I just got back from my neighborhood cahh-mic shahp.

I went in with the intent of finding at least three or four comics with issues in the high numbers, and I found just that--three or four. Titles like "Detective Comics," "Action Comics" and "Fantastic Four" are chugging along after all these years, seemingly still in their first-volume runs and all hurtling towards their inevitable, respective thousandth issues (which, in itSELF, will bring pandemonium and marketing schemes of all colors to the stands).

Here's my thing:

I can remember when just about ALL the Marvel and DC titles were like that: settled in, allowed to age and not constantly subjected to "reboots" and zero-issues. Where have those days gone?

Honestly, I blame the big "events": "Crisis," "Zero Hour," "Secret Wars," "Civil War," the death of Superman and the like. It was only after you started seeing these huge, sweeping events that a serious case of A.D.D. clearly hit the industry.

EVERY FIVE MINUTES, they're rebooting a title. An Avengers book can't get two years down the road without them starting the whole shit over: "New Avengers," "Dark Avengers (which I think is just a silly-ass idea)," "Mighty Avengers," Avengers-this-that-and-the-third. Got-DAMN, be STILL! Even if I wanted to get back into a title (which I doubt I'd do--I'm more content with collected graphic novels like "Preacher" and revisiting the old 70's storylines I grew up with), I wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting comfortable with a title. The shit'll be CANCELLED in six months, or flipped and retooled into something totally different. I was happy when there was just ONE Avengers title--that was just fine by me.

I flipped to the back of one book and saw that they're starting the Flash over. AGAIN. FOR WHAT?

One given superteam, eight hundred different storylines to try and follow. Then it's over in a year, and here they come with Issue Zero again? Spinoffs and spinoffs of spinoffs all over the damn stands--it's too confusing. Current readers: How do y'all keep up and make the room in your lives for this mess?

Okay, that's it.

No, that's NOT it:

Once upon a time, when these stories would make their way to visual media, the origins and characteristics of certain characters were CANON. They were CONSISTENT with what you read in the books (and I'll even give the assorted "Superfriends" shows credit for that, to a degree). NOW, though?--I can't deal with eight or nine different Batmans. The progression onscreen from Caped Crusader (see: the 60's TV series and all the cartoons leading up to the animated series of the 90's) to Dark Knight worked out--then, they went and clowned THAT up! A bunch of non-canon one-offs and "what-if" scenarios. ONE BATMAN AT A TIME, DAMN!

And the Ultimates. Fuck them, seriously.

One book, one movie, ONE FUCKING STORY for each character and each team. Damn all this alternate-reality shit. I thought the "Crisis" was designed to solve problems like this, but here we go again, I suppose.

I'd like your input on this. No Twitter-shit, either...gimme some complete sentences.

diversify your offerings dependent upon the age and tastes of the audience.

Think about it like this: how much of the comic buying audience is over 25?

And how many new readers are they trying to bring in?

Better yet, try and go back and read some DC superhero shit from the late 60s or early 70s. A lot of that stuff is corny as hell, by modern standards.
Gotta keep it fresh man.

And the Ultimates were actually pretty good until Joeph Loeb started writing them

The industry has always been about appealing to kids (generally) and to the tone of the times. I'd argue that Batman's "Dark Knight" incarnation strikes such a huge chord nowadays in that it reflects the simmering anger just under the surface of society today--quite frankly, the urge to beat the living shit outta someone who's wronged you or wronged others. That's REAL, and that's one reason why characters like Batman and Wolverine strike a chord with fans.

But do the times really dictate the need for SO MANY DIFFERENT BOOKS? They can call this a solution to the sagging economy, a cure-all for the slump in the comics industry before Marvel's movies got it back in stride.

But it just feels like TOO MUCH MATERIAL, like a flooded market. A lot of these characters simply don't need their own books.

Granted, it's not a new thing--in the day, you had, maybe, three or four Spider-Man titles. Fine. But they all ENDURED beyond just a couple of years--"Marvel Tales," for example, was made up of reprints of past "Amazing Spider-Man" stories. It served a purpose, and gave the more mature reader a reason to read. Plus, they were ALL CANON. Now, this muhfucka is an Avenger AND SUPPOSEDLY AN X-MAN? No.

