Digital Comic Museum
General Category => Comic Related Discussion => Topic started by: Indywesternfan on May 27, 2012, 07:38:28 PM
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Just finished reading an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal website. There is a new book about the history of comic book
creators that is coming out soon. Leaping Tall Buildings. The article mentions how the Avengers has made over 500 million dollars at the
box office and yet the typical comic book has a print run of 230,000. People love to watch the Avengers, Spiderman, Batman at the movies
but they don't buy the comic books. The author mentions that the typical comic book story is so convoluted that most people need a translation so they can understand what is going on. They mentioned Watchman which was written with a beginning, middle and an end.
I always use to think I did not leave comic books, they left me. To me comics don't seem to be much fun anymore. Brian
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Hi Indy,
I've heard your feelings echoed by many older collectors out there. The 'dark and gritty' 90's was the turning point for me.
Most of the hero movies are written completely different from their source material. As you say - most need a start, middle and end though I'm starting to see the trilogy becoming more common so that might change too.
It's rare that you'll find a series that is written with an end in mind though I can name a couple - The wonderful 'Y-The Last Man' and 'The Boys'. I'd think it would help writers a lot if they knew what they were aiming for at the end. Most hero books are written to change but don't change anything important or a new writer comes along and retcons everything back again.
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I'll have to take a look at the Wall Street Journal website (not something I would usually do), Indy. I can't afford to waste money on comics any longer and I doubt if I would if I could, certainly not those from the Big Two anyway. There certainly seems to be no assurance that even if I found a series which I wanted to follow, which seems unlikely, it wouldn't be plowed under with little or no warning as a sacrifice to big sales hoped to be garnered by BIG CHANGES WHICH YOU CAN'T MISS.
I also find that I'm not reading much new fiction either, and that my interests are now mainly in history and biographies. I used to read a fair amount of science-fiction, but I stopped reading it once the Walter Gibson stood that field on its head. It could be that now that I'm in the future, I'm disappointed in how it turned out.
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It could be that now that I'm in the future, I'm disappointed in how it turned out.
I feel a bit like that also.
"The 'dark and gritty' 90's was the turning point for me." Yoc.
Ditto.
Although I have little time for new offerings from the big 2, I also haven't rushed out to see the films. Having seen trailers that left me cold, I felt no great excitement about these screen versions. But there are comics out there which are reasonably well-crafted, art and story and which I and others on here and CB+ find entertaining and enjoyable. A mention of some examples might nudge some others to have a try. But these are my taste, not necessarily anyone elses and I don't, for example like The Boys.
The Sixth Gun from ONI;
Near Death from Image;
Fatale from Image;
Saucer Country from Vertigo is shaping up well;
The Activity from Image - ditto.
I really enjoyed Hawaiian Dick (Image), from a few years ago and that was thanks to a recommendation from narfstar.
Also, there are English translations of French and Belgian albums available and I've been reading the newer Blake and Mortimer tales, by Van Hamme and Benoit, and Lady S , by Van Hamme and Aymond. IRS is coming up as soon as my local library turns it up. Also, The Scorpion is available in English and is very good.
If you try a local library (if you still have one, as in the UK there are many being closed because of austerity cuts), they often have a stock of tpb's and g.n.'s. That's how I found Lady S.
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I use my local library a lot for graphic novels. That's how I read 'The Boys' and am now read 'Preacher' by the same writer.
Mice Templar is one I'd highly recommend as well btw. Good stuff and I'd say safe for kids 10 and over due to some gore.
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There's also the fact that comic books used to be written primarily for younger readers, with "one and done" stories in titles that anyone could pick up as a starting point, until the industry completely abandoned their traditional base in the late 80's/early 90's for the collectors market.
