How Many of you Actually Read Comics???

[AndThePickles]

I do :heart:

 

[Prognosticator]

Oh crap, I bought all the Marvel Zombies. I loved those of course. I forgot.

Ohhhh, SNAP!


...

 

[CConn]

Do you know what "POST" means ?
They are a joke, but their IMPACT was huge.

I'm saying, the 90's changed expectations. Being eXtreme, and "dark", and "flashy", and cramming a ton of meaningless lines into the artwork, and speed lines for dialogue scenes and trying for ridiculous realism in the coloring, even though it's laid over completely non-photo-realistic line art, and profanity, and sex, and a self awareness.....that's when all this stuff came into vogue hard.
There was a backlash, but it's disingenuous, because the comics of the 00's are very 90's.

The difference can be boiled down to, I guess, an era where adults were making comics for kids, and then an era where adults were making comics for adults...



A good example of what I'm talking about 80's/post-90's-wise is, Wolverine.
I was there when, if you liked Wolverine, and wanted to see him, you bought an X-Men comic.
He was a character in "the X-Men".

Now, how many projects have involved Wolverine?
It's a common occurance, "COOL" is stumbled upon, and is genuinely "COOL".
Then, once that's established, an effort is made to commodify the "COOL", and that's right when it all devolves into Suck.
It's like, there was nothing cooler than Boba Fett when we were kids and saw fleeting glimpses of him in Empire Strikes Back.
Now? lol
a joke.

I kinda get your argument, but the one thing I don't quite understand is how you can group together something like this:

With something like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Quality aside, they're vastly different art styles that are all meant to serve a different aesthetic purpose. While certainly, Liefield ushered in a slue of Jim Lees and Ed Benes who did big, overblown, action-oriented art, there's also many other artists who take different approaches to their art. Yeah, some are gritty, but some are old fashioned and nostalgic. Some are photo realistic, some are very simple and colorful.

Yeah, comics back then were all about adults writing stories for kids. Now, they're about that a lot more. You can have bright and colorful, you can have grim and gritty, you can have big-muscled action, or you can have simple nostalgia. I like the variation that has.

 

[Sloth7d]

My eyes... they bleed..

 

[CConn]

And that's actually some of his better work.

 

[Super Kal]

I do.

 

[Sloth7d]

I know. I saw his fill in issues on Teen Titans. And his work on a Wolverine comic where Wolvie fights Deadpool.

 

[CFE]

I remember back in the day when I was younger and had no knowledge of such things like TPBs or Graphic Novels.

Back then, I use to visit this really cool local shop called "Bob's Comics" and I'd buy issues based on how cool I thought the covers looked.

Since then, I've read several comics, from milestones of the industry (Watchmen, DKR, V for Vendetta) to the decent story arcs (X-Cutioner's Song, Knightfall, Death of Superman) to the borderline mediocre and gimmicky story arcs (Spidey Clone Saga - ughhh)

I love comics...I love movies...I love comic book movies...so in turn I love the Hype t:

CFE

 

[DBella]

Huh? Why not?

I read comics (and watch movies) for entertainment and not really into debating about them. I do go to the comics forums once in a while just to read and from the looks of it, some of you folks take things waaaaaaay too seriously over there so... I just observe rather than participate in the discussion.

The leash doesn't go that far.

That too.

 

[CConn]

I read comics (and watch movies) for entertainment and not really into debating about them. I do go to the comics forums once in a while just to read and from the looks of it, some of you folks take things waaaaaaay too seriously over there so... I just observe rather than participate in the discussion.

The one thing that's cool about the comics board is that, while they're *******s, they're mature *******s.

You can curse, argue, and name call without it ever hurting anybody.

 

[DBella]

The one thing that's cool about the comics board is that, while they're *******s, they're mature *******s.

You can curse, argue, and name call without it ever hurting anybody.

Excellent.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

I kinda get your argument, but the one thing I don't quite understand is how you can group together something like this:

With something like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Quality aside, they're vastly different art styles that are all meant to serve a different aesthetic purpose. While certainly, Liefield ushered in a slue of Jim Lees and Ed Benes who did big, overblown, action-oriented art, there's also many other artists who take different approaches to their art. Yeah, some are gritty, but some are old fashioned and nostalgic. Some are photo realistic, some are very simple and colorful.

