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I agree with alot of what Enyawd72 and CTC are saying. To Enyawd's point, comics are TRULY no fun anymore. Stories these days are about attacking the very essence of the heroes to make a headline. And as CTC articulated so well, there are not enough "speculators" to sustain the industry based on those ideas. All I know is when I was a kid, every issue was a day in the life of my hero. It was, for lack of a better description, a soap opera in tights. My heroes had to constantly protect their secret identities and fight to stay off their greatest villains, while protecting those they loved. But my heroes always remained looking like they did. Cap always looked like Cap. Spidey looked like Spidey. The Fantastic Four was the Fantastic Four. And the only time you ever saw some strange trip into a different world of twisted concepts was in the "What if" series. These days, most mainstream heroes are put through that cycle every few years. So there's nothing to warm to. There's no one to root for. And the lines between good and evil have been so closely interchanged, it's hard to know who is the good guy anymore. And the comments from those articles I posted only serve to show how detached the industry is from the reader. These are publicly traded companies now. They don't get it. The investors are looking for money making strategies rather than sitting down with good writers and good artists and saying, "We have a heroes life here. Let's treat it with dignity by make it interesting enough that readers want to experience that world in a positive manner." They don't get that. They just treat it like product and so these stories have no soul to them because there is no life behind them.
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I use to get these at the front counter of the grocery store in the early eighties. Some of my earliest comic reading.
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^Yes, and it seems DC abandoned their digest program when they went full-tilt into comic shops.
Yes, yes and YES.I agree with alot of what Enyawd72 and CTC are saying. To Enyawd's point, comics are TRULY no fun anymore. Stories these days are about attacking the very essence of the heroes to make a headline. And as CTC articulated so well, there are not enough "speculators" to sustain the industry based on those ideas. All I know is when I was a kid, every issue was a day in the life of my hero. It was, for lack of a better description, a soap opera in tights. My heroes had to constantly protect their secret identities and fight to stay off their greatest villains, while protecting those they loved. But my heroes always remained looking like they did. Cap always looked like Cap. Spidey looked like Spidey. The Fantastic Four was the Fantastic Four. And the only time you ever saw some strange trip into a different world of twisted concepts was in the "What if" series. These days, most mainstream heroes are put through that cycle every few years. So there's nothing to warm to. There's no one to root for. And the lines between good and evil have been so closely interchanged, it's hard to know who is the good guy anymore. And the comments from those articles I posted only serve to show how detached the industry is from the reader. These are publicly traded companies now. They don't get it. The investors are looking for money making strategies rather than sitting down with good writers and good artists and saying, "We have a heroes life here. Let's treat it with dignity by make it interesting enough that readers want to experience that world in a positive manner." They don't get that. They just treat it like product and so these stories have no soul to them because there is no life behind them.
ChrisComment
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GL Animated is NOT cancelled...but it has gone to bi-monthly status:
ChrisComment
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Bi-monthly might as well be the kiss of death....GL Animated is NOT cancelled...but it has gone to bi-monthly status:
ChrisThink OUTSIDE the Box! For the BEST in Repro & Custom Packaging!Comment
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When I was a kid I was able to buy comics from grocery stores, newstands, drug stores, toy stores, 5 & 10 stores....standard sized, tabloids, digests* etc.... where does a kid today come across a comic book in his everyday general travels?
(*a LOT of my DC Digests came from K-Mart back in the day...)Think OUTSIDE the Box! For the BEST in Repro & Custom Packaging!Comment
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Outside of comic book stores,the only other place I see comics is in bookstores.Comment
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For a little while there I did see Target selling a few select titles; havent seen any lately though.
Kroger usually sells Green Latern and Iron man. Usually hidden behind teen mags.Comment
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I see comics at the grocery stores around here. Usually with the magazines. They're a few months behind the comic store but at least they have them. My first 2 comics came from a grocery store when I was 4 years old. Batman (Detective) and Amazing Spider-man.Comment
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>comics just aren't FUN anymore like they used to be.
Fun for US; kids have their own ideas of what comics are fun. The problem is reconciling these points.
>Give us forty-somethings great stuff like what we grew up with, and we'll buy it, AND I'm willing to bet today's young kids would fall in love with comics the same way we did.
Maybe.... but think back to the days of your youth. Did you get excited for the 60's X-Men, or the “all new, all different,” Wolverine infused ones? (At least at first.) How many of us lamenting that “comics is all serious and not fun any more” were the fans who lost fluids HUGE over “The Dark Knight Returns?” Wanting kids to love the exact same stuff you do is selfish. Let them find their own stuff. Which is of course what they DID; but since it’s not what we like we tend to not see it. Hence so many “comics is dead!!!” articles from the Big Two and a Half; even though COMICS HAVE BEEN DOING BETTER THAN THEY HAVE FOR A LONG TIME! It’s just Marvel, DC and sometimes Image that aren’t.
