Current state of Comics

Whats your guys take on the current state of comics?
I try to by any current issues in lots or pick up a tpb later down the line. I went to the Local comic store this week end picked up two issues, took me all but 15mins to read both and out $6.50! So I wont be doing that to much although the marvel civil war thing sounds really intresting.

I tend to stay in vintage comic mode. Like you said they are more expensive w/ less to read these days.

I only have a few comics I follow these days (Fallen Angel, Astonishing X-Men, Otherworld) but usually I wait a while and buy up a few at a time (yes it can be expensive at times...especially if you have to pick up most in back issue mode). But since I only have a few I follow it makes it less expensive.

I realized two years ago that I don't have to buy every comic I read. I just read what interests me in the store. I still buy every issue of Bagirl and of Robin, because I have them complete from #1 but even so I've decided to stop buying Robin at #150 and Batgirl at #75 (coming soon). Robin is just no fun anymore, hate the art work and the writing, Batgirl is still ok in that regard.

It's not even so much the money but amassing around 70 comics/year just adds up in terms of space! I've been reading comics for 25 years, I have a huge collection overseas in Germany when I used to live there and the comics I have amassed in the last 10 years here in North America is raising hairs with me. And it does save money to read in-store. I still am probably at around buying 40 comics/year.

Beren

P.S. Dark Knight Strikes Again was UNBELIEVABLY BAD, what a rip-off that was. And the current "The Boy Wonder" written by Frank Miller, is just plain awful since #2 (they're at 3 with 2 more to go). I already bought the first 3 but am seriously considering just reading the last two instore. Jim Lee's talent is so wasted on this trash.

Oops, talking about DC in the Marvel thread, was that sacrilegious?

I picked up a copy of the new Superman series and was suprised at how good it was.

I've been out of the loop for a while but am getting caught up on Captain America and the whole Infinate Crisis storyline over at DC. I was skepical, but Captain America has to be one of the best on-going series out right now. I highly recommend it... Ed Brubaker is the writer and I believe his first issues have been put into a trade. Drop by Amazon or your local shop and check it out.

In general, i think there are a lot of great things going on in comics. There a a ton of strong writers in every genre... I'm a big Grant Morrison fan so i am very curious to see what happend to All Star Superman.

Well, its def. in a state better then it was a few years ago where all artisits were jumping from one company to the other, however some things that concern me:

Marvel has so many story arcs going on, currently Decimation which was House of M, soon we will be moving into the Annilihation Arc, and shortly there after into the Civil War story (what the name is, I dunno). Not to mention the Ultimate Universe which has gotten just as misconstrued as the regular, which was what Marvel had not intended to do. The recent announcement that Marvel Knights titles will flip over into the original stories is good, because it improves contunity. Marvel has really bled Wolverine dry, however I give it to Logan he sells, and will always do so, especially now that he has recovered his full memory. Marvel seems to be hinting that Thor will return this year, I assume between Annilihation and the civil war. Marvel needs to get back to its root characters.

DC has been strong with the big ARC a year, currently Infinite Crisis which moves into 52. DC still finds its bread and butter in its core characters (JLA memebers) be it in together or in their own issues. Their other brand comics have really come on strong as of late with titles such as Fable, Captain Atom, Silent Dragon, etc...Even more DC has started breathing life into obscure characters with Morrison's Seven Soldiers arc (Mister Miracle Series is excellent). DC is promising some major permeanant shake ups this year coming out of crisis.

I spend roughly $40 a week at the LCS on comics alone, and I am a visual junkie, so anything that has great art usually ends up in my hand.

IMO the state of comics is solid, it could be better, less titles, more stories...

Additionally the sheer amount of talent in artists and writers is awesome, because they all have to step up their games, but it also means some are squandered (so noted on the Jim Lee on the DC Allstar Batman series).

Original comics like The Goon and Hellboy will continue to do very well, because they have so much heart poured into them by the creators.

k, I'm done...

I used to work in a comic book store and get 30+ titles a month, but those days are long gone. My tastes ran a little on the weird side anyway, but a lot of what I liked isn't published any longer. The big crossover stuff doesn't do much for me, since any radical changes are quickly erased. Even writers that I like a lot seem stale on some books (JMS on Spidey), or books are published so erratically that it is hard to keep up (Ellis on Planetary). The one thing that has me running back to stores regularly are the Eisner Spirit archive books!

I actually sometimes feel guilty not buying more comics these days!

Well if Jeph Loeb, Frank Miller or Alan Moore do anything I'm in. I esspessially love the Loeb/Tim Sale team up. theyre my favourite.

