Post by G on Jun 20, 2010 10:11:34 GMT -5
Part of the fun of reading a comic for me was when I was finished reading the story, I had other things to still look at and read. Quite often, but not always, I would go to the letters pages and read the letters by other fans. I especially did this if I had been reading the series long enough for the letters to talk about books I had also read. I could then tell if the letter writer agreed with me or if they had an insight I never thought of. Still there was other times the editors gave us brief news snippets of what to expect in coming issues and very often there was a "next issue" box. That alone made a comic more enjoyable, but even still there were other aspects I enjoyed.
I especially enjoyed the Bulletin pages with the likes of Stan the man Lee talking his funky jive or DC's editors making their page look like a newspaper. It was cool. DC for a long time had a "Ask the answer man" thread going where people would ask challenging questions and he would answer them. And Marvel was good at providing a monthly checklist along with their monologue of hype. Nobody could push a product like Stan could. I even thought Jim Shooter's bulletins were inspiring because he was giving you behind the scenes looks at the inner workings of the comics. Yes, I could spend some time reading that stuff too.
I also thoroughly loved promos for other comics that were out at the same time or coming real soon. I loved it when they showed pictures of the actual covers. This often made me want what I didn't have. I could look at the covers, see the pictures and actually read the quotes on the books and I would go "that looks good". Even when I buy old back issues of comics, one of my favorite things to see is promo pages for other comics. I might have some old Silver Age book and see the promo and think that I would rather have other books that were pictured than maybe even the one I had.
All these were great experiences and once again, except for rare occasions, have all but completely dried up.
I wonder if comic companies even realize that was a small but in some ways, large part of the draw to comics? In some ways it always felt I was getting a bit more than the product in my hands. This was like bonus material to me and amounted to like an extra 3-4 pages to the books to gaze at. Today that is like missing 15 - 20% of something you used to have.
Part of the fun of collecting comics was comic companies used to act like it was fun to collect comics. That if you didn't have something they was pushing, you was missing out.
I know it's just a small feature and really has no outcome on how you feel about the purchased product in your hands. But as it is to the hobby on a whole, if you're like me who grew well into adulthood looking at these things within comics, it's something I personally miss a lot.
I especially enjoyed the Bulletin pages with the likes of Stan the man Lee talking his funky jive or DC's editors making their page look like a newspaper. It was cool. DC for a long time had a "Ask the answer man" thread going where people would ask challenging questions and he would answer them. And Marvel was good at providing a monthly checklist along with their monologue of hype. Nobody could push a product like Stan could. I even thought Jim Shooter's bulletins were inspiring because he was giving you behind the scenes looks at the inner workings of the comics. Yes, I could spend some time reading that stuff too.
I also thoroughly loved promos for other comics that were out at the same time or coming real soon. I loved it when they showed pictures of the actual covers. This often made me want what I didn't have. I could look at the covers, see the pictures and actually read the quotes on the books and I would go "that looks good". Even when I buy old back issues of comics, one of my favorite things to see is promo pages for other comics. I might have some old Silver Age book and see the promo and think that I would rather have other books that were pictured than maybe even the one I had.
All these were great experiences and once again, except for rare occasions, have all but completely dried up.
I wonder if comic companies even realize that was a small but in some ways, large part of the draw to comics? In some ways it always felt I was getting a bit more than the product in my hands. This was like bonus material to me and amounted to like an extra 3-4 pages to the books to gaze at. Today that is like missing 15 - 20% of something you used to have.
Part of the fun of collecting comics was comic companies used to act like it was fun to collect comics. That if you didn't have something they was pushing, you was missing out.
I know it's just a small feature and really has no outcome on how you feel about the purchased product in your hands. But as it is to the hobby on a whole, if you're like me who grew well into adulthood looking at these things within comics, it's something I personally miss a lot.
