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Post by tingramretro on Oct 18, 2021 16:27:33 GMT -5
That does make sense to a point. Being a baseball card collector at one time, collectible comic cards and the animated shows from the 90's were what eventually peaked my interest to start buying actual comic books. But I can see them (comics and baseball/comic cards) being more relatable to each other than printed periodicals and movies. So no, it's not a real surprise that the MCU movies are the cash cow of Marvel right not, at least, as long as they hold their popularity. Yeah, there was also a certain amount of overlap due to the collector mindset in general between baseball cards and comic cards/books. You wouldn't have to go completely out of your way to find comics or their cards, and even if you did go to a specialty shop, the same one often sold comics andbaseball cards. But even at the supermarket or casual retail chain of your choice, you could get baseball cards and comics at a lot of the same regular stores. I read many a comic on the shelf at the grocery store waiting for my parents as a kid. I also started shopping at the specialty shops after I got serious about the hobby. If they were still that price, the publishers would have gone bankrupt decades ago. You are absolutely right, and that is part of the problem. As the comics buying audience continues to shrink, the prices go up, driving more people away, so they have to raise the prices, etc. I don't disagree with the current economic reality of comics, it is what it is. Unfortunately, what it is is too damn expensive for me. It's not just about falling readership, it's also about rising overheads. There's no point in selling half a million copies of a comic if the price is so low that you lose money on every unit sold because it costs too much to produce and distribute them.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 18, 2021 16:24:47 GMT -5
If publishers had to rely on revenue from sales of comic books alone at any price, they would have gone bankrupt decades ago. -M I've said it before here and will say it again. I doubt it will happen, but now that they are backed by this enormous companies with deep pockets, I would love to see Disney or WB subsidize the cost of comics just to use them as a marketing piece and IP/story idea farm. Instead of treating comics publishing as its own business that needs to be profit, what woul the numbers look like if it's part of Disney's promotion budget? It might be a totally nonstarter, but getting some grocery store specials on the shelf might work. Then again, the retail spice might be too expensive to give up by a store. It almost certainly would. That's why the direct market took over in the first place, because the other outlets no longer wanted comics.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 18, 2021 15:57:08 GMT -5
*That's not the only reason I dropped, but if they were still a quarter to a dollar I'd have likely kept procrastinating about cancelling them. At four bucks a pop, though? Nah. If they were still that price, the publishers would have gone bankrupt decades ago.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 17, 2021 19:01:37 GMT -5
I just do not and never will understand that. It's like saying you're a Star Wars fan but you've never watched a Star Wars movie and don't want to. Sure, you might read the comics and watch the animated series' or The Mandalorian, but the fact is, at its heart, Star Wars is a movie series. And Spider-Man and Captain America are comic characters. ...but comic character adaptations operate in a medium that (more often than not) never tells audiences that its important or necessary to read the source. Comic adaptations have (almost always) been promoted as somehow "better" than the source (reality over "funny book scribbling"), or a more "complete" experience (not requiring decades of reading endless titles just to get the references), which means all you need to know would be found on the screen, hence the disinterest some have in reading comics. Which is ridiculous. It's suggesting that comics are an inferior storytelling medium, which they aren't. If anything, comics are the greatest storytelling medium, the ultimate fusion of words and pictures. It infuriates me that the people who own the IP aren't championing that. The movies and TV shows are often great,but they aren't the source material anymore than the Star Wars comics are the movies. They're just a spinoff. And people need to be made aware of this. I'm sorry if that sounds like gatekeeping, but to me it's the way things are. Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who are primarily movies or TV shows. Captain America and the X-Men are primarily comics characters. That's just how it is. If you have no interest in the comics, you're not a Marvel or DC fan, any more than you're a Star Wars fan if you've never seen Star Wars. There's no difference. And I consider those defending so-called Marvel fans who don't read comics to be traitors to the world of comics. I don't care if it's not politically correct, someone who has spent decades reading comics and someone who's seen half a dozen two hour movie adaptations are not equal in their fandom. Not to me.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 17, 2021 16:41:48 GMT -5
I have a friend and his mom that are big fans of the Marvel movies. Neither have ever read a comic book or any interest for reading a comic book. They love to pump me for information on the upcoming movies and characters and once they watch one will spend hours having me explain all of the history and details and differences. But they will NOT read a comic book. They are still fans of the characters but NOT of comics. I tell them quite often they could never enjoy the Marvel movies today if it wasn't for us kids and fans buying the comics in the past and present. But they are fans by support in the see the movies, buy the DVD's, buy T-Shirts and other side products. I encourage them and understand I adore comics and they don't but it doesn't make their fandom any less true than mine. I just do not and never will understand that. It's like saying you're a Star Wars fan but you've never watched a Star Wars movie and don't want to. Sure, you might read the comics and watch the animated series' or The Mandalorian, but the fact is, at its heart, Star Wars is a movie series. And Spider-Man and Captain America are comic characters.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 17, 2021 16:22:16 GMT -5
