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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | 1
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Everyone wants be Alan Moore. Everyone wants to do Watchmen.
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Dave Phelps
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4181
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | 2
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If they really did, their comics would take longer to read. Watchmen was hardly "decompressed."
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | 3
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Everyone wants be Alan Moore. Everyone wants to do Watchmen. ••• But... WATCHMEN isn't "decompressed." It's really very dense. That's the part these wannabes don't understand. By all means, have a story run six issues -- but FILL six issues.
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Lance Hill
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2005
Posts: 991
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | 4
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QUOTE:
| I think writers are much better at producing a full issue's worth of material than they were ten to twelve years ago. Maybe it's the push toward digital content that makes Marvel and DC feel more of an obligation to produce a decent standalone experience, but there are fewer and fewer stories lately that are six issues long just because they need to be six issues long. There was a lot more padding around 2000-2005, but I think we're past that now, thankfully. |
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I was about to say the same thing. When the trade paperback boom first hit around 2000, it seemed like there was a big editorial push for almost every story to be 6 issues long, whether the plot merited it or not. A lot of comic stories back then were spread really thin as a result. Each trade paperback had to be a "movie".
Aside from particular writers (Brian Bendis being the most notable example), the 10 minute comic and 6 part stories have mostly died out, and things are more like they were in the '80s and '90s. The trade paperbacks are still around, more than ever, but now they're allowed to function like DVD season boxsets (which weren't much of a thing 14 years ago) - a sequential compilation of episodes.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | 5
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There are some books where I wait for the trade and others I pick up monthly. It just depends.
For IRREDEEMABLE and FATALE, I would wait breathlessly for the trades. It's still hard for me to see individual FATALE issues on the stands and force myself NOT to buy it!
For the Marvel and DC books I still buy, I mostly have subscriptions for those. I did that when comics started costing $4 each and I just wasn't going to pay that for some of these. If I can get a $4 comic for about $2.50 delivered to my door, I will overlook my mailman bending them sometimes! But it's also fun to be surprised by a new book arriving every couple of days.
I go to the bookstore for mini-series and independents (like TRIPLE HELIX!). My bookstore also always has a lot of good older stuff in the dollar boxes--and I will put those aside until I get a whole run (or arc or whatever) and read them together. So, even the less decompressed older Marvels and DCs still had good reasons to read in order. Even standalone issues I want to read in order.
Edited by Eric Jansen on 17 January 2014 at 8:49pm
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | 6
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Speaking of Alan Moore, I just bought a bunch of his "America's Best Comics" in the dollar boxes--and, boy, did he fit a lot into a single issue! It's ironic/hilarious that the writer of the most respected "graphic novel" didn't like that term and wrote specifically for the monthly comic book format.
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Stephen Churay
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 8369
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | 7
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Speaking of Alan Moore, I just bought a bunch of his "America's Best
Comics" in the dollar boxes--and, boy, did he fit a lot into a single
issue! It's ironic/hilarious that the writer of the most respected "graphic
novel" didn't like that term and wrote specifically for the monthly comic
book format.
=========
There's a lot that Moore has written that isn't my cup of tea but
TOM STRONG was a heck of a read. Sprouse's artwork didn't hurt
the book either.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 18 January 2014 at 12:25am | IP Logged | 8
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Aside from particular writers (Brian Bendis being the most notable example), the 10 minute comic and 6 part stories have mostly died out
----
So I'm just imagining Forever Evil and Battle of the Atom and Infinity and Inhumanity and Batman: Zero Year and Goblin Nation and Gothtopia...
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35786
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| Posted: 18 January 2014 at 12:53am | IP Logged | 9
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Yeah, agreed. I'm not getting this whole "writers write better now than they did a decade ago" thing at all. I feel like I can pick up a book from Marvel or DC and read it in about five minutes...and it's only a sixth of the story at best. Still a ton of talking heads and non-action dragging out the thin plot to extend to a trade comfortable length. Maybe I've missed something, but it's the same old, same old as far as I can tell with a few notable exceptions aside.
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Marc M. Woolman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2008
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 18 January 2014 at 12:56am | IP Logged | 10
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Can't speak to the others but Scot Snyder's Batman year zero is not in any away decompressed, thin on story or padded out. Each issue has as much going on as let's say Frank Miller's year one, for comparison.Snyder and Jim Lee's Superman title is also pretty good on that front despite having lots of large pin-up spreads -style pages from Lee in each issue.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 18 January 2014 at 1:02am | IP Logged | 11
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I'm certainly not saying that every single title at Marvel and DC is a thinly veiled six issue miniseries masquerading as a TPB. But the notion that a thin plot stretched over six issues to qualify for a TPB is a thing of the past is an absurd notion to say the least.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 18 January 2014 at 1:10am | IP Logged | 12
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Andrew W. Farago wrote:
| I think writers are much better at producing a full issue's worth of material than they were ten to twelve years ago. Maybe it's the push toward digital content that makes Marvel and DC feel more of an obligation to produce a decent standalone experience, but there are fewer and fewer stories lately that are six issues long just because they need to be six issues long. |
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In fairness I quoted nearly the entire passage, but I wanted to address the notion that digital content has somehow made Marvel and DC feel an "obligation to produce a decent standalone experience". That, quite frankly, has not been my experience. At all. On any level. I come to the digital experience having read Marvel and DC comics for over 40 years. I stopped reading them in 2010. In the span of less than four years, I can't pick up a single issue of Avengers, Spider-Man, Hulk or X-Men (to name but four titles) and say that I've had "a decent standalone experience". Instead, I've had a confusing, muddled, inconsistent experience that's made me not regret dropping the Big Two altogether. It's my experience as a comics reader for four decades that they've become more insular and not less. More unable to enjoy in a single issue and not increasingly able to enjoy because of digital...however that would impact sales I have no idea.
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Topic Closed)