Rugby1970 said:

I've been out of the loop for a while but am getting caught up on Captain America and the whole Infinate Crisis storyline over at DC. I was skepical, but Captain America has to be one of the best on-going series out right now. I highly recommend it... Ed Brubaker is the writer and I believe his first issues have been put into a trade. Drop by Amazon or your local shop and check it out.

In general, i think there are a lot of great things going on in comics. There a a ton of strong writers in every genre... I'm a big Grant Morrison fan so i am very curious to see what happend to All Star Superman.

Click to expand...

Thanks Rugby I'll have to check that out.

I only buy trades, having all the little pamphlets lying around is just too frustrating. I'd get every Superman and Batman produced, but they aren't collected that much it seems. The pre-Infinite Crisis trades were decent although a bit repetitive. I love how JLA and JSA is collected with every issue and comes out pretty quickly.

I did pick up All-Star B and S, but neither is very good I think, even the Superman - Willy Wonka as a heliographer and giant blue spacefaring clones just turned me off.

I do enjoy the Ultimate Marvel lines - although I only buy the hard backs of them so I have to wait forever for new stuff.

I hit a comic book store about once every 3 months, mostly get stuff from Tales of Wonder and Amazon. I'd read more, but I'm deathly afraid I'm buying something I already have.

I read all of Marvel's Ultimate titles in one form or another. I have everything that has been compiled in hardcovers. I really enjoyed the Annuals for Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate FF and Ultimate Spiderman. Some nice clever stand alone stories for a change.

I'm more of a DC than a Marvel guy nowadays though. I really enjoyed "Villians United" and "Day of Vengence" which are two of the Infinite Crisis prequals. Not sure how thrilled I am so far with Infinite Crisis itself, but I'm hoping for the best.

I'd recomend reading a comic called "Manhunter" in the form of the first trade that compiles issues 1-6. It started out very strong. Not quite as good lately. From Vertigo, I enjoy Fables, Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" mini-series and "Y, The Last Man".

I get about 80 titles a month. JSA, JLA, Birds of Prey, Robin, Batman, Batgirl, Detective, all the Superman titles including Supergirl and Superman/Batman. A bunch of stuff.

I'm hoping now that Loeb is at Marvel for a while we see another "spectrum" title. The Loeb & Sales "Spiderman Blue" and "Daredevil Yellow" are a couple of my favorite little mini-series. Kind of romance comics for guys. Very well done. "Hulk Gray" in my opinion wasn't quite up to the standards of the other two, but had a very amusing fight between Iron Man and Hulk. "Stupid robot leave Hulk alone!".

Yup, I read a lot of comics.

Nothing new or recent interests me. Overpriced and little content. I mainly pick up various horror comics from the 70's is lots for a few bucks.

Strictly Marvel for me. Both companies seem hell bent on putting out a crossover event that will change the very universe every six months. Gets kind of old with no really life changing event. It seems everything gets retconned after a new writer is put into place. I thought Grant Morrison's run on X-Men (titled at the time under "New X-Men") was fantastic.

I subscribe to X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Wolverine and Ultimate X-Men. About once a month I am able to make it to the "local" comic store (35 minutes away). I have them pull all the miniseries with Wolverine or the X-Men. Have yet to decide about the Civil War coming up.

What I would like is for some things that happen actually stay that way. I like Colossus, but they should have left him dead. I like Hawkeye.......hated he died......but leave him be. You take a character like Wolverine who had been through hell in a lot of his battles with Magneto. He has seen what Magento can do and he knows that things always change. Yet, in the end of House of M, he had the chance to end Magneto. Yet he lets him live. There is a good story to be told if Mags never gets his powers back, but come on, how long does anyone really think he will never get his powers back? Great idea with the House of M, bad execution with the characters. Wolverine knows the threat Magneto is and Wolverine is not against using all means that he knows to make sure Magneto would not do any harm ever again, but what does he do, he lets him live.

Sorry about the Rant.

The Current State Of Comics

Having collected comics for the past 23 years I have to say that the current state of the comic industry has finally given me a reason to stop collecting monthlies altogether. When I say that let me be clear, I mean Marvel and D.C. The only thing I really enjoy anymore on a regular basis has been Hellboy and B.P.R.D. and I prefer to read those in graphic novel form.

Let me give you an example of the recent crap spewed forth from the supposed "House Of Ideas" Marvel.

