| Author |
|
Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
|
| Posted: 23 January 2015 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | 1
|
|
|
I'm a bigger Spider-Man fan than anybody, and I've enjoyed the heck out of Slott's run, once I got past that initial mistrust of the "One More Day" storyline that kicked it all off. Spider-Island came and went pretty quickly, since that was during the thrice-monthly publication schedule, and it was contained to the main title and some completely skippable tie-in books.
I'll take that over the four-month-long, interminable Maximum Carnage story from the early nineties any day of the week. The Spider-Clone story, which I enjoyed at the time, ran through four Spider-Man titles, published weekly, and ran for about two years. If you didn't like the Superior Spider-Man storyline, you could skip a year of new Marvel Universe Spider-Man comics and pick up one of the other monthly books (like the animated series one) that had Peter Parker in it. Or you could pick up a Spider-Man trade paperback from some other era once a month.
Apart from Superior Spider-Man, most Spider-Man stories in the past decade have run their course in about three months or less. I get the feeling that some of you just don't want to like new books, so you're going to complain about them no matter what. They're too grim and mean-spirited, or too light-hearted and Silver Agey, and the stories drag on forever and ever except for all of the one- and two-issue stories that they fit in between the four-part stories. I think there's literally no pleasing some people.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
e-mail
|
| |
Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7526
|
| Posted: 23 January 2015 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | 2
|
|
|
I dunno, Andrew, I'm not sure there's no pleasing me. I like several books I'm reading now--but I'd like to like DC and Marvel's output more than I tend to. There are good books in nearly every publisher's line up. What I miss is the old days when writers weren't "writing to the trade" in six to eight issue arcs and there wasn't a blockbuster mega-event every other month. YMMV. That said, I'm probably a lot older than you and was reading during the Silver Age, so I do have a fondness for those kinds of stories. Not everyone shares that feeling and they don't have to, but it's okay for me to be wistful and nostalgic, and opine about what we've lost.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
|
| Posted: 23 January 2015 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | 3
|
|
|
I was lucky enough to start reading Spider-Man comics when Roger Stern was writing Amazing Spider-Man. (Back in the day when there were no "tie-in books," skipable or otherwise.)
Virtually everyone agrees that Stern was the best ASM writer since Stan Lee, and that no one has bettered him since.
What do I think would make for good Spider-Man stories? For every potential Spider-writer to study those stories, figure out what made them so good, and emulate them.
Roger Stern. Be Like Him.
(And BTW, Andrew, it's not about pleasing ME. I'm 41. It's about pleasing the 12-year-olds who SHOULD be reading Amazing Spider-Man.)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
|
| Posted: 23 January 2015 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | 4
|
|
|
Every Spider-Man letters page has at least one note from a seven-to-twelve year-old fan who's reading the book, for what it's worth.
The content's still grabbing kids, but if you don't live near a Direct Market shop, are checking books out of the library instead of buying them, don't have a credit card for buying digital comics, or don't want to spend $4 or $5 for a single issue of a comic book...there are any number of reasons other than what 40-year-olds think a kid will or won't read that are skewing comics readership older and older.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
e-mail
|
| |
Phil Frances
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 August 2009
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 345
|
| Posted: 23 January 2015 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | 5
|
|
|
I get the feeling that some of you just don't want to like new books, so you're going to complain about them no matter what. They're too grim and mean-spirited, or too light-hearted and Silver Agey
- I'd go for too light-hearted and Silver Agey every time, please. Thank you.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Carmen Bernardo
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3666
|
| Posted: 24 January 2015 at 5:55am | IP Logged | 6
|
|
|
I'm with Phil. There were still plenty of "Oh, no!" moments in the Silver Age comics if they were paced just right. Looking at Magneto glaring at you on that last page of X-MEN #111, for instance, made me want to get the next issue just to see what that villain was going to do to the heroes. You didn't need 300 panels of head shots showing everyone's reactions before the fists started flying. And it all got resolved... by another cliffhanger!
Thing is, in those days, we were given at least one issue where everything got wrapped up neatly. Today, it all drags on...
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133326
|
| Posted: 24 January 2015 at 7:18am | IP Logged | 7
|
|
|
There were still plenty of "Oh, no!" moments in the Silver Age comics if they were paced just right. Looking at Magneto glaring at you on that last page of X-MEN #111, for instance…•• By the time that issue came out, the "Silver Age" was generally considered to be OVER! There are no hard and fast dates. of course, but I've often said it ended when Jack Kirby left the FF. Of course, as I have noted before, the whole notion of "Golden," "Silver" and "Bronze" Ages is a confabulation of two entirely different concepts. The "Golden Age" of something is when its greatest achievements occurred. "The Golden Age of Greece," for instance. Or "America's Golden Age." Silver and Bronze come from the Olympics, and indicate a diminishing degree of skill. By using them, we, as a industry, were effectively announcing "Our old stuff was better." This is why I prefer to divide the history of comics into Decades rather than Ages.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Carmen Bernardo
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3666
|
| Posted: 24 January 2015 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | 8
|
|
|
Thanks for some clarification. I guess the more appropriate way of explaining it would be that the traditional manner of comicbook storytelling continued well into the 1980s. Then along came the CRISIS and SECRET WARS maxi-series and a whole slew of miniseries which kind of drove that further and further into the background, until we now have what we've got (and so often complain about) today.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
|
| Posted: 25 January 2015 at 12:38am | IP Logged | 9
|
|
|
The Golden/Silver/Bronze Age labels only make sense when referring to comics sales.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Topic Closed)