When I was in middle school (and it wasn't that long ago), all of my friends in the seventh grade had a comic in his backpack. But now, I just read that the average age for a comic book buyer is 35 years old with a shrinking readership. And I have a feeling that the boat has sailed on every getting kids back again. They'll gladly watch cartoons and movies with Spider-Man or the Avengers or Superman, but wading through the "gritty" and convoluted morass of modern comics just isn't going to happen. Good luck explaining the last ten years of Spider-Man to a little kid, or what the difference is between 616 and Ultimate in Marvel, or what the "DC New 52" is supposed to mean. The adult geeks could tell you in loving, almost self-congratulatory detail, but it wouldn't make an ounce of sense to someone just starting the fifth grade. Factor in that spinner racks and newspaper stands are swiftly vanishing (not to mention comic shops themselves), and it doesn't bode well for the future.
Anyway, there's my two cents. Or one cent, depending on what you think of it. ;)
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Similar discussion occurring on the John Byrne forum:
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=41873
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The amount of series, spin-offs, and specials issued by Marvel and DC must be mandated by the continued corporate push for market share. That the print market is shrinking is undeniable, and the replacement generation of readers does not exist. The medium may have simply outlived its natural lifespan, and is being supported by a large group of fans who son;t want to see it die and go away forever. Just speculation.
I remember scrounging around as a child for a quarter here or there to afford to by a couple of comics. Even as daunting as that task was back in the early 60's, the price of comics still seemed to reflect the value of entertainment I was getting. At about $4.00 average, I just don't see current comics providing $4.00 worth of entertainment--especially considering that the major companies will spin out a story requiring readers to spend a lot more than just that $4.00 to fully realize the entire plot line after spin-offs, sub-series, and such.
I took a look at the first couple of months of the DC relaunch, and realized quickly that the writing was just not good enough to command a renaissance of the medium, the characters, or anything. Just a marketing gimmick. In fact, some of the writing was pretty damned poor.
Retailers complain that illegal downloads are readily available on all new material within 24-48 hours. True. Simply put, it's the manifestation of something not worth the purchase price.
--David
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A big deal I see with comics isn't necessarily the gore or the length (though they turn me off, personally), but that the stories aren't really "about" anything anymore.
I mean, it used to be that Batman stories were (in general) detective or crime stories that happened to star Batman. Starting in the late '70s, it seems to me that the stories became increasingly just exposition of how much X Batman is in comparison to Y. Is Batman stronger than the Joker? Is he better than Ra's al Ghul at competitive eating?
If I wanted to spend my days looking at illustrated but meaningless statistics, I'd collect baseball cards.
When Roy Thomas introduced the world to Retroactive Continuity, comics became even more painfully self-interested, even though I think Thomas got it right. They started telling extensive stories about the early days, retelling the (ack!) origins, and fleshing out exactly what was in that sandwich that Cyclops ate in that one issue.
Continuity is great, but you don't tell stories about continuity any more than the list of Egyptian Dynasties or the make and model of Chekhov's infamous gun is a compelling tale. Continuity is the stage. You set the story in, on, or around it.
That's the worst part of reboots. Rather than hit the ground running and excite us over the potential of characters and their world, every single writer feels the need to slowly and carefully introduce his cast of characters and make sure we know why everybody is where they are, and we never get to the actual story before falling asleep. I've said it many times before, but never lead with an origin in anything more than a thumbnail; anything we need to know can be explained as--get this--part of the story, even if it's a flashback.
Because the other extreme stinks, too, and that shows up from time to time: The writer that just draws content from obscure sources and thinks his story "follows naturally" from what he thinks he remembers reading in that one book, so there's no reason to actually explain anything.
Hm. Here's the scariest thing you're going to hear today. "I'm going to cut this short." If you think about one end of a beast swallowing the other, you'll realize that there are two ways such a thing could happen. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader which one makes more sense in the context of comics.
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I've been drifting away from modern comics for a decade or so. I find myself far more willing to commit to a comic series that has no corporate overlord to appease.
Instead, I am more interested in comics where characters can change and, as you mention before, there's an end in sight to the story. Even Golden and Silver Age comics recognize this. Almost all their comics are non-serial in nature. I just want a story to have an ending.
I first became disillusioned by the serial nature of comics when it dawned on me that the X-Men's five billion dangling plotlines would never be wrapped up. I was wrong though, they did wrap some of them up, but added three for every one that was completed.
