PhantomStranger

After trying to follow monthly comics through places like the grocery store and convenience stores, I practically wept as a child when I stepped into my first dedicated comics shop. It was virtually impossible to keep up with a series on a monthly basis by buying through the newsstands, unless it was one of the biggest sellers like Batman or Spider-Man. Even a comic like the Flash was difficult to collect on a regular basis.

madcougar

I still weep when I go into a really great comic book store.

kgrogers1979

So you can't be hardcore if you don't buy from a local comic store? So if your city doesn't even have a local comic store, you can't possibly be hardcore?

I guess I will throw my 30+ longboxes in the garbage because I am not hardcore enough.

kgrogers1979

Larfleeze is the one and only Orange Lantern. He is unique in that regard since all the other color Lanterns have a large Corps. Orange however is powered by greed (like how Green is powered by willpower and Yellow by fear), so since Larfleeze is the greediest motherfucker around he takes all the Orange to himself.

Travis McClain

If you were really hardcore, you'd have either moved or opened a local comic store yourself. As a child. Because that's how it works.

I'm reminded once again how lame I think the different colored Lanterns are.

kgrogers1979

And then I would have likely gone bankrupt in the late 90s bust like the majority of all the other comic stores and would now be living on the streets.


How so? If you didn't know who Larfleeze was, I assume you have never even read Geoff Johns run? If you haven't even read it, then why would you prematurely judge it?

fujishig

Are you talking about then or now?

Back then, well, as others have said it'd be really hard to get every issue of a comic just through the newsstand, even when they carried comics. Plus, the conditions the comics were in... but I don't see that as a negative, who the heck is a hardcore collector as a kid? Just read the comics you like and enjoy them, nothing wrong with that. When the Direct market stuff started, they started making different editions with premium paper and higher prices for the direct market, and I remember in some cases like Legion, either put old stories or different stories in the newsstand editions so that direct market could get a year ahead. So if you didn't have a comic book store, you largely lost out, though at that point most probably wouldn't have noticed anyway. And no way you could pick up an independent like TMNT or Usagi Yojimbo or the Tick at a newsstand.

Nowadays, you can order online, or digitally, pretty much anything you want, which is good because there's pretty much no such things as standalone stories these days, so even if there was newsstand distribution and a kid could afford a comic, I'm not sure how much enjoyment he'd get out of reading part 5 of 19 with little hope of getting the rest of it.

JasonF

For me, multiple colored Lantern Corps is one of those ideas that sounds like it absolutely sucks if you just hear about it, but is pretty damned good if you read the stories. Bringing Bucky back as Winter Soldier also falls in that category.

Travis McClain

That's how it goes for hardcore fans. Can't let a little thing like financial ruin stop you from being hardcore, you know.

I read Blackest Night last year. The whole thing amounted to having the DC Universe do the Care Bear Stare by combining the different Lantern colors to defeat the Entity. It was pretty much the perfect microcosm of everything that chased me out of comics a decade ago: needless crossovers involving as many characters as possible, while giving 90% of them nothing to actually do except add to the visual scale of a convoluted story masquerading as complex. It also seemed like an excuse for Johns to fulfill a childhood fantasy "ZOMFGWHATIFBARRYALLENWASAGREENLANTERN?!"

I'm reminded now that I encountered Larfleeze in that story. He was the most interesting character in the lot, but I can't really imagine myself enjoying a solo book of him for very long. Giffens could make it work if anyone could, though. I might reconsider that one.

kgrogers1979

Both. I started reading comics in 1988 when I was 9 years old. I loved watched re-runs of the Adam West Batman series, and one day when I was at the grocery with my mom, a Batman comic on the newsstand just happened to catch my eye. And that's where my comic addiction started.

I bought comics off the newsstand for 3 years because my hometown didn't get a local comic store until late in 1991. Then I started doing a lot of back issue hunting. I remember being in high school and had 6 longboxes full of comics then.

Then I moved to a city that doesn't have a local comic store in the early 2000s. I have been buying my comics online ever since, and now have roughly 30 longboxes today.


Yeah, most of my comics aren't anywhere close to being near mint/mint condition. Most of my comics have been read multiple times, plus many of them having been bought off the newsstand.

I am a collector, but I don't collect for future financial gain. I collect to read and re-read later. So I don't really care about the condition so much. As long as pages aren't ripped out and the staples are holding it all together, that's pretty much good enough for me.

>99% of my comics are post-80s stuff that will never be worth anything anyway regardless of its condition.

fujishig

Blackest Night did kind of suck, especially because there were so many tie ins and mini series and whatnot. But John's introduction of the various lantern corps and the Sinestro War were excellent, and pretty much self contained in the two main GL books. Of course, Flashpoint made Blackest Night look like Watchmen...

Travis McClain

To clarify: I only read the hardback collected edition of Blackest Night proper (i.e., the actual mini-series#0-8) and none of the tie-ins.

