What is it like for old comic book fans?

[The Darknight Detective]

As a DC reader since '73 and a DC fan since '68, the one major thing I have learned over the years is not to get to obsessed with a character or universe. Things change regardless of how you feel about it, so either except the changes or find something else to pass the time instead. None of this is worth getting upset over even for a minute.

[Adekis]

So while I've calmed, it also cuts both ways -- I rarely get excited about upcoming projects anymore. I remember getting PSYCHED for things like the Age of Apocalypse, or No Man's Land, or whatever. I've now seen enough events fall flat where I'll pick (most) of them up just to keep up, but I rarely, if ever, go in with expectations. Or I'll skip an event, or series, and pick it up a year after the fact on a Comixology sale or something. I'm not TOTALLY dead inside -- I still get jazzed for certain announcements (Morrison on Green Lantern, and Hickman's new X-Men stuff), but I've definitely chilled.

I haven't been reading that long - I mean, for definitely well over a decade, but not for decades. And I only started reading monthly books on the reg, instead of picking up trades exclusively, in 2011 with the New 52 reboot.

And yet, I still feel the same way you described about not being too bothered about disliked changes anymore, and about rarely getting hyped. I'm truly excited for Superman Bashes the Klan, and pretty much nothing else. Which sucks, right? I've heard the JL series with Jarro is good, my fiancee is loving Martian Manhunter, and yet... I rarely even bother to buy new books anymore. They just don't do much for me.

Then again, maybe I'm speaking too soon, or misinterpreting a current jadedness as a habitual one. After all, I might not be excited exactly about like, the new Jimmy Olsen, but the first issue definitely sparked joy when I read it.

[Lee Stone]

I've been reading since the 1970s, and it's clear that the audience has changed (or at least, who DC believes the audience is has changed). The complexity and sophistication of story have increased, but unfortunately, so has the sense of bleakness. The childishly naive notion that bashing our problems in the nose is a sensible answer persists, but the notion that we can meaningfully address human woes seems to have been left behind.

The motivations of characters doing something positive because it's right has faded away. In its place has arisen a notion that protagonists must react to something wrong, whether that's a tragedy they suffered or a failing they must redeem.

The art has changed. There has always been good and bad, but the modern trend seems to look more like movie storyboards than self-contained story-telling instruments. That's doubtlessly influenced by their role as mass media brands today. DC (and Marvel) comics have become minor components of larger Intellectual Property sales campaigns than entertainment media in their own right.

Others have mentioned the shift towards arc (that can be packaged as TPBs). With tht has come a a sense of story first, character, if convenient. Don't get me wrong, story has always mattered. That said, part of this medium has always been about following characters who were distinct in some form (Justice League somewhat lost that late in the Silver Age, it it came back strong in the Bronze Age thru Nu52). The TPB Novelization approach, however, has enabled writers to distort characters to ease execution of specific story points they want to make (Identity Crisis was probably the most drastic example, but there have been plenty of others, both before and since). This results in an inconsistency of both characterization, and world building, because each new writer tends to drop or ignore what came before.

ETA: Beginning with Crisis on Infinite Earths, comics have become increasingly event-centric. DC learned that they can get fans to buy more titles to have the complete story, and we haven't taught them differently yet. I suspect the TPB trend mentioned in the last two paragraphs has accelerated that. How intrusive those events got on the individual titles at DC waxed and waned over the years; in cases like Millenium, it got really heavy handed.

The various, and cumulative effects of those last two paragraphs have contributed to shrinking of the comics world. There was a sense in the older comics that heroes inhabited an environment full of characters. That's shifted toward them existing against a backdrop that seems somewhat more shallow.

One thing has changed for the better (IMO): comics are more widely accepted as a past time than once they were. For some of us, being a comics fan was something of a guilty pleasure we felt pressured to hide away. With big studios realizing there's gold in them-thar capes, comics in general, and superheroes in particular, are no longer something that's quite so niche.

Reading since the 70's as well and couldn't have said it better. Good job.

I agree.

I've been reading since about 1980 and I feel the same way.

I'm truly hoping we'll get a renaissance in the next decade of creators wanting to bring back a sense of wonder to comics and celebrate the medium's roots. And be as adamant about it as the creators of the '80s and '90s were about shedding the 'Comics are for Kids' image.

We've climbed that hill. Comics have come into their own.
Now it's time to show people just why comics existed for so long before they were 'accepted'.

New readers come into comics all the time and they hear about how good comics used to be.
Almost all the classic 'must read' stories are from the Silver and Bronze Ages.
They must've been doing something right.
And they must be doing something wrong now if nearly nothing today can stand alongside those classics.

[BohemiaDrinker]

I'm 18 years old and have only been reading comics for about 2 or 3 years but those of you who have been around for the older comics, so let's say since Crisis in Infinite Earth's or since the 2000s or something, what has it been like over the past 34 years to read these ever changing and ever growing comics? And how much has comics changed since then?

