Comics Today

Before I get started let me say I'm 57 years old and have been a fan since I was five and a collector since I was 18. I've had JLA #1 plus the Brave and Bold appearances off the newsstand along with Green Lantern 1 and the Showcases, Flash 1, Spider-man 1 - most of these have been traded long ago (Still have JLA 1).

Back in the sixty's I remember reading Stan Lee saying "The worse thing that could happen to comics is for the fans to have control". or something along that line.  Comics used to be two or three stories a month with DC and one or two with Marvel.  WHOLE STORIES... and they were good.  The nice part was you could go into a comic store and pick up any comics and read it without having to look for the back issues and buying the next six or seven to find out how the story came out.

Many of the writers in the fifty's and sixty's were SF writers making a little extra money.  They knew what a short story was and how to write one. In the fifty's they were ten cents In the sixty's they went up to 12 cents then 15 cents.  A 25 center was a giant comic with 8 or 9 stories in them.

Today you pick up a comic, unless its a number 1 and you have no idea whats going on.  The stories must run for three, six, twelve or more issues and sometimes even crossing over between other titles.  And at prices of almost $3.00 it gets a little expensive to read  an adventure.  Let see we had two or three stories for 12 cents today a single story cost between $15 - $25.  If you had one or two complete stories per issue it wouldn't be too bad.  I can buy a new Hardback book for less than $25.

I will agree some of the stories needed the extra space - like Sandman and we have all of them, but in their graphic novel form - so we could read them as a single story. (Yes we had some of the original comics, but people wanted to buy them at such high prices...)

Many of the stories could be cut down - so many pages of nothing.  The current arc in Action comics - many of the books could have been done in a panel or two and lost nothing.  The really nice single book stories that pop up between the main story were great - proved the writers still could write a story in one issue.  But the rest is just drawing out the story - why?  To get more money from the reader?  To see how many people will stop buying the books?  Or is it because Comics are now run by fans who made it big - was Stan Lee right?  It seems to be more is better, but I would rather have my one story per issue, with sometimes two short stories- gad it would be great!!!

Today I have a sub to Action and will pick up an issue or two of something that looks interesting.  Or a graphic novel now and then. And reading my back issues.