Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Nextwave has ruined me

The same comic that got me back into buying new comics has also spoiled me on new comics. I've tried following the new Midnighter and Iron Fist series, but it is just not working. It's not that those are bad comics. They both feature guys in ridiculous costumes beating up bad guys, one of my favorite comic genres. And they're skillfully written and drawn. Heck, a while back I did a little piece of fan art for those two books.

But this new decompression depresses me. This 'written for trade' style is an abomination unto the Lord and I will not tolerate it. If a writer can't advance the plot arc and simultaneously provide a good, complete, action-packed freak-out, then I say ditch the plot arc. Or better yet, bring in a writer than can deliver both a larger story and a fast-paced sinlge issue.

So here's the deal. I'm done with buying new monthlies until someone can approach the undiluted awesomeness of Nextwave. Otherwise I'll be sticking to trades, shitty old back issues, and graphic novels. I'm not paying three bucks for one sixth of a story where I have to wait six months for the big dramatic payoff. Not when that same three bucks will get me 6 issues of random Mantlo or Gerber or whatever from the fiddy cent bins.

Maybe I'll get some new indy stuff or the new Conan comics. Maybe not. I'll keep following the Invincible Super-Blog and Bully and other comics blogs, watching for the next thing that may light my jets. Until then, there's a wild world of back issues and reprints waiting to be read.

7 comments:

  1. The new Conan is pretty great. Dark and moody. Though I have to say i like the blue shirt/ Redbeard as sidekick era pretty well.

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  2. back issues near a buck are my bread and butta. Its how I roll. Good stuff too.

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  3. Anonymous11:23 PM

    An Image comic call Casanova is pretty good. It done by one of the Iron Fist writers, and if you’re a fan of stuff like Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius you will definitely enjoy it. Even if you’re not it worth taking a look at the first issue, which is available for free on the author website. The address is a bit long , so I made the link tiny. http://tinyurl.com/2pxrqo is the address.

    With respect
    Nicholas

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Well played, Nicholas.

    The file linked is CBR, the comic flavored RAR.
    You can d/l CDisplay (http://www.geocities.com/davidayton/CDisplay), rename to RAR and use WinRAR, or go to http://tinyurl.com/2fnjtg,
    and read it HTML'd at newsarama

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  6. Anonymous1:29 PM

    A couple of times over the past several years I've thought "hey, maybe I should try getting back into comics. I can't afford them anymore now than when I was a kid, but on the other hand I don't buy new RPG supplements anymore now that I can schmooze 'em from the publishers."

    With only a few precious exceptions, each re-foray into comics ran into the same snake-oil sale of what I (as a child of the 80s) considered 1.5 pages of comic-book story fluffed out, glossed and scraped thin over 16 pages. Crap, crap, crap.

    So for me, it wasn't even that they were spreading the story across multiple issues. There was the even more immediate problem that the story they were spreading across multiple issues would have barely filled a _single_ issue if they weren't deliberately padding.

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  7. Anonymous11:37 AM

    Two words:

    Poison Elves

    Drew Hayes creates an amazing combination of action, humor, and arcing story plot that takes my breath away every time I read it. Better still, ALL of the back issues have been / are collected in trade paperbacks.

    Plus, how can you not like any comic whose letters section is called, "Death Threats"?

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