Comic Book News

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Frank said:
They do it because people buy them. The first issue of Secret Wars is 5 bucks and NOTHING HAPPENS.
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I can't help but think about the long term. Yeah, they sell NOW, but how well does AvX, Secret Invasion, House of M, Blackest Night, or Final Crisis sell now compared to reader-friendly, self-contained books? They probably pale in comparison to the numbers of, say, All Star Superman or Batman: Long Halloween, Hush, the Earth One books, etc. Hell, even an older event like Infinity Gauntlet is still pretty accessible. It felt like it when I read it for the first time and went in blind.
 
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Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Shit like this is why I quit the general stuff back when I was a 10-year-old who wasted what little money he had trying to keep up with the Spider-man Clone Saga.

But yeah, there are collections and graphic novels that are deep, enthralling, and actually have a beginning, middle, and end.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Zero Esc said:
Shit like this is why I quit the general stuff back when I was a 10-year-old who wasted what little money he had trying to keep up with the Spider-man Clone Saga.

But yeah, there are collections and graphic novels that are deep, enthralling, and actually have a beginning, middle, and end.
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The clone saga was also when I stopped buying monthly issues. I've pretty much only gotten trades since then.
 
Sparhawk

Sparhawk

I just read what I like, I don't worry about reading "everything" that has to do with a character I follow. If I'm interested in a cross-over I'll get the main book, but don't worry about the rest of it. The whole Spider-verse that just happened, I just kept reading the two books I read, didn't get the Spider-Gwen/Silk/Spider-Woman stuff, just didn't interest me that much, and I was able to follow the story very well.
 
Null

Null

Bowielee said:
Also, Marvel and DC aren't the only companies that make comic books :p
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What makes you think I don't know that?

I've collected the original Dark Horse Aliens vs Predator series (which would still be a WAY better movie than the last dozen or so), I have most of the run of BERSERK (DH Manga), I even had a few issues of TMNT.

But honestly I lost interest in keeping up with comics around the Fall of the Mutants Saga.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
The Clone Saga was what did it for me, too. Wonder how much damage that event did to the comic industry.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Sparhawk said:
I just read what I like, I don't worry about reading "everything" that has to do with a character I follow. If I'm interested in a cross-over I'll get the main book, but don't worry about the rest of it. The whole Spider-verse that just happened, I just kept reading the two books I read, didn't get the Spider-Gwen/Silk/Spider-Woman stuff, just didn't interest me that much, and I was able to follow the story very well.
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I find there's many events that don't have that accesibility. Blackest Night pisses me off the most, especially how they collected it. At the time, Didio said you could just read the main series without any other books. And that's a bold faced lie because Hal Jordan just kind of disappears early into the book, only to show up again with half a dozen new characters that hadn't been shown at all up to that point (in the main series itself). You needed to buy the main GL book to see that part of the story, which was collected separately.

Civil War is like that, though admittedly to a lesser extent. I read Siege recently and it was mostly self contained but there was a lot of character motivations or changes explained in other issues.

You know what I don't get? The big team books like JLA and Avengers are supposed to be dealing with these big threats. Why not just put them in those main books without having a giant crossover event? They're already crossing over in that team book. Why make it redundant?
 
Sparhawk

Sparhawk

fade said:
The Clone Saga was what did it for me, too. Wonder how much damage that event did to the comic industry.
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Well, I can account for one comic shop that closed not too long afterwards. But we were also hit, at around the same time, with a dip in gaming sales and the crash of the sports cards industry.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Sparhawk said:
I just read what I like, I don't worry about reading "everything" that has to do with a character I follow. If I'm interested in a cross-over I'll get the main book, but don't worry about the rest of it. The whole Spider-verse that just happened, I just kept reading the two books I read, didn't get the Spider-Gwen/Silk/Spider-Woman stuff, just didn't interest me that much, and I was able to follow the story very well.
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But you can't do that always. Again back at the Clone Saga, each Spider-man title was Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of that month's story, so it was impossible to just read Amazing Spider-man or Web of.
 
Sparhawk

Sparhawk

I can do it always. I have a budget, I stick to my budget. Marvel has gotten better about doing summaries than they used to be, like during the 90s, and even then I didn't buy books just to get "part" of the story. You make the choice and give the message with your purchases. If you aren't buying everything involved in the crossover, the stores don't order more of everything is the crossover and finally Marvel/DC get the message. Currently Marvel is being better about filling in the gaps for those that don't buy it all.

DC is currently acting like 1990s Marvel in their editorial decisions, hopefully they turn that around faster than 20 years. Because if they don't, DC won't be a comic company in 20 years.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Null said:
Also, are they supposed be actually be Roma, or just drifters with the same kind of lifestyle as Travelers?
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The dad is named Django...

Also, we don't have any equivalent to Irish Travelers in this part of Europe.

As for blond gypsies, if they're actually not just orphans they picked up (and we did have some fucked up orphanages in the 90's), they still have certain features that would stand out...
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Sparhawk said:
I can do it always. I have a budget, I stick to my budget. Marvel has gotten better about doing summaries than they used to be, like during the 90s, and even then I didn't buy books just to get "part" of the story. You make the choice and give the message with your purchases. If you aren't buying everything involved in the crossover, the stores don't order more of everything is the crossover and finally Marvel/DC get the message. Currently Marvel is being better about filling in the gaps for those that don't buy it all.

DC is currently acting like 1990s Marvel in their editorial decisions, hopefully they turn that around faster than 20 years. Because if they don't, DC won't be a comic company in 20 years.
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I don't mean part of in that "these are different plot threads", I mean the stuff that should logically be in the next issue of that monthly because it's following what that character does next, but instead it's in some other book.

I guess I wouldn't know if they've gotten better, because like I said, I gave up on that shit. That was me voting with my dollar. Two minutes on Wikipedia or a five-minute video and I get caught up on years of comic book soap opera nonsense, enough to know what people are talking about when it's time for stuff to be in the movies.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Looking at it from the point of view of trades, my best example is Fables. I've said this multiple times, but I used to LOVE that series...until the crossover with Jack of Fables. In trades, Fables went from Volume 11 to 12 (or around there), yet to understand what was going on in the crossover, you had to read Jack of Fables Volume 1-3 (or so, I stopped reading the series after volume 2). I shouldn't have to go from Volume 11 to 12 in a series without needing to read several volumes of something else or refer to Wikipedia to fully understand what's going on.

The fact that Fables turned into this giant franchise - with crossovers and spin-offs - is exactly the sort of thing I bought Vertigo titles like it to avoid.
 
Frank

Frank

The Great Fables crossover is where I stopped reading Fables too. Never cared about Jack of Fables and that whole crossover was almost entirely Jack-centric. Like a big ad saying PLEASE BUY THESE COMICS TOO!
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Bubble181 said:
Personally, I honestly don't care about a new power. He's had dozens. It's the personality change and the way he behaves towards the world that's a problem.
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I said that pretty explicitly a few posts back ;)

I went and saw Age of Ultron again last night.
You know what the Avengers did? Made sure that the people were safe even while being attacked by a literal army of Ultrons.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

The weird thing is, conceptually, I don't mind the idea of the new power. It's a natural extension of him being a big solar battery. And I like the idea that it leaves him temporarily depowered while he "recharges."

It's just that the character is still not my Superman.

Edit: Aaaand I just realised that's pretty much what everyone else is saying. :p
 
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