SOMEBODY’S buying all them “Prince of Tennis” comics.... An industry with enough of a niche to support 42 volumes (approximately 9000 PAGES!) of the story of a guy playing tennis isn’t doing poorly.
>I imagine most comic professionals have the attitude of "why bother"? Being a comics professional has in most cases never been a lucative business anyways. (Not everyone is fast and has Byrnes page rate.)
Well.... that USED to be true, until the 90's That’s part of the problem right there; higher page rates are good for artists, bad for the company. Plus, you had a LOT of folks see the Image guys make money hand over fist and decide “I could do that!” (I know one guy in particular who does “mainstream” comics... his mom and my mom were friends.... and he got into comics “‘cos it beats getting a real job.”) It’s the same attitude that saw a lot of indies suddenly go superhero.
>I still think titles like Superman Family Adventures would do better in grocery stores (if its sold in any of them, ive definately overlooked it).
I think so too; it worked for Shonen Jump.... but I think there’d be a dely before the benefits rolled in; and the Big Two-ish don’t have time or resources to wait. (That’s not a shot; it’s a hazard of being a big company.) You’d have to give time for the CURRENT current crop of potential readers to find them. The Big Two-ish don’t want that; they want the rabid, “buy five copies!!!” fans of the 80's. And they want them back without doing any of the work. I think one of the reasons Shonen Jump took off was ‘cos it just showed up. Little fanfare, folks were allowed to make up their own mind.
....and as evidence that what you guys have been saying is correct; they started with mostly younger reader action stuff and branched out into all sorts of different genres and age appropriate stuff; growing and developing WITH their audience. The Big Two USED to do that; 50's stuff kinda kiddie, 60's stuff a little older, 70's stuff STARTED more mature but quickly went kiddie. Then the mid 80's happened.... and never stopped. You can see how there’s a development, a break and a recycling in the pattern, pertinent to age. It stopped in the 80's ‘cos the nature of the fan changed; mostly ‘cos of the speculators, partly ‘cos the “comics is all growed up!” image became so ingrained. The import stuff won ‘cos they jump started the cycle. The Big Two-ish COULD do the same, but they’d have to distance themselves from themselves first. Which is SORT OF what the reboots are, except they don’t actually change anything afterwards.
>I never have understood how Archie can still have a space at grocery stores, but Superman and Spider-Man do not.
EVERY kid has a grandma....
>Non-comic reading children have no idea who Archie is.
Oh, I disagree. Archie lucks out ‘cos he exists in a weird, nebulous place of his own. He’s always there on the periphery; never in the spotlight. So the audience can consume at their leisure, without the “ALL NEW! ALL DIFFERENT! ART BY JOE PRO! LIMITED SERIES! EVERYTHING CHANGES!!!! BLOG ABOUT IT FOR MONTHS!!!!” hype that plagues the superheroes. No over-analysis, no artificial sense of urgency, no whiney fans littering the internets; just reading. When you want. IF you want. Hell; I still pick up the odd one every few months....
>EVERYONE knows Superman and Spider-Man. An all ages DC and/or Marvel digest is a no-brainer.
Kinda. It still amazes me that the movie and tv success doesn’t translate to the comics; but again, I suspect that’s ‘cos of the image comic fans have here: of a weird, closed cult obsessed with the minutia of their comics. One reason the import and indie stuff took off the last decade or so is ‘cos it wasn’t SEEN as comics; it was it’s own thing. No preconceptions for new readers. In essence the opposite side of the “No! Comics IS Marvel and DC!!!” attitude that the oldster fans have.
Same sort of thing Archie’s been living off for 70+ years.
>All I know is when I was a kid, every issue was a day in the life of my hero.
I think this is where it all gets tricky for us oldsters. The superheroes aren’t THAT different nowadays from the 80's, but they FEEL different to us and we ascribe that to the books. I suspect the real problem is that we don’t get the same kick because we’ve seen it all before. We’re also WAY too aware of the process; of who makes the editorial decisions, of who the artist is, of what other books the writer’s worked on.... It breaks the illusion.
>They just treat it like product and so these stories have no soul to them because there is no life
Like that. Characters as corporate commodity isn’t new. Back in the day it didn’t bother us ‘cos we didn’t know. (It wasn’t by accident that EVERY WRITER IN THE 80'S decided ninjas were cool....) Well.... it bothered me; but that’s ‘cos my comic fan reading background STARTS with the indies, undergrounds, and imports of the 70's. All of this stuff that bothers the older fans now bothered me as a kid, which is why I wasn’t a fan of the supers.
