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Underground > Comic Books >

Help: Im losing interest in comics

10:16 / 01.07.01

This happens every so often. I hate going to the comic store every Wednesday like its the fucking methadone clinic. I look around and see loads and loads of four color turds and if there is nothing new or interesting that week I feel some strange compulsion to buy some of it. I hate the wait between issues (especially when they're past due-I didn't even look at Murder Me Dead after the wait on Stray Bullets), the ads that break up the story, and the shit quality paper they are printed on.

I've tried only buying trades but it doesn't work. Nothing new for months and then 6 new trades pop up and rape my wallet. Lone Wolf and Cub is the only one I can commit myself to and thats because I know it will be there every month and its only $10. Three months between Akira trades? Are they printing them by hand and swimming them over from Japan? The way its laid out it takes no time at all to read and then I have to wait for the next chapter.

"Comics are a unique medium. You can do things in comics that you can't do anywhere else." Oh, yeah? Like what? And someone explain to me why comics are all the same page length every month. It make as much sense as all movies being exactly 90 minutes long or all novels being 300 pages (or all chapters in the novels being 22 pages plus ads). Its bullshit.

And don't get me started on these goddamned fanboys (can you still be a boy in your late 30s or 40s?) and their statues and minibusts...

Its 5 in the morning, I'm dead tired and I need a drink.

Jamieon

11:43 / 01.07.01

Oh my poor, bitter and twisted friend.

'Murder Me Dead' has come out quite regular like.

And this?

quote: "Comics are a unique medium. You can do things in comics that you can't do anywhere else."

Well, it applies to any medium. 'Understanding Comics' is good if you want to go into technical details.

I love comics at the moment; what with my monthly dose of Millar, Morrison and Milligan, Alan Moore and Lapham...... I'm over the moon.

[ 01-07-2001: Message edited by: Jamieon ]

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

11:57 / 01.07.01

If you're honestly getting tired of comics, take a break from them. Find out why you enjoy them enough to blow all that money on them.

12:08 / 01.07.01

Yep what Hui neng said take a break from them. Continue buying Lone Wolf and Cub though.

You could wait until a few of those are out then buy a small stack or them (since you hate the wait between).
Or just get them as they come out. Don't buy any of the 4-color turds if you don't want to. Fight the compulsion to do that!

Ronald Thomas Clontle

12:16 / 01.07.01

That was really well said, Biological k-9. I know exactly how you feel too, I was feeling like that for a while up until a few months ago, when I started going back and buying comics after avoiding it for the past two years. I think it was a good thing to go away from it for a time, because a lot of the inertia and frustration I was feeling at the time I left eventually yielded to excitement about the (illusion of?) changes going on in the culture at large. I think things are getting better... and I think that a lot of the moronic and absurd things you've mentioned will eventually go away or change over time. The biggest problem with comics is that it is an industry ruled by horrible backwards conservatism, yet at the same time is so marginalized by the mainstream in the west that it has boundless potential for subversive writing and art....there's such a strange push and pull, there's so little middle ground...

and what the hell is it with all those toys and busts and shit like that? Who the hell really wants that? And why do comics stores have to be made to look so horrible with them? Even the best comics stores in NYC carry that stuff, and it is like...erm, kryptonite to anyone with any dignity. Why can't there be at least a couple comics stores that look and act like Barnes & Noble or something?

About the ads in comics: I think that they would make more sense if they were spread throughout the comic in a way that made sense, like little breaks in the story or something, as in tv ads. I realize that for a lot of companies ads are a neccessary evil...I think that the more troubling thing about the ads is what they are ads for....snacks and video games and zit creams and shit like that. It's pretty insulting to anyone in the audience who isn't a greasy loner kid, you know?

Ellis

14:39 / 01.07.01

I am getting bored with comics but not trades... comics are too small and the wait is too much for me between issues especially when the story is ongoing ( I can't imagine how bad it must be buying Cerebus every month!)

I have started buying trades out of Previews which just look interesting (Beanworld, Cerebus, Skeleton Key) and while these are all pretty good, they're not brilliant.

I think i will stop buying singles altogether and just buy the trades in the future.

I hate my local comic shop, its full of busts of Deadpool and Wolverine, Star Wars action figures and WWF creatures, I feel embarrassed going in there to be honest.

(You know... I have never read a comic except maybe V for Vendetta, that has been good as a favorite novel of mine, comic books don't seem to attract the same calibre of writers; where are the comic book equivilents of say Camus or Kafka or Joyce?)

