Martinex1: Here we are again for another post in which we turn over the reins to you - the faithful reader Be the first to post a new topic and we will all join in with our opinions and commentary.
Cheers!
25 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Here’s something that has had me wondering for a while: Do you have physical attachment to comics? There are so many choices to read these stories with perfectly scanned art (legal and otherwise), no ads, and yet the demand for old books seems as high as ever (which I know firsthand as I’m slowly selling my collection). For me, it’s the stories. I sold my favorite arc ever, FF48-50, which I bought when I was 12. I thought I would have some degree of remorse, like I was severing some element of my childhood, yet it was nothing more than “hey, that was easy and profitable!”
So what you say? Does the smell, the light reflecting on the gloss, the tactile feel of turning the pages turn you on? I’m genuinely curious.
Hi YoYo... I bounce up and down on that subject... (Sorry!)
Love the question!
I still read the occasional comic and prefer the comic book format. I don't like digital.
I do read the archives and enjoy that enough, but do miss the ads, the feel of the book.
But when I started selling off part of my collection this past year, it was a bit of a relief to just start making space. But I was selling off stuff that I had no emotional attachment to. I suspect when all is said and done, I will have 1 -2 long boxes of US comics and around 25 DC Thomson Annuals from the UK.
Hey! I'm just saving those that for the (fingers crossed) eventual grand kids!
OH! The one thing you wrote about that is really a great observation is the "gloss." The new books are simply too white / shiny for me often enough. Especially the ones from Dynamite Publishing like The Shadow, Doc Savage, etc. I mean it's a nuisance at times b/c I have to tilt the book it seems, to read it!
Good topic from Yoyo, one I've been wrestling with lately myself. There are some comics I will never part with, because the story "means" something, I remember where I got it, who gave it to me (a few comics given by relatives who have since died, that I'll keep forever.
But as I've gotten older and space has gotten smaller, I feel less and less sentimental about most of my comics. I plan to sell some of the valuable issues and donate some of the comics that have zero sentimental or financial value to libraries. One thing that TPBs don't have is letters pages. But the PDFs Marvel officially released on DVD-ROM in the early 2000s have all the letters columns and the original ads, which make them feel like a time machine. I think Marvel gets this and has begun included letters pages in their omnibus collections.
That's a roundabout way of saying that I'm in general agreement with Yoyo about this.
I'll still pull open my FF138 or one of my first books.., it's a great way to be 10yrs old again, if only for 10min.
I like the few DVD-ROM's I did borrow, just to look at the art of the comics I didn't have, but I'm tried and true about floppies. One reason was the letters and bullpen pages, and just the 'whole experience' of a comic from cover to splash page to the final panel, y'know..?
Sort of like Stan Lee's famous comment on comics and breasts. :)
After selling off my comics a few years ago, I find that I don't miss them at all. I have around 350 tpbs/hardcovers, plus all the Marvel DVD-ROMs that JA mentioned. I did have a stressed out feeling right when I began to sell, as my complete run of The Avengers was listed first. But as returns started to come in, I got over my reservations pretty quickly.
But I'll stand by Yoyo's statement that there's no replacement for that musty newsprint smell. One of those things burned into memory. And I'll also echo those who have said that the only complete reading experience is from a comic, complete with ads, Bullpen Bulletins, letters, et al.
Like Charlie Horse 47, the glossy pages are an annoyance for me - to the point that they're the exception to my rule. I usually always prefer the books to digital, but i avoid books with glossy paper because they cannot be read everywhere easily. Having to tilt and fight glare is a deal-breaker for entertainment. So if i want to read something that is only on glossy paper, i tend to go for scans instead.
But on the old books, i always want the originals, not the no-ads compilations. The ads are very much a part of the experience for me on old comics. They encapsulate the time in which it was published and add a great deal of cultural texture. And sometimes they're just so frelling weird that they can be every bit as entertaining as the book itself.
