Do me a favor, dude, go read up on the concept of a "Shared Universe", particularly in regards to a fictional work, and when you seem to grasp the concept, come back and try again.
I grasp it completely. But just look at your post. Take a step back and look just how complicated that is. Look just how much information you had to know to make sense of all those comics. Each one of your lines of text in red is a piece of information that a reader has to know to make sense of WTF is going on. Imagine being a non-comic fan going into a comic shop. You buy some books with cool covers and familiar characters. Two of them have plots that go together, kinda, but not sequentially. One is totally crazy and has nothing to do with the others, but its the same characters drawn in a different style. Another one has one familiar character and a hundred people you never heard of and are not introduced to.
Only nerds either already know this stuff, or have the mentality to want to learn it. When a geek reads a random issue, and gets a hint of something else, they get curious and want to read more. The overwhelming majority of human beings just go WTF and give up.
It needs to be simple. Anything more complicated than 1, 2, 3, 4 is more complicated than most people can handle. If you want comics to be something that only nerds will ever read, then keep it the way it is. If you want comics to sell in the millions, instead of the thousands, the shared universe you love so much has got to die.
That's why they recap. A LOT. And those little boxes that they employ that guy Ed to write, that tells you which issue number they're talking about if it's necessary, or which comic line, too.
Is that really such a good thing that they have to do that though? I can understand the importance of recapping a long running story, hell even anime that run only twenty-six episodes throw in a recap or two in there. However if that have to do it "a lot" just to get everyone on the same page it seems that would detract from the pacing of the story they are trying to set. It kind of enforces the complications of the shared universe. I think you have less of a problem with it since you are already are a fan of these comics, and presumably have been a fan for a while. But for a casual fan of comics like me, the whole universe is sort of intimidating.
I'm pretty much totally with Scott on this one. Marvel/DC comics are a huge clusterfuck. Some people revel in the clusterfuck. Most people aren't gonna want to have anything to do with it, even if they'd be interested in the characters or stories otherwise.
Yep, but as many have noted, I can't draw worth a pinch of shit.
Is that really such a good thing that they have to do that though? I can understand the importance of recapping a long running story, hell even anime that run only twenty-six episodes throw in a recap or two in there. However if that have to do it "a lot" just to get everyone on the same page it seems that would detract from the pacing of the story they are trying to set. It kind of enforces the complications of the shared universe. I think you have less of a problem with it since you are already are a fan of these comics, and presumably have been a fan for a while. But for a casual fan of comics like me, the whole universe is sort of intimidating.
Said Recaps are more like a few panels on the first page or two that say "In the last issue, blah blah blah and Robin got a Prince Albert. Now, On with the Show!" and the boxes are usually for references which are already obscure to begin with - you get that, when you have a few hundred comics behind you. The Cross title boxes and "Here is this here, since you missed it" boxes in abundance are normally from Crossover or Event comics, where they have to account for the fact that While a Green Lantern Reader might have read Sinestro Corp War, the green lantern books, and so on, they might not know what the deal is in this big crossover event, because they don't read some of the other in universe titles. As often as not, they'll just say "Batman was killed by Darksied in Title #number" or some other basic information, the bare minimum you need to understand. Basically, if it says "Issue #491" or something like that, and not much more, it's probably not something you really need to know, unless you're interested to see that very specific story that a single throwaway line references somehow.
Look just how much information you had to know to make sense of all those comics.
What the fuck are you talking about? Did Rym spike your apple juice or something, dude? That's not complicated at all. To put it SUPER simply: - Most of the titles you spoke of are separate, and don't interact. What happens in one either doesn't touch the other(Batman & Robin, depending on which you're speaking of, because you might be thinking of a different title, to propably foolishly give you the benefit of the doubt, Superman/Batman, Detective Comics is usually discreet, standalone arcs) Or is tangential at best(JLA, which mostly focuses on the team, but other outside issues will sometimes leech in, but are always referenced at least the first fifty damned times or so).
- Storylines rarely cross between books in the way you describe, except during Big events, in which case, there's usually a central title which you can read for the actual story, with one or two other titles telling different POVs, Facets and supplimentals on the same story.
- You cited a bunch of comics that sit in their own universe, and Sandman. I told you so, and added which books Sandman did the closest thing that happens to what you're talking about. Which apparently didn't matter to Sandman, since you thought otherwise.
- Finally, in response to Hitman, I said that the green lantern books are not quite as dense as the wiki makes it out to be.
What the fuck is complicated there, Scott?
Each one of your lines of text in red is a piece of information that a reader has to know to make sense of WTF is going on.
The entire point of those corrections is to tell you that you don't have to know any of that shit. How the fuck does, for example, Superman getting really stoned in a universe that's outside the canon of the DCU have anything to do with any other book in the DCU? The entire point of that fucking title is to do whacky shit that doesn't have anything to do with the DCU! It's like saying "Oh, To be able to understand why cabs in New York are Yellow, you have to read the rules of 42 Man Squamish." or maybe "To code in Python, you have to read the collected works of Shakespere and have a working knowlege of japanese tea ceremonies." The entire point of the red text was that they're entirely unrelated things that don't have anything to do with one another, for fuck's sake.
One is totally crazy and has nothing to do with the others, but its the same characters drawn in a different style.
So, what are you asking here, Every comic comes with an explanation of exactly where it fits into everything, all the time, before it gets underway? That you need a big rubber stamp that says "THIS COMIC DOESN'T HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH THE REST OF THEM", despite the fact that the main characters get killed roughly once every other issue, and it's treated as a joke, and they're back by the next issue, if they're not back by the end of the same issue? Did you Need one of those for Dark Knight Returns?
Another one has one familiar character and a hundred people you never heard of and are not introduced to.