In more recent years, I've been thoroughly disgusted by the level of violence in comics. There's no way I'd let my kids look at some of the gorefests that the Big Two publish. They're shooting themselves in the foot.
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Hi AJ,
I agree with you about books for kids. Are your kids into comics at all? What do you recommend for reading if you are still reading anything?
With today's prices I find the library the best place to read GN collections of different titles though what I'm reading I'd never let a kid read. 'Planetary' was another one I left out in my earlier list of series with a planned finish.
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Jeez! You are just SO negative, John C.
Now you want stories to be ABOUT something, too. Just dig the groovy pictures, Man! GGA and all that. You READ comics?
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Hi AJ,
I agree with you about books for kids. Are your kids into comics at all? What do you recommend for reading if you are still reading anything?
With today's prices I find the library the best place to read GN collections of different titles though what I'm reading I'd never let a kid read. 'Planetary' was another one I left out in my earlier list of series with a planned finish.
Only one of my kids is old enough to read, and despite my best efforts comics have been labeled "not cool."
Look for some of the kids books published by Top Shelf (http://www.topshelfcomix.com/). They do some nice, yet eclectic work with all of their titles.
Also try Roger Langridge's Snarked! (http://www.snarkisland.com/) comic.
Superhero titles that I like are Tom Stillwell's Honor Brigade (http://www.honorbrigadecomic.com/), which he is now serializing digitally. Kirby Genesis, from Dynamite (http://www.dynamite.net/htmlfiles/) has been enjoyable though on the expensive side.
I've also enjoyed a lot of other Dynamite Comics titles, namely Dejah Thoris, Lone Ranger and Red Sonja. Lone Ranger is especially good. Look for Rangers with art by Sergio Cariello -- he's a wonderful artist.
I like to pick up books by Moonstone (http://www.moonstonebooks.com/shop/default.aspx). They mostly focus on New Pulp heroes, so that may be an acquired taste.
I still read stuff from the Big Two, but usually only items I find on discount. You can check out my quickie reviews here: Comics On The Brain's mini reviews (http://soundadvicefortoday.com/categories/263/mini-reviews-1.aspx)
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Thanks for the pointers AJ.
I haven't been in a comic shop in many years. The library has done a good job getting me stuff so far. I'll take a look for some of your suggestions.
Back in the 80s I enjoyed 'Mazing Man and 'Captain Carrot and His Zoo Crew'. It was a big hoot seeing 'Mazing Man in the Batman Brave and Bold cartoon's last season.
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A big problem with Moonstone is not knowing if a series has been canceled and the end goes unseen. Will I ever see the coclusion of Phases of the Moon?
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Jeez! You are just SO negative, John C.
Now you want stories to be ABOUT something, too. Just dig the groovy pictures, Man! GGA and all that. You READ comics?
Peace, Jim (|:{>
I try!
Semi-seriously, though, I don't see how one can be negative when the situation is that the best-selling comics run about a tenth of the distribution of the most awful comics of the '60s. I can understand the drop from the heights of war (where escapism and money were in short supply), but I think the market pressure has come from the stories.
I mean, purely objectively, the "pictures" have gotten better over time, for the most part, right? We've gone from Fletcher Hanks to quasi-photorealism. And sales have dropped with it. Either prospective comic fans hate art, or there's another factor at work.
The way I see it, comic books are really the only medium with no budgetary restrictions where you can get a complete story that can also be part of a larger mosaic. The further you get from that strength, the harder it is to compete against a movie (which costs about two comic books, today, often has prettier, even more scantily-clad girls, and lasts around five times as long) or, y'know, going outside, which is free, and the pictures are unbelievably realistic.
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Quite seriously, John,
I believe that the heightened realism in comics is part of their downfall. Artists and writers forgot the story-telling aspects of the medium and concentrated on the new "technology". Writers can spend pages expounding on something that Stan and Jack (or Robert and Curt) would have handled in a panel or two. Sure you get more "pictures" but the "story" is so diluted (and the price point necessary to support the new "technology" is so high) that there is a spiraling downward of the point of diminishing returns. Why would anyone pay $3 for one tenth of the story they used to get for 20¢? And the artists are called upon to pad out the pages with panels that have little to do with forwarding the plot and so the pictures have stopped telling the story - the very DEFINITION of the comic book has been superseded by verbose, elongated books filled with panels that barely relate to the plot and certainly not to each other.
