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Topic: The Effect of the internet (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Stéphane Garrelie
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 7:06am | IP Logged | 1  

i see real potential for a JBF topic in this interview:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=119518

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John Byrne
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 9:54am | IP Logged | 2  

Brad Meltzer (Justice League of America): Most positive is that we're all not alone as readers anymore.

••

I would call that the most negative! And right there we see the danger of what happens when fans turn pro, and are unable to stop thinking like fans.

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Jeff Albertson
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:16am | IP Logged | 3  

Can you elaborate, JB?  I don't quite understand your point.

I agree with Meltzer, in that when I was a teen-ager, no one I knew read comics, and even now, it's relatively few people, so the internet enables me to "talk" more about comics than I otherwise would.  That has the benefit of helping me learn about artists and series that otherwise I may have missed or passed by. 


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Mike Dunn
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:24am | IP Logged | 4  


Some people like having friends with similar interests.  Even if they don'ty live on the same block.  Society can be fun.

m'dunn
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John Byrne
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:25am | IP Logged | 5  

Can you elaborate, JB?  I don't quite understand your point.

•••

To think that the internet allowing fans to feel that they are "not alone as readers" plays to the "clubhouse" mentality that is a large part of what's wrong with comics today.

When you have isolated fans, reading the books on their own and not knowing (or much caring) if anybody else is, then the prime reason for reading is enjoyment -- it's all about the books themselves. It's not about "getting together" with fellow fans to dissect and deconstruct. It's not about posting to websites where even the most boneheaded "letters" get "published" because there is no editor to separate the wheat from the chaff.

And, most especially, it is not about the creating of product that is so dense, so self-referential, so impenentrable, that a new reader, someone who has not been part of the "club" for years, even decades, has no hope of getting into.

Every time you go to a website and see a post from someone bitching about MAN OF STEEL, or the Clone Saga, or the Death of Phoenix -- or, for that matter, even just discussing these twenty and thirty year old stories -- you see how inbred fandom has become.* And why the internet is, overall, a very bad thing.


*Yes, even here.

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Michael Connell
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:32am | IP Logged | 6  

Well put Mr. Byrne, well put indeed.
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Greg Kirkpatrick
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:36am | IP Logged | 7  

While the internet has a tendency to be a base for bashers can it not also bring together fans who share the common joy of enjoying comics.  Or are we to assume that getting together with other fans leads only to dissection and deconstruction.  Heck JBF folks atempt get-togethers at many a con.

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Stanton L. Kushner
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:37am | IP Logged | 8  

May I assume you'll be shutting down the forum?
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Jeff Albertson
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:38am | IP Logged | 9  

I don't agree with much of that viewpoint, but I do appreciate the clarification. 
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:41am | IP Logged | 10  

If you had paid any attention, instead of just scanning for places you can display your sparkling wit, you might have noticed that I use this forum in much the same way firemen use fire to fight fire.

But, since you ask, I can shut it down for you.

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David Schimmel
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:52am | IP Logged | 11  

ouch.

I did think Brad's second statement about not catering to fans was a good one, and very similar to what I belive you have said before, JB. 

 

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John Byrne
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Posted: 05 July 2007 at 10:58am | IP Logged | 12  

Unfortunately, as we have seen, "not catering to fans" --- "Never give the fans what they think they want," as Stan Lee put it -- is almost impossible in the Age of the Internet. Especially when we have people in High Places who have been known to actually change planned storylines because some website "figured it out". Whether we like it or not, the fingers on the keyboards are also pulling far too many of the strings.
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