Scott, that doesn't happen, because unlike yourself, the people writing these books are generally actually somewhat competent at writing fiction, particularly in a comic book format. You jump into an issue of, say, Deadpool, which can get REALLY cameo happy, and it's even in a universe that hasn't rebooted or reshuffled like DC has, and within a few pages, you've got the Gist. I was ignoring the Secret Invasion storyline, and I grabbed a few Deadpool issues from Secret invasion. Guess what? I knew exactly what was going on with the whole deal within a few pages. I handed them over to Fred - who admittedly, is not a huge western comics guy, and knows even less than you do - and he pretty much had it within a few pages, though I won't testify to how well he remembers it, since he only read them the once on an idle afternoon.
Only nerds either already know this stuff, or have the mentality to want to learn it. When a geek reads a random issue, and gets a hint of something else, they get curious and want to read more. The overwhelming majority of human beings just go WTF and give up.
Or, they just ignore the Ed Box, and keep reading, since it's not essential to the plot of that book, unless it's in a previous issue, and I'll give people credit, when the book says "THREE of FIVE of THE TIMEY WIMEY BALL STORYLINE!" I'd figure they can Count to five, and know that there are two issues before the one they are reading which might tell them more.
It needs to be simple. Anything more complicated than 1, 2, 3, 4 is more complicated than most people can handle.
Yes Scott. They know that. They have been in the business for a while, and they do actually have professionals of the industry on board with years of experience. Compared to your highly informed position of zero experience at either publishing comics or writing fiction professionally for comics. In other words, if you're figuring it out now, they probably knew it before your voice broke.
If you want comics to be something that only nerds will ever read, then keep it the way it is.
Scott, when you actually have any clue whatsoever about which you speak - even the shadow of a sliver of one - then you can try to talk to me about "The way it is."
If you want comics to sell in the millions, instead of the thousands, the shared universe you love so much has got to die.
Scott, let me teach you a real brief comics history lesson. Before the Shared universe idea, back when things were EXACTLY the way you're describing, each title had it's own continuity. You could read Batman from Start to end, and that's that, there is your batman. But, unless you read one title and only one title, you could have everything from dead characters in one title while the dead character's other concurrent title is running unimpeded, characters getting married to three or four different people simultaneously, three different people sharing the same identity at the same time fighting the same villains, Etc, etc. Essentially, everything was an enormous spaghetti clusterfuck mess of storylines, continuities, retcons and retconned retcons, with one hero existing in one title, but not in another at all, while simultaneously temporarily existing in a third before being retconned to being dead. This was an ENORMOUS obstacle to new readers. So they said "Fuck it. Everyone, starting at crisis on Infinite earths, It's one universe, everyone exists in the same universe, and it has ONE history, and ONE canon, and anything else is a "What if" or an "Elseworlds".
And you know what, funnily enough, that actually worked. Sort of - they fucked up the future history some, but it was the first time they'd tried anything like this, merging dozens and dozens of universes into a single one, but I'll give them some credit, they fixed it later on.
So, Basically, Yeah, They know about your idea of Discreet universes. They already did that, long before you were born, saw it become an enormous problem to anyone trying to get into comics without an enormous, extensive knowledge of comics, and changed their entire model to fix it before you'd completely learned how to not piss yourself at random times, let alone read.
The entire point of those corrections is to tell you that you don't have to know any of that shit. How the fuck does, for example, Superman getting really stoned in a universe that's outside the canon of the DCU have anything to do with any other book in the DCU?
I think the point that Scott was trying to make with that is that while it may be fine and super easy to look up which is different for say, you, or even me for that matter. It does make it harder for a more mainstream audience to break into Superman Comics (to use an example) with multiple Superman stories with various different universes going around. Yeah sure it's easy for people like us to figure it out, but I would contend that we are in the minority of people willing to look that stuff up.
I think the point that Scott was trying to make with that is that while it may be fine and super easy to look up which is different for say, you, or even me for that matter. It does make it harder for a more mainstream audience to break into Superman Comics (to use an example) with multiple Superman stories with various different universes going around. Yeah sure it's easy for people like us to figure it out, but I would contend that we are in the minority of people willing to look that stuff up.
Edit: I'm more referencing comics trying to market to a more mainstream audience.
I do see what you're getting at, but I don't think the mainstream is trying that hard to break into comics. Some people might pick up some Iron Man or Green Lantern after seeing the movie, and maybe read it for a while, but the majority of people are not trying to break into comics. The majority of people see comics - if they give them thought at all - as a child's or teenager's entertainment, or as something for fat neckbeards in their mother's basement when they're thirty - or, of course, they just plain don't read anything beyond facebook and twitter, or something similar. It's like trying to sell video games to people who don't own computers or consoles - you're trying to cater to a market that just isn't there.
The "It does make it harder" idea is true - That's why they went with the single continuity idea, because that is honestly a God-fucking-awful mess. It still occurs, here and there, but the vast majority of the time, it either doesn't, or is clearly signposted, either with a cheesy intro, or with something that is very clearly not the Batman anyone knows - I'm not talking like "He doesn't have his utility belt and uses guns", I mean stuff like "Wearing Superman's suit, and paroling metropolis, while superman is brooding about in the batsuit around gotham" or "They swap bodies in a comedic fashion" and the like. Plotlines that even make my sister - who is still stuck in high-school in her mind, decries comics as stupid, and is literally the very picture of your average stupid consumer knows that my S/B issues are not really proper Superman Or Batman.
Hell, even I don't bother looking shit up 3/4 of the time when I'm reading the comics - especially if it's just a sidebar note, or something like that - It's honestly just not essential, and if I really want to know something, I'll quickly find it online, grok it, and move on.
Heh, I just noticed - Scott is getting the iron fist, everyone else, velvet glove, gentle touch. This amuses me.
