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

You're not claiming superior knowledge... but you claim superior knowledge of the modern era?

Not even knowing me personally, that's quite a reach, on many points. You at various points claim I know nothing about the modern comics era, and then backpedal slightly to say you have superior knowledge of the current era. Either way, you do allege your superiority.

Comics, modern or otherwise, are not overly difficult to follow. I know who the writers and artists are, I know what series they are working on, I know the general thrust of what's popular in the industry, and I read a fair representative amount of what's published. Whatever geeky minutia you consider yourself to have "superior knowledge" of is just your silly arrogance. You may read more comics, but we both know what's coming out.

So again, this is just more of your over-torqued-up insults and namecalling toward me, over a very minor and debatable point.




I've stated my age multiple times, and won't extend you the courtesy of repeating my age for you now. Suffice it to say, I started reading in the early 1970s, and that a majority of the writers, artists and readers are roughly the same age as me. These creators are the life's-blood of the industry, and when these "old" people are gone, the industry will implode down to nothing, and join LP records, pulp magazines and big-little-books on the ashbin of history.
I must not be too old, because three years ago, I was dating a very pretty 23-year-old girl, although I generally prefer women closer to my own age.
Most people are astonished when I tell them my age, and say I could pass for being in my 20s. I take good care of myself.



Others in my demographic age group, perhaps. Not me.



You again allege your superior comics knowledge, laced with apoplectic irrationality and insults. With no real basis for that attitude toward me.
Again: we both know who the writers and artists are, we both know who's doing what series.

You may have more fanboy-obsessive knowledge of the minutia of the secret origin of Robin 4, or how many points are on a batarang, or what issue Garth Ennis portrayed someone fucking the gunshot wound in the assasinated John F. Kennedy's head, or how many crotchless panties are drawn in the latest "warm tribute" by Grant Morrison to the innocence of the Silver Age, but while I know that excrement is out there, I really don't care to look at it.

If that stuff has meaning to you and gives you "superior knowledge" then goody for you. It doesn't mean anything or manifest "superior knowledge" to most people.



Again, you don't know me. But of course, there's nothing intolerant about the character assassination you're unleashing on me here, for simply not agreeing with your opinion about new comic books.

Which of us is intolerant here, Mxy? I think your slanderous attacks manifest that quite clearly.



I do read a lot, and look at many more titles beyond that.

I freely acknowledge that yeah, you likely know more about the new books, and certainly enjoy them more. But how much do I need to know, beyond what's published and who's writing and drawing it? If I feel the need to know more than that, I buy and read the works I like.
NO ONE, including even superior-acting condescending snots like you, read EVERY title that's published, so spare me your "superior knowledge" crap, and the unwarranted personal insults.



Again: I do read a fair amount of new material, and I'm quick to praise the stuff I like.

Books like Mignola's HELLBOY series, LEAVE IT TO CHANCE, SOJOURN, Waid/Kitson's LEGION (at least in the beginning). I was initially excited about Jim Shooter working on LEGION again, and disappointed when it came out. I like Van Sciver and Churchill's art, but am turned off by the writing that accompanies it, which was my complaint about Jim Lee over 20 year ago and ongoing. Jim Lee is the essence of what I despise, as much as Morrison, Ennis and the like. Because Lee produces a book that looks good, until you actually read it. And then, there's just nothing there.



The weeping part is, of course, just more of your silliness and insults. But I do think the modern comics overall are foul, profanity-laden, and reliant on extreme graphic violence, rape, sexual perversion and other shock elements that mask a lack of good writing.
I don't think anyone who reads Grant Morrison or Garth Ennis is degenerate. But I do think someone in their teens or 20s who reads this stuff is more impressed by the shock elements than I am, and would confuse these tittilating gonzo elements for profoundness and good writing. At some point in your late 20s or 30s your exposed to enough shock value that it ceases to be shocking, loses its impact, and is less impressive.

I prefer work with better prose, such as Don McGregor/Craig Russell's work on AMAZING ADVENTURES/Killraven, combined with a more heroic and upbeat message. Alan Moore's SWAMP THING, MIRACLEMAN and other 80s works have a similar good prose as well, although again, with less pleasant dark elements tossed into the mix.



Okay. I'll own up, in review, that you didn't actually say you have a preference to the new material. And beyond your eagerness to mock and ridicule me, you really haven't clarified WHAT your own standard for quality is. I could agree with some of what you say about comics aesthetics and the merits and flaws of various eras more easily, if what you said wasn't so woven with personal insults and baseless assumptions about my person and character.

There is in some ways a better standard of writing, a more dynamic narrative style in the new material. Sure.
But again, it is tainted by unpleasant elements. And the quality of comics writing (the ones I love too, pretty much) is laughable to readers of books, outside the narrow niche-market subculture of comic books.

Fantasy fiction readers thought it was the height of silliness that an issue of SANDMAN ("A Midsummer Night's Dream") won the World Fantasy Award for best story of the year, and changed the rules so it would never win again. And I'd agree with them. Neil Gaiman is still no Ramsey Campbell.

There are some arguable superior merits in modern comics, but in some ways --as I said earlier-- the earlier material was arguably superior in other ways:
1) it was skillfully written for a wider audience, that could appeal to both older and younger readers.
2) the stories were less padded, and arguably more inventive and less formulaic
3) there was a vastly wider array of genres in past comics aeas: war, western, romance, detective stories, science fiction, monster stories, humor, funny animals, teen stories, that certainly had the potential to reach a far wider market.
4) they certainly had far higher sales and reached a much larger audience
5) they had an inspiring optimism and fun, and sense of whimsey that made them appealing in a way the dark material of the current era could never hope to
6) ironically, because of censorship, they couldn't use many of the old tricks that current writers get away with, and so had to be more inventive in the stories they told.
7) they established the storytelling devices, characters and "universes" the current era still uses, so despite the new twists --and often vandalism-- of the current writers, what they do is inherently derivative and uncreative, relative to the old masters.

It's funny that you find the late 70s to early 80s the least interesting era, because I find it (as part of a continuous great era from 1968-1985) to be the most inventive era in comics history, giving us the perfect mix of mature writing and heroic storytelling of an earlier era (again, McGregor's KILLRAVEN, Starlin's WARLOCK and DREADSTAR, EPIC ILLUSTRATED, SABRE by McGregor/Gulacy, the Eclipse Comics line, the Pacific Comic line, the First Comics line, Englehart/Rogers' DETECTIVE 471-476 (collected as STRANGE APPARITIONS tpb), BIZARRE ADVENTURES.

After the darkness set in around 1986, I kept reading, but never again have seen the ratio of quality material and diversity that existed prior to that.




I answered that above. Again your baseless insults. And I could just as easily call you closed-minded and a fucking moron, that you feel a need to insult me for simply disagreeing with you point of view, on something as silly as comic books.



I give examples of what I like precisely, and why. You just lash out with insults, with only the vaguest clarification of what you base your insults on. You haven't explained what you consider so great in the new books, and it is still unclear precisely what your standard is, other than that because you disagree with my stated examples of quality, you feel a need to call me a "fucking idiot", "moron" and so forth, for simply disagreeing with you.