The relationship
I think part of the problem is that comics are an abusive relationship to begin with. We read a comic in 15 minutes, then spend a month waiting to find out what happened next, which is absurd compared to any other entertainment medium. We put up with family members who can't understand why a grown man would read stories about men in brightly colored tights. And we put up with TV shows that make our hobby look like the corniest thing ever invented by man.

Once we've accepted all that, we pretty much make the decision to ignore the faults of the comics in general. There's just so much emotional investment that we can't give up on a comic easily. Comic readers are battered spouses who keep thinking that the comics will stop hitting them if we just give them another chance.

Well, OK, it's not *that* bad. :)

Posted by CodeGuy on 2007-09-06 22:49:16
Yeah...
Which begs the question: How much of the comics and comic creators that continue to be made/employed are because they are acting as support systems for the characters we all love?

Not pointing fingers, or attacking anyone, but it brings into question a lot of the industry. No?

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-09-06 23:09:43
Avidly hating every issue...
...is its own kind of entertainment. The guy who buys every issue of New Avengers so he can engage in monthly proclamations of wrath on message boards or while standing in front of me in line at the comic book shop is getting just as much for his $2.99 as I am, albeit in a more perverse way. To some people, there is great pleasure in experiencing the sensation of righteous anger. Who knows, maybe channeling all your rage toward Brian Michael Bendis is a healthy exercise and can save you thousands of dollars in therapy later in life.

Posted by Philip Schaeffer on 2007-09-07 00:51:42
This is gonna sound soooo geeky. But I'll read X-Men and Excalibur no matter how crap they become. Not because I don't want to break the run, but because characters like Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Captain Britain et al have been with me since I was a teen. In a weird way, they're like friends you like to keep touching base with - just to see whats going on.

Of course there are some titles I keep dropping and picking up depending on the creative teams, quality etc, but there are definitely titles I will keep buying regardless. I don't complain when they are less than stellar - I just know that for every 'Excalibur in Genosha' you get an 'Excalbur by Warren Ellis' which makes it all worth-while.

Posted by NewChad on 2007-09-07 05:02:39
Well Played
First off let me say that if Ghost Rider fought more demonic 18 wheelers, I might buy his comic.

Secondly, I think you make a really good point here. The serialized nature of comics is the key to why fans will keep buying a series they don't enjoy that much, because with a new issue every month or so, there's always a potential for improvement. That was my deal with "New Avengers;" whenever it would get boring or uninteresting, I'd say "Well, I'll give it a few issues and see if it improves," and usually it would swing back up again. It took the "Civil War" tie-ins to finally hit a patch of poor work which made me drop the title. It's cliche but as a man about to be married to a gal who doesn't read comics I have to practice "if you don't like it, don't read it." By a similar token, I remember back in volume 3 of "Iron Man," I dropped the book a few issues after Keron Grant took over on the art, and later regretted it and had to hunt down back issues. Initially I was turned off by the art, but after reading one of the ones I missed I discovered that hey, the art was a little weird but the mag itself was a lot of fun. Had I given the book another issue or two before dropping it, I wouldn't have dropped it at all.

Thanks for the very thought provoking blog Tom. Also wanted to give a shout-out for the great work your crew is doing over on "Iron Man," as well. Keep it up!

Posted by ljacone on 2007-09-07 08:13:17
As for me, I can only buy comics by subscriptions of by bying collected copies (TPB's etc) online as I'm European (Belgian) and we don't have comic shops over here. (not good ones anyhow) So to me the process really is a conscious process. Spending the amount of a subscription vs. the amount of a single issue is quit a difference. Buying title X means not being able to buy title Y. (I had to limit myself to somewhat over 20 titles, budget wise). And when I renew a title I have to admit that I did find some titles a whole lot less interesting than others. Currently X-Calibur and Spider-Girl are in the process of getting expired and are being replaced by Cable&Deadpool, Ms. Marvel and Black Panther. (yeah, I know... I'm replacing 2 titles by 3... I never said I was GOOD at managing my budget)
Now ... I did not like the last 5 to 6 issues of X-Calibur, I just posted the same comment on the news... the story is too fast paced. The artist does not portray clearly what is happening etc etc. but in spite of all this... I STILL find it difficult to stop my subscription on this. You ask me why? Well ... it's not only a financial investment. We also invest emotionally. The characters are part of our lives. In that sens it's like your girlfriend. She also isn't all that interesting all the time, but you love here nonetheless. And you've build up so much together...

