There was a Neil Gaiman interview a while back where he talked about how before Alan Moore and Jamie Delano and Grant Morrison and himself and the rest of the British Invasion of the 80's wrote their big books, which weren't that big at the time, I guess, comic books were in a rut, where they endlessly recycled their old stories. The metaphor he used was that it was like taking a copy of a copy of a copy. Eventually, you take so many copies that the image is indistinguishable from a Rorschach blot.
I think the same thing is happening now, except this time, Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore aren't around to move things along. They've basically moved on from comics in general, it seems. Nobody's taking in new influences the way the first British Invasion did. Neil Gaiman brought in literature, Jamie Delano brought in influences from left-wing politics, Grant Morrison brought in influences from the occult, and Alan Moore brought in influences from all three. But nobody's bringing in new influences from anything new now, except maybe anime/manga, which is really just a more violent, sexualized version of Disney, anyway.
What are your thoughts?
they still make comic books? Seriously, I just thought it was a cute Big Bang side joke.....wow.
the comic world is dying a slow death sadly, most of the new books are just rehashed version of the old ones, so much retconning going on that its not even funny, and the books themselves cost too much to justify buying them regularly.
its only a matter of time
IT'S THE GREAT SNATCH! :lol: :lol: :lol:
and the gift that keeps on giving.
(//http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q490/atheola/Circus_Baby_037.jpg)
(//http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c342/damarcus6/boner_2_zps10e41853.gif)
Pic offered without comment.
The comic industry is doing a similar thing to what they did in the 90's, they are trying to make things as dark and gritty as possible in order to appear "mature" without actually understanding how that works.
You guys just don't appreciate the great snatch do ya? :-k
No APA, don't you see? Your comic and Damarcus' comic are simply two parts of the same whole! Who could imagine boners without snatches, after all. :P
In all seriousness though, yes, comics have been on the decline for a good long while. It makes me miss the good old days of the DCAU. :( The batman cartoon was the best.
Quote from: "GrinningYMIR"the comic world is dying a slow death sadly, most of the new books are just rehashed version of the old ones, so much retconning going on that its not even funny, and the books themselves cost too much to justify buying them regularly.
its only a matter of time
I dunno, there's still some diversity. (Walking Dead, Kickass, Locke and Key, Empowered, etc)
But yeah, there's some serious problems creeping in. Which is really a shame, because the artwork is really starting to look amazing now.
[spoil:1lja498i](//http://www.eonism.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ToS4814.jpg)
(//http://marvelitesxmen.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/warmachine09.jpg)
Slight improvement. :-D[/spoil:1lja498i]
Well feast your innocent eyes on these holy comics.. many written by your favorite comic book authors. :shock:
//http://www.comicbookreligion.com
I read comics like Adam Strange and the Atomic Knights back in the late 50'5 and 60's that were recycled later, not to mention Batman, Superman and the rest. You can only make so many super heroes, however warped they might be or how noble. Everything now to me is pretty much old ideas rehashed.
Vampirella in the 60's was the pinnacle to me, largely because of Frank Frazetta"s cover art. The format was very well done, a magazine styled with original stories and amazing artwork. If you haven't seen those books you have missed out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampirella (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampirella)
apparently there is a new publisher, but I'm past that period of my life.
Aren't the movie industry and the music industry and all the other entertainment industries doing basically the same thing? If you look at the producers that spend big money, you're going to look at the producers that cater to the common denominator, and that means you're looking at rehashes of familiar stuff made for simple minds. That's where the money is.
A thief steals a loaf of bread. Another thief steals the loaf from him then yet another thief steals the same loaf and on and on and eventually the loaf is so stale and moldy nobody wants it. Sooner or later the baker gets around to baking a fresh loaf with a whole bunch of hungry thieves standing around.
I bought comics WAY longer than most people, but even I gave them up. Though I'm thinking of buying that new Ms. Marvel for some Muslim girls I know.
I liked the recent Justice Society for awhile, but they made sure to ruin it before they cancelled it. After that it was easy to stop buying them altogether. And I'm still a great fan of superheroes. The art can be fantastic, but you need fantastic stories that respect the characters too.
Everything has a saturation level. there are only so many plots and so many ways to portray people in them. I'm old enough to recognize old ideas rehashed into new ones. It has become so blatant that they are rehashing stuff like Batman, Superman and other comics even before the last rehash leaves the theater. Oh, sorry- the correct term is "reimagining"; my bad.
