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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 14, 2019 14:06:00 GMT -5
Comic books as a format are dying in America. But comics as a medium are as vital as ever. Maybe more so. Maybe this sounds crazy, but I think comics are in the process of becoming something bigger and broader than the niche they have been stuck in since the code came into being in the 50's. There are new generations of comic creators, fans, and readers who are taking the form into all sorts of new genres, with stories and artwork that are informed by different influences, telling stories by different voices. Yeah, total agreement. And I'd ad that graphic novels are a better format for creating good art than periodical floppies, and the best comics are much higher quality in the 21st century than the past. Edit: Except for comic strips, obviously, which are dogshit now compared to Little Nemo.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 14, 2019 14:08:56 GMT -5
I believe a case can be made that older comics were objectively better than new ones. The storytelling was certainly better. Every page moved the story along, the art communicated every action, and by the end of each issue you were satisfied. (You may not have liked every issue, but you felt like you got a good amount of story at least.) Compared to more recent comics where panels are pinups and the scripts are full of "realistic" dialogue where characters "um" and "ah" for several pages and you get to the end and "that's it?"...the older ones are objectively better. There is nostalgia, but it's also real. I'm not saying all newer comics are like that, but it's definitely been a trend for a long time now. As an anti-nostalgist I can't agree, but I think mainstream comics were a more compelling product for a general audience in the spinner rack era.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 14, 2019 14:12:28 GMT -5
Comic books as a format are dying in America. But comics as a medium are as vital as ever. Maybe more so. Maybe this sounds crazy, but I think comics are in the process of becoming something bigger and broader than the niche they have been stuck in since the code came into being in the 50's. There are new generations of comic creators, fans, and readers who are taking the form into all sorts of new genres, with stories and artwork that are informed by different influences, telling stories by different voices. Here's a small personal anecdote. When I was doing my Kickstarter, I tested out some Facebook ads targeting this group or that. I had an idea in my head that my comic might do well with women ages 40-60 or so, because they were people who grew up reading things like Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden novels. Even though I was specifically sending the ads only to people who listed comics as an interest, I discovered that demographic was actually one of my lowest performing. I eventually realized it's because those women are part of a lost generation of female comics readers, who were shut out by the direct market and big two's emphasis on superhero books for boys. The demographic my ad actually performed best with? Women 18-24. Starting with the manga book around 2003, there are a couple generations now - Millennials and now Generation Z or whatever they are being called - who grew up reading comics without participating in the direct market, or buying superhero floppies. These are people who read manga, graphic novels, and web comics. An now they are starting to make their own books online or through Kickstarter or other platforms. I was listening to a podcast recently where the founder of Boom! Studios was talking about this, and about the sales of graphic novels. Scholastic is actually one of the biggest comic book publishers in the country now, if not the biggest. He said that the industry estimates there are around 500,000 direct market readers - people who go to comic book stores and buy traditional comics there. Meanwhile, the latest Raina Telgemeier graphic novel sold 1.5 million copies. He said, "if you look at those numbers, three quarters of all comic book readers in the country right now are junior high girls." He added that Boom!'s series of Dog Man graphic novels aimed at middle readers and distributed through book stores has sold over 3 million copies. All of those readers that the traditional publishers lost over the decades by moving from the newsstand to the direct market are now being found again through the internet and through bookstores, and by companies like Scholastic selling directly in schools. Those kids are growing up fans of comics, just not fans of comic books or the comic books that we are fans of. Take a look at Kickstarter and you'll see tons of new projects by young creators featuring black or latino or LGBTQ or other heroes, starring in westerns, or fantasies, or sci-fi, or soap operas, or all the other genres that the big two let wither on the vine. I think comics as a medium is more vital and exciting now than it's ever been because the internet and publishing on demand have removed the barriers from creating comics, allowing storytellers to sidestep gatekeepers and do what they want, while finding the people who want to read those stories. I'm really excited to see how comics continue to grow and evolve over the next couple of decades with this new wave of talent coming in and changing the rules. Oh, definitely. I can speak from experience, with 20 years at Barnes & Noble: we sold way more product of a comic book nature, than the average comic shop. The YA market is filled with comic/graphic novel hybrids: Telgemeier's books, Big Nate, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries, Avatar, Geronimo Stilton, etc, etc. Then there are manga titles, then the American stuff. The hybrids have a much higher readership than traditional American comics and the manga still do huge numbers, though they are down form their heights in the early to mid 00s . Bone became a phenomena outside the comic shop, because of the Scholastic collections. When those were first coming out and for about 5 years after, we old tremendous numbers of them, vs single copies at the local comic shop, of the Cartoon books collections. Heck, back in the day, we used to check on availability of them from Jeff Smith's wife, when we had order requests, because the LCS in our area weren't stocking them (they'd order the book for subscribers, but weren't carrying much, at least until the Image run).