Is that extremely geeky to say? As in "I LOVE COMICS" (emphasis on the love part)?

Posted by Zigy on 2007-09-07 10:03:34
Take a couple of months off
I find that the best way to drop titles I've been reading because they're only good enough (that is, by inertia) is to not buy comics for a couple months. When I go back to the shop, I usually only pick up the books I remember really liking. (Most recently, Amazing Spider-Man fell off my reading list this way.)

Posted by professordoom on 2007-09-07 10:42:19
Good enough?
Just wanted to say that I actually think most of the current titles aren't just GOOD ENOUGH... Many of them I absolutely start reading with great eagerness and finish reading with an even greater appetite towards the next issue.

Do you know that feeling that you finish a comic and just think: "That was amazing". It's a kick. And as such, it is also an addict. We go and wait for our next shot of comics, that will allow us to be in a different world altogether for a brief moment of time, before 'waking up' in the mondane, sombre world of the everyday.

Posted by Zigy on 2007-09-07 11:44:12
Hey Tom,

Hope to see you at the Baltimore con. Really bummed that I'm missing Prize or No Prize again but it's tough to do both days of a con when you have a family.

Why do people stick around? They have years and years invested in the characters and want to continue following their story, naturally.

I broke that habit a few years ago and I follow writers now, but when I was a kid I absolutely kept on reading X-Force for probably a year since I liked the book because I was so invested in the characters.

I know plenty of adults who do the same now.

Posted by MattDiCarlo on 2007-09-07 15:32:26
To add on that, there are a lot of people who follow the stories and the characters without consciously following the CRAFT of making good comics.

Posted by MattDiCarlo on 2007-09-07 15:33:23
You just killed you sales Tom!

Posted by dum dum dugan on 2007-09-07 15:50:04
hmmm...
something like :
"dear bulgarianyogurt,
you were and we are wrong
please
write for us


please

Posted by bulgarianyogurt on 2007-09-07 16:37:58
soon...
I'll be invincible,
now I'm just irredeemable.

Posted by bulgarianyogurt on 2007-09-07 16:38:35
I won't speak for anyone else
But I tend to stay with books that aren't on my list a little longer than normal because I work under the assumption that all books will be a slow burn for me. I go into a new series expecting it to take a while to strike the right chords and become something with which I can identify . While I have been known to pick up and immediately put down a series, I much rather give the story a chance to develop so that I can find my way in it. I hope that makes sense.

Posted by kedd on 2007-09-07 16:49:04
I've grown up
I cured myself of this habit when I was 16 years old or so. Spider-Man and the Avengers used to be my big addictions, but obviously the fact that I don't buy ASM, New Avengers, or Mighty Avengers today means I'm over it. I still like my vision of what the characters ought to be, but I'm old enough to know that what's currently on the stands is not the be all, end all of the characters. I know change will inevitably come, and it'll come even quicker if I don't buy what I don't like.

But obviously a lot of people haven't come around to that view. I think there are two main things going on in their mind; they love these characters so much that they'll tolerate them in any form, not realizing that they're perpetuating what they don't like. And second, they don't want to feel "left out" of major developments, whether they make good stories or not. The companies know this; it's what their entire business model rests on. But, as I said, I think change will come; if the stories don't improve, the importance of the characters and what happens to them will diminish in people's minds, thus forcing the companies to change direction.

Posted by CylverSaber on 2007-09-08 04:25:12
My own experience
A while back I picked up Last Planet Standing and knew from the very first issue that I didn't like it.All the heroes I knew and loved were dead/not there/drastically altered.Yet I bought the whole minseries.No one put a gun to my head and I certainly would not have missed out on anything as it relates to the main Marvel Universe.I think I just felt obligated to complete a series I started purchasing.

When I think about it,The only person to blame is me.It wasn't the writer's fault for not engaging me.It wasn't the artist's fault for not drawing pretty enough pictures,It wasn't the editor's fault for allowing it to go to press.It was mine for feeding an addiction that made me spend $15 on a book I knew I didn't like.I kept my drama off the message boards though.I'm sure somewhere some guy is reading Last Planet Standing for the 20th time and loving it just as much as the first.Why should I kill his enjoyment because I wasn't happy?

Reading your blog, I notice you seem to get pretty bummed out by some fans' reactions on the internet.You sure write about it enough.It's not worth it;.You're never going to make everyone happy.And these are comic fans we're talking about.I don't think I'm bringing up anything shocking when I say comic fans can sometimes be a little...harsh and judgemental.Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons is not too far off base for a lot of fans,even if they don't want to admit it.

