Not that one would admit to ever harbouring negative thoughts about comics. Well… maybe occasionally.
I don’t buy much in the way of new comics these days. Not because I think there’s anything inherently wrong with them, it’s just that I’ve come to realise that a lot of the mainstream output just doesn’t speak to me any more. And that’s fine. I get my kicks from trawling through the back issue bins at my regular comic shop haunt (30th Century Comics—tell ‘em I sent ya), and if I can’t find anything to pique my interest there, there’s always eBay or any number on online shops.
My goal of acquiring every DC comic published between 1968 and 1976 continues apace. All of the the short run titles are complete along with some of the longer-running titles. Action Comics, for example, is all present and correct. Pretty much every series published during that period has at least a few issues on my shelf. The romance genre continues to be the most difficult stuff to obtain, simply due to the fact that no one bothers to bring them over here. eBay has proven its worth many a time when I’ve had a hankering for an obscure issue of Secret Hearts or Falling in Love. I do have all the 100-page Super Spectaculars though. Price-wise, it looks like the Adams/O’Neil Green Lantern, Wrightson Swamp Thing and numerous Batman issues are the wallet-busters. My collection of DC tabloid comics is all-but complete, so I’m happy about that.
And, at any time I do perhaps feel a little melancholy for the good old days, I just fire up Comixology and get blown away by the sheer magic of the comics medium all over again!
Allan:
Boy, this post hits home. I’m not sure exactly when it happened for me: It might have been when new comics hit $3.99 and I realized there were many Bronze Age books still available at that price point. Or it might have been when new comics from the Big Two started to seem stuck in constant recycle (“this Event will change the DC/Marvel Universe FOREVER!!!”). There are still a few indie books I’m enjoying but the quest to fill in Bronze Age holes is taking up more of my comics budget than ever.
Cheers,
Andrew
I still love comics as a medium, and I’m sure I always will. Comics as a product are probably better now than they have ever been — flashy formats, glossy paper, atonishingly gifted draughtsmen — but the heart seems to have gone out of them. Increasingly comics are just seen as proving grounds for concepts to be exploited elsewhere — in movies or television shows.