Yeah, comics back then were all about adults writing stories for kids. Now, they're about that a lot more. You can have bright and colorful, you can have grim and gritty, you can have big-muscled action, or you can have simple nostalgia. I like the variation that has.

Yeah, there are always and have always been great artists and lame artists and wildly divergent styles. I'm just talking about "the scene" in general, boiling down the era into the basic attributes that set it apart from other eras.

Like, you grab an unknown comic,...the thing about it that, even if you've never seen it, you know, "That's from the 30's.", or "That's a tripped out early 70's one.", or "This is from 2004".


And I'm strictly talking about mainstream trends, because the independent stuff has been all over the place from the Tijuana Bibles to the Hippie comics of the 60's to Love and Rockets and to today. That's too all over the place for my discussion here.



That Thing pic is a superb example of what I can't stand though.

 

[BlackLantern]

I'm currently reading Flash, Green Lantern, spider-man, and JLA

 

[CConn]

Yeah, there are always and have always been great artists and lame artists and wildly divergent styles. I'm just talking about "the scene" in general, boiling down the era into the basic attributes that set it apart from other eras.

Like, you grab an unknown comic,...the thing about it that, even if you've never seen it, you know, "That's from the 30's.", or "That's a tripped out early 70's one.", or "This is from 2004".


And I'm strictly talking about mainstream trends, because the independent stuff has been all over the place from the Tijuana Bibles to the Hippie comics of the 60's to Love and Rockets and to today. That's too all over the place for my discussion here.



That Thing pic is a superb example of what I can't stand though.

But how can you stereotype an entire medium like that?

I mean, while sure, it would be the current trend, not even close to every comic and every artist is like that, and why box them into something like that? I mean, wouldn't it be better to say "most comics suck, except for these few that are great" rather than damning them all?

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

But how can you stereotype an entire medium like that?

I mean, while sure, it would be the current trend, not even close to every comic and every artist is like that, and why box them into something like that? I mean, wouldn't it be better to say "most comics suck, except for these few that are great" rather than damning them all?

Yeah, I don't go in for that walking-on-egg-shells silliness where you can't ever use hyperbole or conversationally use generalizations. Otherwise, a person can't say "The clothes in the 70's were hideous." Because they did make SOME clothes that are classic and not very "70's" IN "The 70's".
They'd obviously be talking about a generalization based on aspects of fashion that set the 70's apart from the 20's, 50's or 00's.

Here's how I do it.....When I go to a comicbook store and see a bunch of back issues from the 70's, I drool and want to buy them all. The same is true of 60's and SOME 80's comics.
When I go into Borders Books every day after work, or to Barnes and Noble, I look at the comics on the rack, and don't want to buy any of them at all.
I dislike the predominant aesthetic sensibility now, which is a very refined 90's style very, very often.

Like, if there was a Wizard magazine in the 70's, I'd like what was on the cover most of the time.
Now, with the exception of an Alex Ross cover or two, I really dislike every single cover, which, is an accurate reflection of the common denominator of what is most "popular" in the '00's, 'cause they strain and strain to choose cover art that will SELL, today.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Yeah, I don't go in for that walking-on-egg-shells silliness where you can't ever use hyperbole or conversationally use generalizations....

Except this time your generalization is incredibly wrong. Like really wrong. Liefield copies Frank Miller. He's no influential in the medium at all, in fact, he is the one being heavily influenced by everyone else.

Jim Lee, John Romita Jr., Bryan Hitch, Stuart Immonem, the Kuberts, Jimenez and Carlos Pacheo are the most sought after and immitated artists of the day and they get far more work than Liefield ever has.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

Except this time your generalization is incredibly wrong. Like really wrong. Liefield copies Frank Miller. He's no influential in the medium at all, in fact, he is the one being heavy influenced by everyone else.

lol, no, see, you're taking it exactly the way I just said I didn't intend it to be.

When I say Liefeld/Macfarlane killed comics, it's a flippant, bitter shorthand for saying that everything hit it's peak in the 80's and then in the 90's everything went downhill.
I'm really not alone in that opinion, it's pretty widely held.