Quote from: "Plu"Aren't the movie industry and the music industry and all the other entertainment industries doing basically the same thing? If you look at the producers that spend big money, you're going to look at the producers that cater to the common denominator, and that means you're looking at rehashes of familiar stuff made for simple minds. That's where the money is.
True. But practically everything's a rehash of something.
[spoil:rjankqkw](//http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/everything+s+a+copy+of+a+copy+of+a+copy..+real_752e6c_3995684.gif)[/spoil:rjankqkw]
Quote from: "stromboli"Everything has a saturation level. there are only so many plots and so many ways to portray people in them. I'm old enough to recognize old ideas rehashed into new ones. It has become so blatant that they are rehashing stuff like Batman, Superman and other comics even before the last rehash leaves the theater. Oh, sorry- the correct term is "reimagining"; my bad.
Yeah. The part that really gets me is when they give characters dramatic, unambiguous deaths only to somehow bring them back to life later. And a related annoyance is to have the character die for real and replaced by some alternate reality counterpart or younger version or somesuch. So you keep the character, but change a little of their background and ditch continuity.
Lemme tell you that, for one thing, technologicly the profession didn't stagnate. On the contrary. It made a giant leap.
[youtube:1yw66zbc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ETOEKIokNU[/youtube:1yw66zbc]
I have this program, and it kicks ass (might still be on sale for a bargain)
I'd love to have one of these but they're very expensive
[youtube:1yw66zbc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79SdxuA1WjY[/youtube:1yw66zbc]
But for now I'm happy with the medium size bamboo Fun pen&touch.
The one in this video is the small size
[youtube:1yw66zbc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD2VH8ECYG8[/youtube:1yw66zbc]
Quote from: "Hydra009"Quote from: "GrinningYMIR"the comic world is dying a slow death sadly, most of the new books are just rehashed version of the old ones, so much retconning going on that its not even funny, and the books themselves cost too much to justify buying them regularly.
its only a matter of time
I dunno, there's still some diversity. (Walking Dead, Kickass, Locke and Key, Empowered, etc)
But yeah, there's some serious problems creeping in. Which is really a shame, because the artwork is really starting to look amazing now.
[spoil:y5sje7ba][ Image (//http://www.eonism.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ToS4814.jpg) ]
[ Image (//http://marvelitesxmen.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/warmachine09.jpg) ]
Slight improvement. :-D[/spoil:y5sje7ba]
Their artists are amazing, no doubt; the writers, however, are boring. Which is funny, because The Sandman is like the bestselling comic of all time if you count the graphic novels, and the art in that comic was at best mediocre. What really carried it was the quality of the writing. And obviously, good writing carries much lower production values than good art.
I think the basic problem of the superhero is that the ethos involved is inherently conservative and unadventurous. Superheroes are dedicated entirely to the maintenance of the status quo. Even the "antiheroes" basically do nothing but pick on people who are disliked by the vast majority of people. There's no discipline or morality involved except perhaps the idea of discipline or morality itself.
Heroes in general are pretty reactive. Occasionally, they do get proactive, but they tend to quickly become Justice Lords. The problem isn't just the heroes, but that the fact that the status quo is God in these universes. In these worlds, disasters happen but there's almost never much of a lasting aftermath, characters change then quickly change back, and characters die only to be inevitably revived. Nothing really changes.
One example of this that's particularly galling: Reed Richards is Useless (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless). Superheroes will have access to advanced technology but that technology will almost never be put to practical use in people's day-to-day lives.
There are some stories like Road To Perdition that stand out, and American Splendor. The problem is you can only do so many super heroes in so many different aspects.
And nowadays we don't redo the same old movies, we "reboot" or "reimagine" them. Like now you buy a used car its a "previously owned". And recycling is "repurposing." Gag me.
Comics are deader than dead. No one buys them anymore, especially their core audience because they don't produce product for their core audience anymore.
Somewhat disagree. While there was plenty of a dark-and-gritty excess in the 90s (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks), the industry eventually did recover from it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheModernAgeOfComicBooks). And even though the over-pocketed, bandolier-totting muscleheads and the skin-tight, high-heels eye candy are a pretty accurate depiction of some of the comics at that time (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarkerAndEdgier/ComicBooks), it wasn't universal. And the 90s actually had some really great comics. I mean, you have Infinity Gauntlet/War/Crusade. IMHO, Iron Man really hit his stride (metaphorically of course, Stark was briefly paralyzed) in the 90s. Darkhawk made his debut in '91, and while the series definitely started sucking as time went on and eventually got cancelled in '95, it did have some really good issues. And your mileage may vary on this depending on what series you read during the 90s, but even with all its faults, I still prefer 90s comics to 80s comics.
