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State of the industry
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37 posts in this topic

Long, rambling post warning.  Also may be rehashing things you forum frequenters have seen a million times.  Fair warning, feel free to move on now.

TLDR: what are the best current titles, if there even are any?

Like most people here, I'm guessing, I was a collector back in the day.  For me, "back in the day" means from about 1980 to the early 90s.  (Guess that makes me an, uh, copper ager?) But I also liked a lot of the 60s-70s stuff, especially Kirby, which at the time wasn't that old.  I was a latchkey kid starting grade 2 and right around then I'd go to my LCS every day after school and rummage around.  Usually didn't even have any money but it didn't matter--I just liked the smell.  When I did have money I would grab the tattered 60s-70s Fantastic Fours and Silver Surfers.  I also followed some of the current titles at that time, mostly Daredevil, Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine...  Some limited runs were good too, like Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and Infinity Gauntlet.  Somewhere in the early 90s I fell out of love with the industry.  I think McFarlane's Spider-Man was the beginning of the end for me.  He was my favorite artist by far, and when the variant cover Spider-Man 1 popped up in, what, 1990-1991, I bought multiple copies of all of them, like most dummies.  Then he started doing Spawn and I didn't care for it.  And the "gimmick" stuff started to be more and more frequent.  The follow up(s) to Infinity Gauntlet were pretty awful, imo, and there started being trading cards and stuff in comics and the different covers, yadda, yadda, and by like 1993-94, I was just done with the industry as a whole.  I sold everything to buy my first car and moved on and I never looked back--until about a month ago.

Now in the last 25 years since I looked at comic books, "slabs" seem to have taken over, at least in trading.  So I started by getting my favorite single issues from the 1970s and 1980s purely for nostalgia as CGC 9.8s exclusively.  Mostly the titles I mentioned above.  And most of these were because I remembered them fondly and not because of the covers although some of them have pretty good covers too (Hulk 340 and Daredevil 182, I'm looking at you.).  Then I started getting some first appearances of my favorites that I had before and regrettably got rid of.  And then I discovered variants.  Now, I did remember this from the early 90s, but man, it is just a whole new level now.  Retailer variants.  Artist variants.  High ratios.  It's actually staggering.

So I went down a bit of a dark path with the high ratio variants.  Picked up a bunch of 1:500s simply based on the covers.  J. Scott Campbell seems to be the Todd McFarlane of this generation.  I'm sure wiser people than me can dispute that analogy, but that's just how it seems to me.  (Who is the new Liefeld, so I can steer clear?  Or maybe it's still actually Liefeld.) I  have a bunch now and I couldn't begin to tell you in any of them what the story is about or how the inside art is .  Well, that's partially because they are slabbed, but also because I just don't care enough to even buy a reader copy--unlike with all my old favorites, it just wasn't the reason for the purchase.  I consider this pretty troubling as a 1970s-1980s collector.  So I thought to myself, well let's actually start buying some to read again.  Recapture the magic.  So I grabbed a few raws and had a look. Turns out they are pretty bad.  Quite bad.  Bad art, bad dialog.  Just bad. 

Now here's where I'm going with all of this.  There's a guy on this forum who never misses a chance to poop on current titles.  I've only been here  a few weeks and I don't read that many posts and I've already seen him do it 3 times.  You probably know who I am talking about.  Anyway, at first I figured he was a negative nancy, but after cracking some of my variants, my Campbell-cover Black Cats and Spider-Man's and whatnot, I'm beginning to worry he's right.  Is it just that there were only a few good writers and they are done now?  Or have I just changed and my favorite "old" stuff is every bit as bad as the new stuff?  I guess what I really want to know is: are there any current titles that are any good?  It seems even Frank Miller couldn't keep it going as I picked up his two DK follow-ups to DKR, and they were both pretty bad.  Or is it just that my attention span sucks now thanks to the internet?

So: What are the best titles now, if any, for someone who grew up on stuff like Miller's Daredevil and Claremont's X-Men/Wolverine?  Have there been any limited runs in the last 25 years that come close to Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns?  Really not trying to start an argument--I actually want to be convinced that there is still worth in the industry. Thanks in advance.

 

Edited by Poekaymon
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18 hours ago, Poekaymon said:

I actually want to be convinced that there is still worth in the industry.