One idea that Marvel and DC should try is something of a combination of the All-Star comics (like Batman and Superman) with the comics that were based on the 90s Batman cartoon. Single issue stories, with a rare multi-part story thrown in. Use a base concept of the character (stranger visitor from a doomed planet with power and abilities beyond mortal men), with references that make sense within the context of the series. This would help bring a mainstream audience into a character they like, then maybe after a while, they will want to start reading the other titles. Hell, if they want to keep costs down, offer them online like their other comics.
the comics that were based on the 90s Batman cartoon
Those were generally excellent. I was buying the original Batman Adventures series when it was coming out in the mid-90s along with the regular Batman titles at the time, and Adventures was almost always better. I recently managed to get a used copy of the first trade. Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff was either never traded, or the trades are long out of print and stupidly expensive.
One of the main problems I have with the comic book shared universe thing, especially with DC, is that I find that the massive dissonance in tones and power between different comics and characters completely fucks my suspension of disbelief. Batman on his own = fucking awesome. Batman existing in the same universe as Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, etc? Batman suddenly not so special. In fact, Batman looks like a total prick for not letting those guys come fix all the problems in Gotham instead of leaving it up to a crazy rich guy with a bat fetish and no superpowers. Furthermore, for Batman to even compete in that universe, they need to wank him out to the point where it just gets silly. Repeat for everyone.
I would read a Batman comic that just had Batman in it. Just him and his Rogue's Gallery. Maybe Robin. No mega crossovers, no bullshit. Just 24 pages a month of Bruce Wayne punchin' dudes in the face. Then, over there is Superman, which is 24 pages of just Clark Kent punchin' dudes in the face. Into the sun. Then the Flash, which is 24 pages of punchin' dudes in the face really fast. Without special events and retarded crossovers, they can focus all their time on plot and character development, and keep the amount of weird under control for each comic. Batman stays all serious because Batman is a serious guy. Superman is like a never-ending fighting show with aliens and bizarro world and a social commentary on how some problems can't be punched into the sun. The Flash doesn't have to be said to travel 10,000 times the speed of light just to have him be useful in a universe where Superman exists, allowing the creation of credible villains. Etc.
Then, you have one comic, just one, dedicated to an unrelated multiverse which is basically dedicated to the sort of stupid bullshit comics are about these days. Dumb crossovers, strange verus matches, every defeated enemy was actually a cloned robot, all character development is continually reset, whateverthefuck. Maybe that comic comes out twice a month or is twice as long or whatever, but it's the dumping ground for all the wierd shit that happens in DC now as a result of their bullshit shared universe. It will never matter if the shit in their becomes impossible to follow, because it's intended to be that way. It's the comic the nerd buys, while the geek can just buy whateverman every month and get a story that is much better thought out for it's linearity.
What is complicated is exactly that you had to post a paragraph of text to explain things like the fact that Batman/Superman is in its own universe, but Detective Comics isn't, while other comics sort of are and sort of aren't. Don't you see that someone without your knowledge would need a fucking handbook just to figure out what comic is what before even reading anything? Imagine you know nothing about comics and you take a look at the shelves in a comic shop. It's a disaster. Harry Potter on the other hand, volume 1, volume 2...
Essentially, everything was an enormous spaghetti clusterfuck mess of storylines, continuities, retcons and retconned retcons, with one hero existing in one title, but not in another at all, while simultaneously temporarily existing in a third before being retconned to being dead.
A character would be dead in one book while alive in another because all the books were discrete? That's not what discrete means. Discrete is One Piece and Naruto, they are 100% separate. The right solution to the problem the superhero comics had was not to make a shared universe with the Crisis. The solution was not to use things from the other books together in the same book in the first place. If I had my way, Batman and Superman would never be in the same comic ever. No character from either comic would ever appear in the other. Batman would never go to Metropolis or Krypton because they wouldn't exist in his comic. The reason it was a clusterfuck in the olden days is because the books weren't actually discrete. Their solution of the crisis made it less of a clusterfuck for nerds, but no less of a clusterfuck for the common folk who had long since stopped reading, and still haven't returned.
Yes Scott. They know that. They have been in the business for a while, and they do actually have professionals of the industry on board with years of experience. Compared to your highly informed position of zero experience at either publishing comics or writing fiction professionally for comics. In other words, if you're figuring it out now, they probably knew it before your voice broke.
They absolutely do know it, but there are reasons they don't do it. First, the comics from Marvel and DC are miniscule parts of gigantic companies. They are basically completely ignored. They keep them around for R&D; and for the sake of prestige/history. They make so little percentage of the overall profits with the comics that they are ignored completely.
Meanwhile these tiny ignored departments of the big corporations are run by fanboys. All the people who are directly in charge of the comics now are people who grew up as comic fans and still are. Geoff Johns is the king fanboy, but the others are as well. It's as if the fan-fiction writers on Ponychan got to write the real TV episodes. These nerds don't want to change it because they are nerds too! The guys they grew up on like Jack Kirby weren't fanboys, they were men going to work to get a job done. That's why they succeeded, and it's why the current people running the industry are fail.
Not only are the current guys wanting to maintain the comics nerdiness, because they are nerds, but they also don't want to take any big risks. They are small and ignored and allowed to be nerdy. To executives they are one line on a spreadsheet. They don't want to do anything with any chance of changing the color of that line. Therefore, they keep selling as many comics as possible to the existing fanbase and make only token efforts to attract new readers that won't risk losing too many existing readers. That's why even their most popular comics sell merely in the tens of thousands, and tricks like variant covers still boost sales significantly.
They know that taking my kind of advice is a way to appeal to the masses, and they also know it might lose them much of the existing audience. They don't do it because they prioritize reducing risk. They will take their guaranteed tens of thousands of sales. I would much rather risk going down to thousands of sales if there's a chance we might be able to upgrade to millions of sales. The original Action Comics sold millions. Shonen Jump, which is in a huge slump, still sells millions. As a fanboy yourself, you are just more interested in maintaining your fanboy shit than you are in trying to push comic sales up to the millions.
Superhero comics have the same problem as the anime industry. Instead of making art that has a wide appeal, like say more Ghost in the Shell, they are making more perverted crap that only otaku want to watch. DC and Marvel keep sticking to underwear perverts.