And moving on to video gaming, while console prices are admittedly pretty high, they are not more expensive when adjusted for inflation (http://kotaku.com/36-years-of-console-prices-adjusted-for-inflation-1485353267/all). And games themselves are cheaper than ever (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-game-prices-have-come-down-with-time/). And yes, there are still making games for kids, like Pokemon and Call of Duty. So, reports of the video games industry's demise are greatly overestimated. One thing that is genuinely worrisome is the consolidation of the market into only two major players, but that's only really a problem for console gamers.
(Sorry in advance for all the blue links, but I feel the need to show how I arrived at my conclusion and it helps establish a common point of reference)
I use to read american comics til I discovered manga. Then I said screw comics!
Comics are dry and they mostly target males as their main audience. This is why they are failing. That and the art work hasn't changed to meet modern standards. Amazing art can at the very least make up for lack of story. Americans can't write their way out of a wet paper bag.
I seem to remember a Captain Marvel. Why hasn't the Marvel franchise made a Captain Marvel movie?
Quote from: SGOS on April 06, 2014, 04:55:35 PM
I seem to remember a Captain Marvel. Why hasn't the Marvel franchise made a Captain Marvel movie?
I bought a few captain marvel books in highschool. I never was too in to comic books though until I went to comic con this past year and was introduced to the comic book, Mercy Sparx.
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I read comic until I saw a bare tit, then lordy, that was the end of that.
Quote from: doorknob on April 06, 2014, 04:50:54 PM
I use to read american comics til I discovered manga. Then I said screw comics!
I like manga but the right-to-left thing is really hard to get used to. I keep reading out of order and nothing really makes any sense. Then I read it in order (I think) and nothing really makes sense. *shrugs*
Quote from: SGOS on April 06, 2014, 04:55:35 PM
I seem to remember a Captain Marvel. Why hasn't the Marvel franchise made a Captain Marvel movie?
Which Captain Marvel do you mean?
Quote from: the_antithesis on April 06, 2014, 07:31:03 PM
Which Captain Marvel do you mean?
Yeah... I got the fake captain marvel that no one cares about.... :(
Quote from: the_antithesis on April 06, 2014, 07:31:03 PM
Which Captain Marvel do you mean?
I never actually read those kinds of comics, but I remember a guy in tights that looked like he could have been Wonder Woman's boyfriend. I think it was the third one shown in the video at :23 seconds. But we are talking a long time ago about something I wasn't playing close attention to. Since he is apparently named after Marvel Comics, or maybe the comics were named after him, I'd expect him to be numero uno of the superheroes. So I'd expect a movie from Hollywood.
Meh, all art mediums have periods of stagnation where you can find good work but you have to look hard for it... golden ages cant go on forever.
Comic books will have a Renaissance or a neo-Rennaissance or whatever name they give it. That or the medium will die to all but the most die-hard. Either way, that is just the nature of art.
Quote from: SGOS on April 06, 2014, 09:08:10 PM
I never actually read those kinds of comics, but I remember a guy in tights that looked like he could have been Wonder Woman's boyfriend. I think it was the third one shown in the video at :23 seconds. But we are talking a long time ago about something I wasn't playing close attention to. Since he is apparently named after Marvel Comics, or maybe the comics were named after him, I'd expect him to be numero uno of the superheroes. So I'd expect a movie from Hollywood.
Well, there are rumors that Marvelman (AKA Miracleman) may be entering the Marvel universe. Here's two videos explaining that shit. So, he may be a better choice for a film adaptation.
Also, the Marvel Comics Captain Marvel was never popular. Nobody liked him, so they killed him off. Much like Robin. The DC Comics Captain Marvel was the most popular character of the golden age of comics, but that was sixty years ago. No one knows who he is anymore and that they can't use his name in the title of his own book has led DC to officially change his name to Shazam. So he's not even the same character anymore.
No, I don't think so, I am like to read comic book very much, and I am reading "Batman: Hush" just now.
Comic books had its growing influx of sales in a time period where people wanted fantasy and fiction to escape to, and so didn't mind folking out on buying comics on mass like a subscription.
However today, with the rise of online gaming, with subscriptions and micro transactions associated with those games, as well as ipads offering downloads to films and music at the touch of a button, people don't bother to save there money for comic books like they use to.
I got several subscriptions for online mmos and netflix, so something had to be sacrificed. just as well I don't bother reading comics anymore.
I read some Archie comics when I was little. Otherwise most people just read the comic pages of the paper, or go to webcomics.