Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,484
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Jun 24, 2023 15:35:16 GMT -5
Why were comics better back in the day than they are in modern times?
And why are comics better in modern times than they were back in the day?
Decide yourself where the back in the day and modern times line is drawn.
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Post by "Cane Dewey" Johnson on Jun 24, 2023 17:32:44 GMT -5
Why were comics better back in the day than they are in modern times? Availability: when I was a child, most comics I bought were from grocery stores, drug stores, convenience store, and very rarely from actual comic shops. Genre: Before superheroes came to dominate the medium in North America, mainstream comics could encompass genres like war, western, romance, horror, sci-fi, and more as much as there was space for superhero books. You can still find these genres today, but only from independent publishers or within manga. Compression: You got a lot of story, words, and panels for what you paid. Whether any of these were of quality is a matter of debate, but the dollar-to-amount-of-content ratio is worth thinking about in terms of today's economics. "Every comic is someone's first comic": Stories could still be steeped in continuity, but the creators would still do enough work to bring new readers up to speed. I started reading comics by trying to understand and piece together stories like Armageddon 2001, Time and Time Again, and Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge. I think 80s Marvel that was made before I was born did an even better job of being someone's first comic. Trade collections: An easy, relatively inexpensive way of reading stories rather than having boxes upon boxes of single issues. More emphasis on evergreen stories than runs: So much of my comics collection are satisfying chunks of a character. Do I have every Thor comic? No. Do I need every Thor comic? No. Do I want to read every Thor comic? No. But what I do have are the satisfying chunks, and I can leave the rest. On top of the market shift towards trades, plus the focus on evergreen stories, I've only read a handful of comics that weren't good. So it's minimal risk for maximum enjoyment. Curation of creator-focused content: Getting into comics, I remember people like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Todd McFarlane being the draws for books. Nowadays, there's more steak to the sizzle, and names being attached to projects, especially anything creator-owned, is enough to garner my interest. "Modern" for me begins in the early-to-mid-2010s when I got back into comics. Batman by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. The Marvel NOW!-era. Image Comics having long abandoned the creative tropes at the beginning of the company.
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Jun 24, 2023 17:45:01 GMT -5
I got into comics in the late 90's. Nothing will beat the thrill of speculating what comic book company will declare bankruptcy next, and wondering if the latest well hyped indie mini-series that's going to change the landscape of comics forever will actually finish publishing its four-issue run.
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Post by Cyno on Jun 24, 2023 18:03:35 GMT -5
The complete irrelevance of the CCA by Marvel, DC, and other publishers has done so much for modern comics in the kinds of characters and stories that can be featured. If only the industry was able to get away from that relic of 1950's Moral Panic sooner.
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,401
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Jun 24, 2023 20:24:20 GMT -5
For me when i was a kid it was the start of the direct market. I rarely got to a shop regularly. So any comic I found was amazing.
Now between online shops,forums,ebay and digital I got access to almost any comic I want. And now that last issue of DC's M.A.S.K. comic that was 5 stars when i read it back then has become "Crap I paid 2 bbucks for this???"
For me there is more variety and easier to get stuff now which makes me favor modern times. But as a kid it was nice to see genres like war,westerns,horror and teen comedy on the newstands.
Another factor making the modern era better for me is as a kid there was no TPBs. The first 3 TPBs I got was X-men Dark Phoenix Saga,Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Everything else was have piles of single issues around.
Now even with my oddball tastes in comics I can still find 70% of the stuff I want to read in TPB or Hardcover form.
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Post by TWERKIN' MAGGLE on Jun 24, 2023 21:15:57 GMT -5
It was so much fun going to Borders or Barnes and Noble to get a new TBP, now everything is just directly on my computer. More convenient, but less exciting.
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Post by Cyno on Jun 24, 2023 21:27:04 GMT -5
I'm happy I have a really solid LCS nearby as well as a Barnes and Noble a bit further away with really solid TPB and manga sections.
