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Shane Matlock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 August 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1760
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| Posted: 27 September 2017 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | 1
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It's funny. When I didn't HAVE to buy everything, I DID buy everything. Now that all the crossovers FORCE you to buy everything, I decide instead to buy NOTHING.
*****
Sad but true, Eric. I never bought everything from Marvel and DC but I bought and read a lot more before the days when everything was a crossover where you have to read three or four titles to follow a single story. I've dropped several books over the last decade that I was buying because you only had to read a single comic to follow the story, where suddenly there was some big crossover where I had to buy several other comics I had no interest in to follow the story. The other thing that Marvel and DC both do that annoys me is to take something that's a hit comic and spin it out several titles to milk it for all it's worth. DC did it to a really loathsome degree when Green Lantern got popular and Marvel did the same thing with Guardians of the Galaxy. Long gone are the days when you could follow all of the X-Men by reading Uncanny X-Men.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2292
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| Posted: 27 September 2017 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | 2
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I remember thinking when NEW MUTANTS started--"Really? Do we need two groups of mutants working out of the same house?" I thought something similar when SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN started.
Of course, I had no problem with BATMAN, DETECTIVE COMICS, and BRAVE AND THE BOLD--they were already rolling when I came around. BUT I always thought Batman and Superman's lives and jobs were set in stone and so could support multiple series with no harm done. But I really worried how Peter Parker's up and down life was going to get confusing or inconsistent between AMAZING and SPECTACULAR. MARVEL TEAM-UP didn't factor in because those stories were so standalone and separate.
So, it's not just too many interconnected series and padded stories, it's the lack of things that could just be fun and not have to "matter," like MARVEL TEAM-UP or BRAVE AND THE BOLD.
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Joe Boster
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3160
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | 3
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The worst thing a potential new reader has to face, Matt, is those stores inhabited by ennui-engorged fanboys who will tell him/her that in order to appreciate the latest issue of CAPTAIN FONEBONE, s'he'll have to read this, and this, and this, and this.....
++++++++++++++
Reminds me of a customer who came into my store. I really want to get into comics where should I start? Talk about a loaded question!!!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 28 September 2017 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | 4
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One phrase I have come to loathe is "What's a good jumping on point?"EVERY ISSUE should be a "jumping on point". But lazy writers find it easier to dribble out their stories, preaching to the choir.
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David Schmidt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 July 2017
Location: France
Posts: 441
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 3:09am | IP Logged | 5
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EVERY ISSUE should be a "jumping on point". But lazy writers find it easier to dribble out their stories, preaching to the choir. ****
So true. If I take my own experience in relation with this thread. I began to read Uncanny X-Men in the middle of "The Dark Phoenix Saga".
The members of the X-Men were captured by the Hellfire Club, Cyclops was down, Jean Grey was the Black Queen... I didn't know who this Wolverine was... but it was understable and I easily got into the story. And what a story!
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2292
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 5:11am | IP Logged | 6
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I started reading Marvel just as Captain America was questioning his government and decided to become Nomad. I STILL understood who Steve Rogers/Captain America was--I understood his friends, his girlfriend, what he was going through, and why (after others tried to fill his shoes and failed) he was the only one who could be the true Captain America.
Thank God for clarity in storytelling!
I truly feel sorry for anybody who's tried to start reading comics since the 90's.
Edited by Eric Jansen on 29 September 2017 at 10:59am
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12444
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 6:07am | IP Logged | 7
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QUOTE:
| I began to read Uncanny X-Men in the middle of "The Dark Phoenix Saga". |
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That was the experience a friend of mine had all those years ago, and he didn't have a whit of trouble grasping all the characters and their relationships after but one issue.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 6:21am | IP Logged | 8
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When the Battle of Britain was deemed over, Winston Churchill gave a speech in which he said, approximately, "This is not the end, and it is not the beginning of the end. But it may be the end of the beginning."For me, "the end of the beginning" happened at Marvel when I went to work there. But the beginning of the end was signaled by the decision to include a page of text on the inside front cover. It was the moment Marvel officially said "Yep, we don't know how to do this anymore."
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | 9
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Text on the inside front cover is...not good. That said, when I was a kid (pre-teen), the text on the top of Marvel's front pages never bothered me. It summarized what the characters were about, but not what happened in previous issues.
Granted, that top-text shouldn't have been any more necessary in the 70s than it was in the 60s. But it was written with lots! of! exclamation points! So at least it was Dramatic Superhero Text, meant to draw in youngsters.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | 10
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Shooter got rid of the top copy, one of the many things he did with which I disagreed. After all, as I said at the time, we can't recap the origin EVERY issue.
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David Allen Perrin
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Joined: 15 April 2009
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Posts: 3544
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | 11
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I can imagine the story recap on the inside front page was as much for the writers to get caught up to what was going on as it was for the readers.
I bet it's easy to get lost within a 30 issue story arc....
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Matthew Wilkie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 March 2011
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 29 September 2017 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | 12
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One phrase I have come to loathe is "What's a good jumping on point?"EVERY ISSUE should be a "jumping on point". But lazy writers find it easier to dribble out their stories, preaching to the choir. *** I'm reminded of the time when I was 14 and went away for twelve days on a school French exchange trip. Knowing that I may be quite isolated living with a French family throughout that time my Nan - my maternal Grandmother - bought me a marvel coming for each day of the trip. They were a mixture of the few regular titles I read at the time - Alpha Flight 14 was definitely in there - and others that I didn't usually followed. Some were self-contained, others less so, and yet I cannot recall not enjoying and following each and every one. Could be that true if the same thing happened today (aside from the fact it would cost my Nan a lot more money!)?
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