15:21 / 01.07.01

>>> And someone explain to me why comics are all the same page length every month.<<<

Because it makes for a regular, dependable budget - they're being produced for commercial ends, not artistic.

>>>It make as much sense as all movies being exactly 90 minutes long or all novels being 300 pages (or all chapters in the novels being 22 pages plus ads). Its bullshit.<<<

Since you seem to be talking about monthly serial comics, and not self-contained graphic novels (which do vary in length depending on the story), I'd say the more appropriate analogy is television programmes - in which case, they're all exactly the same length every week too...

[ 01-07-2001: Message edited by: CameronStewart ]

15:31 / 01.07.01

As far as getting sick of comics goes, yeah, take a break for a while. Don't buy something you don't really want just for the sake of buying something - anything - at the comic shop that week, else you're just as bad as the obsessive fanboy junkies you condemn, lining up for their weekly fix. Wait until something interests you again, or you could try reading something published before this week (one of my major pet peeves is the apparent fear of anything that isn't absolutely current; happened all the time at my old job in the video shop - people would come in and if all the New Releases for that week were rented, they'd complain that there was "nothing to watch," despite the presence of over eleven thousand older films - many of them quite good - in stock).

Or, you could try making your own comics....

17:38 / 01.07.01

I've started leaning the way Ellis is, buying only trades. For example ( and it may be a poor one..) I bought the first 100 Bullets trade and I have never read an issue of it before that. I also have a trade of Usagi Yojimbo on order. Never read an issue of that either. I could probably easily stop buying the monthly of all the comics I buy and just wait and purchase the trade version. What would I be missing or gaining by doing that?

Ellis

17:43 / 01.07.01

quote:Originally posted by THX-1138:
I could probably easily stop buying the monthly of all the comics I buy and just wait and purchase the trade version. What would I be missing or gaining by doing that?

Well if everyone did that the comic would be cancelled due to poor sales and there would be no trades...

E Randy Dupre

19:05 / 01.07.01

Not necessarily. The other, more likely outcome is that the medium would be forced to change, ditching the monthly and concentrating on the longer, novel-style story.

A change that's probably long overdue.

20:14 / 01.07.01

A lot of comic companies seem to base their decision on trade collections (whether or not) on the sales of the monthlies in the first place. Remember that if people hadn't started buying the Invisibles vol. 2 issues, Volume 3 would never have made it to print, never mind the trades.

It's not as easy as just stopping the monthly purchases in order to force companies to just go with trades. There'd have to be a fundamental shift in the way interest in a book is measured first.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:44 / 02.07.01

I think that it's a really nice coincidence that the industry is moving in favor of collected volumes at exactly the time that I would prefer to purchase comics that way.

There's loads and loads of comics I'm interested in that are currently being published that I'd love to read, but I just don't feel like buying them in irregular increments or out of order, missing issues that I can't find. I'd rather just get one complete story in one book, and that's the end of it. It just makes so much more sense that way.

and if I want to let someone else read it, I don't have to hand them a big stack of comics....

09:44 / 02.07.01

The reason I'm hating comics right now is the price. I'm giving publishers the benefit of the doubt that they need to charge this much to keep on producing, but there are too many times when I have problems justifying such a purchase to myself. It likely is just a matter of my own personal cashflow situation, but From Hell costs 40 dollars and I don't see any frills in terms of printing. You can only read so much in the store.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

09:44 / 02.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Levon:

You can only read so much in the store.

Not if you hide.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

11:29 / 02.07.01

That's funny...I've only read From Hell in a store too...I've gotten through the majority of it, I've never really felt the need to buy it. The best thing is to find a Barnes & Noble or Virgin that carries graphic novels and to read them up there...

Ganesh

19:46 / 04.07.01

BK-9, I know exactly how you feel. 2000AD aside, I came to comics fairly late (I was first-year University, comics were just post-Watchmen) during the whole 'graphic novel' wave of the late '80s, and I was probably spoiled in terms of quality, innovation, etc.

Since then, my interest's waned but I've almost always found something to engage me. Grant's stuff's always been a big pull. At the moment, I only really buy his New X-Men. Other stuff (Planetary, Authority, Hellboy, Alan Moore's output) I read in the shop before buying.

I think I'm just going off it, really.

22:04 / 25.04.04

So what did you end up doing Bio?

22:45 / 25.04.04

He became a pirate.
Arrrrrrrr.

13:40 / 26.04.04

He went and became an underground pit fighter specializing in chain attacks.

15:30 / 26.04.04

I'm going through a similar period where I just can't face going to my local shop because there is hardly anything I want to read anymore.