I don't know how much you think I know about comics, but so far you haven't taught me anything. Your problem is you have no empathy for the non-reader. Can you imagine knowing absolutely nothing about comics how friendly and accessible this is And how cluttered, scary, and confusing this is .
There's an extra level of effort before reading of even knowing what the fuck to read. That effort doesn't exist for you. You'll just have to trust us that it is real.
I'm pretty much totally with Scott on this one. Marvel/DC comics are a huge clusterfuck. Some people revel in the clusterfuck. Most people aren't gonna want to have anything to do with it, even if they'd be interested in the characters or stories otherwise.
I'm going to have to agree here as well.
I have yet to read the Hush series yet, but Jeremy told me that in Hush Returns there is a break towards to the end of the trade there is a one page break where it's a wall of text. It goes over what is happening in the plot explaining that the Black Mask is taking over gangs, The Joker disappears, the Oracle dies, Batman defeats Black Mask, and Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) inadvertently starts the War Games scenario which leads to her death.
Jeremy then realizes that the synopsis is basically explaining the trade War Crime and the War Game series. Then Hush Returns continues with their story.
So pretty much if you want to read Hush Returns, you have to stop reading it to that point, read the War Crime/War Games trades then go back to Hush Returns.
What is complicated is exactly that you had to post a paragraph of text to explain things like the fact that Batman/Superman is in its own universe, but Detective Comics isn't, while other comics sort of are and sort of aren't.
Half of that Text was what you'd written, that I was correcting, for a goddamn start. I already have to take credit for when I say stupid things, if I had to take credit for when you say stupid things too, I'd not have time for anything else.
Don't you see that someone without your knowledge would need a fucking handbook just to figure out what comic is what before even reading anything? Imagine you know nothing about comics and you take a look at the shelves in a comic shop. It's a disaster. Harry Potter on the other hand, volume 1, volume 2...
Okay, I'm imagining...I'm a bit confused...So I ask someone who knows, like, I don't know, the Guy behind the counter at the comic shop I'm in, because I'm not THAT much of a fool, and if I don't know anything about something and someone who can help me is RIGHT THERE, I'm going to ask them.
Asking someone else's advice on a topic you're not knowledgeable in is not a weakness, Scott, nor does it make you stupid. In fact, in that situation, it'd be stupid not to ask, since that guy is employed specifically to help you out and therefore facilitate you buying comics.
Look, dude, I realize I'm the middle ground between you and a regular person(Ain't that a frightening realization, but that's another discussion), and I'm therefore not quite normal either, but at least it's visible from where I'm sitting. If some average Joe is going into a comic shop to buy some comics, and they don't know shit, they'll either flip through books till they find something they like, and just go with it, or they'll ask someone, be it a friend, or the person working the store, since that's a goodly part of what he's there for.
Before we continue, I need to clear something up -
I don't know how much you think I know about comics, but so far you haven't taught me anything. Your problem is you have no empathy for the non-reader. Can you imagine knowing absolutely nothing about comics how friendly and accessible this is
No. Another Wildly incorrect prediction by Scott, the Telepathic man. I've plenty of empathy for the non-reader, and I'm usually pretty bloody good at helping people get into comics, by all reports - including taking the daunting looking things, and making them simple. I'm even pretty good at getting people who don't read novels or non-fiction books like we do into comics.
However, I don't have any empathy for you, in particular. The very act having a discussion with you half the time is honestly the most aggravating and frustrating thing I do in my life - and I say that as someone with a sister who is a clinical narcissist, who hates the shit out of me. While I have learned things from you, it's rare that's from a direct discussion, but mostly from the podcast, or such things. The only thing I've learned from discussing much with you directly - at least in text, we've only spoken once, and it wasn't that bad, to be honest, but a single test does not a very good result make - is how to get really good practice on fine-grained impulse control.
Hm. How do I put this simply.
You don't fucking listen, at all. You take no other thought or advice on board, and ignore anything but your conclusion. You refuse to change your goddamn mind about anything, as long as you can still come up with what you consider a clever argument to defend your position.
You're right, I have failed to teach you anything at all - which is my failure, in this case - because I've gotten frustrated with you, though admittedly, you don't exactly behave like you're trying to learn, either.
Sooooo...Tell me what you want to learn. I'll be damned for being a liar if I said I don't get close to wanting to throttle you sometimes, but that's irrelevant to the fact that if there is something you want to learn, I'm willing to try teaching you. If you want to Learn, I'm willing to teach, so tell me what you want to learn, and I'll make an honest and serious effort to teach you what I can. I'll be all over it like white on rice, I'll even try to be nicer than usual about it.
Tell me - What do you want to know? Let me teach you and teach I shall.
Same Goes for any of the rest of you, if you really want to know something about comics, and you're not just going to piss about and ask questions for the pure purpose of trying to trap me in a corner. I'm willing to invest my time in this for you, if you want to learn.
Allow me to provide an example -
I have yet to read the Hush series yet, but Jeremy told me that in Hush Returns there is a break towards to the end of the trade there is a one page break where it's a wall of text. It goes over what is happening in the plot explaining that the Black Mask is taking over gangs, The Joker disappears, the Oracle dies, Batman defeats Black Mask, and Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) inadvertently starts the War Games scenario which leads to her death.
Jeremy then realizes that the synopsis is basically explaining the trade War Crime and the War Game series. Then Hush Returns continues with their story.
So pretty much if you want to read Hush Returns, you have to stop reading it to that point, read the War Crime/War Games trades then go back to Hush Returns.
If that's not complicated, I don't know what is.
