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I was little in the 70s and us kids read comic books like Fantastic Four or Superman.
Today, who reads those things? The Big Bang Theory suggests it's mostly people who, like me, are around 40. I can't imagine 12-year-old kids today reading comic books when they could be playing Wii or Facebook.
I know a lot of people in the computer field who like Star Trek or Star Wars. But few of them read comic books.
When I worked at Borders, we had regulars haunt the store waiting for deliveries, looking for their comic book fix, giving us the evil eye if we mishandled their treasures when we were unpacking magazines. Adults, teens, or kids just starting their collections...but those things sold.
I read them avidly up until about 6 years ago. Now I pick up the hardbound collections so that I can read the whole storyline at once. My kids read them too. The boys like the super hero and horror comics, while the girls are more into manga.
My favorites:
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. The story ran out of steam toward the end and took some truly bizarre and unsatisfying turns in the last couple years of the book, but the first 3-4 years of this story's publication were some of the best super hero fiction I've ever read. Absolutely pitch perfect.
INVINCIBLE. Another great super hero comic. It combines the "gee whiz whammo" of classic super heroes with a more modern take on violence and characterization. I know that Kirkman's WALKING DEAD gets most of the attention, but INVINCIBLE is actually a far better book.
LOCKE & KEY. Great horror comic from Joe Hill (Stephen King's son).
Scott Snyder's BATMAN stories over the past few years have been extremely good. Best BATMAN since Ed Brubaker left the story. Speaking of which, check out Ed Brubaker's run on BATMAN. Great stories.
Ed Brubaker's CATWOMAN is classic. I never much cared for Catwoman as a character until Brubaker did this. Very film noir. Loved it.
Bruce Jones first few years on THE INCREDIBLE HULK were fantastic. Best since the original Stan Lee run. Unfortunately, Ang Lee's HULK film came along, and Marvel started forcing storylines on Jones that made no sense.
ALIAS by Brian Michael Bendis. Very adult. Not for kiddies. Very good.
I used to read them, then the prices started to go up, then the multi-issue, cross-over, story arcs took their toll.
Yeah, I think the publishers really fumbled with that strategy. The reasoning goes like this: Let's come up with a big exciting story, only instead of telling it in concsecutive issues of Comic A, we'll tell it in consevuctive issues of Comics A leading into Comic B leading into Comic C with a tie-in to Comic D, following by next month's issue of Comic A ... rinse and repeat for 6 months. They think that by doing that, avid readers will buy 4 titles a month rathern than 1. Some do, sure. But far more just give up and don't buy any. They wait for the trade instead. After a few months of waiting for the trade, some even realize they don't miss it all that much and spend their money elsewhere. To deal with falling sales, publishers raise monthly prices. Sales fall further.
And then the publishers wonder why comic sales have PLUMMETED in the past 35 years.
Lots of people read comics of various kinds. Marvel and DC still have their fans and publish some good comics as Mark S. noted above. Lots of younger people read manga, which are just comics by another name. And those who are turned off by the Marvel/DC style have plenty to choose from with Image, Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite, Fantagraphics, Oni, Titan and Boom! all putting out comics that are worth reading. In many ways there's never been a better time to be a comic book fan.
Just wondering if they still print 'Classics Illustrated' from a number of years ago. They were pretty interesting and different from those super-hero ones like Superman, Batman, Flash, JLA etc. Probably were a good way to introduce kids to the classic books.
Just wondering if they still print 'Classics Illustrated' from a number of years ago. They were pretty interesting and different from those super-hero ones like Superman, Batman, Flash, JLA etc. Probably were a good way to introduce kids to the classic books.
Yes, the current publisher in the US is Papercutz:
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