Jump over to the X-Men: you see a book for some random Hellfire Club muhfucka. Why does this character need a title?--and don't tell me it's by "popular demand", because you can't FIND ten fanboys who popularly demanded this. It's FLOODED--boil some of this shit down, I say.

They need to stop relaunching "She-Hulk", FOREVER.

Ms. Marvel is one of my 70's crushes, but she don't need a book (in fact, every reattempt at Captain Marvel makes me cry for the Mar-Vell I grew up with). Black Widow doesn't, either.

Cable never needed one--in fact, there's WAY too many X-Men books.

"Genext"--the X-men's kids? Don't need a book--just work them into "New Mutants".

Same for the Exiles. Same for "Young X-Men".

And then there's the Justice League--they need to boil some shit down, too. DC wouldn't HAVE to do a "52" series if they'd just stayed mindful of the reasons the Crisis had to occur in the FIRST place.

shit i remember when cable was in EVERY fuckin book in the mid/late nineties.

I just look at it like this...its modern mythology. Everybody gonna put they're spin on the same story/characters (it's really like only 3 or 4 superhero types anyway). The sameness of them all, plus teh profit motive equals a LOT of repetition.

I just read the ones I like, and leave it at that

Too bad Grant Morrison's scribbling druggy chickenscratch all over it.

(And I LOVED "The Invisibles" and where he took "Doom Patrol".)

>and where he took "Doom
>Patrol".)

As long as you're down with Morrison's Doom Patrol you can basically have any damn opinion you want to in my book.

everything was Dark.

Dark Avengers, Dark X-Men, Dark this, Dark that.

and why is Norman Osborn EVERYWHERE?

they're really trying to Lex Luthor this dude, aren't they?

They're trying to just FORCE the darkness on you.

Frank Miller is just shaking his head and counting his money.

Gimme the Punisher of the eighties over ANY of this foolishness.

>They're trying to just FORCE the darkness on you.
>
>Frank Miller is just shaking his head and counting his money.
>
>Gimme the Punisher of the eighties over ANY of this
>foolishness.

...wait til you find out what's up with The Punisher in the Oh-ten.

I asked the dude if he had any copies of the volume-one "Justice League of America" on hand (as in: satellite-JLA, not JLA Detroit).

He was like, "I rarely see those come through here".

Is it any wonder? THE RACKS ARE FULL OF THE EXACT SAME SPINOFFS I'M TALKING ABOUT. The Good Lord bless you if you can find a volume-one "Avengers", at this point--the oldies are all squeezed out for all sixteen versions of the Brian Michael Bendis Avengers (which I've read, and often likened to a superhero version of "The Office". I don't like the man's writing and I don't like what he's done with Earth's Mightiest FOCKING Heroes. Please quote me on that: Bendis is stinking up the game).

Where are the big-ass Treasury Editions of "Hulk" and "Doctor Strange"? "Haven't seen one of those in years--but here's a 'Giant-Size New Exiles'".

Really, man?

Now I just sound old and bitter, but really? "Marvel Zombies"? "Marvel Pets"? REALLY?

across all media, the zombie love just mystifies me

Also, if you looking for classic books - torrents, homeboy

I have a .cbz file of issues 100 through 199 of "Avengers".

VOLUME ONE.

...Brian Michael
>Bendis Avengers (which I've read, and often likened to a
>superhero version of "The Office". I don't like the man's
>writing and I don't like what he's done with Earth's Mightiest
>FOCKING Heroes. Please quote me on that: Bendis is stinking up
>the game).


Please explain you Office metaphor

>I asked the dude if he had any copies of the volume-one
>"Justice League of America" on hand (as in: satellite-JLA, not
>JLA Detroit).

I thought volume one was Happy Harbor?

>Bendis is stinking up
>the game).

I'm not a big fan, but I've enjoyed most of Powers, and by all accounts his Daredevil run is masterful, even if attorneys talk like teenagers throughout.

That said, I dropped most of his Avengers titles.

>Where are the big-ass Treasury Editions of "Hulk" and "Doctor
>Strange"?