AND, Liefeld's copying is a great example of the overriding thing I'm talking about......When I condemn him, I'm not just talking about the lines on the page.
I'm talking about the phenomenon, of stupid, relative youngsters, with no foundation in the classics, mimicking their superiors, but only the most superficial aspects of their work, missing the whole point and what lies beneath, an extreme case of style over substance, I guess, is how I'd characterize it.
And, that's in conjunction with what happened - The Boom in the 90's, the Crash, the sales falling, the desperate attempts to reinvigorate the industry........like, how the Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 80's,...yeah, the common concern of publishing comics is to be profitable, so you can keep doing it, but the motivation there really was to clean up all the absurd continuity. So, it was this big, almost unprecedented event that blew our minds.

Now, big crossover events are the NORM.
One ends, they start up the next one, there's nothing "special" about them and the main motivation is clearly sales.

I just like the charming simplicity and naivete of old comics, and dislike SLICKNESS, which is what I'm really talking about.
They all have the glossy paper and the lens flares and photoshop blur filters and try to be the next Alan Moore with the intertwining story lines and subtext and blablabla.

 

[BlackLantern]

I have books i like and books I don't like........I agree with the Liefeld/macfarlane
statement. I am a big Geoff johns fan, I've always gravitated towards writers more than artists ......some art styles I like....some I think are plain awful.....I dont mind the "slickness' of todays art......Frank Quitely does need to stop drawing though.....

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Do you know what "POST" means ?

After

They are a joke, but their IMPACT was huge.

You do realize New Mutants and X-Force were very small, critically panned, and cancelled series.

I'm saying, the 90's changed expectations. Being eXtreme, and "dark", and "flashy",

Being "dark" came from Frank Miller and Alan Moore with DKR and Watchmen respectively. MacFarlane and Liefield had absolutely nothing to do with it.

and cramming a ton of meaningless lines into the artwork

You mean...uh...detail . As opposed to using the outdated and poor three color method.

and speed lines for dialogue scenes and trying for ridiculous realism in the coloring, even though it's laid over completely non-photo-realistic line art, and profanity, and sex, and a self awareness.....that's when all this stuff came into vogue hard.

'kay, get it....you don't read comics.

There was a backlash, but it's disingenuous, because the comics of the 00's are very 90's.

The 90s and the 00s are night and day in the comic world.

The difference can be boiled down to, I guess, an era where adults were making comics for kids, and then an era where adults were making comics for adults...

To some extent this is true. But it's only led to better, more consistent writing. Very few titles in the 60s and 70s were even allowed to be written the way the writers wanted to write them. For, example, Stan Lee had to remove Spider-Man from the comic code once or twice to write the stories he wanted.

A good example of what I'm talking about 80's/post-90's-wise is, Wolverine.
I was there when, if you liked Wolverine, and wanted to see him, you bought an X-Men comic.
He was a character in "the X-Men".

So? He got popular. Wow, shame on him . You realize Spider-Man had about 4 titles when Wolverine first appeared and the Avengers had 4 or 5 spinoffs.

Now, how many projects have involved Wolverine?

Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Avengers have all enjoyed multiple titles long before the 90s and long before Wolverine.

It's a common occurance, "COOL" is stumbled upon, and is genuinely "COOL".
Then, once that's established, an effort is made to commodify the "COOL", and that's right when it all devolves into Suck.

Did Batman suck in the 60s when Denny O'Neil wrote him, because he appeared in Justice League, Brave and the Bold, World's Finest, Detective Comics and Batman at that time (at The Outsiders not too long after)

It's like, there was nothing cooler than Boba Fett when we were kids and saw fleeting glimpses of him in Empire Strikes Back.
Now? lol
a joke.

Your argument makes no sense. Read some comics, study the history. Get back to us.

 

[BlackLantern]

I think comics will always be a matter of taste. I started reading Green Lantern back when I was 8 or 9 and read it right up untill Hal was killed off.....I have just now started readiing GL again because geoff johns, who made Flash a great book, started working on GL and I love the whole Sinestro Corps storyline....I personally feel that DC is putting out better stories right now.....

 

[ShadowBoxing]

lol, no, see, you're taking it exactly the way I just said I didn't intend it to be.

