Make-Your-Own Challenge

What's a Comic Book Challenge?

- monthly threads to encourage more reading and discussion
- a way to figure out "what do I read next?"
- motivation to try different genres
- motivation to keep reading and make progress on our unread piles
- a place to get recommendations

How does it work?

- we pick a genre (or company, or title, or whatever) for a month
- we post in this thread and talk about what we plan to read and read throughout the month
- you could keep a spoilered list in one post and update it all month, or post as you read
- in theory the lists could be kept in a separate thread to allow for fancier formatting while avoiding clutter

What makes it a "challenge"?

- well, unofficially, the goal is to read 100 comics a month, but that isn't stressed
- the group discussion will challenge and encourage you to read more (the main goal of most participants I imagine)

Who can participate?

- anyone and everyone!
- you don't have to list your reading or even post at all to participate, but what's the fun in that?
- quasi-technically, anyone on the planet who reads a qualifying book for the month is a participant, whether they know it or not

When does it start and end?

- it begins at dusk on the last day of previous month, and ends at dawn on the first day of the next month
- this bonus time allows for possible "double counting" cross-Challenge content
- content eligible for both Challenges has the bonus of being able to be counted for all 24 hours of the last/first days of both Challenges

How does counting work?
- as with every other 'rule', we're pretty liberal and you can count any way you want really
- in general, a comic book counts as one
- for graphic novels and oversize books, feel free to count one for every twenty pages

Who wins?

- there are no losers, the person who reads one page a month is equal to the person who reads 20 books a day

What is the schedule?

January - TV/Movie/Book
February - Eisner/Harvey/Etc Winners
March - Rotating Company
April - TBD (random idea every year)
May - Make-Your-Own
June - Reality
July - Science Fiction
August - Fantasy
September - Outside-Your-Comfort-Zone
October - Horror
November - Comedy
December - Holiday (w/ bonus Thanksgiving and New Year's time)

Want a personal checklist to help you pick stuff to read?

Obviously you'll want to edit the below spoilered example checklist to fit your needs.

First four years for ideas:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/comic-book-...ay-2015-a.html

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/comic-book-...ay-2016-a.html

https://forum.dvdtalk.com/comic-book...ay-2017-a.html

https://forum.dvdtalk.com/comic-book...ay-2018-a.html

I’m sort of cheating, but plan to use May to catch up on my half-completed goals from the previous four months.

I might catch up on some New Gods reading.

In my random reading so far this month, I’ve enjoyed some old school Lobo on DC Universe, and several musty old Treasury editions including the first Superman Spider-Man team-up.

The highlight of the month has been the fairly recent Hawkman series by Robert Venditti and Bryan Hitch. I’ve always enjoyed Hawkman as a character, but admit that his continuity has been a mess the last 20 years or so. I’m early in, but from the first issues and all feedback I’ve heard, this new series takes all that mess of continuity and sort of streamlines and makes sense of it. The art is beautiful obviously, and I’m looking forward to reading more.

I ended up reading some of DC's Bloodlines event, which ran one summer in their annuals during the 1990s.

How was that? I’ve heard both extremes.

Pretty mediocre, if I am being honest. Alien invaders fed off human spinal fluid and occasionally it would give humans superpowers if it didn't kill them. Uneven art and disposable new characters were introduced, which almost none of them ever amounted to much. I think the event did introduce Hitman. I read it because I vastly prefer self-contained stories these days, which annuals almost always deliver.

For the most part I always enjoyed the themed annuals put out by DC and Marvel each summer back in the day. They felt like a better value to me than normal issues.

I agree and always pick up those annuals in dollar bins.