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Eric Smearman
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Joined: 02 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 5823

Posted: 06 August 2016 at 1:04am \| IP Logged \| 1

"3. He wanted to replace all the secret identities of the heroes."

So that story Doug Moench told in COMIC BOOK ARTIST years ago
was true? Sounded pretty outrageous to me at the time. Can anyone
elaborate on this?

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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789

Posted: 06 August 2016 at 8:27am \| IP Logged \| 2

There was a time when longevity was valued in comics, even to the point of continuing characters in titles that were not eponymous. It didn't happen quite so much at DC, because there just weren't that many new characters whose titles could continue on from the Golden Age. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman - all didn't restart. If I'm recalling correctly, only Green Lantern and the Flash could have continued their title's numbering - and half of them did.*

After the 70s though, it seemed that a new issue #1 was more valuable - the influence of speculators, no doubt. Suddenly, it was important for EVERY COMIC to have a number one... even if it was only a one shot. That makes it hard to establish continuity on a title (although Marvel had some problem with that anyhow, due to their starting characters in ongoing titles,and then transferring 'em to their own books with number ones.)

What the hell. I blame the speculators.

Edited by Eric Sofer on 06 August 2016 at 8:28am

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Bill Collins
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Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11294

Posted: 06 August 2016 at 8:31am \| IP Logged \| 3

Are the speculators still around in number great enough to support that sales tactic nowadays?

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Robbie Parry
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186

Posted: 06 August 2016 at 9:16am \| IP Logged \| 4

To be honest, some of my reasons are selfish. It just makes searching for back issues on eBay hard. If I want an old issue of "Muscle & Fitness" (I don't think they have numbers), I'll just type the name of the publication and the year - i.e. March 1984 - into the search bar; if I want 2000 AD #995, I'll just type that in; and if I want any number of UK titles, I do the same.

What if I want Wolverine #1? Which one will the eBay search bar bring up?

It's not the most important issue, but I wonder how much of a nightmare it creates for some shops. As I have said previously, one guy (his shop probably not there now) did online mail order and he'd send a catalogue of every issue in stock, simply the title and number, i.e. Batman #544. No pictures, just the issue/number. How would he be able to do that now?

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Bill Collins
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Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11294

Posted: 06 August 2016 at 9:28am \| IP Logged \| 5

That`s another problem,no focus! In the good old days,there were a couple of Spider-man titles,The FF,The Avengers,The X-Men,The Defenders and a few solo titles,now there are multiple titles for characters,groups etc,with confusing continuity and endless tie-ins to the latest `Event`.To new and old punters it`s overwhelmingly confusing.It makes me laugh when they advertise an issue as a `Good jumping on point`...EVERY issue should be a good jumping on point! What they don`t seem to realise,those issues are good jumping OFF points too!

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