Alright then. Batman: Hush was, from memory, printed around 2000-2003, and was a 12 issue arc. Done and Done. Hush Returns is not from the same series - Hush Returns is from the "Gotham Knights" title, which is a book that focuses on the exploits of the Bat-family instead of heroes that work outside of Gotham Or Bludhaven(Nightwing/Dick grayson's stomping ground, and is from 2006, a full three years of real world time since the original Hush comic, and at least 36 issues plus specials in that title since the prior events. It does get a bit Hectic in Hush Returns, because it's the final arc of that title collected into a trade. I'll warn you, Hush returns ends on a cliffhanger, but that's wrapped up in Heart Of Hush.
I don't know where you Got Oracle dying from - She doesn't die, or even fake her own death, until this year in Birds Of Prey. Spoiler did die, and at the time of that comic, she's dead, during the same events that put Black mask in control of the gangs. I don't recall joker's disappearance, in all honesty.
And that's the sketch outline of why there's a wall of text filling you in on the key details - naturally, if you want to know specifics, just ask - but basically, we're talking about a three year jump of history. It'd be like if you'd hopped from Christopher Eccleston to Matt Smith mid season, you'd be like "Who the fuck are these dudes with the glowing balls and the funny heads, and how do they talk with no mouths? What happened to the Daleks? Who the fuck is this Harkness guy? What the fuck is a weeping angel? Who is this red-headed chick?"
I would like to go on the record saying that I would nail Harley Quinn so hard.
It's kind of a testament to how thoroughly, and how gracefully threads go off-topic in this forum, that when I saw this post, my initial thought was something along the lines of "What's this bullshit in the Argue About the Causes of the Problems in the Comics Industry thread?"
Asking someone else's advice on a topic you're not knowledgeable in is not a weakness, Scott, nor does it make you stupid. In fact, in that situation, it'd be stupid not to ask, since that guy is employed specifically to help you out and therefore facilitate you buying comics.
I'll ignore the problem of bad comic shops with horrible staff and owners entirely. The fact that you HAVE to ask to figure out superhero comics is already too great a barrier to entry. I don't know what you think of the common person, but you seem to be assuming that this person wants to read comics and is going to put some modicum of effort into it, and enjoy putting effort into it. All the people with that attitude already read the comics. The billions of people on earth who don't read don't have that attitude. They watch TV and other things because the barrier to entry is ZERO. If you want to get comic sales to those people, the barrier to entry has to be lowered to zero or less than zero. Remember, reading is already a huge barrier to entry since most people never read another single book after finishing school. Going into a comic shop is already a second huge barrier to entry. If you've crossed those two, it's already a miracle. The fact that there are more barriers than that is a travesty.
Look at all the other entertainment media in the world that are actually popular and actually sell to the masses. None of them require the consumer to know anything or ask anyone anything at all. The New X-Men movie just came out and earned $156,080,046 so far. That's tens of millions of people who paid for a superhero story. Yet, the comic sells merely tens of thousands. If that many people like the X-Men enough to pay for a movie ticket, why do less than 1% of those people read the comic? There are many reasons, but the fact that the movie has zero barrier to entry and zero prerequisite knowledge required.
Also, notice that nobody here disagrees with me but you. On a forum full of nerds most of us are saying that superhero comics are confusing and convoluted and not worth the effort of figuring them out. Yet, you think that the mass populace is going to do it? How come they haven't already?
I agree with Churba. Looking up the events of comic books is really easy and doesn't bother me at all. I don't actively read comics because it costs a lot of money, but if I could get them for free, I would gladly and easily catch up on some characters I like via Wikipedia and start reading those stories. I actively seek that kind of information, so I'm relatively caught up on basic stories to begin with.
It's extremely convoluted, but learning about the comics you need to understand to get into a superhero isn't as hard as you would think.
So you actually agree with us. It's extremely convoluted.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to follow or not worth getting into. Everything I've read on Wikipedia is extremely interesting.
Your main point is that a person can't just start at issue 1, and that it criss-crosses, making it too hard to get into. But looking up that information online is neither hard, costly, or boring, if you really care about the characters. In fact, if you are bored reading backstory, then the comic itself would bore you, and it's a good thing you don't read comics. The fact is, this isn't a weakness, it's a style. Lots of people love all the backstory, and they love reading about the history and getting invested in these characters. American superheroes aren't meant to be the kinds of graphic novels you tout as superior, they are meant to be pieces of history that you can follow into the new world. They have their own style, and if you don't appreciate that, no amount of reboots is going to fix that. Ultimate Marvel is a good example, it was praised as being really accessible for a year or so, then became inaccessible as the story continued. The nature of any long-running characters in a shared universe is going to be this way, and if you don't enjoy this, then superheroes aren't meant for you. To make it so superhero comics weren't long-running characters in a shared universe would be to make them not superhero comics, and there's no reason to do that. Just because you dislike that conceptually doesn't make it a problem.
And the fact that there are A LOT of comic book nerds, including a lot of comic book nerds who haven't been reading comics since 1970-80, kind of proves that it's not completely inaccessible. I took a graphics novels course at RIT, and even though the teacher was a comics veteran, we were all still able to have good conversations about the characters based on what we did know. You're honestly blowing it all out of proportion.
I agree with Churba. Looking up the events of comic books is really easy and doesn't bother me at all.
No offense, but you, like most of us on this forum, are a giant nerd. You're into computer programming. Of course comic books aren't too convoluted and nerdy for you. You probably even like those aspects of them. For the average person who doesn't aspire to being a video game designer, they're way too convoluted to even care.
But looking up that information online is neither hard, costly, or boring, if you really care about the characters.
There's the caveat: "If you really care about the characters". None of this is too difficult if you already want to get into it. If comics are to actually become a decent business again, they need to attract people who don'tknow they want to read comics, and for that to happen, they need to be made much more accessible.
Ultimate Marvel is a good example, it was praised as being really accessible for a year or so, then became inaccessible as the story continued. The nature of any long-running characters in a shared universe is going to be this way, and if you don't enjoy this, then superheroes aren't meant for you.
