Having trouble following King's Batman

[Marvelman]

Yeah, I just opened the most recent issue and I had no idea what was going on. Am I the only one having trouble making sense of King's Batman?

[Arsenal]

No, not really. The only time I was confused was during the beginning of the Knightmares arc because the jarring transition but outside of that I’ve had no problems following what’s happening on page.

[blunt_eastwood]

Sometimes I do a little, but I'm usually able to figure it out.

In all fairness, this is part 4 of an ongoing story arc, so would you really expect to be able to follow what was going on?

[MajorHoy]

Sometimes I do a little, but I'm usually able to figure it out.

In all fairness, this is part 4 of an ongoing story arc, so would you really expect to be able to follow what was going on?

You know, back in the old days, people weren't essentially penalized because they weren't following the story from day one.

Back in the day of buying off of spinner racks at non-comic book shops, readers weren't always able to buy every consecutive issue, but it was still relatively easy to follow along with stories, even if you didn't buy the first part.

Some days, I wish comic books went back to that approach, and not these multi-issue monstrosities where seven issues in you're still thinking not much has really happened yet, and you have no idea how many more months it will be before you feel like there's some sort of resolution to something.

Taking the attitude that the writer / the comic book company has no obligation to make each and every issue somewhat new-reader friendly is a bit elitist to me and tends to drive some people to collected edition-waiting or just to drop the damn overpriced pitiful excuses for "entertainment".

[Talon1load]

You know, back in the old days, people weren't essentially penalized because they weren't following the story from day one.

Back in the day of buying off of spinner racks at non-comic book shops, readers weren't always able to buy every consecutive issue, but it was still relatively easy to follow along with stories, even if you didn't buy the first part.

Some days, I wish comic books went back to that approach, and not these multi-issue monstrosities where seven issues in you're still thinking not much has really happened yet, and you have no idea how many more months it will be before you feel like there's some sort of resolution to something.

Taking the attitude that the writer / the comic book company has no obligation to make each and every issue somewhat new-reader friendly is a bit elitist to me and tends to drive some people to collected edition-waiting or just to drop the damn overpriced pitiful excuses for "entertainment".

I agree with all of this.

[bob.schoonover]

I don't necessarily find it hard to follow, but I don't think King is making it easy - in the last three issues, I am not positive about the sequence of events (e.g. when did Bruce sucker punch Tim compared to the rest of the story), but there's honestly so little connecting those pieces that it doesn't really matter.

[numberthirty]

Yeah, I just opened the most recent issue and I had no idea what was going on. Am I the only one having trouble making sense of King's Batman?

Sometimes I do a little, but I'm usually able to figure it out.

In all fairness, this is part 4 of an ongoing story arc, so would you really expect to be able to follow what was going on?

Along this line...

Did you just start the title, or have you been reading it(never mind "I've been picking up an issue here and there."...)?

If someone came in at issue #73 of 100 Bullets and said "I have no idea what's going on...", I would know exactly why they couldn't follow it. That said, I would know because I have read the entire run.

Not every narrative is going to be one that you can just pick up at any point and have a good idea what's going on.

[TravelerInTheDark]

King's run, moreso than probably any other recent run I can think of, requires you to have read most if not all issues in order for the comics to be of any real value, because almost none of the issues contain a whole story. It is startlingly decompressed. They all act as small pieces of a very large story and require the knowledge those past issues contain in order to be understood in any real capacity. And not only that, but many of King's issues when read without context are quite cryptic and somewhat frankly off-putting when it comes to structure and dialogue, so most readers just hopping in will just be going "wtf is this garbage?".

It doesn't help that it is almost entirely disconnected from every other current ongoing. You can't just hop in, especially not now.

[MajorHoy]

King's run, moreso than probably any other recent run I can think of, requires you to have read most if not all issues in order for the comics to be of any real value, because almost none of the issues contain a whole story. It is startlingly decompressed. They all act as small pieces of a very large story and require the knowledge those past issues obtain in order to be understood in any real capacity. And not only that, but many of King's issues when read without context are quite cryptic and somewhat frankly off-putting when it comes to structure and dialogue, so most readers just hopping in will just be going "wtf is this garbage?".

It doesn't help that it is almost entirely disconnected from every other current ongoing. You can't just hop in, especially not now.

So, it sounds like the best solutions would be:

* buy it only in collected editions

or

* just say "F#@& this!" and ignore King's run in it's entirety.

I would recommend the second choice, but that's just my opinion . . .

[blunt_eastwood]

King's run, moreso than probably any other recent run I can think of, requires you to have read most if not all issues in order for the comics to be of any real value, because almost none of the issues contain a whole story. It is startlingly decompressed. They all act as small pieces of a very large story and require the knowledge those past issues contain in order to be understood in any real capacity. And not only that, but many of King's issues when read without context are quite cryptic and somewhat frankly off-putting when it comes to structure and dialogue, so most readers just hopping in will just be going "wtf is this garbage?".

It doesn't help that it is almost entirely disconnected from every other current ongoing. You can't just hop in, especially not now.

The decompressed story telling really bothers me. And you're absolutely right about how even the individual story arcs need context to make sense. It's not like Morrison or Snyder's runs for instance, where you could still follow the individual arcs without having run the entire run. If you aren't reading everything by King you're screwed, and even if you are, there's no guarantee you will be able to follow anything!