Avoid Marvel and DC and go for independents instead. I'm not saying that everything being produced by Marvel and DC is *spoon* but there is a lot of quality stuff being produced right now by other companies. Sure, you won't get Spidey, or Batman, etc but you'll get some really good reads.

If you're looking for comics like the ones you mention that you grew up with, you will be disappointed with most of what the big two are putting out these days.
If you want and like the types of stories and art that they are putting out in 2019, then you might find some stuff you will enjoy.

Edited by Jeffro.
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11 hours ago, shiverbones said:

House of x, powers of x would be a good start Into recent solid reads 

Yup. Pretty much anything by Hickman at Marvel; Infinity, Fantastic Four as well.

Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan)

Doomsday Clock (Watchmen 2)

Immortal Hulk

Thanos by Lemire and Cates

Saga

 

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@Poekaymon

welcome to the boards! It sounds like you like marvel and Millers DK? Im NO marvel fan to much SJW going on for me and MY favorite, Batman has had Tom King for 85 issues and Im glad hes gone now! 
 

Now if I might make a few Suggestions
 

Batman Black Mirror TPB by Scott Snyder- This is probably my favorite Batman story! Its hard hitting and it is awesome

Batman White Knight TPB by Sean Gordon Murphy- great new Joker story with great art!

Die!Die!Die! TPB-By Robert Kirkman and Chris Burnham- clandestine Government assassinations, blood, guts, gore, conspiracy, comedy All packed in the one book!

 

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13 minutes ago, Raze said:

MY favorite, Batman has had Tom King for 85 issues and Im glad hes gone now!

The further adventures of Kite-Man will be missed.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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13 hours ago, Poekaymon said:

Long, rambling post warning.  Also may be rehashing things you forum frequenters have seen a million times.  Fair warning, feel free to move on now.

TLDR: what are the best current titles, if there even are any?

Like most people here, I'm guessing, I was a collector back in the day.  For me, "back in the day" means from about 1980 to the early 90s.  (Guess that makes me an, uh, copper ager?) But I also liked a lot of the 60s-70s stuff, especially Kirby, which at the time wasn't that old.  I was a latchkey kid starting grade 2 and right around then I'd go to my LCS every day after school and rummage around.  Usually didn't even have any money but it didn't matter--I just liked the smell.  When I did have money I would grab the tattered 60s-70s Fantastic Fours and Silver Surfers.  I also followed some of the current titles at that time, mostly Daredevil, Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine...  Some limited runs were good too, like Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and Infinity Gauntlet.  Somewhere in the early 90s I fell out of love with the industry.  I think McFarlane's Spider-Man was the beginning of the end for me.  He was my favorite artist by far, and when the variant cover Spider-Man 1 popped up in, what, 1990-1991, I bought multiple copies of all of them, like most dummies.  Then he started doing Spawn and I didn't care for it.  And the "gimmick" stuff started to be more and more frequent.  The follow up(s) to Infinity Gauntlet were pretty awful, imo, and there started being trading cards and stuff in comics and the different covers, yadda, yadda, and by like 1993-94, I was just done with the industry as a whole.  I sold everything to buy my first car and moved on and I never looked back--until about a month ago.

Now in the last 25 years since I looked at comic books, "slabs" seem to have taken over, at least in trading.  So I started by getting my favorite single issues from the 1970s and 1980s purely for nostalgia as CGC 9.8s exclusively.  Mostly the titles I mentioned above.  And most of these were because I remembered them fondly and not because of the covers although some of them have pretty good covers too (Hulk 340 and Daredevil 182, I'm looking at you.).  Then I started getting some first appearances of my favorites that I had before and regrettably got rid of.  And then I discovered variants.  Now, I did remember this from the early 90s, but man, it is just a whole new level now.  Retailer variants.  Artist variants.  High ratios.  It's actually staggering.

So I went down a bit of a dark path with the high ratio variants.  Picked up a bunch of 1:500s simply based on the covers.  J. Scott Campbell seems to be the Todd McFarlane of this generation.  I'm sure wiser people than me can dispute that analogy, but that's just how it seems to me.  (Who is the new Liefeld, so I can steer clear?  Or maybe it's still actually Liefeld.) I  have a bunch now and I couldn't begin to tell you in any of them what the story is about or how the inside art is .  Well, that's partially because they are slabbed, but also because I just don't care enough to even buy a reader copy--unlike with all my old favorites, it just wasn't the reason for the purchase.  I consider this pretty troubling as a 1970s-1980s collector.  So I thought to myself, well let's actually start buying some to read again.  Recapture the magic.  So I grabbed a few raws and had a look. Turns out they are pretty bad.  Quite bad.  Bad art, bad dialog.  Just bad. 