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 14, 2019 14:16:53 GMT -5
Comic books as a format are dying in America. But comics as a medium are as vital as ever. Maybe more so. Maybe this sounds crazy, but I think comics are in the process of becoming something bigger and broader than the niche they have been stuck in since the code came into being in the 50's. There are new generations of comic creators, fans, and readers who are taking the form into all sorts of new genres, with stories and artwork that are informed by different influences, telling stories by different voices. Yeah, total agreement. And I'd ad that graphic novels are a better format for creating good art than periodical floppies, and the best comics are much higher quality in the 21st century than the past. Edit: Except for comic strips, obviously, which are dogshit now compared to Little Nemo. Well, space is a big factor in that. The more the comics pages were reduced, the more it affected the illustrative strips, particularly adventure series. Little Nemo had most of a page to itself, as did things like Tarzan and Prince Valiant (they were about 2/3, if memory serves). Shrinkage now has even humor strips so small, why bother with backgrounds, as they won't be discernible. Bill Watterson raged against it and used his 900 lb gorilla status, when he came back from hiatus, to force the issue, on his Sundays. However, he offered 2 or 3 alternatives for papers to use, rather than the "My way or the highway," image that was put about by some features editors, in stories.
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Post by MDG on Aug 14, 2019 15:19:47 GMT -5
Comic books as a format are dying in America. But comics as a medium are as vital as ever. Maybe more so. Maybe this sounds crazy, but I think comics are in the process of becoming something bigger and broader than the niche they have been stuck in since the code came into being in the 50's. There are new generations of comic creators, fans, and readers who are taking the form into all sorts of new genres, with stories and artwork that are informed by different influences, telling stories by different voices. ... Yeah, I think there's a real schism between the "traditional" comic fans and where the growth is now. It's not helped by the fact that Marvel and DC are owned by entities who see actual comics publishing as a low priority.
This growth could've happened in the 80s. Indie publishers like First, Eclipse, Aardvark-Vanheim --> Renegade, Fantagraphics, Comico, Dark Horse weren't interested in reproducing what Marvel and DC were doing. Unfortunately, I don't think the market was ready--it wasn't growing fast enough and the existing fan base still gravitated to the big two. (The indies that emerged in the 90s--Malibu, Image, Topps,etc., seemed to want to provide more of Marvel and DC were publishing.)
The audience coming up for the past 7-8 years seems more interested in comics than superheroes and existing franchises.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 14, 2019 18:04:09 GMT -5
The deaths of various heroines following Phoenix and Elektra definitely had an effect on my wanting to buy any mainstream super comics. Imagine if they'd killed Luke Cage and Black Panther then DC followed with the death of Black Lightning and Cyborg ended up crippled, and for good measure Marvel offed The Falcon, all withing a three year time period and you were a young black male? I got to see Supergirl and Spider-Woman follow Phoenix and Elektra to the grave, and then Batgirl was crippled too. Oh, and I'm actually leaving out what they did with Ms. Marvel. Yeah, lotsa laffs. This I needed? So the last few titles I bought were Swamp Thing, Moonshadow and Starstruck from either of the big two (and two were Epic), it meant a lot to me that I did just hang in to see Jean Grey returned for X-Factor. After all that I tried some of the first Japanese translations from Eclipse/Viz for around 2-8 issues like Mai The Psychic Girl and Nausicaa, and whenever Elfquest came back with new Wendy Pini drawn stories, the first few Bone, but mostly comic reading for me was a thing of the past by the early '90s. Similarly I'm sure that the times in the '80s when there was almost nothing new for little kids had an effect of losing that demographic, so they found Captain Underpants or whatever Scholastic was putting out in the place of it.