Anyone out there waste their time and money on the Spiderman "The Others" story arc? JMA and Peter David let me down big time on this one. I have been a huge PD fan for years and esp. loved his Captain Marvel run.

Spiderman kicks the bucket only to be "reborn." Whoppie!

The storyline has gone on now for something like 10 issues across no less than three different Spidey books and it has been one glorious suck ass story!

Honestly, I have picked it up just to see how bad it is. This has to be the worst story that Marvel has forced on its readers in years. Especially when you consider that this story is little more than an overpriced prelude leading up to, dare I say it, the new costume!

Red and Yellow! What idiot came up with that costume design!!!

I would imagine that this "new costume" will last about as long as most Hollywood marriages.

Between that example and the rampant pointless "deaths" and equally expected "rebirths" that seem to happen as excuses needed to either retool or re-envision a character I have had my fill.

I have to ask too, since when did comic-book villians have to start rapeing their victims????

"House Of M" should be called what it was "House of No Real Consequence" or "Marvel Reboot Number Three. "Infinite Crisis" and all of the minis leading up to it just seem like one long winded, and expensive, set up to 52 and the big "One Year Leap." And along that same line should be called "D.C. Reboot Number 2."

How many "shake-ups" can one reader be hit over the head with in a given year or years? With so many of them falling one after the other they have little or no impact on the reader anymore and the reader no longer feels for the character or the curcumstance that the hero is put through.

It has gotten to the point in comic land that the villians are beating the crap out of the heroes while at the same time the heroes seem to be beating the crap out of each other. What happened to heroes being heroic as opposed to hugely flawed?

It was funny, the other day my wife follows me into Lone Star Comics here in the Dallas area. She was on the hunt for a birthday gift for my nephew and thought some comics might make a neat addition to his gift. So she asks me "where the comics for kids?"


As I looked at the various racks with hundreds of titles sitting on them not one of them was really suitable for my young nephews reading pleasure.
It suddenly dawned on me that comics really aren't for kids anymore.

I did finally locate an old rounder with some more suitable kid based superhero comics on it. There was something like four hero titles mixed in with the Archie comics.

I have to admit that I have had my fill and I can't really say that I will be missing all that much.

Not much to add to the summaries Azog and others have stated. I do suggest picking up books like Y the Last Man, Powers, Ex Machina, Planetary, Savage Dragon and Invincible. They read very well in trades and are a nice break from your usual mess than can be Marvel and DC when they go crossover crazy.

Any Savage Dragon fans here pick up the Image 10th Anniversary HC? well worth it just for his origin story.

Whats the avaerage price of a comic today?.. When I collected it ranged from 25 cents to about 75 cents when I stopped. I still collect, however I only collect vintage comics.

Current prices start at $2.50 and go up from there.

Planetary. Isn't that the comic that comes out as a quadrennial? I've never been able to warm up to the deconstructionist stuff like "The Authority" or "Planetary". Not a huge Warren Ellis fan in superhero books. Talented writer but the themes don't do it for me. Funny that I like "The Ultimates" so much. I guess I just like what I like since I started reading comics again after I picked up a trade of "The Watchmen". I now have the Absolute edition along with the old Graffiti designs hardcover. I guess I liked that one too. I'm not completely against deconstructionism I guess.

I like several indies also. Invincible is very entertaining. Fun comic books are getting few and far between since the villians in the Marvel and DC Universe have all turned into rapists and child killers. Some "Old School" teenage angst and universe hopping is a pleasant relief.

There was a comic I liked that Bedard wrote called "Route 666" that was set in an alternative universe during the cold war. It was fun. Died after 24 (?) issues. They never finished the last arc they started.

You might want to check out "Revelations" which is pretty good also in that pseudo DaVinci code way. Also "Rex Mundi" which is quite good but suffers the "indie syndrome", ya know, never comes out on time.

Just thought of this and it might be of interest to some of you guys who aren't huge comics fans but enjoy Universal Horror. A very nice compilation trade came out recently, "The Universal Monsters Cavalcade of Horror" from Dark Horse. Very nice art and quite good film accurate adaptations of "Frankenstein", "Dracula", "The Mummy" and "The Creature From the Black Lagoon". I was pleasantly surprised with it and picked up a copy.

Ooh, something else. I mentioned the "Absolute" edition of Watchmen before and I'd highly recomend any of these books. Beautifully designed oversize slipcased hardcovers. "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" I and II, "Absolute Hush", heck, they actually made me see some merit in the JLA/Avengers mini-series. Very cool books.

I think I mentioned I read a lot of comics nowadays.