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Kip Lewis
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | 1  

On the other hand my brother is a fan of
Manga.   I came home one Christmas and he
was telling me about the current fight.   
I came the next Christmas and asked again.   
He described the fight.   It was the same
fight! Not the same story, but the same
fight!   That one battle took over a year
to tell.   It was neither lazy not
exploitive writing.   It is just a
different philosophy for story telling.   

Edited by Kip Lewis on 03 July 2015 at 1:33pm
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Anthony J Lombardi
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 2  

12¢, if memory serves. 24 pages of story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is absolutely insane. Inflation being what it is and all that. For what comics cost today. How many pages should that be now ?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | 3  

On the other hand my brother is a fan of Manga.   I came home one Christmas and he was telling me about the current fight.   I came the next Christmas and asked again.   He described the fight.   It was the same fight! Not the same story, but the same fight!   That one battle took over a year to tell.   It was neither lazy not exploitive writing.   It is just a didn't philosophy for story telling.   

•••

More information is needed to put this in context. I could point to all the stories done with Sgt Rock and Easy Co. and call it "one fight."

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John Byrne
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | 4  

12¢, if memory serves. 24 pages of story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is absolutely insane. Inflation being what it is and all that. For what comics cost today. How many pages should that be now ?

•••

If publishers in the Forties had been more forward looking, and not tried to hang on to that 10¢ cover price, comics today would probably cost what they do -- but they'd be 64 pages!

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Andy Mokler
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | 5  

I don't disagree with you JB but as a writer, I'm curious if you feel there's a bigger challenge for current day writers to come up with stories?  With 70 years of "mining" preceding them I could see an argument for it being tougher on today's writers than those who were pioneering the genre.
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Lance Hill
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | 6  

The Superior Spider-Man storyline was sort of the comic equivelent of when a TV show has a season-long arc, but still has individual episodes with a beginning, middle and end.

Superior Spider-Man #1-3 were single-issue stories, #4-5 were a two-parter, #6 was another single issue story, and so on.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | 7  

Sticking with the Superior Spider-Man example, it was about thirty issues and it ran for a little over a year, but the whole thing was split up into arcs ranging from one to six issues.  If a reader didn't care for the storyline, and wanted to vote with his wallet and avoid the title until the inevitable Amazing Spider-Man relaunch, he certainly had that option. 

Readers who don't like Dan Slott's writing are out of luck, but that's been true of any character who's had long-term writers. If you weren't a fan of Chris Claremont on X-Men, Peter David on Hulk, Mark Gruenwald or Ed Brubaker on Captain America, Gerry Conway or Stan Lee or David Michelinie or J.M. Straczynski or Brian Michael Bendis on Spider-Man, John Byrne on the Fantastic Four, Walt Simonson on Thor...you might be stuck with a creative direction you don't like for a decade or more. 

As for the 12-cent comic book not existing anymore, neither does the 25-cent movie or the nickel hamburger.  I'd rather pay a buck for a new comic than three or four bucks, but two new comics is still about the cost of lunch, and three new comics is the cost of a movie, so it's not all that unreasonable.  If that's the price of the creative teams being able to make a living off a book and for my local LCS to keep its doors open, I can live with it.
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Steven Legge
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | 8  


...They came back to the present, only to be imprisoned by Doom, who set about killing them slowly and painfully. Sue rescued them. Doom was defeated, but escaped.

One issue.


And what plot was Kirby given by Stan for that issue? Something like, "Dr. Doom captures Sue and sends the rest of the FF back in time to get Blackbeard's treasure for him." Less than a week later, we get that whole comic pencilled and turned in.

The way those old books were made is as different today as the target audience is. Personally, I find the old books a bit of a whirlwind to read through and newer comics more like molasses. I prefer something in between. But I love that FF issue, how anyone could mistake the Thing for Blackbeard simply by putting on pirate clothes and a fake beard is  beyond me in a charmingly silly way.

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Paul W. Sondersted, Jr.
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | 9  

<responding to Andrew>

Stuck?

As much as there are characters that I favor, I wouldn't stick around if the stories didn't float my boat.

Fortunately, JB's reliable storytelling capabilities "forced" me to read his stuff! The cad!


Edited by Paul W. Sondersted, Jr. on 03 July 2015 at 1:56pm
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John Byrne
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | 10  

The way those old books were made is as different today as the target audience is. Personally, I find the old books a bit of a whirlwind to read through and newer comics more like molasses. I prefer something in between. But I love that FF issue, how anyone could mistake the Thing for Blackbeard simply by putting on pirate clothes and a fake beard is beyond me in a charmingly silly way.

•••

I was 12. Pretty much the target audience. I didn't find it silly in any way, charming or otherwise. It is condescending to say it is.

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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | 11  

Anime and manga are pretty bad about drawing out fight scenes. Dragonball Z took 10 episodes to show "5 minutes" of a one-on-one duel that took place over almost 20 episodes. Single duels in manga can go on for over a 100 pages. 
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 03 July 2015 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | 12  

Stuck?

As much as there are characters that I favor, I wouldn't stick around if the stories didn't float my boat.

"Stuck" in the sense that if you were a Hulk fan and didn't like Peter David's writing (I enjoyed most of his decade-long run, by the way, as did plenty of other people, otherwise Marvel wouldn't have kept him on the book), you didn't really have an alternative if you wanted to read current issues of the Incredible Hulk.  If you aren't a fan of Slott's writing, you've been out of luck since about 2007, and he's in there for the long haul (or until sales drop). 

I'm not sure what percentage of readers hangs onto a book no matter what, whether they're getting any enjoyment out of it or not, but with most comics getting renumbered every few years now, I'd like to think more and more readers are actually buying books that they legitimately like to read. 
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