[secondspace]

Speculation was part of the crash, but the success of things like Watchmen and The Sandman had raised the profile of comics and comic shops saw the benefit. Instead of trying to work with better writers though, Marvel and DC used the direct market to squeeze money out of super hero fans with multiple X-Men books and multiple covers on hot books for fans to collect.

Image comics came along supposedly to allow creators to own their work, but again quickly became a way for these same creators to squeeze cash from their fans. It was also part of the trend of letting hot artists write the comics, which was generally not a great idea.

[afternoon delight]

I don't know anybody in real life who has the time, patience, or nerditude to buy ten different comics to make sense of the new time continuum of threats that won't effect the story at all in six months.

TPBs are great because they're stand alone and usually worth the time spent. But this is coming from someone who only owns The Sandman volumes and Sin City collection.

[animlboogy]

Ironically, after the Image artists nearly killed a genre, their publishing company is the one making the best case for quality mainstream genre books.

[ILikeFeet]

It's no mystery. You are part of the problem. No matter WHAT they do, you will never be happy and rationalize your theft however you can. Because you feel entitled to these comics. As I stated in another thread, manga prices in the US are still lower in 2010 than they were in 1995; yet whiners still find a way to bitch about prices. Here's an idea. Get a job that isn't at Gamestop.

I guess I am part of the problem (TPB are just so much better of a deal anyway). still picking up mangas on Amazon even when I do get a job. didn't get into mangas until after the 2000s (in 1995, I was 3 years old). and I will complain anyway since mangas were $7 where I live not 3 years ago. every book store bumped up the prices

[MidnightRider]

I've never been a fan...... but yes i've seen less and less of them over the years

[oracrest]

I stopped buying comics for the same reason I don't watch television... too much advertising.

I will still pick up an occasionally trade of a collected and finished story though.

[Bleepey]

Fucking Liefeld i swear.

[Bleepey]

I think price is a reason comic books aren't as popular as they once were. I used to read Essential X-men religiously as a kid, with a bit of Spider-Man here and there during the awesomeness and bullshit that was the Clone saga. Then they increased the price past £2 an issue and i was like fuck it i can't justify this shit anymore. It was only till my library started stocking comics that i got into them. With DVDs so cheap and the internet being a reason it's damn near impossible to be bored, you can't use the "it has great art" as an excuse for them to cost so much and then complain when they do not sell so well. Nowadays i only bother with trades because they can be better value for money, and i personally would not object if there were cheaper versions with ads.

[zoukka]

I have no problems with paying 25-35 euros on some good comic books. I expect insightful and innovative content from them though. It's your own fault if comics mean "superheroes" to you.

[Zachack]

I think price is a reason comic books aren't as popular as they once were.

Price is a result of the real problems, not a cause. The 90s speculation did a good bit of damage but the long-term damage has been caused by the direct-market. The comic book store insulates and amplifies the most negative aspects of comics, and every time a company panders heavily to that market (instead of normal pandering) the problem gets worse. I actually live near a fairly clean and (I think) well-run LCBS and I'd still hesitate to go in there with a person who isn't familiar with comics because half the store is D&D/WH30K/MTG and another 25% is figurines and whatnot which basically cause the store to look like Nerd Mecca.
And it's the only real comics option for like 30 miles or so unless you count the trade section of B&N/Borders.

There are loads of other problems (first-impressions are terrible due to about a third of covers being painted nude women) but I think the big shift will come a few years after Digital becomes a well-supported reality (although I expect DC to fully drag their feet) and people can search through an online store and find numerous options in most any genre.

[Kusagari]

Definitely. Perfect thing to sell for kids, "SPIDERMAN!" for a cheap product to keep the little ones happy. Now the direct market model basically means only the older fans will seek out a comic store to get their books. If anything they are killing their franchises for future generations. The characters will only be known for the cartoons and movies. Remember gettng comics all the time as a little kid on visits to local grocery store with mom, or a pharmacy. They were cheap and got me into comics as I got older. Your distribution is also going to be much larger. Getting comics was so much easier back in the day.