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schma
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,747
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Post by schma on Jun 24, 2023 21:35:57 GMT -5
For me, a huge part of the experience is being able to chat with someone about what I'm reading. I lost that about 5-7 years ago and my comic reading fell off until I finally cancelled my pull list. I haven't even bought a trade in months.
When I was younger it was rare to get comics outside of a garage sale but I loved them when I could get my hands on them. In university I started getting access to more (this would be about 2002-2007). However, it was after university when I had a full time job that I could really get into stuff. I mostly read Marvel and the Marvel Now! Era stands out as a brief renaissance period where almost every book they put out had something good about it. It was at the point that I even started picking up books for characters I normally had no interest in (The God Bomb was an arc that really got me into Thor and there were some stories about Legion that I really enjoyed. I had never cared for either of them).
However, between event fatigue (which really started to hit me with Avengers vs. X-men and then the endless variations of heroes fighting each other), my one friend leaving my comic store and my schedule preventing me from getting to talk comics with friends, I began to fall off. When the multiverse died, most of the books I was follow died with it and their replacements often had characters I particularly didn't care for.
The upside is this led to me branching out a bit, trying non-superhero comics. I had tried some occasionally at the suggestion of workers at the comic store but I found some really interesting ones.
I think comics are better now because the variety that used to be a staple is slowly but surely returning. There are plenty of big comics that are not superhero comics.
I think comics are worse now because death has been cheapened to the point where when a character dies I just kinda shrug and say 'see you in two years, sooner if they bring in an alternate universe version'. I think also the forced status quo began to bug me. I didn't get a chance to read Hickman's run on X-men but I remember so many people being positive about it and a big part of that being that they were actually doing something different with the X-men for once.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Jun 24, 2023 21:39:07 GMT -5
I dunno. Comparing a say, Henny Youngman to today's comics seems like a very apples & oranges deal.
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El Pollo Guerrera
Grimlock
His name has chicken in it, and he is good at makin' .gifs, so that's cool.
Status: Runner
Posts: 14,724
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Post by El Pollo Guerrera on Jun 25, 2023 0:32:36 GMT -5
For me, something changed with the rise in popularity of the original Image crew, even before they formed Image.
A comic's focus stopped being 'telling the story' and became 'look at the art!'
Granted, some could do both... but the audience shifted to buying for 'cool artwork' and the publishers started chasing that dollar.
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Post by thechase on Jun 25, 2023 3:22:15 GMT -5
In days of old, we had a mix of local newsagents carrying omnibus edition reprints of books (which would be a few years behind the Stateside publications), and the specialist stores would carry all the up to date stuff. I still occasionally nip on over to the newsagents and I was happy to find that tradition has somewhat continued with the collections, though the paper quality isn't as good as it used to be and they no longer publish fan letters.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Jun 25, 2023 7:22:22 GMT -5
the way comics are written and laid out nowadays is inherently superior to how things were written back in the day. go ahead and read a lot of those classic golden and silver age comics. I guarantee you'll find everything to be clunky as hell, even the good stuff. the sheer amount of exposition alone made it feel like it was written for people with brain damage. might be a hot take on my part but yeah most of that stuff bores me to tears.
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Post by thechase on Jun 25, 2023 7:24:48 GMT -5
the way comics are written and laid out nowadays is inherently superior to how things were written back in the day. go ahead and read a lot of those classic golden and silver age comics. I guarantee you'll find everything to be clunky as hell, even the good stuff. the sheer amount of exposition alone made it feel like it was written for people with brain damage. might be a hot take on my part but yeah most of that stuff bores me to tears. I can still read all that melodramatic fluff and prefer them to today. Today's modern comics are just pessimistic filth, full of unlikeable characters and rarely any triumphant stories. Maybe that reflects on the cynicism of humanity and they prefer that, but I've long grown out of it. I prefer simple good vs evil stories with healthy relationships.