When I say Liefeld/Macfarlane killed comics, it's a flippant, bitter shorthand for saying that everything hit it's peak in the 80's and then in the 90's everything went downhill.

The 70s was worse than the 90s in quality and sales. Anyone who has ever read a Defenders comic can explain to you why.

I'm really not alone in that opinion, it's pretty widely held.

No, comic fans just like to complain about what they buy.

AND, Liefeld's copying is a great example of the overriding thing I'm talking about......When I condemn him, I'm not just talking about the lines on the page.
I'm talking about the phenomenon, of stupid, relative youngsters, with no foundation in the classics, mimicking their superiors, but only the most superficial aspects of their work, missing the whole point and what lies beneath, an extreme case of style over substance, I guess, is how I'd characterize it.

They really only comprise a very small number of artists. DareDevil, Captain America, Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, New Avengers, Walking Dead, Invincible, Ultimates, Batman/Superman, Superman, Batman, Detective Comics...to name a scant few have creative writer or artist teams with distinct styles.

And, that's in conjunction with what happened - The Boom in the 90's, the Crash, the sales falling, the desperate attempts to reinvigorate the industry........like, how the Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 80's,...yeah, the common concern of publishing comics is to be profitable, so you can keep doing it, but the motivation there really was to clean up all the absurd continuity. So, it was this big, almost unprecedented event that blew our minds.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was not the first mega-crossover just so you know.

Now, big crossover events are the NORM.

Phoenix Saga, Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of the Future Past, The Brood Saga, God Loves Man Kills, Inferno, Mutant Massacre, and Fall of the Mutants were all megahyped events that predate the era you're talking about...all in X-Men I might add. Stan Lee's Amazing Spider-Man, for example, had a number of multiple issue storyarcs including the Tablet storyline, the Death of the Stacy(s), The Kingpin, The Aunt May working for Doc Oc storyline...to name a few.

And don't think events are overhyped anymore than they used to be. Spider-Man, or his girlfriend, or his Aunt or his best friend faced death, destruction or harm every single issue when Stan Lee wrote the book. People only think the nature of the medium changes, but really it doesn't.

Storylines which build upon themselves and lead up to some "mega"event have been going on since the 60s.

One ends, they start up the next one, there's nothing "special" about them and the main motivation is clearly sales.

They always have been. You think Gwen Stacy died because it was a good storyline that needed telling.

I just like the charming simplicity and naivete of old comics, and dislike SLICKNESS, which is what I'm really talking about.
They all have the glossy paper and the lens flares and photoshop blur filters and try to be the next Alan Moore with the intertwining story lines and subtext and blablabla.

That has been around a lot longer than you're giving it credit for. Spider-Man and Fantastic Four had tons of intertwining storylines, always.

 

[Themanofbat]

The entire Ultimate thing was just like watching your friendly neighbor rape your old girlfriend.

It's more like he's raping your Mom...

Ugh...

 

[Themanofbat]

Then Rob Liefeld and MacFarlane killed comics.
Boom, we're in a Post-Image world of crap.

I'll agree with you on everything that you stated other than things have changed since McFarlane Co. destroyed comics as we knew them.

While they will never achieve what they were in the 70's, when we obviously read them with rose coloured glasses, efforts on better writers (other than Garth Ennis) have really made for some entertaining comics in the last 5 or 6 years.

There's some good stuff to recommend, but as they say... one man's meat...

 

[BlackLantern]

I do not like Ultimate spidey, xmen, or FF......but I do like the Ultimates....

 

[Themanofbat]

The 70s was worse than the 90s in quality and sales.

I disagree.

The 70's were about boldness and change and terrific characterization.
Sales numbers in the 70's were terrific, especially when compared to today's numbers.
Marvel had a policy to cancel books that didn't sell more than 100 000 copies... nowadays, that's a Top Ten Seller.

The 90's were about splashy pin up panels and piss poor storytelling with minimal to no characterization at all.

Anyone who has ever read a Defenders comic can explain to you why.

And you just proved my point. Any Defenders comic from the 90's onward just simply sucked.

The original 70's series was awesome. It may feel dated when onereads it NOW, but it was terrific stuff to read back in the day.