You're pretty much refuting your own argument here, and agreeing with what Scott's been saying. You're just not extrapolating to the logical conclusion: Superheroes, as they're done in Marvel/DC comics (not the movies, not the cartoons -- the comics) are "not for" almost everyone.
I agree with Churba. Looking up the events of comic books is really easy and doesn't bother me at all.
No offense, but you, like most people on this forum, are a giant nerd. You're into computer programming. Of course comic books aren't too convoluted and nerdy for you. You probably even like those aspects of them. For the average person who doesn't aspire to being a video game designer, they're way too convoluted to even care.
I think the point is simply that comic books shouldn't appeal to the average person and shouldn't try to reach a wider audience. They should be happy telling the continuing stories of characters with long histories. Why try and change the formula to one that shuns your primary audience, just to reach a few fringe people who want to get into comics? Most people who want to get into comics do, and I don't know of too many people who care about superheroes but are turned off by this. While yes, Scott might be interested in Spider-Man or Batman but angry at the convolutions of the genre, what it would take to get him to actively read those comics would screw over all the other paying customers of DC and Marvel. They have no reason to change their methods, and it's illogical to argue that they should make changes so a few people who could be interested in superheroes start reading their comics, at the cost of people who like comics the way they are for a reason.
Comments
Only nerds either already know this stuff, or have the mentality to want to learn it. When a geek reads a random issue, and gets a hint of something else, they get curious and want to read more. The overwhelming majority of human beings just go WTF and give up.
It needs to be simple. Anything more complicated than 1, 2, 3, 4 is more complicated than most people can handle. If you want comics to be something that only nerds will ever read, then keep it the way it is. If you want comics to sell in the millions, instead of the thousands, the shared universe you love so much has got to die.
- Most of the titles you spoke of are separate, and don't interact. What happens in one either doesn't touch the other(Batman & Robin, depending on which you're speaking of, because you might be thinking of a different title, to propably foolishly give you the benefit of the doubt, Superman/Batman, Detective Comics is usually discreet, standalone arcs) Or is tangential at best(JLA, which mostly focuses on the team, but other outside issues will sometimes leech in, but are always referenced at least the first fifty damned times or so).
- Storylines rarely cross between books in the way you describe, except during Big events, in which case, there's usually a central title which you can read for the actual story, with one or two other titles telling different POVs, Facets and supplimentals on the same story.
- You cited a bunch of comics that sit in their own universe, and Sandman. I told you so, and added which books Sandman did the closest thing that happens to what you're talking about. Which apparently didn't matter to Sandman, since you thought otherwise.
- Finally, in response to Hitman, I said that the green lantern books are not quite as dense as the wiki makes it out to be.
What the fuck is complicated there, Scott? The entire point of those corrections is to tell you that you don't have to know any of that shit. How the fuck does, for example, Superman getting really stoned in a universe that's outside the canon of the DCU have anything to do with any other book in the DCU? The entire point of that fucking title is to do whacky shit that doesn't have anything to do with the DCU! It's like saying "Oh, To be able to understand why cabs in New York are Yellow, you have to read the rules of 42 Man Squamish." or maybe "To code in Python, you have to read the collected works of Shakespere and have a working knowlege of japanese tea ceremonies." The entire point of the red text was that they're entirely unrelated things that don't have anything to do with one another, for fuck's sake. So, what are you asking here, Every comic comes with an explanation of exactly where it fits into everything, all the time, before it gets underway? That you need a big rubber stamp that says "THIS COMIC DOESN'T HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH THE REST OF THEM", despite the fact that the main characters get killed roughly once every other issue, and it's treated as a joke, and they're back by the next issue, if they're not back by the end of the same issue? Did you Need one of those for Dark Knight Returns? Scott, that doesn't happen, because unlike yourself, the people writing these books are generally actually somewhat competent at writing fiction, particularly in a comic book format. You jump into an issue of, say, Deadpool, which can get REALLY cameo happy, and it's even in a universe that hasn't rebooted or reshuffled like DC has, and within a few pages, you've got the Gist. I was ignoring the Secret Invasion storyline, and I grabbed a few Deadpool issues from Secret invasion. Guess what? I knew exactly what was going on with the whole deal within a few pages. I handed them over to Fred - who admittedly, is not a huge western comics guy, and knows even less than you do - and he pretty much had it within a few pages, though I won't testify to how well he remembers it, since he only read them the once on an idle afternoon. Or, they just ignore the Ed Box, and keep reading, since it's not essential to the plot of that book, unless it's in a previous issue, and I'll give people credit, when the book says "THREE of FIVE of THE TIMEY WIMEY BALL STORYLINE!" I'd figure they can Count to five, and know that there are two issues before the one they are reading which might tell them more. Yes Scott. They know that. They have been in the business for a while, and they do actually have professionals of the industry on board with years of experience. Compared to your highly informed position of zero experience at either publishing comics or writing fiction professionally for comics. In other words, if you're figuring it out now, they probably knew it before your voice broke. Scott, when you actually have any clue whatsoever about which you speak - even the shadow of a sliver of one - then you can try to talk to me about "The way it is." Scott, let me teach you a real brief comics history lesson. Before the Shared universe idea, back when things were EXACTLY the way you're describing, each title had it's own continuity. You could read Batman from Start to end, and that's that, there is your batman. But, unless you read one title and only one title, you could have everything from dead characters in one title while the dead character's other concurrent title is running unimpeded, characters getting married to three or four different people simultaneously, three different people sharing the same identity at the same time fighting the same villains, Etc, etc. Essentially, everything was an enormous spaghetti clusterfuck mess of storylines, continuities, retcons and retconned retcons, with one hero existing in one title, but not in another at all, while simultaneously temporarily existing in a third before being retconned to being dead. This was an ENORMOUS obstacle to new readers. So they said "Fuck it. Everyone, starting at crisis on Infinite earths, It's one universe, everyone exists in the same universe, and it has ONE history, and ONE canon, and anything else is a "What if" or an "Elseworlds".