Is it nostalgia to think 'remember before they were killing the characters so often?' You're a reader and you like and identify with Jessica Drew the original Spider-Woman and grew up with the original Supergirl... sorry you can't have them, we took them away. Not enough people liked them, nor Batgirl or Ms. Marvel either. Storm we'll still give you but we'll make a vampire with a mohawk who wears a lot of leather now... and Kitty is a ninja and 'dark', not a regular kid anymore... it seemed there were only a few female characters anyone took any care over, like Wonder Woman.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 17, 2019 16:59:23 GMT -5
The deaths of various heroines following Phoenix and Elektra definitely had an effect on my wanting to buy any mainstream super comics. Imagine if they'd killed Luke Cage and Black Panther then DC followed with the death of Black Lightning and Cyborg ended up crippled, and for good measure Marvel offed The Falcon, all withing a three year time period and you were a young black male? I got to see Supergirl and Spider-Woman follow Phoenix and Elektra to the grave, and then Batgirl was crippled too. Oh, and I'm actually leaving out what they did with Ms. Marvel. Yeah, lotsa laffs. This I needed? So the last few titles I bought were Swamp Thing, Moonshadow and Starstruck from either of the big two (and two were Epic), it meant a lot to me that I did just hang in to see Jean Grey returned for X-Factor. After all that I tried some of the first Japanese translations from Eclipse/Viz for around 2-8 issues like Mai The Psychic Girl and Nausicaa, and whenever Elfquest came back with new Wendy Pini drawn stories, the first few Bone, but mostly comic reading for me was a thing of the past by the early '90s. Similarly I'm sure that the times in the '80s when there was almost nothing new for little kids had an effect of losing that demographic, so they found Captain Underpants or whatever Scholastic was putting out in the place of it. Is it nostalgia to think 'remember before they were killing the characters so often?' You're a reader and you like and identify with Jessica Drew the original Spider-Woman and grew up with the original Supergirl... sorry you can't have them, we took them away. Not enough people liked them, nor Batgirl or Ms. Marvel either. Storm we'll still give you but we'll make a vampire with a mohawk who wears a lot of leather now... and Kitty is a ninja and 'dark', not a regular kid anymore... it seemed there were only a few female characters anyone took any care over, like Wonder Woman. I never saw it from that view point.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 17, 2019 17:00:20 GMT -5
I could never accept another actor playing Wolverine other than Hugh Jackman.
There I said it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2019 6:04:42 GMT -5
Does Dormammu dream? If so, would his powers be diluted if Nightmare entered his dreams? These rhetorical questions keep me up at night!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,591
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Post by Confessor on Aug 19, 2019 6:35:02 GMT -5
Does Dormammu dream? If so, would his powers be diluted if Nightmare entered his dreams? These rhetorical questions keep me up at night! Did you mean to put this in the"Ask A Quick Question" thread? It's not really a "there, I said it" type post, so just wondering.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2019 6:58:19 GMT -5
I did. Sorry. There have been at least 3 occasions where I've been in the wrong thread. Which for a taxi driver is unforgivable (good job I don't end up the wrong places while driving!).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2019 16:53:19 GMT -5
Some of the best Superman stories in the past 30 yrs have been Superman homages like Alan Moore's Supreme. Or the Joe Casey Mr Majestic.
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 19, 2019 17:28:01 GMT -5
I could never accept another actor playing Wolverine other than Hugh Jackman. There I said it. I..
[borrowing from ROTJ Vader]...once thought as you do[/borrowing from ROTJ Vader]
...about Reeve as Superman, but i found Cavill to be another great interpretation, both in appearance, and his alien stand-offish demeanor, because he knew could not feel entirely human. No one else between the two actors (or after like that watered down joke on the CW's Supergirl) ever presented a believable Clark/Kal-El/Superman.
There. i said it.
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Post by Phil Maurice on Aug 19, 2019 18:05:48 GMT -5
No one else between the two actors (or after like that watered down joke on the CW's Supergirl) ever presented a believable Clark/Kal-El/Superman. Does animation count? I loved Tim Daly and George Newbern as Superman in S:TAS and JL/JLU, roughly about a million times more than Cavill. YMMV.
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 20, 2019 6:30:53 GMT -5
No one else between the two actors (or after like that watered down joke on the CW's Supergirl) ever presented a believable Clark/Kal-El/Superman. Does animation count? I loved Tim Daly and George Newbern as Superman in S:TAS and JL/JLU, roughly about a million times more than Cavill. YMMV. I was talking about live action, but I will say that Newbern was great as a Superman voice artist, but the overall picture of the character was best represented by Reeve and Cavill.
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