|
|
Post by G on May 28, 2011 10:24:21 GMT -5
As Comic Crack nears it's 4th complete year of existence, I sometimes think back to the days when I first started this joint and recall almost with ease being a more optimistic and cheering participant for comics. I wanted to be a bit of an ambassador for comics. I wanted to be a place where fans could come and appreciate the joys of comic collecting. I wanted to discuss all the finer points that come with comic reading and comic collecting. I wanted each and every subject dealing with comics to have a place here. Nothing was taboo.
I think for the most part, I have accomplished pretty much what I set out to do, except for maybe the getting a lot of people here part, I'm still fairly satisfied with what this board has become and what it's about and I greatly enjoy the people that do come here and reflect on their side of collecting and how they feel about topics. Even though we are a small group, I feel there is still a good mix here whenever we get together to shoot the shit.
I do feel along the way I've just come to more and more flat out bitch about comics. I think some of it is for obvious reasons and its mainly because I personally am frustrated with the current state of comics. Its not lost on me what I think of comics today and what I used to think made them great. I don't feel that comics have evolved in the proper direction. In fact, I think the leadership in place of comics today is the most incompetent, misdirected and undeserved of the high posts they have today and are basically running the ship into the ground. I feel with any good business declining numbers should be realized and the heads at the top should roll. You can't keep failing and continuing with the same ideas that got you where you are in the first place. There is a real lack of real forward thinking in comics these days. A real lack of a game plan or a game changer. To put it mildly, a real lack of leadership.
Some will argue that the fans are the problem and to some extent I agree, but I think to a large extent the fans have spoken and it often goes unheard. The comic companies seem to continue to cater who remain collecting and not go relentlessly after the scores of comic readers and collectors who just left. There is more untapped potential remaining on those people who left the comics than there are with the small amount of fans remaining today.
In short, I didn't start out this place bitching about comics. Sure, as a admin of a comic forum its basically my job to create discussion, if not arguments and at the same time try and keep the peace. And in doing so it was easy to look at the shortcomings in comics and make for good discussion. It was certainly the right thing to do for many reasons. But in another essence, I find I have grown away from what I started this board to be. A place by fans, for fans and about the fans. The fan side of it is pretty much leaving or has left. What is remaining is a bitter board. It's not that I don't like it, I honestly don't mind. But in reality, its not exactly what I set out this board to be. In any event. Lets carry on and bitch away.
|
|
|
|
Post by defiant1 on May 28, 2011 20:28:45 GMT -5
As Comic Crack nears it's 4th complete year of existence, I sometimes think back to the days when I first started this joint and recall almost with ease being a more optimistic and cheering participant for comics. I wanted to be a bit of an ambassador for comics. I wanted to be a place where fans could come and appreciate the joys of comic collecting. I wanted to discuss all the finer points that come with comic reading and comic collecting. I wanted each and every subject dealing with comics to have a place here. Nothing was taboo. I think for the most part, I have accomplished pretty much what I set out to do, except for maybe the getting a lot of people here part, I'm still fairly satisfied with what this board has become and what it's about and I greatly enjoy the people that do come here and reflect on their side of collecting and how they feel about topics. Even though we are a small group, I feel there is still a good mix here whenever we get together to shoot the shit. I do feel along the way I've just come to more and more flat out bitch about comics. I think some of it is for obvious reasons and its mainly because I personally am frustrated with the current state of comics. Its not lost on me what I think of comics today and what I used to think made them great. I don't feel that comics have evolved in the proper direction. In fact, I think the leadership in place of comics today is the most incompetent, misdirected and undeserved of the high posts they have today and are basically running the ship into the ground. I feel with any good business declining numbers should be realized and the heads at the top should roll. You can't keep failing and continuing with the same ideas that got you where you are in the first place. There is a real lack of real forward thinking in comics these days. A real lack of a game plan or a game changer. To put it mildly, a real lack of leadership. Some will argue that the fans are the problem and to some extent I agree, but I think to a large extent the fans have spoken and it often goes unheard. The comic companies seem to continue to cater who remain collecting and not go relentlessly after the scores of comic readers and collectors who just left. There is more untapped potential remaining on those people who left the comics than there are with the small amount of fans remaining today. In short, I didn't start out this place bitching about comics. Sure, as a admin of a comic forum its basically my job to create discussion, if not arguments and at the same time try and keep the peace. And in doing so it was easy to look at the shortcomings in comics and make for good discussion. It was certainly the right thing to do for many reasons. But in another essence, I find I have grown away from what I started this board to be. A place by fans, for fans and about the fans. The fan side of it is pretty much leaving or has left. What is remaining is a bitter board. It's not that I don't like it, I honestly don't mind. But in reality, its not exactly what I set out this board to be. In any event. Lets carry on and bitch away. I know you are busy these days, but I noticed less positive reviews about comics. I had been meaning to ask if your attempts to get back in the collecting game were discouraging you. The prices were enough for me to give up. I haven't been pleased in the quality for a VERY long time. I'm fine with not buying anything. As a matter of fact, I need to have some work done on my vehicle and my savings were sitting well above what I thought they were. If I'd been buying comics, I'd be depressed about the repairs digging into my savings. As I look back, I remember having a great job go sour when a crappy boss stepped in. On a few occasions the crappy boss would say "You have a bad attitude." I mulled over that comment many times and thought about it from every angle. The answer I came up with then, also summarizes my attitude about comics. I never rolled out of bed one morning thinking "Wow, I want to have a bad attitude!" Actually, it's just the opposite. I wake up wanting to have a great day with great surprises. As I reflected on my attitude, it dawned upon me that a bad attitude is inspired by others. I am merely expressing my opinions about what I see. I don't believe in lowering my standards. That would be bowing to inadequacy and accepting crap. I complimented the Atlas books Jason Goodman sent me and I was serious. I am not to blame the J.M. Dematteies was replaced or that the company put out vagrants for each issue. I've decided to call variants "vagrants", because in my opinions they are stray books that don't belong and they are like beggars for the money I have no desire to spend. df1 |
|
|
|
Post by G on May 28, 2011 22:56:33 GMT -5
Its funny, I was out of work for 15 months and one of the first things I had to give up was comic collecting. At the time I wasn't really buying new comics. I was buying collectibles and adding to pieces of my collection. I was happy doing that. Even though I don't have a lot of real high dollar comics, over the years I have amassed quite a collection of comic books and each piece was suddenly making my collection even stronger. It's funny, I think if you collect long and hard enough, things just start filling in. Even if you almost accidentally do it, the pieces slowly start coming together. You get to a point where each piece just makes you that much stronger. I feel in the grand scheme of things, when I collect collectible comics, I am finally surpassing that threshold. I have a room full of comics and even the ones that are junk are all part of a larger collection and have reached such an age where I would feel foolish if I just gave them away, because they are approaching ages and some are not seen as much as they used to be that they aren't as junky as they once appeared. In terms of collecting, I am a happy collector. I got back into comics before this last time around 2001. And I decided pretty quickly that new comics had passed me by. So for the next 7 years, this became my focus. Yeah, I would pick up a few new comics here and there, but for the most part, I just collected the older stuff to fill in my collections.
