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Reassessing your opinions on comics...

14:23 / 01.02.05

I've been reading comics pretty much since I learned to read and over that time my tastes have changed and perhaps matured. I have grown to appreciate some comics, writers, artists and styles that didn't click for me initially. Other comics I have either grown more critical of over time or continue to be unimpressed by.

So I figured it might be worth asking the question what comics folks here either didn't like at first but reassessed years later or only really came to appreciate years after having first experienced them?

01:55 / 02.02.05

When I was seventeen and was sick of awful superhero comics, a friend gave me Sandman and some Alan Moore. I picked up whatever Hellblazers I could find and assosiated Vertigo with quality. I found the entire Enigma miniseries but after reading two issues threw it in my "to give away" box. A few years later I became a fan of Milligan but felt an aversion to Enigma. A few months ago I bought it, sat down and read it. I have nothing but hte highest praise for it.
I also hated Fegredo's art back then. Changed my mind about that too.

17:08 / 03.02.05

I read an awful lot of comics as a child but when I got back into comics in my teens I refused to read superhero comics. Now I realise that superhero comics aren't all bad and that just because a comic doesn't have superheroes in doesn't mean it's any good. Not exactly groundbreaking analysis but hey.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

19:03 / 05.02.05

With Marvel reprinting the enitre "Tomb of Dracula" run, I was struck by how much over-writing and purple prose fills the pages, just going on and on and on when the art told the story perfectly well.

Still, I like the stories, but now it's a warm glow of nostalgia rather than the feeling that this was as good as comics could get.

There was a LOT of that in the 70's, since comic writing had been so bad for so long, when a group of new creators brought in fresh ideas, we were all blown away by them. I remember thinking Jim Starlin was brilliant in my teens, but now he just seems to be telling a single story over and over again.

On the other hand, Kirby's 70's work comes off MUCH better than the more fan-friendly comics of the time. His Captain America run reprinted recently was a blast to read, just straight ahead action with tons of odd ideas thrown in, like Morrison on X-Men or Moore on Tom Strong. I think I'll have just as much fun with his Black Panther, which I hated as a teen, because he didn't finish up the stories from "Jungle Action" and instead did his Kirby thing.

03:46 / 06.02.05

I've always loved Kirby's Second Marvel run, cuz I was ten when it happened and that was my "golden age.' New King titles on the racks, each and every month. Yowsa!

I'm rereading Byrne's FF run via the Visionaries reprints (which I feel should be priced lower that $25 a pop). I used to love this stuff when it came out, but now I can see the seams and cracks. In the last ten years, people have complained about various limitations in Byrnes art and writing skills, but lo and behold, here they are twenty-odd years ago. Limited facial ranges, stilted dialogue, fusty plotting.

So while I remain very fond indeed of this run, I no longer see it as "second only to Lee Kirby" as I did way back when.

On the other hand, GRIMJACK was even better than I remembered it to be (the Truman issues, anyway), and I loved it back in the day. The new mini is great fun. If you like noir, Sergio Leone, etc, check it out: the books will not dissapoint...

22:36 / 06.02.05

I manage a comic shop now, so I randomly come across stuff I read when I was younger. Sometimes, I come across stuff I read a few months ago and in hindsight I wonder what the hell I was thinking....

EXAMPLE:
Any of the Claremont X-Men stuff from the 80s, I find alot less fulfilling than when I originally read it. The Byrne/Claremont collaborations are cool old school 70s stuff and fun to read, but not as great when I think of where the X-Men could have gone as opposed to where it ended up. If anything have more appreciation to what Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicezia did after Claremont left (especially Lobdell) with the X-Men. The books seemed (for the firstr few years at least) to have more clarity and a willingness to push ideas and answer questions than when Claremont was writing. Also --->

Spectacular Spider-Man by Dematties and Buscema in the early 90s: seemed so psychoanalytical and deeply character driven, now it seems a bit heavy handed.

McFarlane's Spider-Man: I was never one, even at the age of ten, to get too much into McFarlane's Spider-Man run. Matter of fact I remeber hating it, now, however "Torment" is just an okay story. Not really horrible or good.

After time has passed I realize I just don't like the last two story arcs from Grant Morrision's run on New X-Men. It seems rushed and confusing. Probably not a popular opinion here, but in retrospect I like his JLA run, or at least the bit I've read so far more than I use to.

I Hope, Age of Apocalypse holds up, I use to love that when I was kid. Can't wait for the trade!

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

14:53 / 07.02.05

Been reading a lot of Jack Kirby's old "Fourth World" stuff (in the B&W TPB format that was put out a few years back). I generally avoid comics written before the 1980s (and many FROM the 1980s) on general principle, but this stuff is actually pretty fun. It's refreshing to read it after all the stuff that's been done today, especially stuff done using Kirby's characters. I mean, this is the definition of "four color" right here...where every sentence ends in either an exclamation point or a question mark (or possibly both, or possibly several of each).

I mean, Kirby is WAY before my time (the Fourth World was written about 13 years before I was even born!), but its quite fun.

05:18 / 08.02.05

Been reading a lot of Jack Kirby's old "Fourth World" stuff

If you like that stuff, check out Demon, Omac, & Kamandi, then bop over to Marvel and take a gander at ETERNALS (my fave series when I was ten), Machine Man, 2001, Captain America & Falcon, Black panther and the immortal DEVIL DINOSAUR.

Kirby is Kool and always will be...