Although I prefer to have the physical comic book, or tpb, or really any book in general in my hands to read, I very rarely get sentimentally attached to a specific, physical copy. So I usually have no problems occasionally selling off or donating (to libraries) stuff that I know I probably won't read again - although more true for 'normal' books than any comics I have.
I do like physical comic books (and books in general), but digital is nice too, mostly for cost and convenience. I can take dozens of comics (or books0 with me on a digital device, whereas I'd have trouble lugging around so many actual books. And it's a lot cheaper to get digital comics, especially older ones.
There are tons of sites that have just about every comic ever published available on line. Did I mention that they are available for free?
To be honest, since I haven't collected anything in almost 40 years, when I go back and re-read some of my fav stories, I sadly think to myself "Wow, that was a lot more awful than I recall!" entirely too often. Especially about many late Bronze-era books that I never originally had...just slapdash villain of the month crap. Outside of a few key books and runs, there was a real lazy malaise to much of Marvel's 70s output.
To me it is the stories and art that I like, and I have very little to no attachment to the individual comics themselves.
In fact I actually prefer TPB and hardcover collections because you can read entire story arcs without having to stop and get out another book.
I even like reading in digital format. I recently bought the digital version of the Marvel Masterworks edition of "Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man" for my Kindle. I was originally going to buy the physical hardcover book, but it was like $75.00, and the Kindle version was only $8.00!! (That's for 15 comics). So, I was like "what the heck?" and got the $8.00 digital copy. And I must say I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. In fact I blew through the entire book in 2 or 3 days.
Plus when you read comics digitally you don't need to have a light on and you don't you need your reading glasses (if you wear them) because you can enlarge each panel to the size of the Kindle screen. I also bought the first volume of "Batman and the TMNT" and that was a lot of fun to read as well. And Kindle books take up zero shelf space.
So, for anyone who hasn't tried reading a digital comic you should check it out. You might find that you actually like it.
First and foremost, put me in the "Affirmative" category for the physical book. On the flip side, the whole reason I scan my comics is so I can digitally share my comics with my fellow Bronze Agers. I scan the entire issue, not so much to be a completist, but it's the easiest way to scan. 36 scans and you have an entire issue.
That being said, I have no attachment to any of my Image comics. ANY OF MY IMAGE COMICS. In fact, when I'm scanning my Image comics and realize that I don't have a complete run of Marvel Triple Action or Marvel Double Feature or Super Villain Team Up or Power Man and Iron Fist... I would gladly trade any of my Image Comics four to one for Tomb Of Dracula. No really, anyone? Four to one!!!
Reading back, I think I may have misspoke. Image comics are GREAT!!! Filled with awesome art and classic storytelling. A joy for anyone to own or read!!!
Tomb Of Dracula? 4 to 1!!!
(And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Early morning Manhattan, Ocean winds blow on the land. The Movie-Palace is now undone, The all-night watchmen have had their fun. Sleeping cheaply on the midnight show, It's the same old ending-time to go. Get out! It seems they cannot leave their dream. There's something moving in the sidewalk steam, And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Nightime's flyers feel their pains. Drugstore takes down the chains. Metal motion comes in bursts, But the gas station can quench that thirst. Suspension cracked on unmade road The trucker's eyes read 'Overload' And out on the subway, Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid Exits into daylight, spraygun hid, And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
The lamb seems right out of place, Yet the Broadway street scene finds a focus in its face. Somehow it's lying there, Brings a stillness to the air. Though man-made light, at night is very bright, There's no whitewash victim, As the neons dim, to the coat of white. Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid, Wipes his gun-he's forgotten what he did, And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Suzanne tired her work all done, Thinks money-honey-be on-neon. Cabman's velvet glove sounds the horn And the sawdust king spits out his scorn. Wonder women draw your blind! Don't look at me! I'm not your kind. I'm Rael! Something inside me has just begun, Lord knows what I have done, And the lamb lies down on Broadway. On Broadway- They say the lights are always bright on Broadway. They say there's always magic in the air).
