John Byrne:

QUOTE: Call it Tinkerbell Syndrome. When you stop believing in them, they die.

[OT] When I firts read this post, my first thought was "Just like in 'Peter Pan'!". Then, I remembered that Tinkerbell IS from "Peter Pan"...!

End OT.

ASB, which, as told before, I like (I, 25 years old), is what I was afraid to see in comics when I started again to read them when I was 12.

My last superheroes comic book was an issue of IRON MAN in 1989 (American release: 1987), when I was 6. Good issue, but it bored me a bit: it was a sort of parody of the usual superheroe acts, like saving men from a fire, or cats on a tree. There wasn't real action, though. So, I gave it to my neighbor's son, who was older than me (junior higher, I think) and never got a Marvel comic in years. I spent the following 6 years without superheroes, until the X-Men animated shows arrived in Italy. I was so hooked by those characters that I wanted to give Marvel Universe a try. But I was... er... afraid. I was afraid that those comics weren't for me (12 tears old), but for adult readers. If the major event in those years was the death of Superman (!!!), who knows how the rest could be. Used to read Disney, I didn't like certain aggressive drawing styles (and the X-Men titles were all drawn that way), the "event stories"...
When I decided at last to get something (DR. STRANGE), I learned how my fears were exaggerated. Surely comics were different from those I remembered, but they could still gift a good dose of adventure, humour and action to me.

With an exception: DAREDEVIL. I liked the character after having seen him on a MARVEL TEAM UP issue, so I picked up his comic when the "Fall from the grace" saga started. Big, big error from mine. I expected to see Daredevil in action, but no way, he was too busy to talk (in 2 or 3 pages). The rest was uncomprehensible story with vulgarities and violence and strange artworks. Chichester and McDaniel drove me away from DD after one single issue! But, I repeat this, it was an exception.

Unfortunately, when the Quesada reing began, almost every Marvel comic i bought was like that. Comics ashamed to be comics, made by authors ashamed to do comics for an audience ashamed to read comics.

And now, ALL-STAR BATMAN... reminds to me those days, even if I like it. I'm enough old to appreciate it and, I think!, enough mature to consider it something completely unrelated with the REAL Batman. This is another stuff. Another Batman. Funny, in its own way, but not the Batman I want. If I still were that 12 years old, I'd hate it.

Not a Batman fan or a fan of censorship usually but this has even me shaking my head in disbelief. Frank Miller, his co-workers, the editor - all thought putting those words into a Batman comic and then 'covering' them was a good thing to do. I've even grown so tired of seeing the fake swearing recently in things like Spider-Man but this...this..is just an awful step for comics to have taken.

Speaking to my LCS, they didn't get any copies. Diamond UK destroyed their copies as they were asked without distributing any over here, apparently.

The problem here is not "censorship", but an appalling lack of any kind of cohesive editorial vision. And that's from the top, all the way down.

the New york Post on the other hand . .

"Holy $#!+, Batman! "

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09122008/news/nationalnews/the_c aped_cuss_ader_128742.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Comment on the NY Post article....

Dale, that's ridiculous! Comics sales numbers are dismal compared to decades past! The only reason comics are still being sold it to retain possible licensing/movie rights! Movies saved comics, not marketing, and not some fictitious notion of "maturing".
Comic books are loss leaders! The reason they do not sell is because they are next to impossible to find! It's not easy to find and follow comics anymore, so many readers have simply given up. Today's top comics sell about 150k a month. In 1980, a comic book that sold 150k a month was put on the chopping block.
If you are a new reader to comics and manage to find a comics shop in your neighborhood, it's near impossible to pick up and follow a random title without it being tied to some ridiculous continuity or multi-title event. Comics are marketed and written largely for continuity craving fanboys who got hooked in the 80s - early 90s. No one else, children or otherwise.

Sounds like someone knows a bit about the business...