I have to say that I still collect many comics nowadays but if I don't like something, I quit reading it. My biggest concern is the "Superstar Writer". I'm not much of a fan of Bendis, Millar, Ellis, Ennis, and some of the others that are considered BIG NAMES. I like some of Morrison and alot of Brubaker. To echo some earlier comments, characters are being tailored to the writer's sensibilities. Not so much "what can I do for this character?" but "what can this character do for me?".

Speaking of "superstars," from Shawn's post, I think it's really ironic that the terms started getting applied during the speculator boom in the 90's, primarily from Wizard, I recall, yet it's use has only grown over the same time that sales have shrunk.  To what extent can you be a "superstar" writer or artist on a book selling 50,000 copies?  When Spider-Man #1 sold 7 million copies (or whatever the number was), I think it was fair to call McFarlane a superstar, but to call David Finch a superstar (as DC did on its web site) . . .

Dan,

I'm a high school special education teacher. I buy a good many trades and tend to donate the ones that I don't want to keep to my school library. I find that most of the kids I know like the comic book visuals over any kind of story. I actually have a student that loves superheroes so he goes to the library and checks out some of those trades. He really liked the Ultimate X-Men trades that I donated, so I brought in a few issues from the Byrne/Claremont/Cockrum era. He liked the fact that Wolverine had his costume on in those issues but really didn't have a preference one way or the other between the Ultimate X-Men and the classic. He did come in one day with a Secret Wars zip-up hoodie so I do think the classic look appeals to him.

My 13 year old brother-in-law likes just about any comic but he tends to like the darker characters. He likes Punisher, Moon Knight, and (of all people) the Iron Patriot. He loves reading my old Avengers though. So there is hope.

QUOTE: Nice point. "Current" comic book readers have been weened on sh*t for so long, they wouldn't know a good story/character if it crapped in their mouth.

This is the kind of broad brush that irks me. As (picking an arbitrary number) if the comics of the last ten years have only been sh*t. There are are tons of good stories/characters out there. They just might not be at the Big Two, for you, anymore. Be a discerning consumer, instead of just generalizing.

I think in general, the general readership of the generally-accepted Marvel/DC product, which I am criticizing and which has been produced now for two decades while appealing mostly to one select demographic, is willing to only read the most generally-appealing storylines and characters for that demographic.

Which is an irksome and inappropriate use of the comic book art form, since the art form was designed to be general in a very wide, encompassing manner. Comic books were created and designed to reach as many readers as possible, whether 9 years old or 45 years old. There wasn't a "deal" with a narrow number of readers, as is the case today. Comic books weren't ghetto-ized entertainment--they were cheap entertainment, for kids with little money or teenagers who didn't want to shell out their grass-cutting money for a movie or a ball game.

Comic books were not, have never been prior, focused on an adult audience, pandering to adult nostalgia, while simultaneously disrespecting, ignoring, and blatantly criticizing the artists of the past and the times in which they lived. The entertainment value of a silly costume in the 1950s was worth much more to a kid of that time than the pop culture fetishism of the 1990s and beyond to a 40-year old Target manager.

Why? Because the comic books spoke the language of the imagination. Every comic book, because of its very existence and its nature, sought to entertain that imagination primarily. An unspoken agreement, which was explicitly spoken by Stan Lee, was there was nothing comic books would not do to entertain their readers.

And comic books were a visual language, a learned art form with the heart of a big city newspaper. Deadlines were everything to the professionals, and only the visual language of comic books could meet the demands of the deadlines. You get what I'm saying? The comic book was not important, it was a message to kids and teens and whomever else that comic books were cheap, accessible entertainment for anyone and everyone.

Comics don't do that anymore. They're glossy products instead of cheap periodicals, they're portfolio additions, they're failed screenplays, they're witless, incompetent, puerile, and sophomoric soap opera tripe. Because that's what adults will buy, the lowest denominator of a thinning herd of nostalgic man-boys demanding more adultification of their superheroes, more death, more gore, more implied sex, more explicit sexualization of childhood icons so that they, man-boys, never have to give up anything that is important to them. While simultaneously twisting and deforming their childhood to conform to their needs as adults.

Thus, instead of "moving on" to varied-genre novels and Bergman movies, the man-boy brutishly refuses to leave the sandbox even though it is much too small for them. The only place to play is between their legs and around their ass, and how can anyone blame them for being so bored with the old sand and old toys which they can barely see for their spreading gut and which break easily in their clammy grip?