Like Doug, I started selling my collection back in 2012. But every time I sold something special (a key Neal Adams Batman or an early Kirby Tales of Suspense), I immediately regretted it. Since then I’ve re-purchased most of my essential Silver and Bronze Age comics and bought quite a few more to fill in gaps in my collection.
I strongly prefer actual comic books -- newsprint, Baxter paper from the ‘80s, or glossy in the modern age. If I can complete an extended run of something I really love without breaking the bank, that’s still my main way of consuming comics.
That said, there are exceptions. I’d love to get any Fantastic Four between, say, #40 and #50, but they are mostly out-of-reach price-wise. Same with The X-Men from the 1970s. So I do have a small number of Trade Paperbacks, including The Phoenix Saga, Watchmen, Death of Superman, and a few others. I hope to eventually get the classic debut of Galactus and Silver Surfer in reprint form some day.
For collected editions, I have a pretty large set of DC Archives, but these are exclusively Golden Age stuff from the 1940s. Most of these I got at discount prices, since the list price was about $50 a pop.
But there’s nothing better than cracking open a crumbling, musty old Fair-to-Good condition Golden Age comic (I’ve got about 50 or so, or roughly 1% of my collection).
Online, I’ve been reading some of the public domain comics from Fiction House, Quality, and others from the 1940s. You can find Phantom Lady, Blackhawk, The Ray, Black Condor, and a lot of jungle/sci-fi material that is sometimes pretty entertaining. I’ve especially liked Planet Comics; some of that late-1940s sci-fi art was pretty nice. The site I go to for that stuff is: http://comicbookplus.com.
Finally, I’ll add that since I set-out to sell my collection and then backed-off, I’m more involved with my collection than ever. For the past 3 or 4 years I’ve been actually reading my comic books that sat in boxes untouched for years or even decades. All eras are fair game -- I’ve been reading everything from early 1960s Marvel through the entire Englehart run of The Avengers, then switching to the 1990s Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, then back to some Kirby Fantastic Four and some Kubert Tarzan or some George Perez Wonder Woman.
So a little bit of (free) online reading, a little bit of TPBs and hardcovers, but mostly, just good old comics for me….
Count me among those who accept any format. Like Prowl, I have scanned some books and enjoy them digitally. Like others here, I've been selling off comics and picking up tpbs and Omnibi. But there is no experience like that of leafing through a vintage comic, ads and all.
Eventually I'll probably dispense most of those 'floppies'. However, there will always be a few choice originals in my library. Sometimes you want to read a story, and a ton is great for that. But every now and then, you just want to lose yourself in the experience; just leafing through the pages, admiring the art, chuckling at the Bullpen Bulletins, studying the House ads, feeling the paper in your fingers. For that, you need to keep at least a few...
Hmm old fogey that I am, I'll have to say that I prefer the physical tactile old school way - reading an actual comicbook rather than viewing it on CD ROM, or on a tablet, cellphone or other device. Nothing beats the original way of reading it, and of course I'm the kind of guy who likes reading the letters page, ads and all (never did order any sea monkeys though!).
I did start reading some comics online on the old BAB site and others like Groove's only because it was becoming too darn expensive to continually buy my favourite comics from my LCS. Still, I prefer the real comicbook over the digitized version.
OhI For us guys who don't like the shiny white paper I have been reading the Archive forbThe Guardian and Newsboy Legion and it feels and looks like it is on some type of paper I would associate with newspapers. This paper really is nice and makes the book feel old to an extent. And, no shiny problem!
Totally agreed with Yoyo about the '70s malaise.., which started about 1975/1976. A few good storylines (Thanos, the new Xmen, perhaps Miller's DD), but nothing I was I was particularly interested ('cept Thanos..).