This is very true. We all know that Marvel has been whoring Deadpool out everywhere and he's at an all time high in popularity. But then think about how many people who talk about him online have actually even read one of his comics? The direct market model is basically killing the true growth a semi new character like him could reach because these people aren't going to go scouring around for his comics. However, if they saw his comic in Wal-Mart they would likely pick it up.

[v0yce]

I've pretty much stopped reading superhero comics since I realised nothing in the story matters. Bruce Wayne or Captain America can die but it doesn't matter since he'll be back in a year's time anyways. It's kinda silly to be honest.

While I think I know what you're saying, the whole idea that the act of a comic death and coming back makes that whole thing meaningless is to me a little silly. Why do you think that experience can't shape the character moving forward?

[BattleMonkey]

I have no problems with paying 25-35 euros on some good comic books. I expect insightful and innovative content from them though. It's your own fault if comics mean "superheroes" to you.

Because mostly what people are talking about is the Western market here which is mainly super hero company based.

While I think I know what you're saying, the whole idea that the act of a comic death and coming back makes that whole thing meaningless is to me a little silly. Why do you think that experience can't shape the character moving forward?

Because it usually doesn't? These are franchises they are pumping out, so many different minds and hands touch these books that so much is changed, lost, and interpretations vary greatly from book to book at times. A big event happens and it's reverted in a few months and things generally just go back to status quo.

[~Devil Trigger~]

for me its $ mostly

[Bleepey]

The only comic book I follow is the Punisher MAX; simply because I can't stand the fruityness of regular mainline comics. heck, I cant stand the regular mainline Punisher books. I follow those comic threads and there always some bigass event, or death of a fan favorite chracter being hyped, and then it ALWAYS turnout to be some random C-lister getting killed. That civil wars stuff was so over the top, spawned a fuckload of various spinofs and so on, and it was just out of control. The Punisher MAX is the only one I care about because the storylines are 'more' grounded in reality. Important characters do die. Heck, The Punisher puts down Micro, his only friend that has helped him since the '80 comics, because he is mortally wounded and also because he turned against him for money. This kind of stuff is pretty powerful; i mean the main character putting down his only friend in like 25 years of comic series. Nothing ever happens in regular comics, and nobody never really die. Nobody is in real danger. And the storylines are way too convulted.

Guess what...












he comes back alive!!

I think superhero comic are much better now than they were 20 years ago. It's like comic book writers now actually understand that they're working with a visual medium and don't need to overnarrate everything!

I take it you were not fan of Chris Claremont.:lol :lol :lol :lol Christ some of the shit is painful to read nowadays.

I'm sort of a lapsed comic geek - thanks to the Internet, I'm able to still have a good knowledge of what's going on in comics and what all of my favorite characters/teams/universes are up to, but it's not truly cohesive. I think a lot of the issue with being into comics has to do with there being like 50 different continuities and stories going on at once with no real way to pin them down and be like "this is the main thing, this is the pertinent story". There's a main continuity, and then there are alternate ones/side stories, and then there is the continuity in different media (like whatever the current cartoon/TV show is, and/or the current movie) - it makes me feel like if I'm not a top-tier comic book guy like Spike Spiegel or something, I can't truly participate in the comic fandom and I'm just as knowledgeable as some guy who just has the latest movie on DVD. Also, how do you even get a comic nowadays? When I was a kid, you were able to get these things at your local coffee/magazine/deli spot, or in the local drugstore (whether it was a mom-and-pop thing, or a Rite Aid/Walgreens/CVS type thing) in addition to the comic book shop. You used to be able to subscribe right out of the back of comic books too. Now, you are fucked if you don't have a comic book shop nearby, since those stores and delis don't sell comics anymore. At least living in NYC, I can hop on a train and find one...but if I was a kid today, I wouldn't even know how to get my hands on these things since I can't reach that comic book store that's far from my house, and I don't know if you can even subscribe anymore outside of (possibly) the Internet. ...then again, I bet none of those things are really the problem. Comics could be too pricy now, too - each one's like $3 to 5, and for a kid that's a lot of scratch. Who knows, really.

Wow, that bad? I live in London and the newsagents enar me have a choice of at least 10 comics. Also living in London i used to have 2 comic book shops within a 30-40 minute walk or 10 minute bus ride away. There are also about 10 comic book shops in my city that i am aware of.

