Wonder Woman #32 (Spoilers)

[brettc1]

I will never understand this obsession you have with how long it takes to read an issue.

It's a comic book. Not a novel.

That's for damn sure.

[Gaelforce]

I will never understand this obsession you have with how long it takes to read an issue.

It's a comic book. Not a novel.

I get where he's coming from.

No, a comic isn't a novel, but with the price, I can pick up a paperback for the cost of two or three comics these days.

So I want story/content for my money and, sadly, there's less and less these days as the prices go up and up ($3-$4 for a comic, $5-$6 for an annual/special and I think GL #20 was $8?)

I'm with Brett on this one that I don't feel I'm getting enough bang for my buck, so to speak. If a comic only takes me a few minutes to read, I often feel as if I'm being shorted for my dollar (or three or four).

It's been a problem with this book from the start - it's slow. It's very slow. It's a great story, imo, but it could be told in 2/3 the space, imo.

I miss the good old days when a comic would take awhile, and we'd get entire stories in one to two issues.

[Vanguard-01]

I get where he's coming from.

No, a comic isn't a novel, but with the price, I can pick up a paperback for the cost of two or three comics these days.

So I want story/content for my money and, sadly, there's less and less these days as the prices go up and up ($3-$4 for a comic, $5-$6 for an annual/special and I think GL #20 was $8?)

I'm with Brett on this one that I don't feel I'm getting enough bang for my buck, so to speak. If a comic only takes me a few minutes to read, I often feel as if I'm being shorted for my dollar (or three or four).

It's been a problem with this book from the start - it's slow. It's very slow. It's a great story, imo, but it could be told in 2/3 the space, imo.

I miss the good old days when a comic would take awhile, and we'd get entire stories in one to two issues.

I will agree that comics should be longer, for one thing.

I mean didn't the average comic in the old days have like 32 pages of actual story and a few pages of advertisements? If they could do that back when comics were, like a dollar in price, they sure as Hell should be able to do it when they're getting a minimum of three bucks an issue. Instead today's comics are like 20 pages of story and a few pages of advertisements.

That much, I'll agree on anyway. We could have entire stories in one to two issues if DC and Marvel would give writers the page count for it.

[brettc1]

I get where he's coming from.

No, a comic isn't a novel, but with the price, I can pick up a paperback for the cost of two or three comics these days.

So I want story/content for my money and, sadly, there's less and less these days as the prices go up and up ($3-$4 for a comic, $5-$6 for an annual/special and I think GL #20 was $8?)

I'm with Brett on this one that I don't feel I'm getting enough bang for my buck, so to speak. If a comic only takes me a few minutes to read, I often feel as if I'm being shorted for my dollar (or three or four).

It's been a problem with this book from the start - it's slow. It's very slow. It's a great story, imo, but it could be told in 2/3 the space, imo.

I miss the good old days when a comic would take awhile, and we'd get entire stories in one to two issues.

Preach it sister!

Even by the standards of modern comic books this is thin. Dark Horse prints books every month that regularly take more than 12 minutes to read properly. I know, because I started using the online stopwatch to actually time how long it takes me to read the different books.

The cost of a movie ticket for me can be $12, and that gets me into a movie like Maleficent that will entertain you for over two hours.

Pay the same amount of money to DC for Wonder Woman and you will be entertained for less than 30 minutes.

Or, yeah, just buy a good book. $20 for a paperback that takes you days to read.

Maybe the reason the industry is having trouble attracting new readers is that if they haven't been collecting for 20 years as a habit then most people don't see the sense in paying so much for so little.

[Vanguard-01]

Maybe the reason the industry is having trouble attracting new readers is that if they haven't been collecting for 20 years as a habit then most people don't see the sense in paying so much for so little.

.................................................. ..........................

Much as I hate to admit it, that part actually makes a lot of sense. These "new readers" DC and Marvel keep hoping their movies will attract may very well come to the store, see the price tag on the comics, and decided they'd rather just wait a couple years til the next movie.