Any shop should have the 'Essentials' from Marvel and the 'Showcases' from DC. I'm under the impression that they're still relatively good sellers. I've gotten Essential Hulk and Essential X-Men and Essential Spider-Man out of my library at various times.

>"Haven't seen one of those in years--but here's a
>'Giant-Size New Exiles'".

never heard of it.

>Really, man?
>
>Now I just sound old and bitter, but really? "Marvel Zombies"?
>"Marvel Pets"? REALLY?

A lot of people loved the earlier Marvel Zombies; latest edition is written by Fred Van Lente who's pretty much aces in my book. I haven't read any of them, but I certainly don't object to it in principal - a Marvel multiverse where a zombie plague in one learns to hop between universes? Again, if the story's good, why should it matter?

The Pet Avengers, though... I don't really have any excuse for that. I will say though that my kids LOVE it (really love it) when Tiny Titans issues have Pet Club stories. But - First rule about Pet Club is we don't talk about Pet Club, so I can't say anything else about that. But I can & will say it's been a lot of fun reading some of the kid books with them, and DC's done a much better job of crafting appropriate books for the under-8 set than Marvel has.

"...you belong to the Red Lantern Corps!"

BA-BUM-BA! BUM-BUM-BA! BA-DA BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM!

He's not worthy of Atrocitus level rage. This is like hipster-emo whiney level rage. They haven't invented the appropriate lantern color yet.

Don't break bad, now. We just choppin' it up.

You standing in front of a shelf of comics at the comic shop, 3 or 4 customers casually browsing, and you yelling "BE STILL!!!" at the comics.

I'll be back with my thoughts later, I just had to share that.



"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

about the lack of constant characterization, constant shakeup of status quos, reboots, Crises, consistency of universes, length of runs by creative teams, none of that.

In fact, I don't care about anything but getting a good story. Gimme that, and I'm square. I haven't *really* given a toss about universes, or things never being the same again, since the COTW gang got me sucked into playing catchup with Infinite Crisis four or five years ago.

And generally, I find good stories most commonly in titles outside the superhero mainstream (though I read plenty of those as well). Yes, I know the post was directed at DC/Marvel U's, but with those I find the good stories are all generally dependent on the creative team - and even then editorial fucks up with great frequency.

If there's one title to recommend based on your criteria, it'd be the past 40 or 50 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. What led into 'Brand New Day' may have been execrable, but it's not lost on me that the stories since then have been good-to-great in general, and frequently exceptional. But a lot of that has to do with the Spidey brain trust, and editorial not forcing ASM into the greater MU (though yeah, they do pimp Spidey out something fierce for commitments outside his own book.) But even on that book I've started picking and choosing my arcs based on the writer.

There are also a gang of books I'd recommend coming from Image, Vertigo and Icon...

Criminal
Scalped
Unwritten
Walking Dead
Fables
Unknown Soldier
Daytripper
Proof

all of which have been getting my money monthly for quite a while now. I really can understand wanting to pick up some aspect of what you loved as a kid, but I kind of see that as limiting yourself.

.

But I get that there are different kinds of comic readers looking for different kinds of things.

I can always direct you to htmlcomics.com with a few good suggestions to get started...

There are always too many records for me to catch up on to grab another hobby.

>I can remember when just about ALL the Marvel and DC titles
>were like that: settled in, allowed to age and not constantly
>subjected to "reboots" and zero-issues. Where have those days
>gone?

What's funny is that the new hot gimmick is to un-reboot titles to switch back to their original, larger numberings. Captain America jumped from issue #50 to #600, because somebody crunched some numbers and realized that's how many issues of Captain America had been printed since that time he punched Hitler. I guess studies have shown that the number 600 is more marketable than the number 51.

Fantastic Four pulled the same stunt for what became its 500th issue (the month before that? Issue 70 came out)

Since you were there looking for recent issues of long running titles, I'm assuming you're aware of that trend already, but I just figured I'd throw that out there.


>Honestly, I blame the big "events": "Crisis," "Zero Hour,"
>"Secret Wars," "Civil War," the death of Superman and the
>like. It was only after you started seeing these huge,
>sweeping events that a serious case of A.D.D. clearly hit the
>industry.

