doesn’t mean you should be doing it. Stories today are immature, childish, and appear to be plotted with a spirograph. That guy who runs marvel now is a real idiot. Nearly everything he does will eventually be retro’d. DC isn’t much better. Nearly all their stories are just crappy versions of Miller’s Dark Knight series. Also, the fanboys who became writers started killing off all the legendary heroes in an effort to be “edgy.” When you kill/bring back hal jordan, barry west, superman, etc every few years, it makes you look stupid and that you don’t know how to plot a story to make it emotionally fulfilling without killing somebody.
In summary, comics today are dumb. Luckily, it’s cheap and easy to get thousands of comics from the golden/silver age today.
Au contraire, Hergé was working on new Tintin book, Tintin et l’Alph-Art, that was unfinished at his death, and remains unfinished.
I think you’re getting mixed up. Astérix is the series that the publishers are thinking of continuing after Uderzo dies, despite the fact that Uderzo’s heirs are opposed to the idea.
Bumping this because I recently gave up on comics after reading/collecting them since roughly 1975.
It’s kinda sad: I love the medium and there’s so much that can be done with it, but holy crap, the publishers did everything they could to push me away.
Pricing scams: DC Comics recently raised it’s price from $3.00 to $4.00 but they added 8 pages of back-up story. Then they dropped it back down from $4.00 to $3.00 but removed 10 pages. So I’m paying as much as I was for 2 pages less? No. And then I did the multiplication–24 issues of, say "Brightest Day"x$3.50 (since they changed price midstream)/issue= $84.00 Assuming I bought new paperbacks from Amazon, I could get 14 paperbacks, give or take. Or go see 8 movies. I can read a comic, assuming I’m really into the art and savoring it, in about 10 minutes. A novel will take me a few hours.
Stories that have no ending. Blackest Night was a multi-part Green Lantern crossover. And after like 40 issues of crossovers, lead-ups, tie-ins, the big conclusion was “To be continued in Brightest Day, our exciting NEW mini-series”. And after 24 issues (plus some crossovers, etc) of that, it turns out all that was just a lead-up to the new Swamp Thing series. Nothing much else happened. But stay tuned for Swamp Thing! They’ll tell you for sure. I don’t mind continuing stories. But I do mind an endless cock-tease with no gratification. Especially when I paid $84.00 for what amounted to a big, drawn out coming attractions for the next series.
Endless trashing of characters (and endless whiney political bullshit) I quit Marvel during the Civil War story-arc. Captain America of all the comic book character ever should know that the way to deal with a bad law is to A) get public opinion on your side and B) go before the courts, find a friendly judge who’ll slap a stay on it and C) get it overturned or tied up in the courts. Captain America of all character should know that you don’t go underground, start committing terrorist acts and you certainly don’t drag teenage kids into your terrorist cells. In the same vein Tony Stark did NOT blow up a schoolyard full of little kids so he could sell more munitions stocks (or whatever Civil War:Frontline said he did). Yeah, yeah, the writers hate Dick Cheney (and, kinda, who doesn’t?) and George Bush. I’m sure they’re very “hep” and “now” and “with it” :rolleyes:. Don’t trash characters to make your sophomoric political points.
Nothing ever changes. The final straw for me with Marvel was Spider-Man selling his marriage to Satan so his dying aunt could gasp out a few more years of life. So all the Spider-Man stories we’ve read since about 1986 are mostly null-and-void. One of the things that makes early Marvel comics (say the first 10 years or so) so very , VERY good was that characters DID grow and change–Peter graduated high school. Mr & Mrs Fantastic got married and had a kid, etc. If the current morons were in charge, Peter would still be 15 years old and having to worry about not getting detention. Good writer/idiot columnist Peter David once set up a strawman that fans always claim that they want change but don’t like it when it happens, case in point, Kyle Rayner. They only want, he said, the illusion of change. And that seems to be both company’s attitude. The problem is that it’s based on a strawman. Most fans* want and like change–they just want well done, organic change. Kid Flash becoming the new Flash was given pretty much universally positive reviews. Robin becoming Nightwing, ditto. Peter Parker telling Aunt May his identity, ditto. Making a character go axe-crazy over an event that took place a year prior (and that he’d spent an interminable 6 months dealing with and getting over)? Not so much.
*The biggest cause was about 1984 or so when DC and Marvel stopped distributing to newsstands. All of a sudden, kids no longer had access to comic books and new readers dropped off quickly. Before that period, everyone remembered Julius Schwartz’s law “Every issue is someone’s first issue”. After that, it wasn’t the case any more so writers stopped trying to make it easy for new readers to hop onto a series. Combine impenetrable backstory with a complete inability for new, young readers to impulse-buy your titles and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Actually, I hated Pete telling May, and liked it better the time they killed her off but before she died she was all “oh, I knew all that, I’m not a fool” or something of that sort. But no, turns out she was just some stupid actress hired by Nathan Osbourne so BAM here’s the real Aunt May, lets have her boning Jarvis TEE HEE.