RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Top 5 Comic Creators today

I base that on the fact that, unlike you, I read a shitload of current comics. "Well," Wonder Boy will say, "I once read an issue of The Authority!" I'm not talking about 10 comics from 2001, WB. I'm talking about 25 comics from 2008 this month. It's indisputable that I'm more qualified to asses the current state of comics, if nothing else simply because I'm reading them, but I get the feeling you'd dispute that anyway. "Why, I once read a depraved Preacher volume!"

"I've read more than enough to know I don't like it," you may say, and that's fine, but by saying something like that you're conceding that there's no way for you to be able to keep up with the latest developments in the industry.

I used to be pretty angry at the state of modern comics too, you know. But since I started ACTUALLY READING the stuff I was complaining about (like Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, which I'd previously decided sucked because GL: Rebirth did), and I realized it wasn't all that bad. You haven't read the Sinestro Corps War, obviously, and no one expects you to. But I have, and I can say that it's as good if not better than the Great Darkness Saga. Even though a G'nort says "oh poop" halfway through it (which is the probably the point you'd declare it filthy and disgusting).



Again, none of that stuff is central to the stories. Ok, imagine a guy from the 40's who is shocked at the depiction of tits. He picks up a comic from the 70's (OH NO, IT'S AN ISSUE OF THE AVENGERS!), and he's absolutely disgusted by the size of women's bosoms. He decides all comics are depraved because he can't get past a detail like that. You're that guy, Wonder Boy. Only with gore and cussing instead of titties.



You forgot depraved.

What, you mean people who weren't fans didn't look at comics in the 70's and laugh at how silly they were? You mean you could read the dialogue of a Silver Surfer issue aloud and nobody found it corny and pretentious? Dialogue in comics these days is good or as bad as it is in TV, mainly because a lot of the same people are writing both mediums.

Comics are getting more mainstream attention this decade than they have since probably the 40's. Look at all the comics-based and comics-inspired films and TV shows that are coming out, using an unprecedented amount of accuracy for the source medium. I honestly don't know if that's good or bad, though your "anyone who ISN'T a comic book fan" comment seems to indicate that you think the mainstream knows better. So, yay!



I love Swan... in the 50's and 60's. In the 70's and 80's his work started looking awkward, and the little work he did in the 90's was simply embarassing. Look at Action Comics #700 or his sequence in the Superman Wedding Special. Not only does it look out of place with the other artists, which wouldn't really be his fault, it looks like he was trying to adopt a modern style and failing miserably. Had he kept his old style unchanged at least the stories would have looked dignified, but I guess there's a chance the editors are to blame here.

A lot of other artists had the same problem as Swan up to the early 80's, from what I've seen in the Superman comics of the period. I don't mean that they were specifically imitating Swan, I mean that they still used that generic Silver Age style that worked so well in its time but looked utterly ridiculous when trying to be something else. At least all the Neal Adams clones didn't look so lost.

The same thing happened with the writers. A lot of them were still using the "Oh no Lois -- I've turned into shellfish!" type stories from the Silver Age, which had become so formulaic they weren't even fun. Those are the worst comics in the universe for me: the Superman titles from the late 70's to the mid 80's. The stagnancy and mediocrity of that era offends me much more than your average gang raping ever could.



Right, because he was the exact opposite of Curt Swan: he did know how to update his style and it still looked decent even shortly before his death in 1996.



Lazy writers are the problem, I agree, but it's simply illogical to declare that ALL modern writers are lazy and awful while the "old school writers that thrilled and inspired us" were mostly a wonderful and handsome bunch of chappies, as if something in the water had drained all the talent from the population. It's a lot more likely that you're simply bitter and outdated, which is a phenomenon that HAS been known to happen to people.



I'm just going to point out the irony in you exalting old writers for being able to invoke deeper emotions and then criticizing new ones for taking more time to tell a story. I haven't seen better character development than the one William Messner-Loebs carried out over 40 issues of The Flash, which were then followed by even more amazing character work by Mark Waid in the mid 90's.

