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Post by brutalis on Mar 4, 2020 9:21:37 GMT -5
In my other thread I was writing of growing up and fishing with my dad's father up in the mountains. Here in town I grew up with my mom's father living 3 blocks away where once or twice a month he spent traveling Phoenix through the local used bookstores. As I got old enough to participate in those travels without annoying or being an interference Grandpa Bolin took me along to help him dig for "gold" as he would call it. He was retired and a big time reader of paperbacks enjoying the glory days of the pulps. He adored those old steamy and gritty and naughty books and especially loved Police Detective's and Western fiction. I soon became a fisherman in the city way for those old pulp's of yesteryear.
Dusty, smoke filled dilapidated stores in run down strip malls with walls of books and falling apart paper bags stuffed with potential treasures to be found. I was Grandpa's favorite hunting dog sent on a mission of seek and find as he was a large man who couldn't do much bending and climbing. I was the young whippersnapper instructed with orders to deliver only the sweetest findings in hopes of pleasing Grandpa and making his days happier. I swear the spare bedroom in their home was filled up with more brown grocery bags than the grocery store ever actually had. And Grandpa was a "collector" in the sense he would read the newfound old books and then put em away into those bags and then months or years later take out a bag and read through it completely for several weeks. Then a replacement bag would come out and the previously read bag placed into another corner where he would pile up bags again for many months. Repeat the endless cycle and still once or twice a month we would pore through store after store seeking author's or books within a certain series. A repetition I almost instinctively follow to this day as an adult. Taught and learned as a child and ingrained into the mind, body and soul following a hunter/gatherer instinct for books, movies, comics and music.
These were perhaps the formative years that I can Remember When I was in training for my future as a comic book collector.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 5, 2020 15:36:32 GMT -5
When was the last time a page of art blew you away. I can think of hundreds of times when a Kirby splash or Steranko splash made sit back and go "Wow!". Pages by Buscema or Adams or Colan or Smith or, and so on. This happened a lot in the Silver and Bronze age. Pages that stopped you in mid read. But even though there is are lot of very good artists working today, doing excellent work, it is rare that I see a page that is just awesome. Maybe it's the modern storytelling, maybe I am just older and more jaded, but it seems those pages are few and far between these days.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 5, 2020 23:50:28 GMT -5
I saw some Mark Bagley pages in Thunderbolts like that, and Pacheco and Perez in Avengers Forever and Avengers! All circa late '90s. More recently, some of the new John Byrne X-Men pages in the fan fic section of Byrne Robotics have made me say wow!
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Post by brutalis on Mar 6, 2020 7:44:05 GMT -5
There are still new comics I get that provide a pause where I go...woooooooooow. The only problem is that I don't get as many new comics anymore so exposure to new artistic delights is limited. My own thought is that today's artists are to intent on simply "filling" the page with too many details/intricacies rather than focusing upon what that single panel/page/spread needs to "tell" us the reader. The need to enhance or impress as well as coloring also affects what we are seeing. Many times I think modern comics have real coloring problems: everything is darkened to increase mood or too many "real" colors all across the page or coloring used as shadowing which won't allow the eyes to fully seeing what is on the page. Growing up with limited color choices sometimes allowed a panel or page to really leap out and catch your attention. These days when all the pages can look the same in color and tone makes it just that more difficult for us to go wowie zowie look at!
Another aspect I consider as a problem: many of the "classic" artists of yesteryear were trained/schooled/educated in other formats of illustration and comic books was NOT their 1st or only jobs. How many of the modern comic book artists have worked in anything but as a comic book artist? Many of today'c comic book artists "learned" from reading comic books and studying individual artists and therefore have that "shorthand" concept of what they think or believe it all should look like. In the past the artist was likely "making it up" and trying to imagine exactly what was being asked for artistically or utilizing designs and styles they had learned from other jobs in the advertising world.