My main comic interests were just plain dull (ASM, FF, CA&F, Avengers, the brief DC Titans revival...), hence my departure for other media interests.
These are all great arguments, price, convenience, nostalgia, space, etc ...
I fall into the physical camp by and large myself, but it's great to know that there is so much out there digitally if I ever want to get my virtual 'hands' on it.
I prefer the look and smell of the older books. Lichtenstein did a marvelous job of abstracting and aestheticizing comic images, but he did so by sanitizing them. Cleaning up the paper background and its grain, and correcting any 'off' printing of the colors. These are all part of the viewing experience and in many ways I'm sure influenced the artists and writers in the composition of the bubbles, letter and figures as a whole. It's sort of analogous to the experience of digital vs. vinyl in music.
Charlie brings up a good point about the look of contemporary books with the paper and gloss (which contributes also to the price). I appreciate the former, but despise the latter, but if there were a way to profitably chart a middle ground then I'm sure a brighter mind than mine would somehow have managed it by now. It's said that books are more "cinematic" now and there's more than some truth to that, I think.
When I was in grad school one of the promises I made to myself was that when I got my degree, I was going to read whatever the hell I wanted wherever I liked. So that guy who's waiting in the airport who whips out a stack of comics and people start giggling? Yeah, that's me. And would that they all could know the wonders I have in the doing!
Selenarch - if I may borrow a tune from the Blow Minkeys, "I'm digging your scene." LOL But I work at OHare so I'd you are flying through Chicago let me know. I'm sure I'll spot you with a stack od comics!
One thing i didn't mention before - while i greatly prefer the actual books to scans, i read the digitized versions a lot. The main reason is portability. I can carry complete runs of titles in my pocket, so i'm never without some reads. Of course, as per my previously indicated preferences, it's always cover-to-cover scans, not just story pages.
Selenarch - that trend to more "cinematic" comics is a big problem from my perception. It's a large part of why things like thought balloons have gone away - they've abandoned one of the unique strengths of the medium to better emulate a "more grown up" medium.
Charlie Horse, i don't know how he feels about it, but that'll get you added to my Love Parade. (And i think that was on the Living In Oblivion collection mentioned in the previous post)
Gents - Have any of you read the reproductions of Golden Age comics that are ubiquitous on ebay now? I like to read the old Blackhawks from Quality Comics from the 1940s. I think there was only one archive produced. O/wise one is left buying the originals or reprints from 100-page giants.
Now, my ebay search engine is choked with individual reprints for like $6.99 each. My guess is that they are being printed "just in time" from a digital source? But would anyone know if they are worth purchasing? (I can't convince any of the dealer to send me a freebie, lol.)
-3- You inspired me to search "Living in Oblivion" There seems to be at least 4 compilation CDs from the 80s. The one I first saw even had Ebon Ozn's AEIOU an sometimes Y on it! I mean Holy Cow! NOw that's what I call music! Fingers crossed someone posted it on Youtube b/c I don't have a CD player in any of the cars!
Charlie Horse 47 - If that's the song that caught your eye, you'll definitely want to go hunting for the series. And i'm liking your music more & more. That song is on my currently running playlist, sandwiched in between Trio's Da-Da-Da and The Vandal's Urban Struggle. ("I couldn't make it as a punker")
But you should know that there are at least 5 volumes in the collection.
*Ahem*. It's Ebn Ozn. And yes, there's actually several YouTube posts featuring "AEIOU sometimes Y" (with at least two of the old music video, plus the song's long version).
25 comments:
Here’s something that has had me wondering for a while:
Do you have physical attachment to comics?
There are so many choices to read these stories with perfectly scanned art (legal and otherwise), no ads, and yet the demand for old books seems as high as ever (which I know firsthand as I’m slowly selling my collection).
For me, it’s the stories. I sold my favorite arc ever, FF48-50, which I bought when I was 12. I thought I would have some degree of remorse, like I was severing some element of my childhood, yet it was nothing more than “hey, that was easy and profitable!”