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Post by CeilingFan on Jun 25, 2023 7:29:05 GMT -5
The 90s was the last great decade of Comic books, especially DC.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Jun 25, 2023 7:30:28 GMT -5
the way comics are written and laid out nowadays is inherently superior to how things were written back in the day. go ahead and read a lot of those classic golden and silver age comics. I guarantee you'll find everything to be clunky as hell, even the good stuff. the sheer amount of exposition alone made it feel like it was written for people with brain damage. might be a hot take on my part but yeah most of that stuff bores me to tears. I can still read all that melodramatic fluff and prefer them to today. Today's modern comics are just pessimistic filth, full of unlikeable characters and rarely any triumphant stories. Maybe that reflects on the cynicism of humanity and they prefer that, but I've long grown out of it. I prefer simple good vs evil stories with healthy relationships. I mean if you only read Spider-Man, sure...
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Post by thechase on Jun 25, 2023 7:46:55 GMT -5
I can still read all that melodramatic fluff and prefer them to today. Today's modern comics are just pessimistic filth, full of unlikeable characters and rarely any triumphant stories. Maybe that reflects on the cynicism of humanity and they prefer that, but I've long grown out of it. I prefer simple good vs evil stories with healthy relationships. I mean if you only read Spider-Man, sure... I read a good range of comics, not just from the big two. I stand by what I say. Today's comics don't even sell big nowadays, which says all there needs to about their 'superiority' to yesteryear.
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Post by Ryback on a Pole! on Jun 25, 2023 8:15:03 GMT -5
I tried reading through some of the early Marvel comics--and they're so very clunky, cheesey and a chore to get through.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Jun 25, 2023 9:41:27 GMT -5
I mean if you only read Spider-Man, sure... I read a good range of comics, not just from the big two. I stand by what I say. Today's comics don't even sell big nowadays, which says all there needs to about their 'superiority' to yesteryear. I think what you're saying is very closed-minded about modern comics, and you're really not giving credit to a lot of great work. there's plenty of superhero comics doing exactly what you want that you're seemingly ignoring. and that's not even getting into indie comics, which are probably even more varied and inventive than things were back before the Comics Code.
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Post by "Cane Dewey" Johnson on Jun 25, 2023 13:16:15 GMT -5
I mean if you only read Spider-Man, sure... I read a good range of comics, not just from the big two. I stand by what I say. Today's comics don't even sell big nowadays, which says all there needs to about their 'superiority' to yesteryear. This is an instance where comics, and superhero comics specifically, mirror the history of professional wrestling over the past 40-plus years. Both industries maintained a healthy balance of popularity and quality throughout the 1980s, hotshotted a lot of stuff creatively and financially in the 1990s to reach the highest highs of their industries in the 1990s, crashed and burned in a big way in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and now does numbers that are decent but nowhere near their peak while catering to a niche, genre-savvy, and, most importantly, aging audience, and newer audiences are hard to come by despite financial successes in other revenue streams.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Jun 25, 2023 14:01:50 GMT -5
I read a good range of comics, not just from the big two. I stand by what I say. Today's comics don't even sell big nowadays, which says all there needs to about their 'superiority' to yesteryear. This is an instance where comics, and superhero comics specifically, mirror the history of professional wrestling over the past 40-plus years. Both industries maintained a healthy balance of popularity and quality throughout the 1980s, hotshotted a lot of stuff creatively and financially in the 1990s to reach the highest highs of their industries in the 1990s, crashed and burned in a big way in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and now does numbers that are decent but nowhere near their peak while catering to a niche, genre-savvy, and, most importantly, aging audience, and newer audiences are hard to come by despite financial successes in other revenue streams. Remember when people thought that WWE might go network only? And how that would be terrible as it would severely limit their ability to ever attract a new audience. That is what comics did. They chased the guaranteed direct market money over the less profitable newsstand market. And now their once gigantic and varied audience is mostly 40 and older men. Who are often hostile and condescending to anyone new intruding in their safe space.
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