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Comic Book Thread
Morgbug:
Comics were the filler in the gap that was my toy collecting. I bought comics from around 84-94.
My history prior to that is filled with comics. When I was a kid (no, no dinosaurs roaming the earth) we used to go to an Aunt and Uncle's cabin at a Lake. They used to take in all the cousins and give the parents a break. On rainy days, we could either play games or read comics. DC and Marvel were present in pretty even amounts. I'm fairly honored to say I held Amazing Fantasy #15 in my hands several times. It was dog eared and the cover long since torn, but I must have read it thousands of times. I later told my Aunt what it was worth and she said considering the peace and quiet it bought her on rainy days, she never would have sold it, no matter the amount :)
Unlike you Thomas, I was all about Marvel. I loved Spiderman and he is still my favourite character. Peter Parker was every kid, for the most part, save the jocks (of which I was one, but never felt like one, but that's a whole different story ;)). He was the good kid, the nerd, etc. But for me, the reason I loved Spiderman was the morality. More than anything else, Pete tried to do the right thing, something I still try to abide by.
From there I spread into other titles like Daredevil, Ironman then on into the X-titles. I've also been a Batman and Superman fan, but the rest of the DC titles just didn't do it for me as I didn't really like their characters that much.
I recall the switch from comics based on stories to comics based on promotion and gimmick. Part of that switch involved Boobs. Female characters prior to that had been fairly curvaceous but this bordered on the absurd. Commensurate with the switch was a rapid decline in the quality of writing. Sure, the artwork was fine, but the story took second place to the graphics, the more, um, graphic the better.
I'm guessing I got out around issue 330 or so of ASM and haven't regreted it.
The stories sucked. If I wanted boobs, I could go out and buy a Playboy. The art was good, but pointless. I saved around $50 a week.
Nowadays I don't buy comics. Mostly because I simply cannot get over the cost. I realize I'm getting old, but c'mon. I was in Walmart one day and up here they display their comics in the toy section. I spied a Star Wars comic with Leia being captured by some Imperial troops. I read most of the book in the store and thought geez, this is pretty cool, I should get it. Until I looked at the price. $10 Cdn (around $7.95 US or so). Do kids get THAT much money these days that they can afford it???? If I bought as many titles as I used to in my early twenties, I'd be dropping over $300 a week :o That's ridiculous.
I guess in part I'm tiring of the "collectible" mentality. Yeah, sure, I contribute in a huge way by buying stuff. Can't argue with that. But you know what? If they produced a billion Marvel Legends Red Skull figures or a billion R2-D2 Droids Kubricks, I couldn't care less.
Comics need to drag themselves out of that mentality or sales will stay dismal. I've got 13 long boxes of comics that say so. BTW, I was not a speculator when I was buying comics. I do have multiple copies of McFarlane's Spiderman #1 but that's about it. Spawn #1 caused me to buy all of 1 copy. I guess allowing for inflation, I would figure that comics at around $2.00-3.00 would be a fair price.
Thomas Grey:
Don't get me wrong. I liked Marvel a lot in the 70's and 80's. The current status is what I'm sick about.
I can relate to you in that I was raised on comics. Classics Illustrated was always there at my grandmothers. Also Sad Sack, Mad Magazine, House of Horrors and the Classic Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge before anyone knew he was the artist drawing it. I also remember days when I'd be home sick. My father would come home at lunch with a fistfull of comics and among them would be Spiderman, Superman, Green Lantern, Incredible Hulk... That got me going to look and buy them at stores and read them into worthlessness. My old Conans and Strange Tales and Xmen are classic and worth tons in good shape. Mine are worth my memories and that's fine for me. I didn't know and had I knoown, I probably wouldn't have cared. I never bought a comic I didn't read. I just read them a little more carefully these days.
But having a father come home after he pops by the local convenience store and brings you some great comics to read is no longer. They aren't there. The sick kids are getting what? DragonballZ? It's just stupid if you ask me that they do not make them more accessible. It is art and literature and needs to be out there!
jokabofe:
i still read comics on a weekly basis... or at least whenever i can get my lazy ass to the shop to pick up my stash ::) - and i still drop like $50 a week or more, which isn't hard when the average book costs like $2 now >:(
but some of my favorite reads right now are:
ultimate spider-man
ultimate fantastic four
100 bullets
dreamwave's transformers books
any star wars books (duh)
superman/batman by loeb & mcguinness
plus whatever catches my eye when i'm there... the owner of the shop i go to is a good friend of mine, so he pretty much looks out for me, holding stuff he thinks i'll dig to the side till i get there, which has been once a month for a while now. but he's turned me on to some really great stuff, like 30 days of night a while back... one of the best books i had read in a long time.
Scott:
I got a few hundred old Avengers and Captain America comics off of eBay in the past few months and I've been reading them here and there a few issues at a time. They're all from the early 80's (right before Secret Wars) until the mid 90's...its amazing how different the art and stories are from what I know of the industry these days. IMO they've shunned kids for the Collector much like a lot of toy lines have done. Comics have also been killed by the introduction of the home video game systems, we were the first generation to have them but we held on to our comics, kids now don't need comics to waste time reading, they have much more visually appealing and stimulating activities in which to waste hours on end
I can't say much about the modern industry, I've paged through a few Ultimates books, checked out Ultimate Spidey a few times but that's been about it, things started to change right about the time I got out of my reading days ('89-'90) Punisher and Wolverine were starting to take over the Marvel Universe and I remember my mom being a little uncormfortable of having her 15 year old reading such violent mags...and I look at the early 80's Avengers and have to agree with her. The introduction of violence was happening then and is something they need to get rid of if they want to attract the youth of the world back into the Comic Universe.
Interesting topic Thomas
SPIDERLEGS:
I'm a huge Vertigo fan. TRANSMETROPOLITAN is greatest comic of all time (have them all). I also love HELLBLAZER (most), PREACHER(all) & SANDMAN(all). Never got into superhero comics other than BATMAN (half) and SPIDERMAN (most of the McFarlane issues). Kinda dug SPAWN for a while. I have all the STAR WARS TPBs.
I mainly don't collect single issues unless the TPB hasn't come out yet. I love TPBs because I don't have to wait a month for the story to continue and you get complete story arcs. Plus, they are easier to keep in good condition.
I used to totally dig Darkhorse, but they've slipped, at least to me, in the last few years.
I'm about to check out THE WATCHMEN. I've heard good things about them.
The greatest comic artists of all time? Alex Ross, Darick Robertson, Steve Dillon, Joe Quesada. Greatest writers: Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Frank Miller, Matt Wagner, Grant Morrison.
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