And you know what, funnily enough, that actually worked. Sort of - they fucked up the future history some, but it was the first time they'd tried anything like this, merging dozens and dozens of universes into a single one, but I'll give them some credit, they fixed it later on.
So, Basically, Yeah, They know about your idea of Discreet universes. They already did that, long before you were born, saw it become an enormous problem to anyone trying to get into comics without an enormous, extensive knowledge of comics, and changed their entire model to fix it before you'd completely learned how to not piss yourself at random times, let alone read.
The "It does make it harder" idea is true - That's why they went with the single continuity idea, because that is honestly a God-fucking-awful mess. It still occurs, here and there, but the vast majority of the time, it either doesn't, or is clearly signposted, either with a cheesy intro, or with something that is very clearly not the Batman anyone knows - I'm not talking like "He doesn't have his utility belt and uses guns", I mean stuff like "Wearing Superman's suit, and paroling metropolis, while superman is brooding about in the batsuit around gotham" or "They swap bodies in a comedic fashion" and the like. Plotlines that even make my sister - who is still stuck in high-school in her mind, decries comics as stupid, and is literally the very picture of your average stupid consumer knows that my S/B issues are not really proper Superman Or Batman.
Hell, even I don't bother looking shit up 3/4 of the time when I'm reading the comics - especially if it's just a sidebar note, or something like that - It's honestly just not essential, and if I really want to know something, I'll quickly find it online, grok it, and move on.
Heh, I just noticed - Scott is getting the iron fist, everyone else, velvet glove, gentle touch. This amuses me.
I would read a Batman comic that just had Batman in it. Just him and his Rogue's Gallery. Maybe Robin. No mega crossovers, no bullshit. Just 24 pages a month of Bruce Wayne punchin' dudes in the face. Then, over there is Superman, which is 24 pages of just Clark Kent punchin' dudes in the face. Into the sun. Then the Flash, which is 24 pages of punchin' dudes in the face really fast. Without special events and retarded crossovers, they can focus all their time on plot and character development, and keep the amount of weird under control for each comic. Batman stays all serious because Batman is a serious guy. Superman is like a never-ending fighting show with aliens and bizarro world and a social commentary on how some problems can't be punched into the sun. The Flash doesn't have to be said to travel 10,000 times the speed of light just to have him be useful in a universe where Superman exists, allowing the creation of credible villains. Etc.
Then, you have one comic, just one, dedicated to an unrelated multiverse which is basically dedicated to the sort of stupid bullshit comics are about these days. Dumb crossovers, strange verus matches, every defeated enemy was actually a cloned robot, all character development is continually reset, whateverthefuck. Maybe that comic comes out twice a month or is twice as long or whatever, but it's the dumping ground for all the wierd shit that happens in DC now as a result of their bullshit shared universe. It will never matter if the shit in their becomes impossible to follow, because it's intended to be that way. It's the comic the nerd buys, while the geek can just buy whateverman every month and get a story that is much better thought out for it's linearity.
Meanwhile these tiny ignored departments of the big corporations are run by fanboys. All the people who are directly in charge of the comics now are people who grew up as comic fans and still are. Geoff Johns is the king fanboy, but the others are as well. It's as if the fan-fiction writers on Ponychan got to write the real TV episodes. These nerds don't want to change it because they are nerds too! The guys they grew up on like Jack Kirby weren't fanboys, they were men going to work to get a job done. That's why they succeeded, and it's why the current people running the industry are fail.
Not only are the current guys wanting to maintain the comics nerdiness, because they are nerds, but they also don't want to take any big risks. They are small and ignored and allowed to be nerdy. To executives they are one line on a spreadsheet. They don't want to do anything with any chance of changing the color of that line. Therefore, they keep selling as many comics as possible to the existing fanbase and make only token efforts to attract new readers that won't risk losing too many existing readers. That's why even their most popular comics sell merely in the tens of thousands, and tricks like variant covers still boost sales significantly.
They know that taking my kind of advice is a way to appeal to the masses, and they also know it might lose them much of the existing audience. They don't do it because they prioritize reducing risk. They will take their guaranteed tens of thousands of sales. I would much rather risk going down to thousands of sales if there's a chance we might be able to upgrade to millions of sales. The original Action Comics sold millions. Shonen Jump, which is in a huge slump, still sells millions. As a fanboy yourself, you are just more interested in maintaining your fanboy shit than you are in trying to push comic sales up to the millions.
Superhero comics have the same problem as the anime industry. Instead of making art that has a wide appeal, like say more Ghost in the Shell, they are making more perverted crap that only otaku want to watch. DC and Marvel keep sticking to underwear perverts.
I don't know how much you think I know about comics, but so far you haven't taught me anything. Your problem is you have no empathy for the non-reader. Can you imagine knowing absolutely nothing about comics how friendly and accessible this is
And how cluttered, scary, and confusing this is
There's an extra level of effort before reading of even knowing what the fuck to read. That effort doesn't exist for you. You'll just have to trust us that it is real.
I have yet to read the Hush series yet, but Jeremy told me that in Hush Returns there is a break towards to the end of the trade there is a one page break where it's a wall of text. It goes over what is happening in the plot explaining that the Black Mask is taking over gangs, The Joker disappears, the Oracle dies, Batman defeats Black Mask, and Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) inadvertently starts the War Games scenario which leads to her death.
Jeremy then realizes that the synopsis is basically explaining the trade War Crime and the War Game series. Then Hush Returns continues with their story.
So pretty much if you want to read Hush Returns, you have to stop reading it to that point, read the War Crime/War Games trades then go back to Hush Returns.
If that's not complicated, I don't know what is.
Anime, what happened to you?
Asking someone else's advice on a topic you're not knowledgeable in is not a weakness, Scott, nor does it make you stupid. In fact, in that situation, it'd be stupid not to ask, since that guy is employed specifically to help you out and therefore facilitate you buying comics.