Yeah but the readers share some of that blame too - If you look at the sales figures, it's the same for very damn book (with the exception of The Walking Dead and maybe 3 others) Every month is a steady decline. First issues are always huge, then every month a title will shed readers no matter how good it might be. What the market seems to be saying is that they can't 'BE STILL'. So give the people what they want, right?

I mean think about it - you're at the register and suddenly you're hit by the crushing realization that you've bought 200+ straight issues of The Avengers. You'd probably kill yourself, or worse, stop reading comics. By breaking it up like they do, you rarely buy more than 50 of anything... Or so it seems.


>I flipped to the back of one book and saw that they're
>starting the Flash over. AGAIN. FOR WHAT?

Because the last reboot sucked mad balls


>One given superteam, eight hundred different storylines to try
>and follow. Then it's over in a year, and here they come with
>Issue Zero again? Spinoffs and spinoffs of spinoffs all over
>the damn stands--it's too confusing. Current readers: How do
>y'all keep up and make the room in your lives for this mess?

You just kind of get used to it, I guess. For me personally, I follow the writers/artists moreso than I follow characters/titles, so I bounce when they bounce.

Plus, those long running titles tend not to be the best stuff on the shelves, imo. See lonesome_d's recommendations above.

>Okay, that's it.

Okay, goodnight...

>No, that's NOT it:

OH SNAP

>Once upon a time, when these stories would make their way to
>visual media, the origins and characteristics of certain
>characters were CANON. They were CONSISTENT with what you read
>in the books (and I'll even give the assorted "Superfriends"
>shows credit for that, to a degree). NOW, though?--I can't
>deal with eight or nine different Batmans. The progression
>onscreen from Caped Crusader (see: the 60's TV series and all
>the cartoons leading up to the animated series of the 90's) to
>Dark Knight worked out--then, they went and clowned THAT up! A
>bunch of non-canon one-offs and "what-if" scenarios. ONE
>BATMAN AT A TIME, DAMN!

Batman's tricky because at any given moment there's like 50 Batman books on the shelf, and most of them don't even try to pretend to be canon. I don't feel like the "core" titles are all that disjointed at the moment, but to be honest there's only one that I've been paying attention to.

>And the Ultimates. Fuck them, seriously.
>
>One book, one movie, ONE FUCKING STORY for each character and
>each team. Damn all this alternate-reality shit. I thought the
>"Crisis" was designed to solve problems like this, but here we
>go again, I suppose.

Yeah I don't think Crisis had anything to do with The Ultimates.

And yeah, the 'Ultimate Universe' as a whole did get a little bit muddled over time. But 'The Ultimates' itself? Like, the Millar/Hitch title? Fucking greatness. Sometimes you gotta stop sweating what's "canon" and just appreciate a book for what it is.

>I'd like your input on this. No Twitter-shit, either...gimme
>some complete sentences.

brb

>I mean think about it - you're at the register and suddenly
>you're hit by the crushing realization that you've bought 200+
>straight issues of The Avengers. You'd probably kill yourself,
>or worse, stop reading comics. By breaking it up like they do,
>you rarely buy more than 50 of anything... Or so it seems.

...new readers'll look at #563, and balk. On some "I can't get into something that's this far along." So, resetting the counter gives new an entry point. Same goes for those milestone numbers (like Cap just hit, like Bats and Wonder Woman and Supes are about to hit). It's another chance to get that casual reader to go "I should pick this up" and if it's good, "I should start reading this again."

Like you said, I couldn't care about a number or volume. So long as they're writing quality stories, I'm down.

I think my entire continuity stickler stance died the moment I started reading more books with a fixed story and run. sometimes things get too complex, too hairy, too damned stupid overtime that you have to fix it even if it takes magic.

Seriously, every story was not meant to span across the comic universe. My other beef is how major can these events be if they don't seem to have any lasting impact? The readers are told things will never be the same yet in a few issues things are exactly the same.

-------------------------------------------------------

"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler, you. Bah! I deride your truth-handling abilities!"

in general.

There's always some sniping and stuff, but it's a great group, and we're always eager to share our love of the medium.