The dense, impenetrable plots are a Catch 22. If they made them simpler and shorter, they would probably lose the small audience they have with little likelihood of immediately enticing replacements. And because the fans refuse to acknowledge the inherent flaws in the current status quo, they won't accept a return to simpler story-telling with panels and stories that flow effortlessly from page to page. Remember when it was possible to "read" a comic book just by looking at the pictures and reading a caption or two? Hah! I knew you did. Know anyone who would even consider attempting that these days? Me neither.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Right, and I do want to clarify that by "story," I didn't necessarily mean "writing" in the prose sense. If the dialogue and art don't support each other (which it hasn't often, in at least twenty years or so), I feel like someone doesn't understand his job.
The format is definitely one part of it. At some point, someone got the idea that comic books could be written like movies, and I think that's where a lot of padding came from. We got the sweeping splash pages that fry a two-page spread to show someone posing with gritted teeth, and we got the series of identical panels to convey time passing, but there's no content, so we skip over them (I love the row of panels of a hand picking something up off a table, as if we couldn't guess how the character came to hold the object). When I sampled the "New 52" books, it was digital-only, and I was reading faster than I could turn the pages, to give an idea of "story density."
But I do think the stories themselves are a big deal, as well, and probably the biggest nail in the coffin. The stories have become more about the world earlier comics have established than about the characters doing interesting things. I remember a JLA comic during the 2000-ish relaunch, where Grant Morrison was interviewed about his latest story, and he explained that he built up the entire thing because...?
"I always wanted to shave the Shaggy Man."
Not, "I wanted to investigate man's inhumanity to man," "it's an adaptation of Moby Dick," or "I wanted to write a fun adventure," all of which would be clichéd, but at least suggests that the story was worth reading or even writing. Instead, nothing in the story (running across several issues, of course) was important, except for the punchline. It was all a set piece, made entirely from "props" the theater company (DC) left around. Do you know who the Shaggy Man is? Do you care? Of course not, and the writer can't be bothered to convince you otherwise.
Hopefully, that's also the way out. Keep "writing for the trade," but tell novel-length stories (real stories, not encyclopedia references) in every six issues, and get the writer and artist communicating beyond "make sure Batman's in the picture." I think the existing fans will stay on-board, and they'll bring other readers in over time.
Well, as long as the creators can stop whining that they're not being "taken seriously as an art form," I mean. Every time I hear something like that, it sounds like a child screaming that he's not trusted to stay out past curfew. Show you're responsible first, even when nobody's watching, and then we recognize it...
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I totally agree, John,
and didn't mean to imply otherwise with my post that didn't delve into that aspect of it. Elsewhere on the Timely/Atlas site there has been some discussion of the Marvel Method of writing a comic book story. It was pointed out that Stan Lee took advantage of those artists who could assist him in the storytelling by working from a plot outline. The real kicker there was "could". Kirby and Ditko certainly could, but could Paul Reinman or Jack Keller? Dunno. Probably. But telling a story graphically is comprised of more than drawing the swaggering figures or angst-ridden poses. It involves, as you say, the arrangement of panels to further the story and it's a learned and, I believe, a rare skill.
Without a story to further, the art and the artist become more and more redundant (the point I was trying to make) and so story-telling is replaced by page-filling, because that's what the writer wants. The sequence of hands reaching for an object might simply be a matter of an inept story-teller OR it might be that the lack of story necessitates stretching whatever is (not) happening over more space - after all, it's a six-part saga...
No, I don't know who Shaggy Man is/was and one would think that Grant Morrison might have been perceptive enough to suggest that he wanted to explore the notion of self when the raison d'être has been removed. THAT might have flown a bit further. Sadly, he's not that good of a writer, it seems.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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My actual point about the Shaggy Man story wasn't (as seems a typical criticism) that Morrison was using obscure details, by the way. It was more that he seemed to think that the inclusion of obscure details created a story.