IT hás been great for 20 years and then it has really sucked for about fifteen. And I Jean REALLY sucked.

[MRP]

I've been reading comics since about 1973. The absolute biggest difference now from then is the sense I can read just about any comics now at any time and not have to worry about missing one. Growing up, I had no sense of a back issue market, comic shops or what have you, if you missed an issue on the newsstand or your newsstand didn't carry a particular issue, you were out of luck. The only way you would ever get to read it is if you knew someone who had it, stumbled upon it at someone's house, etc. The only way to get older stories were through reprint series (from series like Marvel Tales or Marvel Triple Action, DC annuals or 80 page giants, fill in issues because of missed deadlines or what have you. Occasionally things like Origins of Marvel Comics or the Tempo DC paperbacks would show up with older stories but they were few and far between. Even when I discovered a comic shop in the mid-80s when I was in high school, it was still possible to miss issues with no guarantee you could find a back issue, and you were still limited to what your local shop had for back issues to buy. The likelihood of you being able to find a particular issue to read was slim even in the best of circumstances, and there was an inherent urgency to have a pull list or be there to get a book as soon as it came out to make sure you could read a given story. Discovering conventions broadened the possibilities of finding back issues or missed issues, getting a car expanded the number of shops I could look for, but there was still a sense of limited availability. Now, now so much. The advent of the internet (with things like ebay and online comic book stores, the birth of the trade paperback industry, all made it possible to gain access to more and more books, increasing the possibilities and lessening the urgency to have to buy things as they came out to read them. Add in digital comics and things like Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe, the growth of trades in public libraries, services through libraries like Hoopla, legal websites carrying digital copies of public domain comics, etc. and now there is a sense that you can read just about any comic form any era at any time that you want to with minimal effort. It certainly is a world of possibilities, but it creates a different feel when discovering a comic A bit of the sense of wonder and discovery is gone. And the sense of urgency in making sure you get a copy right away is definitely gone. It also makes me a lot pickier about what I read. I used to read just about any comic I could get my hand on, because it was so hard to get a lot of comics for me growing up, that each one was a treasure to be read multiple times, devoured so you knew it inside and out, now, it takes something really special to get me to read a comic more than once, and there are a lot of comics I just have no interest in reading any more because there are so many other options, form so many different eras easily available to me that I can pass on things without feeling I lost out at all.

On the one hand, it makes the current era a bit of a golden age in terms of accessibility and choice when it comes to comic reading, on the other hand, it makes the experience a lot more mundane as well.

-M

[matt levin]

Wow-- Dr. Newgod has said it better than I could, and reflects my experience fully.
I, too, have been reading since the early '70s. I've found my interests have changed a lot since then, and while I have at least a dozen boxes of superheroes, I'm now filing almost as many boxes with detective/crime comics and non-fiction (non-fiction comics!).

[Jim Kelly]

It's a constant worry what to do with all these comics. Sell them? Give them away? Keep them and die knowing they'll never bring anyone else as much pleasure as I got from having them?

[mikelmcknight72]

I've been reading them since around 1981. The biggest is that comics aren't kid-friendly anymore. Pricing has increased a lot. In 1981, you could buy comics at grocery stores, mini-marts, pharmacies, and more. Digital aside, there are few options outside of an local comic shop. Profanity, sex, extreme violence/gore, cynicism, and the blurring of the line between hero and villain were very rare in 1981. They are commonplace today.

Another big change is the advent of decompressed story telling/writing for the trade. A story that used to take 2-3 issues to tell now gets stretched out to 6-8 issues.

[Fromper]

Another big change is the advent of decompressed story telling/writing for the trade. A story that used to take 2-3 issues to tell now gets stretched out to 6-8 issues.

I've seen this mentioned a lot on these forums (not just this thread). When do you think this "writing for the trade" thing really took off? Not just at DC, but everywhere.

I bought most of my comics in the 90s, including a lot of 80s back issues, and stopped reading in the early 00s. I remember this being my biggest complaint about the short lived company CrossGen in the very early 00s. I loved their work - fantastic art, pretty good characters and stories - but only after sitting down to read several issues together, not one issue at a time. At the time, I don't think this was a common trend yet at DC, Marvel, or other companies, though they were starting to head towards more longer stories and more TPB collections.

[mikelmcknight72]

I've seen this mentioned a lot on these forums (not just this thread). When do you think this "writing for the trade" thing really took off? Not just at DC, but everywhere.

I bought most of my comics in the 90s, including a lot of 80s back issues, and stopped reading in the early 00s. I remember this being my biggest complaint about the short lived company CrossGen in the very early 00s. I loved their work - fantastic art, pretty good characters and stories - but only after sitting down to read several issues together, not one issue at a time. At the time, I don't think this was a common trend yet at DC, Marvel, or other companies, though they were starting to head towards more longer stories and more TPB collections.