[jmdajr]

The early nineties saw a period in comic-book history where the industry almost comitted suicide through greed, arrogance and stupidity. I was a lifetime comics buyer at that point. Moving from Spider-Man to the X-Men, to the Tick and beyond.

Then the speculators came. And like the sports card market before it, they took comic-books straight to hell. People were buying the books not because they loved them, but because they thought they could make a profit reselling them. This encouraged the industry to pump out gimicks.

First issues were more collectable? Start more titles — or better yet, cancel a title that has been running since the ’60s then restart it the next month at #1. People were buying more than one copy? Release six “variant” covers of every issue. Kill Superman. Cripple Batman. Give Spider-Man an evil clone. Holograms. Foil embossing. Die-cut covers. Every dirty trick in the book was tried to make consumers buy comics they didn’t love and didn’t need (except improving quality.) And it worked.

For a while.

good read

edit: the dude is basically describing the whole era I collected comics. He's just about crapped on everything I got during that time :lol

This then was the scene of the early ’90s:

* Comic, card, and hype magazine publishers were working together to inflate demand for their product
* Comic publishers were producing gimmick comics at the drop of a hat
* These same publishers were absolutely abusing the crossover sales tactic, and working gimmick covers and trading cards into the deal (and final price)
* Dealers were finding themselves increasingly pinched each month, having to find a way to buy an increased number of comics, at increasing prices, and all the cross-marketed media associated with them, such as trading cards and hype periodicals
* Even worse, the collector’s themselves were forced to choose which collectible hype they followed. Dealers could buy everything and hope some of it turned out to be hot, or roll the dice and try to forecast the next trend

Fans turned away from comics and the speculators left to ruin some other business. (When was Enron founded, anyway? I’m willing to bet Ken Lay got start-up money by selling back issues of Youngblood.)

[MrHicks]

While I think I know what you're saying, the whole idea that the act of a comic death and coming back makes that whole thing meaningless is to me a little silly. Why do you think that experience can't shape the character moving forward?

huh?

[BattleMonkey]

Guess what... he comes back alive!!

He comes back in the normal marvel continuity, but not in the MAX universe. The MAX punisher was supposed to be kept separate from the normal continuity but when they brought back the punisher comics to marvel main line they tried to tie it into that continuity and brought back Micro ugh. At least Max series still ignores this stuff.

[BenjaminBirdie]

While I think I know what you're saying, the whole idea that the act of a comic death and coming back makes that whole thing meaningless is to me a little silly. Why do you think that experience can't shape the character moving forward?

Agreed. There's no point in consuming any media if you're just going to worry about how the sausage is made. Plus in the cases of Cap and Batman, they were always planned to come back as part of the same story by the same writer.

[BattleMonkey]

Agreed. There's no point in consuming any media if you're just going to worry about how the sausage is made.

And how this makes sense in relation to shitty story lines and plotting?

[BenjaminBirdie]

And how this makes sense in relation to shitty story lines and plotting?

Huh?

[BattleMonkey]

Huh?

Person hates the constant non consequential killing/death of characters, finds the storylines stupid and contrived, what does anything you said have to do with people not liking it? We are supposed to accept the nonsense based on "it's how comics roll"? These stories often have no real consequence in the long term, they are "events" to sell books and are often forgotten soon afterwards. It's a lot of jerking fans around and many hate it. Just because it was planned ahead doesn't make it any more acceptable or less contrived means of pushing sales.

[BenjaminBirdie]

Person hates the constant non consequential killing/death of characters, finds the storylines stupid and contrived, what does anything you said have to do with people not liking it? We are supposed to accept the nonsense based on "it's how comics roll"?

Those two instances I cited were actually well done and conceived by a single creator. It's not always a bunch of editorial chess playing pulling people on and off and back on the board.

It wasn't "nonsense" when Grant Morrison or Ed Brubaker did it because they turned out to be fantastic stories. It's not like in a genre where giant planet eaters can be thwarted by a tiny little staple gun, resurrection is the thing that can be nonsense.

