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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2016 22:33:23 GMT -5
Yes. Even though I read significantly less new books now - the few titles I get I really like. I do miss when I could buy (& have the time to read) almost every DC & Marvel title published.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 27, 2016 23:33:04 GMT -5
Even if you don't enjoy currently published comics, it's not as if there's a shortage of reading material out there. Especially for folks here who enjoy classic comics, the problem seems to be finding the time to read the stacks and stacks of unread back issues rather than finding something good to read. There absolutely has never been a better time to be able to read back issues. And there absolutely has never been a better time for comic strip reprints in both quality and quantity. |
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Post by tingramretro on Jan 28, 2016 2:58:46 GMT -5
Did you notice the major continuity flaw in that JLA story? It's bothered me for years... If I noticed something wrong in the JLA story, I'm not recalling it now. Though I read SSOSV #1 to #15 every so often, I've only read that JLA three-parter once ... and the main thing I remember is Zatanna's awful awful costume. So what is it? I'm on the edge of my seat ... As part of their investigation, the JLA go to speak to former Society member Hi-Jack in jail. He tells them he's glad to hear the Wizard is leading the Society now, as he never liked Funky Flashman. But Hi-Jack was last seen being permanently banished to another dimension. By the Wizard. Before Funky turned up in SSOSV. |
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Post by Spike-X on Jan 28, 2016 4:24:45 GMT -5
Comics are still plenty of fun, if you get the right comics.
Hint: there's a lot more to comics than Big Two superhero continuity porn.
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Post by batlaw on Jan 28, 2016 6:28:22 GMT -5
Comics are still plenty of fun, if you get the right comics. Hint: there's a lot more to comics than Big Two superhero continuity porn. Problem being, "big two superhero continuity porn" is whats fun for me. Not against non big two superhero. Have read plenty of non big two superhero. Do read non big two superhero. But big two superhero happens to be my favorite. It is its own flavor and it's the flavor I desire from the cooks I want cooking it. It doesn't matter how good artisan pizza is if you want homemade pancakes. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 28, 2016 6:36:29 GMT -5
Comics are still plenty of fun, if you get the right comics. Hint: there's a lot more to comics than Big Two superhero continuity porn. Problem being, "big two superhero continuity porn" is whats fun for me. Not against non big two superhero. Have read plenty of non big two superhero. Do read non big two superhero. But big two superhero happens to be my favorite. It is its own flavor and it's the flavor I desire from the cooks I want cooking it. It doesn't matter how good artisan pizza is if you want homemade pancakes. The big two have seen better days. |
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Post by Trevor on Jan 28, 2016 8:50:27 GMT -5
The price point for comics has sucked a lot of the fun away  I've learned that patience helps. I buy pretty much every comic book, a couple hundred a month easy. That includes almost every title from DC, Dark Horse, Image, and Marvel, and a bunch of other stuff. I never pay more than $1 for a book. The combination of DCBS sales, dollar bins, and digital keeps me price point comfortable. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 28, 2016 12:26:08 GMT -5
Problem being, "big two superhero continuity porn" is whats fun for me. Not against non big two superhero. Have read plenty of non big two superhero. Do read non big two superhero. But big two superhero happens to be my favorite. It is its own flavor and it's the flavor I desire from the cooks I want cooking it. It doesn't matter how good artisan pizza is if you want homemade pancakes. The big two have seen better days. Right. The strength of the Bronze Age (besides the runs that actually featured had good writers and artists) was the tightness of the continuity. I'm not talking about later oppressive continuity that strangled creativity, but the kind that only worked to enhance the experience of reading a bunch of stories set in a shared universe. I think Marvel and DC made a huge tactical error in ditching continuity as it used to exist in the Bronze Age. Marvel and DC simply publish too many books that don't need to exist simply to flood the market. It's hard to maintain a cohesive fictional universe in those conditions. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 28, 2016 12:37:25 GMT -5
The big two have seen better days. Marvel and DC simply publish too many books that don't need to exist simply to flood the market. That was essentially Martin Goodman's business model. Jump on every possible trend and put out as many books as possible as quickly as possible. The only time he wasn't able to do that was when he was stuck with limited distribution through National Periodicals in the early 60s. There is absolutely nothing new in what you said. |
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Post by MDG on Jan 28, 2016 13:08:16 GMT -5
The fun for me is with the medium, when it's used well. I've hardly read anything from the gig two in a decade or more, but things like the Love Bunglers or Invisible Ink, though the stories aren't fun are fun to read because they are so well done and the creators' love for the medium comes through.