That's a good question. My general impression pre-Google search was mid to late 90s. Post-Google search, I found a couple of things on the tvtropes.org website. It treats decompressed stories and writing for the trade as related by separate. It pins decompressed stories on Warren Ellis and his run on the Authority. It is less specific with writing for the trade.

That does bring up another change. Trade paperbacks/collections used to be fairly rare, with only the most noteworthy of stories getting the treatment. Now? Pretty much every story arc gets collected in a trade paperback.

As with all of these changes, there is some good and some bad.

[Ascended]

Early 00's for the rise of trades is what I would've guessed, going on absolutely nothing but whatever I remember noticing at the time.

And it seems that DC at least is going to stop putting out as many trades and slide back towards only collecting the more important, bigger stories. No idea how far they'll go on the spectrum of "no trades at all <---> trades for every six issues" but I rather liked being able to read a whole run by trade waiting (that's how I've been reading a bunch of books since 2011).

[thales]

I'm 18 years old and have only been reading comics for about 2 or 3 years but those of you who have been around for the older comics, so let's say since Crisis in Infinite Earth's or since the 2000s or something, what has it been like over the past 34 years to read these ever changing and ever growing comics? And how much has comics changed since then?

I started reading in the '79-'80 in Norway (we were a couple of years behind the American release at the time, the Dark Phoenix saga didn't get printed until 84/85, and the Secret Wars late '88 and '89). I mostly read the Phantom (Scandinavian print), X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Legion of Super-Heroes. I think the most difference I noticed is that everything felt more "corporate", and less fan-service. For instance, the Phantom got married, had kids, the kids grew up. Reed and Sue had a son, he grew up. Spider-Man started in high-school, went to college, graduated. Jean Grey, Invisible Kid, Chemical King and Karate Kid got killed. There wasn't this corporate mandate to keep everything static. There wasn't this fan-boy service to resurrected dead character that you used to love when you were a kid. I think I started to lose interest when the second (third?) generation creators in the '90 who was dead set on adding. Comic is neither the high of Moore or early Miller, nor the fun of older Levitz Legion of Super-Heroes. Quite frankly, there are better entertainment out there, whether it is TV or books.

I think when I do pick up a comic these days, it is a limited series, like The Boys or Planetary. Something with a definite beginning, middle and end

[katefan]

I've been reading them since around 1981. The biggest is that comics aren't kid-friendly anymore. Pricing has increased a lot. In 1981, you could buy comics at grocery stores, mini-marts, pharmacies, and more. Digital aside, there are few options outside of an local comic shop. Profanity, sex, extreme violence/gore, cynicism, and the blurring of the line between hero and villain were very rare in 1981. They are commonplace today.

Another big change is the advent of decompressed story telling/writing for the trade. A story that used to take 2-3 issues to tell now gets stretched out to 6-8 issues.

Absolutely agree with all of this.

I've watch DC's creative decline since the Crisis. An event that was supposed to make things better, I feel in the long run it made things worse. We had numerous character reboots that in some cases worked and in others raised more problems. Donna Troy, for example. And the origin of the Justice League. Then the New 52 happened and it made me miss the post Crisis days.

Comics are expensive and not nearly as much fun. Over the past decade I find myself buying fewer and fewer comics. For four bucks I can buy two or three songs on Amazon or a pair of used paperbacks from the used books store.

[mikelmcknight72]

Given the frequent sales on Comixology, $4-6 will often get you a digital collection of a multi-issue story line. I recently took advantage of a sale to get the first two collections of Sandman Mystery Theater.

[Restingvoice]

That's a good question. My general impression pre-Google search was mid to late 90s. Post-Google search, I found a couple of things on the tvtropes.org website. It treats decompressed stories and writing for the trade as related by separate. It pins decompressed stories on Warren Ellis and his run on the Authority. It is less specific with writing for the trade.

That does bring up another change. Trade paperbacks/collections used to be fairly rare, with only the most noteworthy of stories getting the treatment. Now? Pretty much every story arc gets collected in a trade paperback.

As with all of these changes, there is some good and some bad.

I don't know when they started writing for the trade but I remember trade started as a way to collect best selling stories only, and the issues in between that aren't considered needed are not collected.

So you got Crisis on Infinite Earths, Batman Year One, Year Two, Year Three, A Death in The Family, A Lonely Place of Dying, and then jump straight to Knightfall. I was annoyed that they never collect Jason's origin and time as Robin, only his death, until recently.

After Knightfall they started to consistently collect things in trades. Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing series are all collected in trades, still unnumbered. I don't remember if they actually wrote for the trades though.

Infinite Crisis tie-in and Identity Crisis was the first one I remember where they write for trade but I don't know if they count since they are for an event.

So I think it was after Knightfall.

Before that, while there are arcs, they're not six to eight issues. Jason Todd's origin was two issues. The Penguin's Affair where Batman's mechanic's Harold was three. Many Deaths of Batman and KGBeast are about three to four. There's an arc with The Riddler that's also four issues I think, and a story about Gotham architect about three or four.

Yeah. I think those early 90s they're already going there, but not yet.