:lol :lol

I mean, comics are fucking ridiculous across the board. I don't see how killing someone and then bringing them back is the dealbreaker.

:lol

[BattleMonkey]

:lol :lol I mean, comics are fucking ridiculous across the board. I don't see how killing someone and then bringing them back is the dealbreaker. :lol

Seeing how many people seem to think it is a deal breaker...... yea I guess it's funny when people are quitting comic books because of stuff like that. Silly industry killing itself :lol

[Drkirby]

I'll reiterate the problem with comic book stores: If you want to by comics in central Austin you have two choices. 1) Dragon's Lair: Dragon's Lair is a comic book/Magic/D&D/Euro Board game/Warhammer 2K store. They fill every single aisle and inch of free space with folding tables and rent them out for people to play games on. No one will help you, and you have to squeeze by tables of super-nerds talking about their D&D characters back story. I'm not personally intimidated by this stuff because I am a super-nerd.. but you are never going to get a normal person to set foot in that place without turning around and running from the door. Even if they were willing to wade through the tables of people playing D&D or Warhammer minature games all of their comics are arranged by publisher. I get that it makes some kind of sense to do it that way for fans, but if you come in to buy Walking Dead because you heard good things you will never find it because you won't know who published the damn thing. There are also no employees paying any attention to anyone but the people playing the games. 2) Austin Comic Books: normal comic book store. Has no organization whatsoever. There isn't a wall of new releases they are mixed in together. Trade papers are in a rough alphabetical order.. except this is repeated several times over the store with no real rhyme or reason to it. For instance, there are 3 sections of Green Lantern trade papers. I eventually had to ask an employee where they kept their walking dead comics (the aforementioned Dragon's Lair didn't have the 2nd TPB).. instead of the guy being helpful he started throwing around insider lingo. It was pretty clear I was lost and confused and instead of saying "where are you in the series?" or any kind of leading questions he walked me over to one of their new release sections and pointed at the 4 latest issues. 3-4 minutes later I found him again and told him I was looking for back issues.. and he looked at me and said "you mean trade papers?". YES I MEANT TRADE PAPERS YOU FUCKING CUNT. I AM TRYING TO GIVE YOU MONEY. I put up with it because I wanted the damn book and everyone else there was very nice.. but these are hurdles that would scare any normal customer off.

I acctaully have a pretty nice comic shop near me that I found, but with me I just don't know where to start. I don't really want to read any of the super hero stories though. Also sucks that a decent part of the store is collectors comics, and that I see stuff I want to take a look at, to see it costing $40 and being sealed.

In the end, after being in there for an hour, I just bought a thing of Pockey they had and left.

[Ninja Scooter]

I think I'm part of the problem I remember trying to buy up as many variants of Gen13 #1 as I could.

[krypt0nian]

The early nineties saw a period in comic-book history where the industry almost comitted suicide through greed, arrogance and stupidity. I was a lifetime comics buyer at that point. Moving from Spider-Man to the X-Men, to the Tick and beyond. Then the speculators came. And like the sports card market before it, they took comic-books straight to hell. People were buying the books not because they loved them, but because they thought they could make a profit reselling them. This encouraged the industry to pump out gimicks. First issues were more collectable? Start more titles — or better yet, cancel a title that has been running since the ’60s then restart it the next month at #1. People were buying more than one copy? Release six “variant” covers of every issue. Kill Superman. Cripple Batman. Give Spider-Man an evil clone. Holograms. Foil embossing. Die-cut covers. Every dirty trick in the book was tried to make consumers buy comics they didn’t love and didn’t need (except improving quality.) And it worked. For a while. good read edit: the dude is basically describing the whole era I collected comics. He's just about crapped on everything I got during the era :lol This then was the scene of the early ’90s: * Comic, card, and hype magazine publishers were working together to inflate demand for their product * Comic publishers were producing gimmick comics at the drop of a hat * These same publishers were absolutely abusing the crossover sales tactic, and working gimmick covers and trading cards into the deal (and final price) * Dealers were finding themselves increasingly pinched each month, having to find a way to buy an increased number of comics, at increasing prices, and all the cross-marketed media associated with them, such as trading cards and hype periodicals * Even worse, the collector’s themselves were forced to choose which collectible hype they followed. Dealers could buy everything and hope some of it turned out to be hot, or roll the dice and try to forecast the next trend Fans turned away from comics and the speculators left to ruin some other business. (When was Enron founded, anyway? I’m willing to bet Ken Lay got start-up money by selling back issues of Youngblood.)