Posted by marksmart on 2007-09-08 14:52:45
Nobody wants to be left in the dust
Comic books are a fast moving train, Tom and we feel if we jump off, it's going to be alot harder to catch a ride back on once the train starts moving at the right pace again.

It all comes down to fear, endearment, uncertainty and years of loyal reading that it becomes such a habit thats hard to drop.

It all really comes back to the train analogy.

Posted by Dr. Chaos on 2007-09-09 18:14:07
Oops.
God dangit...just tried refreshing the page and look what happened.

I don't suppose triple posting is any better though.

Posted by Dr. Chaos on 2007-09-09 18:20:10
I totally saw myself in Tom's blog, and I wholeheartedly agree. I like all the comics I read, but often just buy out of habit. When the cashflow is more like a trickle, I find that I have to make the conscious choice of "which books am I really on the edge of my seat about and which can wait for the next paycheck?". However, what I find really good about a comic, another reader might find dull or uninteresting and choose the comic i would do without. What's great about comics is that there is something for everyone.

Posted by Perplexor on 2007-09-09 20:34:17
Yeah I get it...but honestly, the books have gotten so much better #***##$*$ far as story in the past 10-15 years its unreal! So I simply will not cry about subpar books.

Posted by coupedeville68 on 2007-09-10 05:01:03
I must be part of the problem because
there are certain comics that I will stick with, no matter how bad they seem to me. Iron Man is a perfect example of this. I have almost every issue since Tales of Suspense #39. I sat through the "Teen Tony" stuff, which I thought was terrible, in the hopes that something would happen to make the book better. And it did finally get better.

Then I didn't like what was happening with him during Civil War and almost dropped the book, but then I reread several of the books and relized what was going on and stuck with the title.

The same goes for Captain America. I almost dropped the book when Cap was killed off, but I stuck with it. And now i seem to be really enjoying it, even without the title character. Weird.

Now, there are some books that I have dropped because I felt that I wasn't getting my moneys worth. Several years ago I dropped the entirety of the X-books for this reason.



Posted by Tom Reed on 2007-09-10 13:47:56
'Nuff said.
It's just human nature. Don't take it personally.

Posted by themaskedmenace on 2007-09-10 15:20:17
Thank you
Thank you for this. I find it particularly ironic that you chose the old Ghost Rider series for your example, because that's just how I feel about the current G.R. series. I was a big fan of Mackie's G.R., and I love Texeira's work with a passion, but there just isn't anything HAPPENING in the current series. The entire storyline so far could easily be condensed to three issues. I love the character, but it's a waste of money.

Posted by matusiak on 2007-09-10 18:23:04
CylverSaber
Has it ever occurred to you that some of us LIKE the direction New Avengers is/has been going in? :p

Sure, it's not the same Avengers as it was five years ago, but who wants to read the same, recycled stories over and over and over again? If you want a continuous status quo, go over to DC. Marvel's long since decided that maintaining status quo is secondary to telling stories-particularly stories that SELL (Planet Hulk, Civil War, House of M, etc.).

Posted by blue5213 on 2007-09-10 18:28:24
Comics are addictive. It's as simple as that.

Posted by skagandboneman on 2007-09-11 08:13:49


DC actually has shaken up the status quo a lot more often and consistently than Marvel - Superman marrying Lois, the various Crises, Wally becoming the Flash, $@@*@&$ becoming Nightwing etc. There aren't really any major/irreversible changes at Marvel that separate it from twenty or thirty years ago, and it looks like they'll be scrapping the Spider-marriage in favor of a more recognizable Spider-Man soon. The Cap/Iron Man split has been done before (West Coast/East Coast Avengers after Cap objected to IM killing the Supreme Kree Intelligence) as have stories like Planet Hulk and House of M.


