davidh777

Riffing off the existing threads in movies, music, and video games. Say something that goes against the grain of public opinion.

E.g., "Rob Liefeld is the supreme visionary in modern comics."

And.. go.

The Valeyard

Mark Waid is an overrated writer.

Nick Danger

The target audience of superhero comics is 12-24 year old males. Everyone I've met who was still reading lots of comics at age 45 (or later) was a little bit creepy.

Josh-da-man

Jack Kirby is way over-praised as an artist. While I can appreciate his sense of design and innovation with the early Marvel universe, I find his figures to be blocky, his anatomy to be simplistic, and his ability to have his characters express emotion is limited. He also tended to have characters overuse certain poses and gestures. And, lawd, did anyone draw uglier women?

mrhan

The new 52 is the best thing that DC ever did. The new origins are awesome. We should totally forget everything that came before because it was all shit.

taffer

The comic book industry will be dead in 30 years. The average comic book reader is in his 30s now. There isn't enough young people picking up the hobby to keep the industry afloat once the current generation of 30-somethings get old and begin dying off.

Superheroes will live on in movies and TV, but the actual superhero comic book is going to die. We are seeing the beginning of that transition now with the abundance of comic related movies and TV series.

PhantomStranger

This might have been true...thirty years ago. DC Comics found their average buyer is something like a 34-year-old male. Marvel Comics does skew a little younger, but not by much. This was market research done just a couple of years ago.

Spiderbite

Trevor

So my take on the concept of the "bold statement" thing is that we're not just making up crazy things, but saying what we honestly feel even if we may be in the minority.

Right?

Trevor

I used to fully believe this, but browsing comic shops lately there are a ton of kiddie books on prominent display. Hopefully they sell well and it's not just a local thing.

rw2516

1965-1968 Marvels were the best superhero comics ever produced.

kodave

The single issue comic book format is shit and should be done away with except for the rarest of circumstances.

I know "one shot," "stand alone" or "done in one" issues still exist, and that's fine and they have their place.

But for the most part issues are tying together for 5, 6, 7+ issue arcs that can easily be bundled into trades. That's the only way you get anything resembling a complete or near-complete story these days. Even then it often takes two trades worth of material to finish stories.

I mean, could you imagine reading a prose book a chapter at a time, one chapter a month, for 6 months to a year and still not be done with the story? It's kind of insane to think about.

And very rarely are single issue comic books in a multi-issue arc written to a level that they're satisfying as a stand alone work and also as part of that arc.

From a creative and literary standpoint, the format is awful and should be done away with.

But the industry's financing practices are extremely reliant on single issue sales, especially to predict how to handle trade releases. Since I'm basically advocating for a "graphic novel" book format for 90% of titles out there, they'd have to change their whole approach to financing these projects.

The other problem is, in 120ish pages or whatever it may be, stories are still super decompressed and you can tear through a whole trade in an hour or so. Writers need to tighten up their stuff for the books to be worthwhile. They need to pack more meaningful story and developments into those pages.

PhantomStranger

I think the single issue model also reflects the practical reality of how artists work. People do not want to wait nine months while an artist knocks out 12 issues. You also lose feedback from the audience in the creative process. Most writers now aim at 6-12 issues per planned arc. I yearn for the days when a good story could be told in a single issue.

Xiroteus

Some old stories went too quickly while many new ones are insanely padded or use too many huge panels that are not required. I do take my time yet some can be burned through far too fast.

Or even two or three issues at times. For some reason they think everything has to be at least six issues long.

madcougar

Golden Age comics suck. The art is static and the story lines are often silly and simplistic. If it weren't for the fact that many of these issues include the first appearances of certain heroes and villains, no one would care about them.

taffer

This is just plain wrong. If those old comics truly sucked, then Batman and Superman wouldn't even exist today. If they sucked, they wouldn't have lasted for going on 80 years now.

There is a difference between something being bad and just being dated. Those old comics are certainly not bad. They are just very very very dated. Stan Lee's writing is the same way. It's dated as heck and a chore to read those 60s Marvel comics now. They're not bad though. They're just very dated.

It also amuses me when people complain about story decompression and comics were soooooo much better when there was more text. The thing these people forget is there was so much text because the majority of it was overly redundant exposition.

For example, a Stan Lee comic would have art of Doc Ock punching Spidey. There would be a text box saying Doc Ock is punching Spidey. Doc Ock would have a dialogue box saying he is punching Spidey. Spidey would have thought bubbles saying he is being punched by Doc Ock.

It was ridiculously redundant. Modern comics are decompressed because they cut out all that redundancy.

mrhan

I went back and re read the OPs original post....I believe it states that we should say something opposite general opinions. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyways, I hate the new 52. A friend gave me a shitload of his extra copies; I couldn't get through them... utter crap. I actually liked the post crisis (1986) stuff but this new 52 is really, really bad. Why does everything look like Jim Lee art? Sure, he is a competent artist but nothing more.

DC is shit now...I am sticking to what I know and grew up with; the bronze age. Best versions ever...at least the late 60's and early 70's. That's my honest opinion.

davidh777

Yep, it should be something against the grain but that we actually believe.

I found the "sucks vs. dated" argument interesting. I like the concept of Golden Age better than I actually like reading it, and find the '60s Stan Lee stuff kind of annoying as well because of the massive text. So I guess it sucks for the modern reader, but didn't suck at the time. It was groundbreaking for its time. So dated is probably a better term.

stingermck

Golden Age comics can tell a complete story in 7-9 pages that would take 6 issues now.

Kirby was not a good artist.

Stan Lee was not a good writer.

The Marvel style of heroes with problems is boring. I don't care that Peter cant pay the rent. If I want real life, I'll look around.

mrhan

Yes, they are dated but innovative. The bulk of good stories came in the 70's and 80's from Marvel, DC and a handful of independents.

fujishig

I think the confusion comes from your example, which is a statement only one person in the entire world truly believes.

For doing away with floppies: not only would the reader have to wait for 12 months for the story, during which time they would no doubt lose interest, but the writer/artist would have to wait just as long. This probably works better if the talent was top tier (I'm sure Neil Gaiman could get away with this) but otherwise I'm not sure if it would work. Does Europe do mostly GNs? I know Japan is the exact opposite, weekly chunks of comics with almost instant feedback from the fans, but that's a breakneck pace that I doubt would work here (and anthologies don't seem to do well either).

PhantomStranger

Marvel and DC writers have admitted they are instructed to write story arcs meant for trade paperbacks of 6-7 issues. The monthly issue is not their focus anymore. If the story ends in one issue, it doesn't force the reader to get the next issue.

The big two don't want casual comic book readers. Their entire business models are now built around diehards that buy every single issue of a certain character.

madcougar

Meh. Dated, suck, boring... all the same in my book. I've tried to read some "classics" from the era but find them excruciating.

Ash Ketchum

One of my retirement projects will be to dig out my huge collection of '60s and '70s Marvel Comics and thumb through them to see how well they hold up and decide whether to sell them or not. (My daughter sees them as her legacy but if I need the money after I retire, they're going!)

davidh777

Sorry, I figured everyone was familiar with the concept from the other threads so pretty much threw away the example.