As well that there was a more "limited" pool of readily available art style to access from. Today you can go on-line and Google just about anything you want to imagine: from actual art to real pictures, from style to design or colors. from paint to pencil to ink and you can pull up artwork from ANY person you might think of. In the past artists all had to create their own resource books with clipped art from newspapers, magazines and books or renting from a library or going to a museum and now you can literally download, copy and paste and colorize from your computer in a matter of minutes.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 6, 2020 14:53:08 GMT -5
There are still new comics I get that provide a pause where I go...woooooooooow. The only problem is that I don't get as many new comics anymore so exposure to new artistic delights is limited. My own thought is that today's artists are to intent on simply "filling" the page with too many details/intricacies rather than focusing upon what that single panel/page/spread needs to "tell" us the reader. The need to enhance or impress as well as coloring also affects what we are seeing. Many times I think modern comics have real coloring problems: everything is darkened to increase mood or too many "real" colors all across the page or coloring used as shadowing which won't allow the eyes to fully seeing what is on the page. Growing up with limited color choices sometimes allowed a panel or page to really leap out and catch your attention. These days when all the pages can look the same in color and tone makes it just that more difficult for us to go wowie zowie look at! Another aspect I consider as a problem: many of the "classic" artists of yesteryear were trained/schooled/educated in other formats of illustration and comic books was NOT their 1st or only jobs. How many of the modern comic book artists have worked in anything but as a comic book artist? Many of today'c comic book artists "learned" from reading comic books and studying individual artists and therefore have that "shorthand" concept of what they think or believe it all should look like. In the past the artist was likely "making it up" and trying to imagine exactly what was being asked for artistically or utilizing designs and styles they had learned from other jobs in the advertising world. As well that there was a more "limited" pool of readily available art style to access from. Today you can go on-line and Google just about anything you want to imagine: from actual art to real pictures, from style to design or colors. from paint to pencil to ink and you can pull up artwork from ANY person you might think of. In the past artists all had to create their own resource books with clipped art from newspapers, magazines and books or renting from a library or going to a museum and now you can literally download, copy and paste and colorize from your computer in a matter of minutes. I agree, and while my exposure to newer comics is limited, it seems like the more modern artists (from the 90's on) are more interested in drawing cool looking poses and action shots that would look cool on a poster, and aren't interested in, or don't know how to, tell a story. Sometimes I look at a page full of images and wonder what the heck is going on. The art of sequential storytelling seems to be lost.
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Post by beyonder1984 on Mar 9, 2020 17:40:01 GMT -5
[/quote]I agree, and while my exposure to newer comics is limited, it seems like the more modern artists (from the 90's on) are more interested in drawing cool looking poses and action shots that would look cool on a poster, and aren't interested in, or don't know how to, tell a story. Sometimes I look at a page full of images and wonder what the heck is going on. The art of sequential storytelling seems to be lost.[/quote]
Jim Shooter reviewed DC's reboot a few years ago and ripped the sequential storytelling/panel layouts to shreds on his blog.
The genie is out of the bottle. Most major comic books are made for trade paperbacks and story arcs and the artists were inspired by the 1990s Image guys or even later. There was a brief time when the writers got their status back in the 2000s, but ultimately the soulless computerized art style has won over.
It's ironic Jim Lee is DC's Publisher and Chief Creative Officer, considering he was a pin-up artist IMHO.
Marvel and DC have become like Michael Bay's movies. The same happened to WWE- the wrestling matches have become compressed down to the exciting parts with a lack of selling injuries.
At least in Japan, manga has not copied the American style.
Anyway, I remember the smells of old comics...the excitement of hunting and searching for this week's issues, not knowing the release dates...the horror of missing an issue but being able to catch up instantly due to the the first few pages summarizing what had transpired...yes, the regret of cutting, writing, using Silly Putty and White Out on them...I remember the cheap prices and the double or king sized issues at fair prices...the intelligent and funny letter pages...the intriguing in-house ads for reprints...I remember Marvel heroes actually having evolving arcs that seemed to build from the 1960s and end at around 1990. It should have ended then..anything since then is mind-boggling...DC was timeless to me in a good way- it didn't need all the Crisis or 52s.
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Post by brutalis on Mar 10, 2020 8:10:57 GMT -5
Oddly enough where comics used to excel with action/adventure and big over the top exploits which movies couldn't afford doing, now comic books are endless pages of static talking heads and background/model shots more closely visualizing television of the 50's. It seems CGI and movies are closer to comic books of the 60's/70's style and publishers are willing to let comic books self implode from pitiful and lazy repetitive panels of artwork and the stretched out stories going nowhere. Shouldn't writing to trade mean that comic books SHOULD have a more book/novel aspect to them with a significant beginning/middle/ending that provides the reader with something they wish to read over again just as soon as they finished it the 1st time? But no., it just means they stretch out the story over 5-6 issues to fill a TPB and it sits on the shelf never read again or is traded in for credit so you can look for something else...
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Post by brutalis on Mar 26, 2020 14:00:28 GMT -5
Remember When you didn't have to wear a HAZMAT suit while digging through all the dirty back issue boxes and bags at your local yard sales and used bookstores? We never cared or worried about dirt, grime, germs or putting ourselves at risk. Just wasn't a thought or circumstance in the days. Crazily the advancements in medicine seems to mean that God and Nature's effort/intent for infection has gotten worse/stronger as humanity's natural immunity lessens and becomes more dependent upon man made drugs to combat these newer deadlier diseases. Personally, I think digging through boxes and paper bags of old un-sanitized publications and riding my bike all around town while getting sweaty and covered in dust and dirt and mud inhaling the polluted city air was all part of the hunt. To come home covered in grime with an armful of much wanted comic books was the amazing reward for risking life and limb going out into the world.
