On Comic Books (part 2 of several)
Okay, so last time I gave a little primer, now I'm gonna get into some of my background with the medium.
This is one of the first comic books I actually remember buying. I had read and bought comics before this one, but something about it got me hooked. We were on our annual 2 week vacation at Walloon Lake and my parents gave me $20 for vacation allowance. I spent most of it on a year's subscription to X-Men.
This particular issue was the very middle of a multi-part story, so I had no clue what was going on (and now I can't even remember what it was about, to be honest), but I think the fact that it hinted at a much much larger story intrigued me. I had to know not only what was going to happen next, but I also wanted to find out what had happened before.
Besides my subscription to X-Men, my other comics reading was pretty haphazard. I bought whatever the little pharmacy in downtown Romeo had that looked interesting. A sports card store opened in Romeo sometime around then, allowing me to not only choose from a larger selection of new comics, but also to search for back issues of comics I liked.
Wizard magazine debuted around this time (those of you who've seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back have been introduced to Wizard) and provided me with tons of insight into the comic book industry. Wizard clued me into which titles were popular, it made me familiar with the people were whose names were on the inside covers as writers and artists (I only cared about the artists back then), and it gave me a pipeline into what was coming next for my favorite titles.
I also got into collecting "comic cards" - basically baseball cards, but for all the different super-heroes out there (at this time, comic books and super-hero stories were synonymous). I think I still have a bunch of them in a closet somewhere.
Anyway, between my scattershot buying habits, and the information I gleaned from Wizard and my comic cards, I amassed a pretty thorough knowledge of the the expansive tapestry of characters and stories told in Marvel and DC Comics.
I'm gonna pause the memoir here, but I want to elaborate on the "expansive tapestry of characters and stories" that I just mentioned.
One of the things that I found appealing about comics was the fact that (in the Marvel world) Spider-man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Hulk, and on and on, all existed in the same world. I was fascinated by the idea that it was all somehow connected, that every issue tied in to all the others just a little bit. This is something that I think is unique to comic books. Sure, there are television shows that have spin-off shows, and there are some novels that spawn entire universes of stories. But only in comics is a shared storytelling universe such a common thing. However, while continuity ( meaning the cohesiveness and consistency between the individual elements of that shared universe) is one of the more original aspects of the comic book medium, its also somewhat problematic.
Let's take the X-Men as an example. The first X-Men comic was published in something like 1963, and for all intents and purposes it has been published monthly ever since. That means that there is over four decades of X-Men stories out there and most of the characters have been significantly developed over those years. For longtime readers, the experience is similar to that of soap opera fans: you connect with the characters and the stories over time and being to feel a sense of ownership over that connection. For some new readers (like myself at the time) this deep air of history appears like a mystery needing to be solved, and we get sucked into a connection with the material. However, to other new readers, the expansive and ever increasing backstory is impenetrable and they are turned off.
One of the debates raging among comic fans and industry professionals is in regards to continuity. Many older fans and some creators are of the opinion that the rich history of these character's shouldn't be ignored and that modern stories must maintain consistency with the stories of the past. Opponents of this opinion believe that slavish adherance to continuity is what keeps comic books as a sub-culture medium. These people take the view that if a story is good then it ought to be told -- who cares if it contradicts an issue form thirty years ago?
I side with the latter group. While a shared universe and a rich history for these characters is appealing at times, I would prefer to just read really good stories that stand on their own.
Hokay, next time I'll finish up my history with comics and maybe get into some of my current favorites!
This is one of the first comic books I actually remember buying. I had read and bought comics before this one, but something about it got me hooked. We were on our annual 2 week vacation at Walloon Lake and my parents gave me $20 for vacation allowance. I spent most of it on a year's subscription to X-Men.
This particular issue was the very middle of a multi-part story, so I had no clue what was going on (and now I can't even remember what it was about, to be honest), but I think the fact that it hinted at a much much larger story intrigued me. I had to know not only what was going to happen next, but I also wanted to find out what had happened before.
Besides my subscription to X-Men, my other comics reading was pretty haphazard. I bought whatever the little pharmacy in downtown Romeo had that looked interesting. A sports card store opened in Romeo sometime around then, allowing me to not only choose from a larger selection of new comics, but also to search for back issues of comics I liked.
Wizard magazine debuted around this time (those of you who've seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back have been introduced to Wizard) and provided me with tons of insight into the comic book industry. Wizard clued me into which titles were popular, it made me familiar with the people were whose names were on the inside covers as writers and artists (I only cared about the artists back then), and it gave me a pipeline into what was coming next for my favorite titles.
I also got into collecting "comic cards" - basically baseball cards, but for all the different super-heroes out there (at this time, comic books and super-hero stories were synonymous). I think I still have a bunch of them in a closet somewhere.
Anyway, between my scattershot buying habits, and the information I gleaned from Wizard and my comic cards, I amassed a pretty thorough knowledge of the the expansive tapestry of characters and stories told in Marvel and DC Comics.
I'm gonna pause the memoir here, but I want to elaborate on the "expansive tapestry of characters and stories" that I just mentioned.
One of the things that I found appealing about comics was the fact that (in the Marvel world) Spider-man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Hulk, and on and on, all existed in the same world. I was fascinated by the idea that it was all somehow connected, that every issue tied in to all the others just a little bit. This is something that I think is unique to comic books. Sure, there are television shows that have spin-off shows, and there are some novels that spawn entire universes of stories. But only in comics is a shared storytelling universe such a common thing. However, while continuity ( meaning the cohesiveness and consistency between the individual elements of that shared universe) is one of the more original aspects of the comic book medium, its also somewhat problematic.
Let's take the X-Men as an example. The first X-Men comic was published in something like 1963, and for all intents and purposes it has been published monthly ever since. That means that there is over four decades of X-Men stories out there and most of the characters have been significantly developed over those years. For longtime readers, the experience is similar to that of soap opera fans: you connect with the characters and the stories over time and being to feel a sense of ownership over that connection. For some new readers (like myself at the time) this deep air of history appears like a mystery needing to be solved, and we get sucked into a connection with the material. However, to other new readers, the expansive and ever increasing backstory is impenetrable and they are turned off.
One of the debates raging among comic fans and industry professionals is in regards to continuity. Many older fans and some creators are of the opinion that the rich history of these character's shouldn't be ignored and that modern stories must maintain consistency with the stories of the past. Opponents of this opinion believe that slavish adherance to continuity is what keeps comic books as a sub-culture medium. These people take the view that if a story is good then it ought to be told -- who cares if it contradicts an issue form thirty years ago?
I side with the latter group. While a shared universe and a rich history for these characters is appealing at times, I would prefer to just read really good stories that stand on their own.
Hokay, next time I'll finish up my history with comics and maybe get into some of my current favorites!