When my 15 months of unemployment had ended, one of the first gifts I gave myself is collecting comics again. And since I ran this board and things have been slow a long time, I decided to buy new comics as well as collectible comics in order to know a bit more about what is going on. For the most part, I have been completely underwhelmed at what I have been receiving. I feel DCBS keeps the cost down to a respectable level, so I don't get too involved with feeling cheated, but when I think about it hard, I actually do end up feeling cheated. For the most part I'd say conservatively 7 out of every 10 new comics I buy are crap. Pure crap. And I feel pretty selective when I buy them. I try to know what creators are making them. I try knowing what the buzz is out there. I try seeing the bigger picture in terms of the company. With the exception of a few series like Captain America and the Fantastic Four given strictly as examples, the majority of what I get seems like they wouldn't have even been able to hit the market 25 years ago. The feeling of amateur work is grand. I feel like I am being bombarded with big name artist giving me poster shots, shoddy or no inking and loud unrealistic colors.
As I continue to collect new comics, I continue to weed out what I don't want. I've come to make a few rules for myself.
1 - Try my damned hardest not to buy a mini-series. First of all, I think they suck. Second, they only appear to exist to make TPB's and nothing more. Third, there are way too many of them. They typically add nothing to a character or their history.
2 - Limit myself from buying 1st issues unless it truly looks like it has potential to be something or a decent character or continues the story of an existing character without feeling way too much like a money grab. There are just too many first issues out there today and 98% feel like they'll never see issue 13. I can't be the only one telling myself I need to stop buying 1st issues. The scums in charge are behind this crap and I'm not falling for it anymore.
3 - Conversely, reward consistency and good quality work. If something is good, I try and keep buying it. Being there is so little of it, I don't have much to buy. I keep trying new things hoping things will be good. I find each month I have about the same amount of expendable money to buy because typically only 2 or 3 out of my stack are good enough to buy another issue of. The rest get shitcanned and are unlikely to get another shot. The cycle continues. I find I'm running out of comics to try other than from choices like 1 and 2. And since I don't want to fall for those gimmicks anymore, 3 doesn't have much going for it.
In short, the asswipes in charge of comics are creating a complete farce out of how good the shit used to be.
Yep, older comics were better. And they don't even have to be that old. Just go back 5 - 10 years and they seem better than now. It seems there was more quality pieces of work out there. Today it happens so little.
Yep, new comics make me bitter.
|
|
|
|
Post by bigw1966 on May 29, 2011 9:15:16 GMT -5
I couldn't tell you what is going on currently in comics because I pretty much gave them up. I buy TPB's now and I am happier for it. I can find out how a storyline did and use that to decide what to purchase. I have filled more of my time reading book series. And magazines. I also think it has helped me in the process of creating comics because my brain relies more on what it creates, instead of being influenced by whatever Artist or story I have been reading lately.
|
|
|
|
Post by cyberstrike on May 29, 2011 15:59:18 GMT -5
Being younger, I find most of Marvel to be crap other than X-Factor and maybe the new Ghost Rider series that is coming out. Other than that I can't say the majority of Marvel is any good sure they have had some mini-series like Thunderstrike, Captain America: Man Out of Time, The Spectacular Spider-Girl, Spider-Girl: The End, and Nemesis that were good but most of what they put gets changed around about every six months to a year with all of the events, that I feel like I need a fucking score card to keep up with them and then every 6 months to a year a new status quo even when the old status quo hasn't even been established yet! Plus canceling, restarting, and renumbering every major series that Marvel has doesn't make me want to buy them anymore than throwing Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Deadpool into almost every fucking team book and and each having 27 titles either.
Dan DiBio can go fuck himself and take the abomination that is now known as the DCU that he along with Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, and Jim Lee all raped and fucked dumbass fans over, and stick sideways up all their asses.
I find my most enjoyment with IDW, Image Comics, Ardden Entertainment, Abstract Studios Boom Studios, Boundless, and Dynamite.
|
|