It's true that there's an annoying tendency these days to stretch stories to make them fit in TPBs, but in general I think it's a good thing that writers have more space in which to tell more ambitious stories. Morrison's 12-part ASS (oh filthy me!) is a recent example of decompression put to good use. The premise could have easily been used for a 22 page story, but the 12 issue format gives it more scope and emotional resonance. Which, yes, is something that Morrison is able to convey even though he showed robot animals tear apart a person in another comic a few years ago. I know it seems far fetched and unlikely, but it looks like him writing a gore scene as an incidental part of a comic didn't decrease his talent, even though every rational person knows both things are inextricably linked.

I'm being sarcastic. They have nothing to do with each other and you're nuts.



So are Grant Morrison and most good writers! Which is why Morrison's expressed mission in writing JLA was to put back together what the 80's had pulled apart. His DC One Million crossover was even more obvious in that intent. And this was in 1996. Since then other writers have followed and thanks to that we have wonderfully fun comics like Madman or Godland or Astonishing X-Men or Runaways or the Umbrella Academy or, fuck, most of Moore's ABC line.



Ah, now you're entering a fully subjective field, which I always love in a debate. You say the new books aren't fun, but what is fun and what isn't is up to each reader, not some guy in a message board they've never met. And we can safely say that the same things you find disgusting are considered fun by great majority of people: take a look at the top selling videogames for evidence.

There's a reason why you thought modern comics were fun in the 70's and 80's and aren't now: you were young then, and the comics were aimed at you and your peers. Now comics are aimed at a different generation with different tastes and... I shouldn't have to explain this to you. Why am I explaining this to you? This is excruciatingly obvious. Which, of course, means it'll fly right over your head.

Now, you can (and will) bitch about what young people like, but you may not dispute that they like it. I'm sure at some point when you were a Wonder Actual Boy you must have encountered an older person who disapproved of something you were doing, like for example listen to that savage twist music. Well, you're that guy now. Only with gore and cussing instead of titties.



In other words, yeah, it seems dark to you.



Yeah, like pretending to shoot and run over people in Grand Theft Auto (this is "the GTA" you have heard your friends' grandchildren mentioned). I'm sure if DC did a comic about a guy who shoots and runs over people it would be a top seller. In fact, I think I read in LITG last week that the top selling book this year wasn't Secret Invasion or Final Crisis, but an adaptation of some violent war game.



If that was all I found in the comics I'm reading, I would give them up too.



Oh, I'm sure people are offended. People were deeply offended by Elvis, too. Mostly old people. In both cases.

I'm sure you didn't get this at all, but most of the violence in Preacher was used for comedic purposes. Steve Dillon is a genius at depicting that kind of stuff, and it's even more obvious in Ennis' Punisher series. It's true. I laughed. My friends laughed. People at the comic store laughed. With the very same thing that made you cry.



I love that you actually do say stuff like that. It's so charming, like one of those old fashioned monkeys with cymbals.



And the oldest people modern comics are aimed at are in their early 30's. Again, it's only natural that you should be so hopelessly out of date!

This doesn't mean all comics are bad. It means they're NOT FOR YOU. There's a difference between both things which I'm sure you'd struggle to understand if you ever tried.



What does that have to do with the romantic aspect of it? This is like saying Casablanca can't be a love story because there are Nazis in it. The Nazis killed people, so that prevents the whole movie from having anything to say that isn't "let's kill us some jews".

There are countless examples of graphically violent movies with sincere romantic angles (Takeshi Kitano comes to mind), but I don't expect you to be able to appreciate any of them.



Again, both things are subjective. You're the last person in the world anyone would ask if they wanted to know what kids like these days.



It was mainly because there was no such context in the post I quoted. You said you had no reservations about Cerebus, which I found a little odd. You can't expect me to have read all of your posts... I don't think anyone has.