This is it in a nutshell. It was simply a well deserved market crash. I was running a shop at the time and can attest to it.

[animlboogy]

Seeing how many people seem to think it is a deal breaker...... yea I guess it's funny when people are quitting comic books because of stuff like that. Silly industry killing itself :lol

What Brubaker and Morrison did with Captain America and Batman, respectively, were both very well received stories that consistently increased sales for both books, and launched critically acclaimed series as a result. Especially in Morrison's case, the stories were actually exploring the concept of the superhero life/death cycle.

Very few existing fans who actually read these stories rage quit the medium over them.

[BattleMonkey]

What Brubaker and Morrison did with Captain America and Batman, respectively, were both very well received stories that consistently increased sales for both books, and launched critically acclaimed series as a result. Especially in Morrison's case, the stories were actually exploring the concept of superhero death. Very few existing fans who actually read these stories rage quit the medium over them.

It increases sales amongst the fanboys, which is why they keep doing this nonsense. As a whole though the industry has been dying off with many people especially in this thread who do rage quit.

Big event stuff like the death of a character and such always draws in the big sales, doesn't mean everyone likes it or is not going to get sick of it. People constantly cite this kind of back and forth nonsesne as what kills their interest in the super hero genre.

Once interest wanes, it's time for another "earth shattering" event to boost sales!

[Branduil]

What Brubaker and Morrison did with Captain America and Batman, respectively, were both very well received stories that consistently increased sales for both books, and launched critically acclaimed series as a result. Especially in Morrison's case, the stories were actually exploring the concept of the superhero life/death cycle. Very few existing fans who actually read these stories rage quit the medium over them.

You're missing the point.

The fanbase for comics is increasingly small because nothing of consequence ever happens in mainstream superhero comics, so there's no reason to ever start reading them.

[BenjaminBirdie]

You're missing the point. The fanbase for comics is increasingly small because nothing of consequence ever happens in mainstream superhero comics, so there's no reason to ever start reading them.

Considering the huge fanatical popularity of stuff like Twilight, Harry Potter, and True Blood, where the same thing happens all the time, I really can't see much evidence for this line of reasoning.

[captmcblack]

It increases sales amongst the fanboys, which is why they keep doing this nonsense. As a whole though the industry has been dying off with many people especially in this thread who do rage quit. Big event stuff like the death of a character and such always draws in the big sales, doesn't mean everyone likes it or is not going to get sick of it. People constantly cite this kind of back and forth nonsesne as what kills their interest in the super hero genre. Once interest wanes, it's time for another "earth shattering" event to boost sales!

That's the thing...every event is now an earth-shattering event, and there is no unified continuity to make those events worth anything. Even if they kill off an important character and bring him back, it could mean something if it happened in some sort of coherent way within the mythos...but you could have Spidey get magic spider powers and then a special Tony Stark Spidey suit and then have some crazy event that retcons everything that ever happened in Spider-Man, only to have it only count in only one of the 57 Spider-Man series, which are nothing like the movies, which is nothing like any of the cartoons that are currently airing in which Spider-Man occurs.

...so it's like the event was meaningless anyway.
People don't mind stuff being easily retconned in a comic book; at least nowadays, we figure that's just part of the deal with comics and such. I know at least for me the real killer is stuff having no good/clear way to identify the "proper" continuity. That's sort of why I really liked the Ultimate Marvel universe; that way, I could follow ONE X-book, ONE Spider-Man book, ONE Avengers book, and so on. Of course, Marvel didn't have any courage to make those books be the true/ongoing continuity of those characters, though :-x

[jmdajr]

I was in the Book store during lunch. There are like a million different marvel titles. I don't even know what is what anymore.

Do they still have uncanny x-men? amazing spiderman? Does it even follow just one storyline?

