[EmmetEarwax]

Marvel - Practically during the same month , two series made me wonder if the CCA had gone on vacation. The series X-Statix introduced yet another mutant team, BUT ...Akready one member was dead: Sluk. Since all we knew of him was in flashbacks, we know very little. (App. he tried swabbing his face-palps on a foe and that joe had a hand grenade !). By the end of the issue,the FIRST issue, all but 2 members of the team were dead ! Graphic decapitation, evisceration, dismemberment.. New members, such as Mr.Sensitive A.K.A. the Orphan. Also the art was oddly retro, more fit for dentist ads.
At the same time, an issue of Wolverine saw him graphically losing an eyeball ! Fredric Wertham made an issue of "injury to eye" pics. This series has nothing to commend it & yet it just went on & on.
In contrast, the excellent series STEELGRIP STARKEY AND THE ALL-PURPOSE POWER TOOL never ran a sequel. Excellent art, beautifully written, lovable heroes... And Marvel never ran a sequel. I think the voting was rigged.

DC - Unless we spent the last few decades on a desert isle the size of a bedroom, unshaven, wearing rags, under a coconut tree, we are aware of how DC has kept changing its continuity & history. Character death,death, death. Crisis on Infinite Earths was just the start, as well as one Justice league after another. We have had changes in identities, motivations, orientation, ... all kept changing, for cheap thrills.

We are no longer able to settle down with an established character , but are subject to a constant barrage of tearing a character down. Superman in particular.

[bowers]

Amen, brother! Cheers, Bowers

[narfstar]

no big 2 bought in years

[The Australian Panther]

This is why the number of people buying titles from the big two are declining all the time. I still read some, but I don't buy, I borrow from Libraries. There are two basic issues that occur. First - one of the problems with a lot of books is a complete lack of coherent editing. You literally can't follow a story from one page to another. There can be multiple characters introduced in a story with no coherent explanation of who they all are. There is no apparent awareness by many 'creators' of the storytelling principles that we see on this site, worked out during the Golden age and earlier. Most things Bendis touched never recovered. Which doesn't bode well for DC.
The other issue is that there still good books and creators out there from the big two and they don't get read because it is too hard to find them. DC have changed their continuity so many times that nobody cares. Marvel have never had a serious reboot so all their properties have 50 year histories which is impossible and ridiculous. For example, If Cap came back in the mid-sixties and he was 30 years old, he would be close to 90 years old. If Iron Man's origin was in the Vietnam war he would also be at least 80 years old. And so on.  Don't get me started on Phoenix!
When TV came in, Comics began to shrink, Westerns,War, Romance, Cartoons all gradually disappeared because you could stay home and watch these stories on TV. Superheroes became dominant in comic books because TV and Movie special effects weren't up to it.
Now we can do spectacular superhero movies and use special effects to the standard of 'Dr Strange' or' Ready Player One' (Even if the movie scripts are dumbing down and getting more predictable all the time.)  and people can spend hours in MMOG's and play as Spider-man or whatever, I think we are at another turning point for comics.                   

[misappear]

I was told as a youngster that you can't reheat a souffle.

I loved DC and Marvel back in the late 50's and early 60's.  I've come to view them as a body of work with a beginning after WWII and ending with the horrible Batman TV show, which seemed to make comics campy.  Especially DC.  I own what I liked from that era, and every few years I reread a few just for the nostalgia. 

I believe good comics, whether comic books, newspaper, editorial, should reflect our society, our lives, our dreams, and frustrations.  Comics are both a direct means of communication, as well as a more subtle story-telling medium.  Comics can be light and cheerful or dark and foreboding, and all points in between.  Comics are also an artform, and when executed by a master, can be trans-formative. 

I purchase about 50, maybe 60 comic titles per month.  In that group, there are three DC (Mister Miracle, Doomsday Clock, and The Terrifics) and no Marvels whatsoever.  I also purchase 2 or 3 graphic novels per week, depending on what's out there.  i read everything I buy each week, and I don't buy anything for "investment."

Having read comics straight from the 1950's, having owned multiple comic shops, having worked in the direct sales department of Marvel comics, and having worked for comics and games distributors, I will unequivocally state that the best comics I have ever read in my life are being published right now.  No doubt in my mind.  I can't wait for Wednesdays. 

The wonderful comics of my youth, and those prior which are lovingly deposited at this site are still entertaining me the way they first did all those years ago.  I don't read Marvel now cuz I think they suck and are nothing but little marketing gimmicks.  I stay away from most DC for the same reason, although I will read Bendis on Superman just to see how that "artist" handles the franchise.  If it sucks, I will stop reading it and never look back, or complain about it.  Obviously, I truly believe there is so much good stuff, new and reprint, that I can keep reading great stuff for the rest of my life.  I hope this medium still exists in 2050, cuz I plan to see that year, and I plan to be reading comics, and pulps, and all kinds of stuff.