Posted by skagandboneman on 2007-09-11 08:18:47
I can definitely speak to this. I have been collecting comics for over 20 years and have had to take a hard look at what I'm collecting several times over the year. Mostly due to financial constraints. I would go through my titles and Drop the ones I had no real interest in.
It's not easy when you get in that collector's mindset to stop getting a certain title. I recently sold my whole collection, about 12,000 books and came to the stark realization of how little my comics were actually worth. All those complete runs of comics meant nothing. I still buy some books, but only the few that I'm really interested in READING, not COLLECTING. If I don't get a particular issue, so what. I have also started buying a lot more collections of specific runs that I enjoyed or have a special meaning to me. There is a kind of freedom in not worrying about having a complete run.
THe hardest thing to drop was X-Men. Besides GI-JOE, which is what got me into comics in the first place, X-Men was the first comic I collected. But after 20 years of reading them, I had come to the realization that there were no more interesting stores to tell. The X-Men that I grew up with were long gone, and and time they tried to go back to that era it felt false.
Comics are like a drug. YOu need your weekly fix. In a lot of cases you need to go cold turkey. All or none. I have foud a good ballance (5-6 books a month instead of 10-12 books a week) but it's hard not to get swept up in the hype machine...

Posted by scottnormington on 2007-09-11 09:58:25
False choice
"Has it ever occurred to you that some of us LIKE the direction New Avengers is/has been going in? :p

Sure, it's not the same Avengers as it was five years ago, but who wants to read the same, recycled stories over and over and over again? If you want a continuous status quo, go over to DC. Marvel's long since decided that maintaining status quo is secondary to telling stories-particularly stories that SELL (Planet Hulk, Civil War, House of M, etc.)."

I'm glad you like New Avengers, but that isn't really the topic of Tom's post; he's talking about people who DON'T like a book and yet keep buying it anyway.

As for the "status quo", that's a false choice; it assumes that anyone who doesn't like the same books as you wants "the same stories over and over".

Posted by CylverSaber on 2007-09-11 10:19:22
Nope, I stopped "collecting out of habit" a long time ago, when I had to budget my spendings. I plan on getting mostly trades now except where I support some low-selling titles like Checkmate, Manhunter and Catwoman.
I tend to listen to feedback from like-minded readers then decide if a title is worth getting. But is a series loses my interest (Countdown, Exiles. maybe Excalibur) I say bye-bye after the current arc.

P.S. CylverSaber, don't turn this thread into DC bashing. I bet you don't even get a lot of titles from there, because that statement made no sense, DC changes the status quo quite a bit.

Posted by Deadpond on 2007-09-11 13:11:15
Sigh
You guys do know that when someone puts quotations marks around words, they're usually quoting someone else, right? :)

Posted by CylverSaber on 2007-09-11 16:19:32
Let's make the world a better place
Well... communication is a strange thing in that respect ... we communicate ALL the time, so one would assume that as we practice it all the time, we should be really good at it...

But the sad truth is that so many people are so bad at it... How many conflicts would have been averted if the communication had been executed correctly? :-)

So ... let's start making the world a better place by better scanning texts for quotation marks! :-)

Posted by Zigy on 2007-09-13 09:38:05
I'm not surprised
When you consider less than half of the country turns out for Presidential elections, why should we be shocked that people put up with less than good stories in comics?

American's will put up with a lot, for a long time. We are fairly forgiving, after all how many celebrities and politicians get second, third or fourth chances?

Comic fans just like to vent, but in truth we are very addicted to these stories; good, bad or otherwise.

However, when the breaking point is met comic fans will walk away. Bad storytelling can be forgiven and will eventually be forgotten, but if you do something to a character that hits the comic community wrong on an emotional level, watch out.

Posted by Neil M. on 2007-09-13 10:05:09
The comic companies are guilty too ...
By the same token, why do Marvel and DC both continue to publish titles that sell less than 20K every month? What's the cut off point to where the companies admit that most fans aren't buying what they are selling?

Posted by izzatrix on 2007-09-13 15:38:19
Money, Money, Money
in my day, the books cost 20 or 25 or 30 or 35 or 40 cents a piece. Back in 1981, even a teenager could afford to buy pretty much the entirety of the marvel and DC lines if they so desired, and still have pocket change left over for back issues.

With the price of comics going up and up, kids have no reason to buy them. As a kid my parents had no problem buying me a comic, they were cheap. Now they are three to four dollars a piece meaning people have to be more discriminating on what they want to buy or can buy. This means that in order to sell to the people who are buying comics the stories must be compelling in some way. Also the demographic on who buy comics have changed before it was between ten to twenty now it's eighteen to forty. Story lines are following this demographic all across the board. To me it means tht comic won't be around twenty years from now at least not the way we see them.

Posted by Ebonyblade on 2007-09-20 07:24:58
i bought a comic two weeks ago and i have no money left. the comics are too pricey i mean i cant buy a good comic without losing all my money

Posted by iceboyju on 2007-09-22 17:33:04