Now here's where I'm going with all of this.  There's a guy on this forum who never misses a chance to poop on current titles.  I've only been here  a few weeks and I don't read that many posts and I've already seen him do it 3 times.  You probably know who I am talking about.  Anyway, at first I figured he was a negative nancy, but after cracking some of my variants, my Campbell-cover Black Cats and Spider-Man's and whatnot, I'm beginning to worry he's right.  Is it just that there were only a few good writers and they are done now?  Or have I just changed and my favorite "old" stuff is every bit as bad as the new stuff?  I guess what I really want to know is: are there any current titles that are any good?  It seems even Frank Miller couldn't keep it going as I picked up his two DK follow-ups to DKR, and they were both pretty bad.  Or is it just that my attention span sucks now thanks to the internet?

So: What are the best titles now, if any, for someone who grew up on stuff like Miller's Daredevil and Claremont's X-Men/Wolverine?  Have there been any limited runs in the last 25 years that come close to Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns?  Really not trying to start an argument--I actually want to be convinced that there is still worth in the industry. Thanks in advance.

 

 

B2A13743-1596-4E09-AF76-458425DC2D9F.jpeg

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6 hours ago, Jeffro. said:

Avoid Marvel and DC and go for independents instead. I'm not saying that everything being produced by Marvel and DC is *spoon* but there is a lot of quality stuff being produced right now by other companies. Sure, you won't get Spidey, or Batman, etc but you'll get some really good reads

Image publish many really good comics by top writers such as Morrison, Millar, Vaughan, Cates, Ellis, Hickman, Remender, Kirkman, Gillen, Fraction, Brubaker.

Definitely worth checking out.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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For the most part gave up on new Big Teo superhero stuff right around the time Knightfall and Doomsday came out. Since then I read the Marvel Noir comics, X-Men Grand Design, and Dark Knights: Metal and The Batman Who Laughs. I liked them all except Dark Knight: Metal which was a major chore to get through. I am still reading Golden Age DC and Copper Age Marvel in reprint 
 

like everyone else said, Image has great stuff. So does Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. Can’t remember the names of some of the other publishers that consistently release good stuff. ONI is one. My favorite super hero comic is Empowered

 

 

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I've been paying attention to what's on the shelves, but also what's advertised in the comics. I think DC is playing a much smarter game than Marvel. Generally, they're producing higher quality work, and they're marketing and publishing intelligently. Check out some DC titles, especially if you've been a Marvel Maniac. To me, it's been fun to get into the world of DC since it's so much more unfamiliar to me than Marvel's.

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I'm someone who isn't into new comics, but I've had the itch, so I've been trying a few things.  I really hesitate to get into Indy books, because people speculate on the #1, never buy another issue, and the title dies after a dozen issues.  I don't have room for a dozen issues of an unfinished story that's unrelated to anything else I collect.

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6 minutes ago, DavidTheDavid said:

I've been paying attention to what's on the shelves, but also what's advertised in the comics. I think DC is playing a much smarter game than Marvel. Generally, they're producing higher quality work, and they're marketing and publishing intelligently. Check out some DC titles, especially if you've been a Marvel Maniac. To me, it's been fun to get into the world of DC since it's so much more unfamiliar to me than Marvel's.

I'd love to know which ones, I stopped just before New 52, and haven't been back since.  I have a vendetta against Bendis for ruining Avengers, I won't touch anything he works on.  I didn't like Tom King Batman at all, I get the sense that he's very impressed with himself, and I'm not feeling it.  Current Flash is putrid.  Suicide Squad seems to always be about Harley Quinn, and I'm fed up of that character.  I was holding Death of Vic Sage, and wondering why I'd pay $6.99 US for their new prestige format, and same for the upcoming Birds of Prey.  I love Captain Marvel, Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham, but I still don't like the Shazam reboot.  There's no JSA book right now.  DC just isn't for me.

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