Look, dude, I realize I'm the middle ground between you and a regular person(Ain't that a frightening realization, but that's another discussion), and I'm therefore not quite normal either, but at least it's visible from where I'm sitting. If some average Joe is going into a comic shop to buy some comics, and they don't know shit, they'll either flip through books till they find something they like, and just go with it, or they'll ask someone, be it a friend, or the person working the store, since that's a goodly part of what he's there for.
Before we continue, I need to clear something up - No. Another Wildly incorrect prediction by Scott, the Telepathic man. I've plenty of empathy for the non-reader, and I'm usually pretty bloody good at helping people get into comics, by all reports - including taking the daunting looking things, and making them simple. I'm even pretty good at getting people who don't read novels or non-fiction books like we do into comics.
However, I don't have any empathy for you, in particular. The very act having a discussion with you half the time is honestly the most aggravating and frustrating thing I do in my life - and I say that as someone with a sister who is a clinical narcissist, who hates the shit out of me. While I have learned things from you, it's rare that's from a direct discussion, but mostly from the podcast, or such things. The only thing I've learned from discussing much with you directly - at least in text, we've only spoken once, and it wasn't that bad, to be honest, but a single test does not a very good result make - is how to get really good practice on fine-grained impulse control.
Hm. How do I put this simply.
You don't fucking listen, at all. You take no other thought or advice on board, and ignore anything but your conclusion. You refuse to change your goddamn mind about anything, as long as you can still come up with what you consider a clever argument to defend your position.
You're right, I have failed to teach you anything at all - which is my failure, in this case - because I've gotten frustrated with you, though admittedly, you don't exactly behave like you're trying to learn, either.
Sooooo...Tell me what you want to learn. I'll be damned for being a liar if I said I don't get close to wanting to throttle you sometimes, but that's irrelevant to the fact that if there is something you want to learn, I'm willing to try teaching you. If you want to Learn, I'm willing to teach, so tell me what you want to learn, and I'll make an honest and serious effort to teach you what I can. I'll be all over it like white on rice, I'll even try to be nicer than usual about it.
Tell me - What do you want to know? Let me teach you and teach I shall.
Same Goes for any of the rest of you, if you really want to know something about comics, and you're not just going to piss about and ask questions for the pure purpose of trying to trap me in a corner. I'm willing to invest my time in this for you, if you want to learn.
Allow me to provide an example - Alright then. Batman: Hush was, from memory, printed around 2000-2003, and was a 12 issue arc. Done and Done. Hush Returns is not from the same series - Hush Returns is from the "Gotham Knights" title, which is a book that focuses on the exploits of the Bat-family instead of heroes that work outside of Gotham Or Bludhaven(Nightwing/Dick grayson's stomping ground, and is from 2006, a full three years of real world time since the original Hush comic, and at least 36 issues plus specials in that title since the prior events. It does get a bit Hectic in Hush Returns, because it's the final arc of that title collected into a trade. I'll warn you, Hush returns ends on a cliffhanger, but that's wrapped up in Heart Of Hush.
I don't know where you Got Oracle dying from - She doesn't die, or even fake her own death, until this year in Birds Of Prey. Spoiler did die, and at the time of that comic, she's dead, during the same events that put Black mask in control of the gangs. I don't recall joker's disappearance, in all honesty.
And that's the sketch outline of why there's a wall of text filling you in on the key details - naturally, if you want to know specifics, just ask - but basically, we're talking about a three year jump of history. It'd be like if you'd hopped from Christopher Eccleston to Matt Smith mid season, you'd be like "Who the fuck are these dudes with the glowing balls and the funny heads, and how do they talk with no mouths? What happened to the Daleks? Who the fuck is this Harkness guy? What the fuck is a weeping angel? Who is this red-headed chick?"
Look at all the other entertainment media in the world that are actually popular and actually sell to the masses. None of them require the consumer to know anything or ask anyone anything at all. The New X-Men movie just came out and earned $156,080,046 so far. That's tens of millions of people who paid for a superhero story. Yet, the comic sells merely tens of thousands. If that many people like the X-Men enough to pay for a movie ticket, why do less than 1% of those people read the comic? There are many reasons, but the fact that the movie has zero barrier to entry and zero prerequisite knowledge required.
Also, notice that nobody here disagrees with me but you. On a forum full of nerds most of us are saying that superhero comics are confusing and convoluted and not worth the effort of figuring them out. Yet, you think that the mass populace is going to do it? How come they haven't already?
It's extremely convoluted, but learning about the comics you need to understand to get into a superhero isn't as hard as you would think.
Your main point is that a person can't just start at issue 1, and that it criss-crosses, making it too hard to get into. But looking up that information online is neither hard, costly, or boring, if you really care about the characters. In fact, if you are bored reading backstory, then the comic itself would bore you, and it's a good thing you don't read comics. The fact is, this isn't a weakness, it's a style. Lots of people love all the backstory, and they love reading about the history and getting invested in these characters. American superheroes aren't meant to be the kinds of graphic novels you tout as superior, they are meant to be pieces of history that you can follow into the new world. They have their own style, and if you don't appreciate that, no amount of reboots is going to fix that. Ultimate Marvel is a good example, it was praised as being really accessible for a year or so, then became inaccessible as the story continued. The nature of any long-running characters in a shared universe is going to be this way, and if you don't enjoy this, then superheroes aren't meant for you. To make it so superhero comics weren't long-running characters in a shared universe would be to make them not superhero comics, and there's no reason to do that. Just because you dislike that conceptually doesn't make it a problem.
And the fact that there are A LOT of comic book nerds, including a lot of comic book nerds who haven't been reading comics since 1970-80, kind of proves that it's not completely inaccessible. I took a graphics novels course at RIT, and even though the teacher was a comics veteran, we were all still able to have good conversations about the characters based on what we did know. You're honestly blowing it all out of proportion.