I've been re-reading Neal Adam's Deadman run in Strange Adventures. The most notable things about it to me are the panel layout and the way Adams uses all sorts of different angles and close-ups that were revolutionary at the time. There's a lot of psychedelic lettering as well. My question is did anyone read the Neal Adams mini series a few years ago that was supposed to conclude the series? It was absolutely terrible. It completely ignored every development in Deadman's saga since the original Adams run ended, and basically picked up the story as though it was 1970. It also made absolutely no sense in itself, with characters randomly appearing out of nowhere with no explanation. Adams cannot write.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 17, 2021 16:18:56 GMT -5
Is it true that the Gwen Stacy- Norman Osborn fling has been retconned away? It has. It was all part of a convoluted revenge plot orchestrated by the late Harry Osborn and Mephisto.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 15, 2021 18:08:30 GMT -5
It wasn't sloppy. To me, their connection makes it more interesting. And Betty and She-Hulk's stories are currently unfolding in other books, Defenders and Avengers respectively. And Walter is Sasquatch, not Wendigo. To each their own, when everything becomes too interconnected it just feels flat and overly-contrived to me. To me, that interconnectedness is exactly what made me a Marvel fan in the first place and has kept me invested for decades. It's what I love about Marvel. And why I've kept coming back to DC for over forty years, too. I love complex continuity.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 15, 2021 17:46:04 GMT -5
I disagree. I thought it was a great end to a fantastic series. It wasn't what I expected, but it wrapped everything up nicely and the scenes with the ancestors of Banner and Sterns made sense of a lot. My only complaint is that the Doc Samson/Walter Langowski subplot wasn't resolved. The Leader and the Hulk being long lost cousins umpteen times removed just seemed utterly pointless to me...and ultimately it contributed nothing as neither one knows it as the reader is the only one privy to those scenes. And that they were fated to be monsters rather than being accidents makes it a whole lot less interesting and removes much of the pathos around how they became who they were. And it wasn't just the Sampson/ Wendigo plot that got lost but Betty and She-Hulk didn't get endings either. It was just sloppy all around. It wasn't sloppy. To me, their connection makes it more interesting. And Betty and She-Hulk's stories are currently unfolding in other books, Defenders and Avengers respectively. And Walter is Sasquatch, not Wendigo.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 15, 2021 16:54:54 GMT -5
The Immortal Hulk #50. The 80 page conclusion of the 50 issue run by Al Ewing & Joe Bennett. And Ewing doesn't wrap up his classic run in a satisfying fashion IMO. What I Liked: The scenes from over 100 years ago tying the Banner & Stern families fates together. The portrayal of the Hulk's different personalities. Bennett's art work. What I Didn't Like: It felt anticlimactic and ambiguous. I'm still not sure what exactly happened in certain scenes. We didn't get the big payoff I felt this series deserved. Still overall I liked the series. I disagree. I thought it was a great end to a fantastic series. It wasn't what I expected, but it wrapped everything up nicely and the scenes with the ancestors of Banner and Sterns made sense of a lot. My only complaint is that the Doc Samson/Walter Langowski subplot wasn't resolved.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 15, 2021 16:44:02 GMT -5
Just picked up this week's new releases, including Immortal Hulk 50, a staggering conclusion to a really epic four year run (well, slightly more than four years, but really that was the fault of the pandemic). I genuinely think this is the best series Marvel have put out in years, and the best Hulk series since Peter David left the book. Really well written horror, and some great character stuff.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 15, 2021 16:09:30 GMT -5
But Tony Stark's origin has been updated in the comics over the years to fit Marvel's sliding timescale. So by about ten years ago, he was injured in Afghanistan. Funny enough... some of my favorite SHERLOCK HOLMES movies are the ones that take place during World War Two.
But that's a whole different thing, as, every time they recast the actors, you slip into a DIFFERENT continuity! (Same with TARZAN.)
Much as I love Conan Doyle's original stories, and the classic TV version with Jeremy Brett, my favourite screen version of Holmes is Benedict Cumberbatch in Steven Moffat's "Sherlock", which of course is set in the present day.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 15, 2021 10:07:42 GMT -5
I don't begrudge anyone for liking what they like but it does annoy me when they want to tell me a characters origin and totally blow me of when I try educate them on the characters original origin. Well, we must allow for the protean nature of these characters' history. It might well be that our old-timer view of who Brainiac 5 "really" is doesn't click with modern fans of the character who discovered him on TV. We may feel that the origin we were privy to (the original one!) should take precedence, but since these characters keep being reinvented, it could be that only a historically-minded new fan would care. If said fan is in a mood to argue, they might even say that it makes no sense for Tony Stark to have been injured in Vietnam, since he'd be pushing 80 by now... and although I know that the real Tony Stark (insofar as there is such a thing!) was not hurt in Afghanistan as he was in the movies, I could hardly disagree that the comics' timeline makes little sense after so many decades. As you say, I don't begrudge people for liking what they like, and I understand that the version of a character they discovered first will always be the "real" one to them. (I know people who prefer the Star Wars prequels to the original trilogy! Go figure). But Tony Stark's origin has been updated in the comics over the years to fit Marvel's sliding timescale. So by about ten years ago, he was injured in Afghanistan.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 14, 2021 17:24:02 GMT -5
Anyone else tired of people explaining the MARVEL and DC HISTORY to them when all they’ve ever seen are the movies and tv series? Sorry for sounding so stuck up but I just had to vent. My sister finished Gotham and was raving about it. I explained the comic Victor Zsasz to her and she was Not even remotely interested. It is deeply annoying. There's a whole generation out there who is honestly believe they're Marvel or DC fans who've never read a comic and don't want to.
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 14, 2021 17:21:11 GMT -5
I didn't like the bomber jackets at the time because they were very much part of Bob Harras's determined attempts to make Avengers as much like X-Men as possible, which I found really annoying. When did the X-Men wear bomber jackets? During the Grant Morrison era, they had something similar.
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