Don C.Comment
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To say things like all new comics are crap or comics are not fun anymore makes me crazy. It really does. Then when I go on to read how the people saying these things don't actually READ the comics makes me crazier because how on Earth would you know if it's crap IF you haven't actually taken the time to read them. Also...maybe you're reading the wrong comics. Comic books have never been so diverse. Maybe the heroes of your youth are no longer living up to your expectations but I can promise you there is something out there that will. People can make comics so easily now. From home, on a computer, in a basement, whatever. There are so many to choose from. Most of my favorites are no longer from the big 2. Check out Saga. It's amazing. Art and story. It's not for kids but I'm not a kid anymore so I don't care. It's awesome. So is Danger Club. Invincible might be up somebodies alley. IDW has been doing some amazing things with GIJOE and Transformers and even Ghostbusters! I don't read any Marvel anymore. I will in April when they launch their all female X book. That has my interest. Plus...Storm with a mohawk again!
With DC, there are so many good titles but people wont read them because of some narrow minded POV that says that all New 52 must suck and its raping our childhoods. Wonder Woman is amazing month to month. Aquaman has NEVER been cooler. The Flash drawn by Francis Manipul is second to none. Batman Beyond Unlimited gives you 3 or 4 stories in one comic book every month. There is a new Legends of the Dark Knight that takes place in the Classic DC Universe. It's random stories that are contained to one issue. Very creative. Very awesome.
Look a little harder before completely writing off an entire story telling medium. Or quit. If you really hate it all, quit. Nobody is forcing anybody to read this stuff. Reward the quality stories and art with your hard earned money. Don't willy nilly give it up to just anything because that is what you used to buy.Comment
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@Boynightwing...sorry for making you crazy, BUT
If I see a pile of dog vomit on the sidewalk, I don't have to actually EAT it to know it's gonna be nasty.
I've looked desperately to find something that appeals to what I'm looking for...FUN comics that recapture the excitement of what I used to read in the late 70's early 80's. Sorry if that offends you, but that's what I want. For crying out loud, we're on a website DEDICATED to 1970's style toys...why is the retro figure movement taking off? Because that's what we WANT. A reminder of SIMPLER times, and the FUN and innocence that go with it. Captain Actions are FLYING off the TRU shelves because they harken back to the same era...CLASSIC superheroes are CLASSIC for a reason. What's good is good, and that will never change. Look up the new Marvel Universe figures on Ebay. Nobody wants the modern versions of characters, but a classic Vision is selling for $200!
I gave the "New 52" a chance with Swamp Thing. I bought the book for six months straight, and Swamp Thing never even made a single appearance in his own book! It was total garbage and I dumped it.
I'm not interested in Saga, or Danger Club. I want good, READABLE Spider-Man. READABLE Hulk. READABLE Cap. I want my classic superheroes. Marvel still gets my $25-30 a month for their Marvel Masterworks TPB's.
That's about the only thing they print worth reading these days. The rest, as far as I'm concerned, might as well be multicolored toilet paper.
However, I'm certainly open to suggestions...maybe I'll give some of those DC titles you mentioned a try.Last edited by enyawd72; Jan 16, '13, 1:27 PM.Comment
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>maybe you're reading the wrong comics.
>FUN comics that recapture the excitement of what I used to read
One of my new guilty pleasures:
Remember: it reads right to left. You'll get used to it.
Don C.Last edited by ctc; Jan 16, '13, 1:38 PM.Comment
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I appreciate you trying CTC...I just looked it up. Not for me...I can't get past the art. I HATE that manga style.>maybe you're reading the wrong comics.
>FUN comics that recapture the excitement of what I used to read
One of my new guilty pleasures:
Remember: it reads right to left. You'll get used to it.
Don C.Comment
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I agree about the IDW stuff. They have been a good company since the get go. I'm really wanting to get ahold of the new Masters of the Universe series from DC (yea i know I'm behind) . I still like some of Dark Horse's offerings to.
Your right though I havent been reading most of the current offerings at Marvel and DC. Its really a matter of personal taste over what is good or bad. I've tried many of them when they restarted (once again) and I'm not feeling it. It's nothing new though, I've been feeling this way since the '90s and definately since Heroes Reborn.
I'm just sorry that kids who enjoy things like Superman Family Adventures are going to be missing out on a quality childrens comic. Hope theres a good replacement.
I still enjoy superheroes but most of my reading is stories that around thirty or fourty years old.Last edited by Figuremod73; Jan 16, '13, 3:02 PM.Comment
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