But Superman Red and Superman Blue?  Steve Ditko on Spiderman?  Russ Manning on Magnus?  I know where to find them if I want.  Matter of fact, I don't want anyone trying to do comics like that again. They'll screw them up. You had to be there to understand the magic.  How it all fit together with my Hoola Hoop, and Silly Putty, and my soap box racer. 

In the words of the great Sam Cooke, "Gotta keep movin', keep movin' on, life is this way."   

[crashryan]

In the wake of misappear's admonitions I feel ashamed not to be so forward-looking. I love the art form and I love individual projects but over the last couple of decades I've become estranged from the commercial product.

I never have been in tune with the spirit of the times, as my tastes and my work attest. The present schism began with the appearance of comics which are now considered classics, held up as proof of the growing maturity of comics. Arkham Asylum was the tipping point. I was overwhelmed by its ugliness, ultra-violence, and general nastiness. Alan Moore and Frank Miller have become gods of the art form. To me they are responsible for a flood of pessimistic, misanthropic, monstrous stories that glorify bloodshed, sexualized violence and psychosis.

Of course that's true for all the media. It's the spirit of the times. Movies, TV, and games compete to push envelopes, especially in the bloodshed and sex/violence departments. I'm not such a throwback that I insist on keeping old taboos intact and returning to yesterday's naive presentations. My problem is that in modern comics "adult" is equated with nihilistic, cynical, brutal, and misogynistic. If a story doesn't embrace these themes it's not considered "grown-up."

Many highly-regarded graphic novels, those favored by the New Yorker and the Times Book Review, attempt to present real-world scenarios, which is good. But many of them also are obsessed with life's underbelly...unless you write about miserable people on the society's edge, you're not writing adult stories.

All this has come at a time when the real world has become increasingly violent and ugly. Whether this is a cause or an effect I'm not qualified to judge. I can only say that with so much insanity, hate, and destruction in the world around me, the last thing I want to do is read a story that tells me how cool it is. I recognize that the comics I grew up with (mid 50s through 70s) were often simplistic and foolish. What they did have was a basic optimism and the reassurance that the world makes some sort of sense.

If I didn't love writing and drawing comics, I'd have left the medium behind long ago. Most of today's comics aren't created for the likes of me. One thing I miss about comics of the 50s and early 60s is the wider range of acceptable subject matter: westerns, detectives, space, pirates, movie and novel adaptations. The other thing is that it was possible to write these stories without needing to amp up the mayhem just to be taken seriously. It's remarkable to realize that in a hundred English schoolgirl mysteries not one person fires a gun.

So I confess I haven't changed to keep up with the times. I'll do my little bit to create the stuff I like and hope somebody else agrees. If not, I guess that's my problem.

[mr_goldenage]

Sorry after decades of buying the "comics" I've stopped spending thousands of dollars in a year and over the years I would probably faint if I knew how much I spent in days past. I've mainly digitized or will digitize what is left of my comic book collection and save my sparse dollars on foreign books. Does that mean I have given up on today's comics? Nope....I just get them digitally now....for free....let that sink in....Free! Am I cheating the "creators"....sorry I've paid my dues over the years and in my declining years (I'm 62 now and living on early retirement SS) and I am currently not working (it's hard finding a job in the state I reside in) and as stated when I buy a comic now it will be foreign in origin. So how do I get my fix? Simple there is a site called getcomics that you would be amazed how much old and new comics are there...and best of all.....are you ready? It is FREE!....I like currently Black Hammer and the related series, loved Jupiter's Legacy and Jupiter's Circle and hopefully they will come back. There are others....but I have ranted long enough....back to silent mode now.

[paw broon]

Oddly, I find I can agree with parts of the different opinions here. Reading what misappear and crash say, I find myself nodding. As I have a great love for GA and SA comics, and of course many of the British weeklies from the '50's and 60's, like misappear, I know where to find them - either on my shelves or digitally. Still read them and despite being a dyed-in-the-wool superhero nut, my retro reading also incorporates Dell westerns and movie adaptations; lots of British comics and strips; Phantom, and more.  But I completely understand misappear's point that,
Matter of fact, I don't want anyone trying to do comics like that again. They'll screw them up. You had to be there to understand the magic.
Then again crash talks about,
"Arkham Asylum was the tipping point. I was overwhelmed by its ugliness, ultra-violence, and general nastiness. Alan Moore and Frank Miller have become gods of the art form. To me they are responsible for a flood of pessimistic, misanthropic, monstrous stories that glorify bloodshed, sexualized violence and psychosis."
and he is bang on.
As a big fan from way back of young Kev O'Neil's work, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen looked just right for me.  And to an extent it was and I could just about put up with the nastier aspects of Moore's script.  But after that the series became more and more obnoxious and I suppose Moore would suggest that he was merely reflecting the world as is. But I get enough tales of violence, moral turpitude, political gerrymandering, crime, from papers and the radio/t.v.
So, to the point of the title.  I buy very few new comics and virtually nothing from the big 2. The new Doctor Who tales from both Titan and Panini are sometimes highly entertaining - and with any luck we'll get much more of Rachel Stott's art. I did try the Shadow Batman crossovers despite finding Batman unfathomable and unreadable for a long time now, but I'm a Shadow fan. Finding the stories very violent, cruel and difficult to follow, I gave up.
Later this week I'm meeting a couple of friends, one of whom simply laughs disparagingly when I talk about GA comics, regularly citing Bulletman's "ridiculous" helmet as an example of how stupid the heroes and stories were. He continues to read some new stuff from the big 2.  As does the other bloke, but he is at the same time quite the fan of GA material.  Should be an interesting and fun few hours.
Then there's mr_goldenage.  Again, I agree with some of what he writes and I too have a huge collection of relatively recent digital comics.  But, I see no point in downloading titles that I wouldn't buy in the first place, such as Batman and all the crap spin-offs. Like mr_goldenage and many of you, I hate to think what I've spent over the years on comics.
Just to finish by polishing my prejudices, it's not only Moore and Miller who, in my mind are responsible for the sheer nastiness, as one should also include Morrison and Millar.  While Warren Ellis on The Authority did an excellent job which I enjoyed despite at times finding the violence and sexual politics out of place, Mr. Millar did his usual alleged homage/rip off thing, shoehorning in some nasty torture and violence and showcasing his alleged lack of original ideas. 
Actually, thinking about that time or thereabouts, Planetary stand out like a beacon and somehow Ellis used occasional violence in a way that didn't put me off. Much the best story for a long time. 
Jakita Wagner for P.M/President.

