Originally Posted by Wolf359 (Post 10907365)

For that 52 #1 package they didn't offer me a choice, it was $6.25 shipping charge. I hope they come at once.

Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 10906961)

Well I just read Justice League #1. That was a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

Originally Posted by madcougar (Post 10907441)

I haven't bought comics in more than three years, but this reboot/launch/whatever really got me interested. I used DCSB,too, as purchasing $3 books at my LCBS was just to pricey an option.

Now that JLA is out though... I kinda want to go get one NOW. But I have to wait until next month for all my books. :sad:

Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 10906961)

Well I just read Justice League #1. That was a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

Yawn. That was an incredibly boring issue. Not a good way to start the DcnU at all.

Originally Posted by stingermck (Post 10907604)

JL was definitely the Batman/GL hour.

Originally Posted by PhantomStranger (Post 10907868)

That seems to be a very popular opinion on other boards. Apparently there is very little depth to the first issue and reads very quickly. Mostly it appears to be a showcase for Lee's artwork. Given how important that issue is to the success of the new DC universe, I am not sure DC should have released it in that form.

Originally Posted by madcougar (Post 10907967)

Haven't read it, but if what I've read from others is any indication, I would agree. They should have produced an awesome one issue storyline where all the heroes team up to fight some threat and maybe THEN explored what happened to get them there in subsequent issues.

Originally Posted by fujishig (Post 10908115)

huh, I forgot this was 3.99. Does it have more pages than a normal 2.99 book?

Originally Posted by Super X (Post 10908193)

It's got some filler pages, featuring early sketches of the redesigned costumes.

I bought it. I read it. It reads thinner than a normal $2.99 book. There's not a whole lot of real plot advancement in the issue. Sure, that's become the norm in comics these days, but I question if that's the right approach if they're trying to expand the reader base. If they're trying to get people from outside the current comics community to start buying their books, it seems they'd want to try something different from the storytelling techniques that have been utilized during a time period when comics buying has dramatically decreased. It seems to me they should have been trying to do something new and dynamic that breaks out of the standard comics mold and I don't believe they did that.

Originally Posted by MinLShaw (Post 10907884)

I would absolutely love it if you could get him to articulate to you his indifference/resistance to reading comics. I've run into this with kids in my family and they just shut off, so I have no idea what the problem is. I know they dig the characters because they love the movies, TV shows and video games, but for some reason I can't make a damn one of them open a comic book!

Also, of course, I'm interested to hear what he thinks of the issue.

Originally Posted by stingermck (Post 10908251)

So as soon as he saw me, he saw the JL cover and says "Justice League!!" (he has watched the JL/JLU cartoon a lot) I told him it was a #1 issue, and he asked it if was the first number 1 ever of JL. I then explained to him it was a new series with a new story. He looks at the cover and sees Hal, and says "Cool mini gun, just like the video game!" (Rise of the Manhunters)

After some convincing I got him to read it, and here are his thoughts:

Said it was cool, favorite part was GL taking out the helicopters, least favorite part was that Batman did not beat up GL. He said the art reminded him of video games, and said he was ready to read the next issue just to see Superman vs Batman (he thinks Bats will win) and asked if I had it. I had to explain the issues come out monthly which disappointed him, but i reminded him other comics would be out next week and I showed him the preview ads.

He concluded that reading comics was better than books because there are super heroes in them :)

Originally Posted by MinLShaw (Post 10908265)

Okay, now I have two follow-up questions. 1) Why was he resistant to comics in the first place? And, more importantly, 2) Who would win in a fight between Superman and Green Lantern? ;)

It sounds like the issue is a hit with him, and while it may be dissatisfying for a reader like myself, I can be happy if this means he'll explore comics. The future of the medium I love depends on kids like him, and there's more than enough stuff out there for me to enjoy. If Justice League is what rocks his socks off, so be it. Glad he liked it, and I'm glad you were able to share that with him. Having failed in my efforts to bond with the kids in my family over comics, I appreciate how nice that must have been for you. I'm jealous!

Originally Posted by stingermck (Post 10908298)

I think its just reading in general he is against. We picked up a healthy stack of 10 cent comics for him at Heroes Con which have been casually looked at, but maybe the 80s/90s art is too bland, and JL was more flashy.

When i first asked if he wanted to read it, he just shrugged, and he wanted to watch a movie instead. We watched Priest and he thought it was "EPIC!" Afterwards I mentioned reading again, and he said he rather play Call of Duty, and he would read it tomorrow. To coax him I said id be letting a friend read it tomorrow so he needed to do it tonight.

So as we all know, comics are still competing with flashy movies and video games.

Originally Posted by PhantomStranger (Post 10908506)

It is no coincidence that the comic book industry started losing young readers the minute videogame graphics started approaching realistic models.

Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 10908588)

We only have so much free time in any given day, and with more entertainment options now than ever before most people just don't want to read anymore.

Originally Posted by MinLShaw (Post 10908379)

It may be anecdotal, but this seems to support my thesis that one of the major problems the industry faces now is a cultural shift in attitudes toward reading. I know every generation has had its "reading is for nerds" phase, but today's kids seem more hostile toward reading, the success of Harry Potter notwithstanding. I recently had a disagreement with a guy in an online discussion about this on a Wired.com article about Read Comics in Public Day (if you scroll down, Inferno Shade is the guy I responded to; I'm Travis McClain).



I'm in favor of self-contained stories, but I think if you're going to have continuous stories, no one has ever done it better than the Superman team that used the triangle numbers. For those unaware, each Superman comic had a triangle number that told the year of publication and which Superman comic it was in the entire year's worth of output. Say in January they released the four basic books at the time, and a one-shot. They'd be like this:

1992/1 Action Comics #X
1992/2 Superman #X
1992/3 The Adventures of Superman #X
1992/4 Superman: The Man of Steel #X
1992/5 Superman: The One Shot Special in This Example
1992/6 Action Comics #X

This way, the ongoing story simply moved from one Superman book to the next in many cases, and the reader only had to wait a week for the next part. This wasn't always the case, of course; for a time, each book had its own storyline. But when they did use it this way, it was really convenient and those triangle numbers really made it easy to know which book to read. I've always been surprised no one else adopted that system.

Originally Posted by fujishig (Post 10908770)

It takes a lot of coordination (in the Superman books, for instance, they had different writers) and a strong editorial team, and also books shipping on time. This has been a major problem for DC in recent years...

Originally Posted by MinLShaw (Post 10909002)

I know you guys get sick of me constantly praising Legends of the Dark Knight, but one of the things I loved most about it was that each story arc was done by a different creative team. If I didn't like P. Craig Russell's art (which, actually, I do like), big deal; after his arc was over, Tim Sale would work the next one. Doug Moench's story bored me (which, honestly, rarely happened)? Denny O'Neil wrote the one after it. Not only did it keep the series fresh, but I'm sure it was one of the most manageable books DC published because each team only had to turn in a few issues--I think the longest arc was five issues, at least until the mid-90s when LOTDK began playing host to the rest of the Bat-crossovers.

Sometimes I think too much emphasis is placed on the value of a stable creative team on a book.

Originally Posted by PhantomStranger (Post 10909427)

I think the market reality is that current fans will not buy a book that is seen as being outside of current continuity, unless a big name is constantly attached. From what I remember of Legends of the DK, DC tried going a little outside the norm on the artwork in it, hoping to distance it somewhat from the current Bat books at the time.