Dammit, Brett! Stop making sense. It's creepy.

[Vonter Voman]

I spend 8 minutes reading each issue of Saga, and I feel a lot less happened in the 18 issues I read than in 18 issues of WW. And I don't have to read them again to fully compreend things.

[wagthedog]

I've said this on another issue thread but it seems worth repeating.

There does not seem to be as much interest in the Wonder Woman comic these days as in issues prior, and I am entirely basing that on the length of the threads each issue generates. We seem to be getting fewer and fewer post counts, possibly due to a number of people losing interest in the storyline, or else Azz isn't shocking us as he did before. I know it isn't a very scientific basis, more like a feeling with a little thing like post counts to back it up.

I think many people are just waiting out the run for a new direction/storyteller.

[Auguste Dupin]

I get where he's coming from.

No, a comic isn't a novel, but with the price, I can pick up a paperback for the cost of two or three comics these days.

So I want story/content for my money and, sadly, there's less and less these days as the prices go up and up ($3-$4 for a comic, $5-$6 for an annual/special and I think GL #20 was $8?)

I'm with Brett on this one that I don't feel I'm getting enough bang for my buck, so to speak. If a comic only takes me a few minutes to read, I often feel as if I'm being shorted for my dollar (or three or four).

It's been a problem with this book from the start - it's slow. It's very slow. It's a great story, imo, but it could be told in 2/3 the space, imo.

I miss the good old days when a comic would take awhile, and we'd get entire stories in one to two issues.

I actually don't agree with that. Sure, we could probably get all the events into less space, but there's more to a story than what happens in it. There's the mood, the atmosphere, the character moments, the styleof the narration.....all of this justifies in my opinion the slower pace of the story . If you get rid of all that, then I think we would lose more than most people think.
I'm also not very comfortable with the idea of "getting enough bang for my buck". It always strikes as a more or less conscious attempt to "quantify" litterature (which comic books are, regardless of how highly one might think of them) , to not consider it as a form of art, but as a product of mass consommation that needs to satisfy you in a way somewhat similar to a washing machine. You can complain about your burger being too small in a McDonalds, but not in a 4 star restaurant.
You're not paying for the quantity, you're paying for the taste. To me, it's a bit like complainning about how small your steak is compared to the time it took the cook to prepare it, without taking into account the time needed to prepare the sauce. Sure, you could make the same steak in less time if you don't prepare the sauce, but it wouldn't taste the same.

[Vonter Voman]

Yes, the slow pace plays a significant role on the story. For instance, Hera's redemption would feel much less organic if it happened in half the time. I, for one, wouldn't feel so attached to the overall story and its elements if it weren't for the long time lenght.

There are some issues that feel not so much happened, but issue #32 took a quick turn that I wasn't expecting and managed to progress the story a lot, something the 2 prior issues didn't (because they were more centered on character development). But it was actually something to happen, since it's the last Sudzuka's issue before Chiang, closing a sub-arc.

I think there are some problems with this issue. We should have seen more about the Manazons. Diana could have appeared more on the first part, maybe going along with Artemis and Eros to rescue Hermes, instead of appearing later. I don't know if what First Born did to Hades and now Demeter is really so important. Does it really affect the world, like everything in the world withering and nothing dying?

[Vanguard-01]

I've said this on another issue thread but it seems worth repeating.

There does not seem to be as much interest in the Wonder Woman comic these days as in issues prior, and I am entirely basing that on the length of the threads each issue generates. We seem to be getting fewer and fewer post counts, possibly due to a number of people losing interest in the storyline, or else Azz isn't shocking us as he did before. I know it isn't a very scientific basis, more like a feeling with a little thing like post counts to back it up.

I think many people are just waiting out the run for a new direction/storyteller.