Incredibly I could spend all day in a dank, dusty and dimly lit mom and pop's used bookstore and maybe hear the door open (you do remember they all had that little bell for when the door opens) only 4-5 times and whoever came in might be there for 5 minutes and leave. All the while I sat hunched over boxes and bags of comics sorting and piling up my newfound riches. There was no such thing as mint condition back then as the idea that somebody would actually price these crazy throw away things to being worth so much more than their original cost. Those were the days of finding a yard sale where you could ask how much and be told gimme $5 and it's all yours and you got a box or paper bag brimming over full of books and/or comics. I was stupefied when I found my 1st LCS and found the outrageous prices (yeah i know, $25 was crazy in the 70's) of bagged comic books hanging upon the wall behind the sales counter.
Man oh man, if only I could time travel and talk to my teen self. The list of series and issues I would tell myself to invest in whenever I found them would be incredible.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 26, 2020 20:23:11 GMT -5
I think it was 1982 or 1983 when I got an Iron Man #1 for $25. I was still getting lots of '60s comics for $1-2 each, but that one was pretty special. It was a few more years before anything equalled that purchase, and then I probably traded in a bunch to move up. I think the next big purchase was an X-Men #94 when it was around $45 in mint, but I got a VF- at $30 (some silver spray paint along the top edge), and FN+ #95 at $25 not so long after.
We had a place that had the comics piled a hundred or so deep in what looked like an oversized space for shoes, but those were mainly kind of oddball '70s titles from Marvel, DC and Atlas, they were all 50 cents or 3 for a $1 I think. The better '70s and '60s comics were on a table in ordinary cardboard boxes, no bags, but a few were even on the wall by the owner's desk in ziplocks or shake n bake bags (the owner did have a Price Guide but it was well out of date and he would go with half whatever it said as being fair).
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 27, 2020 14:59:40 GMT -5
I think it was 1982 or 1983 when I got an Iron Man #1 for $25. I was still getting lots of '60s comics for $1-2 each, but that one was pretty special. It was a few more years before anything equalled that purchase, and then I probably traded in a bunch to move up. I think the next big purchase was an X-Men #94 when it was around $45 in mint, but I got a VF- at $30 (some silver spray paint along the top edge), and FN+ #95 at $25 not so long after. We had a place that had the comics piled a hundred or so deep in what looked like an oversized space for shoes, but those were mainly kind of oddball '70s titles from Marvel, DC and Atlas, they were all 50 cents or 3 for a $1 I think. The better '70s and '60s comics were on a table in ordinary cardboard boxes, no bags, but a few were even on the wall by the owner's desk in ziplocks or shake n bake bags (the owner did have a Price Guide but it was well out of date and he would go with half whatever it said as being fair). You got X-Men #95 for $45 in mint? That sounds like a great buy. That's one of the few X-Men I didn't get, but I did get Giant-Size #1. I don't remember for how much, but it was more than $45 and it wasn't in mint condition.
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Post by badwolf on Mar 27, 2020 15:20:52 GMT -5
Jim Shooter reviewed DC's reboot a few years ago and ripped the sequential storytelling/panel layouts to shreds on his blog. [/quote] I'd love to read that if you have a link handy.
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Post by badwolf on Mar 27, 2020 15:27:54 GMT -5
When was the last time a page of art blew you away. This spread:
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 27, 2020 15:52:55 GMT -5
When was the last time a page of art blew you away. This spread:
"spread" HA! :
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 27, 2020 16:41:06 GMT -5
You got X-Men #95 for $45 in mint? That sounds like a great buy. That's one of the few X-Men I didn't get, but I did get Giant-Size #1. I don't remember for how much, but it was more than $45 and it wasn't in mint condition. I got X-Men #95 for $25 in the early '80s but not in mint, more like fine+, it did seem very hard to find compared to some others (I saw lots of #96s for some reason). I had a chance at a Giant-Size #1 at $70 later in the '80s, around fine condition, but then the clerk took it down, took the $70 tag off, wrote a new one at $90 and put it back up on the wall. Never went in there again, it went out of business not that long after. So I've never had the Giant-Size #1 except in reprint form. Never have had 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, or 110 either, but have had 101, 108 and 109 twice.
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Post by Trevor on Mar 27, 2020 17:36:35 GMT -5
You got X-Men #95 for $45 in mint? That sounds like a great buy. That's one of the few X-Men I didn't get, but I did get Giant-Size #1. I don't remember for how much, but it was more than $45 and it wasn't in mint condition. I got X-Men #95 for $25 in the early '80s but not in mint, more like fine+, it did seem very hard to find compared to some others (I saw lots of #96s for some reason). I had a chance at a Giant-Size #1 at $70 later in the '80s, around fine condition, but then the clerk took it down, took the $70 tag off, wrote a new one at $90 and put it back up on the wall. Never went in there again, it went out of business not that long after. So I've never had the Giant-Size #1 except in reprint form. Never have had 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, or 110 either, but have had 101, 108 and 109 twice. I had a bunch of X-men in the 90-120 range, but ended up selling them all for a couple bucks each when I decided to get into computers around 1987. Thanks for bringing up that painful memory.
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