TPBs are definitely the way to go I think and I shall be funding my collection through selling off the early issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. Why anyone would pay me $50-100 for a comic I don't know but as long as they are willing to pay I'm willing to sell.

Sorry if that sounds like an advert it's not as they are already sold. It's just a continuation of the general ennui I'm feeling regarding the comic book industry.

03:26 / 17.06.04

I still go to the comic store to bs with the owner every week but I rarely buy anything these days. I think the only series I still buy on a regular basis (ha!) are Stray Bullets and Optic Nerve.

I have a friend that works for a large bookseller so I can get a discount on whatever trades they happen to get in (if the other customers don't destroy them first). I've been buying Usagi Yojimbo and trying to decide if I should buy some Blade of the Immortal trades or the Astro Boy series.

09:11 / 17.06.04

I stopped buyin monthlies about 2 years ago. My local comic shop is the same as 90% of the other out there. Plus theu are more expensive than Forbidden Planet or Amazon. But I do enjoy poppin in every so often for a quick chat.

One of the main reasons I moved over to trades was space. I love having trades on my shelves, but comics, and those big white boxes where getting irritating. Especially since I succumbed to the bag and board philosophy (which i abandoned recently so that they are easier to read for others)

Through buyin trades and keepin an ear out for new material, my taste has grown exponentially, all to the burden of my wallet. I tend to buy a trade or two a week, so I am putting a lot of money back into the industry. With the pound being strong against the dollar, it is even better, as 13 issue series like the filth, i got for 12 quid, when it would have been about 20 in the past.

BTW if you like manga and samurai material, get Blade of the Immortal, it can be amazing, and has a unique style of mixing new ethics with old Japanese lifestyles.

12:37 / 19.06.04

I realised last week that the only regular title left on my reserved comics list, aside from the occasional mini-series or one-off issue, is X-Statix. When Milligan finishes writing that, there will officially be no comics coming out on a monthly-ish basis that I give a damn about. How about that.

I find most Marvel & DC titles to be almost completely unreadable.. I can't really explain why very well, but they just don't flow properly. The art is always so chunky and stylised and inconsistent and, well, ugly and hard to follow basically. Whenever I try to branch out and pick up seom mainstream comics that don't feature the samll gang of writers and artists I'm already a fan of (the usual Barbelith suspects mostly), my reaction is inevitably "Why did I just spend £1.95 on THAT?". It's like if I just bought a miniature ceramic duck-mounted harpoon or something - it's a purchase from which I gain nothing, and which just makes no sense.

14:45 / 19.06.04

A while ago I said it was a good time to read comics. Since then my interest has waned, off and on. I was weaned on the crap we had in the 90's, so the early '00's probably spoiled me.

I'd love to try some good indy stuff, like Scurvy Dogs, but I have not found a shop anywhere remotely nearby that carries any indy books at all. Unless by "Indy" I mean "Dark Horse."

I suppose this is why all my favorite comics are either being cancelled or are doing terrible in sales. X-Statix? Human Target? Gotham Central? Good stuff, kids.

15:26 / 19.06.04

Bio K9, I think you're suffereing the same problem I see alot of people suffering from. I run a comic store here in Maryland, and alot of times I see people buying stuff out of habit instead of enjoyment. I had all thee comics at my disposal as the manger of a store, and I really was uninterested in about 80% of the stuff out there. So I said fuck it! I have a handful of titles I pick up regularly and the rest can go to pot. The minute it stops becoming fun is the minute you take a break and wonder why you're enjoying it. Prior to this job now I hadn't read comics in like 4 years. I got bored with all the crap that was coming out at the time. I think readers should realize that just because a book's good run end it doesn't mean you have to force yourself to read all the crap that follows. (*cough*X-Men*cough*)! I came to the realization that the characters we love will always be around. So fuck it. Clone Spider-Man's pissing you off, put it down, SupeRMan dead and you already know that he'll come back. Fuck it! You will not miss anything by dropping a title until something better comes along! Take a break. Collect Lone Wolf and Cub and be content with that. I mean just because a comic is on the shelf doesn't mean you need to get them. Do you go see every movie cause it is out in the theatres. No! Let crap sit and don't worry about finding something great everytime you hit the store! It's not going to happen! Just be content with what you got.
Sorry that was a rant.

14:45 / 20.06.04

I would like to point out that anyone who fell off the X-Statix bandwagon is losing the fuck out right now.

I should probably make this point in a spesh thread, all of it's own, but I haven't - so there you go.