[Relix]

Super Hero comics and their constant plot changing, art changes, kill, live, kill, live, etc has killed that genre nearly. At least it doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Now there are comic books out there that have a cohesive, coherent story. Those are the good ones. Superhero comics are a piece of shit to be honest.

And not to start a flame war but what I prefer from manga is that storyline, which usually makes no sense but at least it's stable and constantly builds from its foundation.

[MisterHero]

Considering the huge fanatical popularity of stuff like Twilight, Harry Potter, and True Blood, where the same thing happens all the time, I really can't see much evidence for this line of reasoning.

but there's actual character development, rises, falls, and deaths in those things compared to comic books

Maybe people who are critical of comics want true endings to stories rather than go on forever, but because never-ending is a tradition of the medium, may never happen. That's why they have alternate reality/scenario characters with beginnings/middles/ends. Those usually do pretty well.

However even without having to end the characters, my favorite comic books really do lack character development (unless it's very drawn out like a soap opera). Sometimes the status quo changes but people will complain if it's a shitty idea

[Flying_Phoenix]

Wow what an informative thread! Thanks everyone! :D

To people saying "comics out of specific shops and into grocery stores" grocery stores and the likes are lessening their magazine rack and such. That being said, what an idiotic idea of having a direct market. That would be like not selling videogames outside of Gamestop/EBGames.

Stuff.

You've been great in this thread thanks! :D

As I stated in another thread, manga prices in the US are still lower in 2010 than they were in 1995; yet whiners still find a way to bitch about prices. Here's an idea. Get a job that isn't at Gamestop.

Kind of a weak point. That's like saying video games are far less than they were in 1995 so their current pricing model of $60 is still a bargain. $11 is too much for a manga. That being said you can get them for $5 new on Amazon in which then they are a bargain.

No matter WHAT they do, you will never be happy and rationalize your theft however you can. Because you feel entitled to these comics.

This is so true for pirates. Hell Funimation streams up-to-date One Piece episodes via internet practically the same day in Japan. It's completely free and legal since they make money off advertisements. They also have all of their previous episodes (well practically) online too with subs and dubs. Not to mention it's all available on Hulu as well. Yet people still pirate this shit because "It's not in HD!"

I just did. Surprised me too.

I did some research and realized that it was, but it declined because of controversy and censorship with teh comic book code. That being said it doesn't change my point.

Considering the huge fanatical popularity of stuff like Twilight, Harry Potter, and True Blood, where the same thing happens all the time, I really can't see much evidence for this line of reasoning.

No it doesn't.

[jmdajr]

Super Hero comics and their constant plot changing, art changes, kill, live, kill, live, etc has killed that genre nearly. At least it doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Now there are comic books out there that have a cohesive, coherent story. Those are the good ones. Superhero comics are a piece of shit to be honest. And not to start a flame war but what I prefer from manga is that storyline, which usually makes no sense but at least it's stable and constantly builds from its foundation.

When I stopped comic books I went this route. Again...I stopped because it gets expensive when the volumes just don't stop. And no..I will never read a manga on the computer. It just doesn't feel right at all...I need to hold the damn thing.

For the moment I want to try some graphic novels. Those usually don't go on and on.

edit: hmmmm.. didn't know marvel offered subscriptions at almost 50% off. That's something.

[BattleMonkey]

Considering the huge fanatical popularity of stuff like Twilight, Harry Potter, and True Blood, where the same thing happens all the time, I really can't see much evidence for this line of reasoning.

Difference is these are usually closed and short lived franchises, often with a clear cut ending, popularity waning and changing is to be expected.

It is much different from a comic book company who depends on keeping a 30-50+ year old franchise going, especially when they are mostly now focused on catering to it's hardcore or older fanbase instead of garnering new ones.

[Branduil]

Considering the huge fanatical popularity of stuff like Twilight, Harry Potter, and True Blood, where the same thing happens all the time, I really can't see much evidence for this line of reasoning.

Those stories have endings and legitimate character arcs. Even Twilight.