Dr. DVD

I'm not saying you can't be hardcore now, I was talking about then , meaning youth, which for me was early to mid 90s. I will admit that I didn't get majorly into comics until I was old enough to drive myself to the comic store. The whole appeal of that to me was, as others have said, being up to date on what was going on and not being a month behind as one would if they bought from a newsstand. Nowadays, even comic shops don't have much to offer and have to resort to being Magic gaming centers . Probably the best way to be hardcore now is to subscribe directly to the publisher and have it loaded to your e-reader, but then you get into the whole "is it a true comic if it isn't on paper" debate.

Travis McClain

I'm pretty sure you've failed to grasp krogers1979's point that you've basically relegated anyone who lives anywhere without a comic shop to being a second-class fan incapable of being truly enthusiastic.

Maxflier

As a kid, I bought all my comics from K&B (the drug store that Rite-Aid used to be) and being a month behind is something that never crossed my mind because I had no way of knowing what I was buying was a month behind since it was several years before the internet became mainstream.

Dr. DVD

During the time where I was growing up, I think and argument could be made for that point. I remember guys at my high school driving to bigger areas with larger comic stores so they could get what they wanted. Being hardcore meant a willingness to (literally) go the extra mile to get what you wanted.
The same standard cannot realistically be applied nowadays, as there are so many outlets through which you can get what you want. So in essence, you don't have to live anywhere special to be hardcore in modern society.

Travis McClain

It also required means and opportunity. How many of us could drive out of town as kids - when most of us first got into comics? Teenager or fully grown adult, if there was no comic shop near you, what were you supposed to do? You have to have a comic shop even in existence to go that extra mile to reach and in a lot of places there just wasn't one.

I was fortunate that my mom was from Louisville originally and willing to indulge my habit by taking me to comic book shops semi-regularly when we'd go out as a family on our weekends. Most kids I knew were from families who only went anywhere near "the city" if it involved someone being in a hospital. The idea of taking kids to the city to buy comic books was one of the most absurd things a kid from my community could try to pitch to their parents. Just getting them to buy comics from gas stations and pharmacies was triumph enough, and I can't even fathom what it was like for kids in other counties even farther removed from Louisville than mine (we're adjacent).

Dr. DVD

I think we might be having an apples and oranges type situation. I would never say someone isn't hardcore because of the way things were when they were children. You're pretty much at the whims of your parents at that point. I think the true judge of whether one was ever hardcore was if they utilized the means available to get what they wanted once they were able to actually go places and pay for such things on their own.

Adam Tyner

Why does there need to be a "true judge"? Who cares who's hardcore? Why does it matter to prove that one person is better at liking something than someone else? The appeal wholly, completely escapes me. (Maybe it's because I'm not HARDCORE!)

kgrogers1979

If you want to open that can of worms, I would say the hardcore people don't want digital comics. They want paper comics. You don't even "own" digital comics. You "rent" them.


This. What kid actually pays attention to things like publication dates to know they are behind?


I see you are in Florida. Did you live there as a kid too? Florida is highly populated so there were likely comic stores everywhere. Not all parts of the U.S. are so populated. Here in Indiana, you could drive for 50+ miles and never come across a comic store. As a teenager, there is absolutely no way my parents would have let me drive such distances alone.

Dr. DVD

There doesn't. Think my attempt to illustrate what was perceived as such by myself and friends growing up got out of hand. The point is kind of moot today.

stingermck

Hey look kids DC 52 comics stuff!

For anyone wanting to try Green Arrow, now is the time. In 1 issue it had a soft-boot, I assume to get gritty like the TV show

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources...2-green-arrow/

Vibe is also getting a big push.

Spoilers ahead: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=43853

fujishig

I don't remember hearing much about Green Arrow at all, except that the first few issues were really bad (in some people's opinions). It couldn't have been worse than the aborted post Blackest Night series that went nowhere.

Vibe is John's pet project, isn't it?

So which comics in the new 52 are still being enjoyed by the people who collect them? I don't see much discussion about the actual comics besides the ones about Batman, and Johns leaving GL. I asked about the Legion title a while ago but I guess nobody reads it? Any stand outs? Animal Man still good?

stingermck

Ive gotten back into Swamp Thing and its great. Aquaman is still a must read for me as well as Batgirl. The first non Gail issue is out and it was just OK. Luckily shes back on. I'm interested to see what Johns is going to do with both JL titles. Overall i'm still enjoying 52. Superman could use some work though.

PhantomStranger

Point of discussion: It can't be called a comic book if it isn't read on paper. Discuss...
Vibe seems to be DC's latest push for Hispanic diversity. They will really have to write the heck out of it to achieve any sort of relevance.

The Phantom Stranger is commanding you to read The Phantom Stranger. The first trade paperback is coming out in a couple of months. I could sic the Spectre on you and compel you with my unearthly powers.