And I still find my silver (and early bronze) age books (and undergrounds) a lot of fun to read. Plus, I like to dive around in them like a porpoise! And burrow through them like a gopher! And toss them up and let them hit me on the head!
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 28, 2016 13:12:04 GMT -5
Marvel and DC simply publish too many books that don't need to exist simply to flood the market. That was essentially Martin Goodman's business model. Jump on every possible trend and put out as many books as possible as quickly as possible. The only time he wasn't able to do that was when he was stuck with limited distribution through National Periodicals in the early 60s. There is absolutely nothing new in what you said. Martin Goodman was out of the picture by the early 70's, so unless we're just talking about the 60's, I don't see the point. Marvel and DC are flooding the market with superfluous crap in a way that they never did in the past. The thrust of my point is that Marvel, during their height in the 80's, weren't releasing nearly as many books nor were they obsessed with milking every hot property to exhaustion. There seemed to be a balance between licensed properties, a kids line, Epic, the mainstream stuff, etc. Just take a look at this checklist from 1987 (granted Marvel was in a decline at this point) and compare it to today. Do you see twenty variations of Avengers titles? Spider-Man is the only thing close to saturation, but even then, this selection pales to the glut we see today.  |
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Post by tingramretro on Jan 28, 2016 13:26:12 GMT -5
If only that checklist was how things looked today...  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2016 13:30:01 GMT -5
If only that checklist was how things looked today... Marvel's sales would be worse than they currently are. It's not 1985 and trying to sell products in 2016 based on what appealed to customers in 1985 and what they were buying then is a surefire way to go out of business. The problem is that they are still looking backwards and not at what the current market for entertainment is (and not what the niche direct market is) when coming up with their publishing plans, not that they aren't still doing what they did 30 years ago. -M |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 28, 2016 13:44:01 GMT -5
That was essentially Martin Goodman's business model. Jump on every possible trend and put out as many books as possible as quickly as possible. The only time he wasn't able to do that was when he was stuck with limited distribution through National Periodicals in the early 60s. There is absolutely nothing new in what you said. Martin Goodman was out of the picture by the early 70's, so unless we're just talking about the 60's, I don't see the point. Marvel and DC are flooding the market with superfluous crap in a way that they never did in the past. The thrust of my point is that Marvel, during their height in the 80's, weren't releasing nearly as many books nor were they obsessed with milking every hot property to exhaustion. There seemed to be a balance between licensed properties, a kids line, Epic, the mainstream stuff, etc. Just take a look at this checklist from 1987 (granted Marvel was in a decline at this point) and compare it to today. Do you see twenty variations of Avengers titles? Spider-Man is the only thing close to saturation, but even then, this selection pales to the glut we see today. What I see is that Marvel had 62 comics on the stands that month. Looking at the solicits for January of 2016...I see about the same number of books. Was there more variety then? Yes. But there also wasn't Dark Horse and Dynamite and Boom and IDW and a dozen other companies that were competing for the licensed properties. The Epic Line had a lot less competition for creator-owned titles. Comics hadn't yet been completely ghettoized into comic book shops. The Star Comics line was an attempt to grab the Harvey market...when Harvey died and most of the line didn't last a year. My point is that Marvel, in particular, DC to a lesser extent, has always flooded the market in an attempt to get shelf space. And it continued as a culture for the company well past when Goodman left. You can look at all the reprint titles that constantly flooded the stands in the 70s. Nobody was clamoring for reprints of The Ringo Kid in 1975-76. But they published the book for rack space in hopes of pushing other books off the racks. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 28, 2016 13:45:47 GMT -5
If only that checklist was how things looked today... Marvel's sales would be worse than they currently are. It's not 1985 and trying to sell products in 2016 based on what appealed to customers in 1985 and what they were buying then is a surefire way to go out of business. The problem is that they are still looking backwards and not at what the current market for entertainment is (and not what the niche direct market is) when coming up with their publishing plans, not that they aren't still doing what they did 30 years ago. -M I think we all know that literally trying to sell Dakota North and Ewok comics in today's market would meet with a tepid response at best.  I don't specifically know why hardcore modern Marvel and DC readers have less eclectic tastes, but I suspect it's a mixture of the high price point and the fact that the bulk of the reader ship is primarily nostalgia fueled. Of course you still had a lot of kids reading comics in 1987, so that alone changes the paradigm immensely. You also seemed to have more older readers open to the idea of something like Epic, even though it was fading at this point. |
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