[The Australian Panther]

Paw, noting the trends you point out and the creators you name, it stands out that there was a major change in American Comics that can be traced back to the group of creators on Britain's 2000AD. I don't want to see 2000AD in entirely negative terms, because interesting things came from that source, but there was a house attitude which was negative and nihilistic which has permeated comics since that time.
Interestingly, the work done by the artists in that group is often not as extreme. Bolland, Davis, Gibbons to name three.
Cheers!   

[SuperScrounge]

Panther, I remember the "British Invasion", or as I personally thought of it, "that time when DC decided to hire a bunch of British writers to ruin their comics". 

Not that there weren't American writers capable ruining American comics, taking away the fun and optimism because that's "childish" and to be "adult" you needed to be serious and pessimistic and grim and gritty, but the British Invasion added to it, so it became easy to blame the Brits for being responsible (an American tradition for over 200 years  ).

Why I Stopped Buying Comics

This was actually a longish process. When I was a kid and choosing the comics I wanted to buy, I bought a lot, mostly DC. In high school there was the "shame" that I was still reading comics and I quit to "grow up". Around 9 months later I saw a spinner rack with my favorite comic on it and decided that it was ridiculous to stop buying comics if I still enjoyed reading them. To hell with what other people thought!

I was a little more picky though. Prices were going up and titles I had once liked were being written by writers I didn't care for. As time went by the titles I liked either got canceled or suffered a change of writers and/or artists I didn't care for.

Another aspect was the move to comic shops away from the local shops. There were no local comic shops, so a lot of comics I might have bought, just weren't available to me, because I rarely got to a comic shop.

I believe the last 36-page comic I bought, as it was coming out, (as opposed to picking up back issues) was The Awesome Slapstick.

These days I buy trades because it's a better deal moneywise, but most of the books tends to be collections of older stuff.

Not that I've stopped reading new floppy comics, but it's usually the stuff put out on Free Comic Book Day & Halloween Comicfest.

[roxburylib]

I gave up when comic book shops started getting greedy in the mid-80s. I had actually slowed down on reading many of the comics that I bought because I was spending time on computer games and other things. The thing that killed it for me was when Web of Spider-Man #1 came out. At that time, I was pre-ordering comics from the shop's newsletter and was ordering all first issues automatically. In spite of that, Web of Spider-Man #1 wasn't in my order. There was a copy in the window selling for ten times the cover price.

The clerk wouldn't give me the copy in the window even though I had ordered it. I guess my arguing with the clerk got the attention of the person I routinely dealt with when I ordered the comics. She told me they had hundreds of copies in the back and that the one in the window was probably faded a little from the sun and gave me a nice mint copy. That was the beginning of the end of my love affair with comics. Nowadays, my interest is more nostalgic than anything.

[Yoc]

Hi gang,
Thanks for adding your thoughts to this interesting topic.  And I can easily understand how many are turned off by the darkness and violence of many of the books being done it seems since 1990 or so.
But I agree with misappear, there are some Great titles out there, they just aren't being done by the Big Two and they can be hard to find.  At the top of my list I very strongly suggest all GA fans give Astro City a look!  It's an ode to the old heroes we love set in a city where everything is named after master comic creators and publishers of the past.  It's right beside Mount Kirby for instance.  (You can see a map of the city at this link)  Created by writer Kurt Busiek and artists Brent Anderson and Alex Ross most issues are stand alone and do a wonderful job of being fun, dynamic series.  It's easily one of my favourite books being done today.  There's a wiki on the series here if you want to explore it but I suggest you start with the first TBP Astro City Volume 1: Life in the Big City.
It's a series that will put your faith back in a modern super hero title again.

-Yoc