You could just as easily make a case that a lot of posters are tired of all the constant negativity and ugliness that results every time the pro-Azz and anti-Azz crowds do battle over this run and have simply decided to stop participating in these discussions.

The sales have not fluctuated to any meaningful extent recently. People are still interested in the book. The fact that a lot of people don't want to come here and participate in one more shouting match is hardly a good indicator of interest.

[wagthedog]

You could just as easily make a case that a lot of posters are tired of all the constant negativity and ugliness that results every time the pro-Azz and anti-Azz crowds do battle over this run and have simply decided to stop participating in these discussions.

The sales have not fluctuated to any meaningful extent recently. People are still interested in the book. The fact that a lot of people don't want to come here and participate in one more shouting match is hardly a good indicator of interest.

It is more of a feeling, like I said. But the post counts have consistently gone down with each issue. I missed getting an issue (I think it was 28) and haven't gone back to the LCS since. Wonder Woman was no longer a must read for me. Maybe it will after this arc is over, but I think my comic book collecting days are over.

On the other hand, it seems the SM/WW comic gets high post counts, at least presently.

[SiegePerilous02]

I can see the reasoning behind the argument that the book is structured the way it is because of atmosphere, but it's not something I really adhere to. Moore, Gaiman and Morrison, among others, are able to create great atmosphere while still packing their issues with a lot of "meat." Having the artists do big splash pages or use 3-4 panels per page is one of the main reasons for this. It seems like older comics provided way more panels per page with a lot of detail packed into each one. And Moore and Gibbons did this in Watchmen without any overly long narration boxes or stilted dialogue, which is something I see all older comics accused of doing as opposed to today's.

This may be a problem I have with Azzarello in general. I remember he devoted nine almost wordless pages to Thomas Wayne killing Croc in "Knight of Vengeance," which was an incredibly wasteful use of his already limited page count.

[Auguste Dupin]

I can see the reasoning behind the argument that the book is structured the way it is because of atmosphere, but it's not something I really adhere to. Moore, Gaiman and Morrison, among others, are able to create great atmosphere while still packing their issues with a lot of "meat." Having the artists do big splash pages or use 3-4 panels per page is one of the main reasons for this. It seems like older comics provided way more panels per page with a lot of detail packed into each one. And Moore and Gibbons did this in Watchmen without any overly long narration boxes or stilted dialogue, which is something I see all older comics accused of doing as opposed to today's.

This may be a problem I have with Azzarello in general. I remember he devoted nine almost wordless pages to Thomas Wayne killing Croc in "Knight of Vengeance," which was an incredibly wasteful use of his already limited page count.

There's more to the question of atmosphere than wether it's great or not. Atmosphere is a tool used to create feelings within the reader.
Morrison's comics, for instance, tend to be very frenetic due to a compact narration and a somewhat eliptic storytelling, while Azzarello on WW is often more contemplative, a mood that requires to take time.

[Gaelforce]

I agree - it's a matter of how the page is used. A splash page to show a cafe exploding that was irrelevant to the plotline was, imo, a waste of panel space. I get that it was to set the mood/atmosphere, but it could have been done just as effectively with a half page.

Again, I like the storyline but I just think that it's being dragged out too much via poor use of the limited pages.

[Blacksun]

I will agree that comics should be longer, for one thing.

I mean didn't the average comic in the old days have like 32 pages of actual story and a few pages of advertisements? If they could do that back when comics were, like a dollar in price, they sure as Hell should be able to do it when they're getting a minimum of three bucks an issue. Instead today's comics are like 20 pages of story and a few pages of advertisements.

That much, I'll agree on anyway. We could have entire stories in one to two issues if DC and Marvel would give writers the page count for it.

comics are paying a high price for being a niche product.

The problem is delivering little story, one time a month. In a tv show I get many episodes in a weekly schedule. For people new to comics it can put them off.

Azzarello WW reads very well, even with the slow pace becaus emake the readers interested in the characters.