It's probably not an experience that anybody born outside of the 1970s would have had, but having grown up at the time when "action figures" were plentiful and cheap, I remember many lazy weekends at home as a kid doing basically the same thing. You improvise a mediocre story based on whatever characters you have in the drawer, hoping somewhere in the back of your mind that you sound vaguely like a comic book.
That's what it feels like comic book writing has become, and (since a lot of the writers are about my age) I wonder how far from the truth that really is. The improvisational nature would explain why stories go on for half a year without anything happening. It would also explain why a lot of fans have been reduced to Pavlovian responses of, "oh, he used my favorite version of my favorite character, so he's a good writer" or "Oh, they've dared to CHANGE Spider-Man, so the world is hereby over!"
As an example, a few years back, I had the misfortune to read DC's "Identity Crisis." I gave it a shot because (a) someone loaned it to me and (b) it was written by a "real" writer, from outside the industry. What I got out of it was seven issues with two parallel plots. The "A plot" was that the Justice League made some incoherent leaps of logic to assume that their secret identities were in danger and that they clearly new who the suspect was. The "B plot" was a drunken lurch from red herring to red herring, packed with characters who, frankly, don't matter. In the background, the "arc" revealed that the Justice League had "really" been obsessive authoritarians in protecting their secrets. Oh, and in the background, we also learn that the villains have apparently unionized and they all get together every week for Evil Board Meetings or something I couldn't make heads or tails of.
(I don't think I'll ever understand the number of meetings these costumed types voluntarily sit through, either. Are the creators jealous of those of us who have corporate jobs? Because for a couple of bucks, I'll happily let them go to real meetings on my behalf...)
But people didn't like it. That shouldn't be surprising. What should be surprising is that the majority didn't like it because the story was triggered by brutally murdering the supporting character of a not-so-popular superhero. That it was a hundred pages of incoherent nonsense that undermined its own concept (that secret identities are an important part of the genre...I think) didn't seem to enter into the discussion.
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My actual point about the Shaggy Man story wasn't (as seems a typical criticism) that Morrison was using obscure details, by the way. It was more that he seemed to think that the inclusion of obscure details created a story.
Your point was well-made, John, and very clear - to me, anyway. Shaving Shaggy Man is not a story it's a one-liner. Then he's not "shaggy", get it!? Nobody cares other than the writer since, as you point out, nobody knows or cares about Shaggy Man to begin with. My suggestion for the story that could have been built from the shaving was "What happens to someone who identifies himself as Shaggy Man when he's not shaggy anymore?"
For instance, I've had a beard since 1966. Once in 1973 I was obliged to shave it off to treat a skin condition. There was a VERY strange mental gyration that occurred when I caught a glimpse of "myself" in a window or mirror. It wasn't "me" that I was seeing. Imagine how a Shaggy Man might have had infinitely greater "self" image problems if he could never connect himself with his reflection. Could have been an interesting exploration of the Id AND let Morrison shave Shaggy Man. How can "I" still be the "Shaggy Man" if I'm not. Then who am I? Etc.
I would have read that story. You don't have to know anything about "Shaggy Man" to enjoy the idea.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Very true, it would have been very simple to springboard from the "set piece," as they say in movies (where you've rented the space and the props, so the movie is damned well going to contain that scene, no matter how awkward it is) to a real story. But no. Such things are beneath us.
Instead, as I recall, a nutty military man had his brain transplanted into the robot(?) body, and so of course he needed to shave his head.
What's funny is that I think a lot of the current writers would be wonderful editors. They have a good sense of good "germs" of a story, and can make quick connections to stories in an enormous body of literature. Having a Grant Morrison or Geoff Johns oversee a project with some raw writing talent could be a great thing to see. Unfortunately, I get the impression that "editor" in comic book land doesn't mean what it means anywhere else in the world, and egos prevent shifting people to where they can do the most good.