[BenjaminBirdie]

but there's actual character development, rises, falls, and deaths in those things compared to comic books Maybe people who are critical of comics want true endings to stories rather than go on forever, but because never-ending is a tradition of the medium, may never happen. That's why they have alternate reality/scenario characters with beginnings/middles/ends. Those usually do pretty well. However even without having to end the characters, my favorite comic books really do lack character development (unless it's very drawn out like a soap opera). Sometimes the status quo changes but people will complain if it's a shitty idea

I still feel like contained arcs like Morrison's New X-Men, Bendis' Daredevil, Fraction's Iron Man, Remender's Punisher; all have development and narrative cohesion.

[sflufan]

I don't see how killing someone and then bringing them back is the dealbreaker.

It's very much a dealbreaker for me.

I can tolerate a lot of the other nonsense that occurs in comics, but the "he's dead...no, not really" stuff just rubs me the wrong way entirely.

Same goes for MAJOR UNIVERSE-SHATTERING EVENT...which occurs on an annual basis.

[jmdajr]

:D

I have this somewhere :)

[Hex]

My belief on what is hurting comics:

Killing collectors- everything these days is out in trade paperback within months of release.
Nothing holds value anymore and attempts at forcing it with multiple covers and whatnot only drive people further away.

Cost of books have gone up considerably which is odd considering how everything is colored and printed pretty much digitally

Using the reset button far too often. In comics nothing was ever forever but now it is redone so often that it is pointless.

Plus you can download everything in scans, pretty sad really.

[kame-sennin]

It's two totally different cultures with different economies. Just because some things are still popular over there doesn't invalidate the reasons for why they aren't here. Arcades and 2D animation are also still popular over there. Handhelds are more popular than consoles and they also prefer different videogame genres than the west.

Culture could of course be the reason. But I think people drop that as answer without providing evidence to back it up. Looking at the history of both industries, they were actually very similar up until the early 1950's. So, before we can safely attribute the differences to culture, I think we need to look and see what caused the initial split *cough*Tezuka*cough*Wertham*.

I read most of the last 50 posts and the first 50 posts skipping the middle 50, but it seems like with all this talk, no one has mentioned the real golden age of comics, in terms of actual popularity was not in the 90s but the 1950s.

Indeed. The American comics market crashed when self-censorship killed off EC comics and every other publisher that was putting out interesting stuff. The rise (or reemergence) of superhero comics was more of a crutch that kept the industry hobbling along.

I just did. Surprised me too.

History has been re-written by the two surviving publishers. Most people think comics have always been about superheroes and the entire industry was just spinning its wheels until Lee and Kirby came along.

[jmdajr]

My belief on what is hurting comics: Killing collectors- everything these days is out in trade paperback within months of release. Nothing holds value anymore and attempts at forcing it with multiple covers and whatnot only drive people further away. Cost of books have gone up considerably which is odd considering how everything is colored and printed pretty much digitally Using the reset button far too often. In comics nothing was ever forever but now it is redone so often that it is pointless. Plus you can download everything in scans, pretty sad really.

I hear ya but it pays off for those who wait. These days people want more value.

[Jedeye Sniv]

I was in the Book store during lunch. There are like a million different marvel titles. I don't even know what is what anymore. Do they still have uncanny x-men? amazing spiderman? Does it even follow just one storyline?

They made Spidey even easier to follow tbh. There used to be 3 or 4 different titles but they've merged them all to be Amazing Spiderman. It comes out 3 times a month now, but I hear it's really good. This means lots of trades, so you get the double edged sword of having loads of great spidey books but having a bewildering number of possibilities where to start. At the current rate they must be putting a trade out ever 2 months or so?

Honestly I have a hard time recommending any mainline continuity book from either publisher. There are loads of great comics to be sure, but I can't think of many you could just pick up and enjoy randomly. Maybe Fantastic Four, that's incredible at the moment and seems specifically written for the single issue. Batman and Robin is great too but I can imagine someone picking up #13 could be very confused.

[Arde5643]

:D I have this somewhere :)

Is this Liefeld's? Cause i sure don't see them feet. :lol

[Hex]

Is this Liefeld's? Cause i sure don't see them feet. :lol

Jim Lee

[Arde5643]

Jim Lee

Heh, they really hate them feet don't they?

[jmdajr]

Heh, they really hate them feet don't they?

you can so beasts toes....