Comic Book Resources

I’d rather be catered to in the most complicated way possible calling upon every inch of my knowledge and a few things I have to research than have something that’s accessible to all. So long, of course, as whatever I’m reading keeps selling and doesn’t go away.

I must be a pretty selfish guy.

I’d rather be catered to in the most complicated way possible calling upon every inch of my knowledge and a few things I have to research than have something that’s accessible to all. So long, of course, as whatever I’m reading keeps selling and doesn’t go away.

Wow! Are YOU ever lucky — there’s an entire publishing company — TWO of them, the biggest in their field — courting you!!

I certainly understand that attitude, Matt, because some of the books I read - Moon Knight comes to mind - are virtually inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t have an intimate knowledge of the characters involved. But your general superhero comics ought to be at least somewhat easy to understand. A lot of them do that, actually, which is why it’s so galling to read the ones that don’t make the effort. Willingham doesn’t “cater” to the hard core fans, but neither does he spell everything out for us. There has to be balance, and it’s only when it goes too far toward the completely ridiculous do I object. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: doing “research” to read a 22-page comic book seems completely insane to me.

I’d argue that Shadowpact is pretty hard to get into, myself.

As for research, if I’m spending 3 bucks + on a comic, I’d rather it be kicking around my head for a little bit after than just be a quick five minute read. But then it’s a case where you likely shouldn’t have to, but you should want to do a bit of research after the fact.

But then I love this stuff or I wouldn’t be here on the net talking about it. So it’s not like it feels like work to me. It’s just another level in how I enjoy the medium.

And I enjoy it just as much if I’m trying to figure out a literary reference in LXG or a musical reference I don’t know in Phonogram. Y’know?

It’s one thing to do a little research to ferret out information about a properly structured, finite work, like Watchmen or Bone or Mage or what-have-you.

It’s quite another to have to do research to figure out who the hell the person in the silver leotard is in this month’s issue of Hot Superhero Team. That’s not research that adds to enjoyment; that’s research covering for sloppy writing.

Some people out there enjoy figuring out the tapestry of a shared universe. That’s not to say I don’t think recap pages aren’t a good thing, mind you.

But if the story is good enough, then you should want to go and figure out who the person in silver leotard is, even if they didn’t stop and use exposition to explain it all out to you.

That in itself isn’t the problem, in my mind. Everyone’s first superhero comic was likely in the middle of a story or a shared universe. And everything most likely wasn’t explained (though it might have been). But there was SOMETHING compelling in there that wanted you to pick up the next issue.

Not explaining things well enough for a new reader in the middle of a storyline (even the longer storyline of a shared universe), isn’t enough reason to damn a comic.

Now if the comic just isn’t compelling, even if you do know everyone and everything going on, that’s another story.

By “figure out”, note that I don’t mean “go learn everything about this character who struck me as neat with her three panels of action”. I mean, “who the hell is this person? What is their name? Crap, what’s that foreshadowing on page ten…?”

I don’t care if people like figuring out what the writer was probably thinking, or feeling speshul for having read Leotard Lass’s 1973 17-issue solo book. That’s bad writing. There is no way in which it is not bad writing to have a character in a story, serving no clear function, with no clear sense of identity established (even if the character isn’t referred to by name).

If you can’t damn a comic for being poorly written, then we’ve reached the point where we, as a fandom, are admitting that we don’t actually care whether our comics are good or not. I mean, sales bear out that this is clearly the case; it’s quite another thing to just come out and say it.

Isn’t one of the key aspects of writing to know your audience? If you’re writing the story on the idea that it’s just a chapter of a much larger story that’s been formulating for decades, and that the audience that you’re writing to is going to be aware of a number of things, because they’ve read other chapters of this massive story(being the shared universe in totality), then the story can still successfully meet those intentions.

To me, whether you think those intentions are valid is another question, and probably a very good one.

Matt - you’ll notice the nature of the column is to see how easily new readers can get into the book. I certainly don’t want that for every comic I read, and I might read a comic that I personally like but don’t think is particularly suited for new readers. I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, and for books that are more tailored to a certain audience, I would say that it’s fine to write to your audience and not worry about if new readers “get it” completely. However, with a lot of superhero books, it seems like the pendulum has swung completely the other way and now it’s mandatory to have years and years of back knowledge about the subjects. It’s just silly to have to know everything about, say, the Legion of Super-Heroes to read a Justice League comic. It’s not even the Legion’s book! For Marvel and DC’s core superhero titles, I think the writers need to make a tiny effort, instead of relying on our own personal knowledge. Those are the books that conceivably could reach the biggest audience, after all.

I see where you’re coming from, but I just don’t think that inaccessibility is enough to label a comic bad.

There were plenty of other problems with the Lightning Saga.

It’s easier today than EVER to learn about backstories if you want to.

There are also fewer new people, especially kids, reading comics to begin with, and those people who DO pick up a comic will almost certainly pick up a TPB instead. Explaining things in issue 1 of a series or part 1 of a longer story is a lot more important, but I think that would also more naturally stem from the nature of the story, and it usually does.

I just don’t think that inaccessibility is enough to label a comic bad.

And that’s the real issue here. You’re far too forgiving, as most superhero comic readers are, and seem happy to take comics that are mediocre. Chances are, you won’t find much agreement here, but the blog isn’t called Comics Should Be Good Enough, is it?

Neither do I, Matt. With recent DC books, inaccessibility is a minor thing. Flash and JLA were awful for many other reasons other than I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. To take an example from this week, Daredevil is relatively “inaccessible,” but Brubaker gives us enough to keep us interested. When it’s a crappy comic and is inaccessible on top of that, it gets annoying. In the case of JLA (but not in the case of Shadowpact), the writing is horrible enough that I don’t care to figure what the hell is going on, and it exacerbates the situation. With Shadowpact (or Daredevil, or others I can name), the writing is good enough that I can overlook the use of stuff that a hard core fan might know but a new person might not.

Well I agreed that there were plenty of other problems with JLA.

And if you’re agreeing with me that inaccessibility isn’t enough on its own for a comic to be bad, then I think we’re pretty good.

Apodaca, thanks for explaining that if someone doesn’t judge comics the same as you do, they obviously like mediocre comics. It is all so very clear to me now.