So what you say? Does the smell, the light reflecting on the gloss, the tactile feel of turning the pages turn you on?
I’m genuinely curious.
Yoyo
Hi YoYo... I bounce up and down on that subject... (Sorry!)
Love the question!
I still read the occasional comic and prefer the comic book format. I don't like digital.
I do read the archives and enjoy that enough, but do miss the ads, the feel of the book.
But when I started selling off part of my collection this past year, it was a bit of a relief to just start making space. But I was selling off stuff that I had no emotional attachment to. I suspect when all is said and done, I will have 1 -2 long boxes of US comics and around 25 DC Thomson Annuals from the UK.
Hey! I'm just saving those that for the (fingers crossed) eventual grand kids!
OH! The one thing you wrote about that is really a great observation is the "gloss." The new books are simply too white / shiny for me often enough. Especially the ones from Dynamite Publishing like The Shadow, Doc Savage, etc. I mean it's a nuisance at times b/c I have to tilt the book it seems, to read it!
Good topic from Yoyo, one I've been wrestling with lately myself. There are some comics I will never part with, because the story "means" something, I remember where I got it, who gave it to me (a few comics given by relatives who have since died, that I'll keep forever.
But as I've gotten older and space has gotten smaller, I feel less and less sentimental about most of my comics. I plan to sell some of the valuable issues and donate some of the comics that have zero sentimental or financial value to libraries. One thing that TPBs don't have is letters pages. But the PDFs Marvel officially released on DVD-ROM in the early 2000s have all the letters columns and the original ads, which make them feel like a time machine. I think Marvel gets this and has begun included letters pages in their omnibus collections.
That's a roundabout way of saying that I'm in general agreement with Yoyo about this.
I'll still pull open my FF138 or one of my first books.., it's a great way to be 10yrs old again, if only for 10min.
I like the few DVD-ROM's I did borrow, just to look at the art of the comics I didn't have, but I'm tried and true about floppies. One reason was the letters and bullpen pages, and just the 'whole experience' of a comic from cover to splash page to the final panel, y'know..?
Sort of like Stan Lee's famous comment on comics and breasts. :)
After selling off my comics a few years ago, I find that I don't miss them at all. I have around 350 tpbs/hardcovers, plus all the Marvel DVD-ROMs that JA mentioned. I did have a stressed out feeling right when I began to sell, as my complete run of The Avengers was listed first. But as returns started to come in, I got over my reservations pretty quickly.
But I'll stand by Yoyo's statement that there's no replacement for that musty newsprint smell. One of those things burned into memory. And I'll also echo those who have said that the only complete reading experience is from a comic, complete with ads, Bullpen Bulletins, letters, et al.
Doug
Like Charlie Horse 47, the glossy pages are an annoyance for me - to the point that they're the exception to my rule. I usually always prefer the books to digital, but i avoid books with glossy paper because they cannot be read everywhere easily. Having to tilt and fight glare is a deal-breaker for entertainment. So if i want to read something that is only on glossy paper, i tend to go for scans instead.
But on the old books, i always want the originals, not the no-ads compilations. The ads are very much a part of the experience for me on old comics. They encapsulate the time in which it was published and add a great deal of cultural texture.
And sometimes they're just so frelling weird that they can be every bit as entertaining as the book itself.
Although I prefer to have the physical comic book, or tpb, or really any book in general in my hands to read, I very rarely get sentimentally attached to a specific, physical copy. So I usually have no problems occasionally selling off or donating (to libraries) stuff that I know I probably won't read again - although more true for 'normal' books than any comics I have.
I do like physical comic books (and books in general), but digital is nice too, mostly for cost and convenience. I can take dozens of comics (or books0 with me on a digital device, whereas I'd have trouble lugging around so many actual books. And it's a lot cheaper to get digital comics, especially older ones.
There are tons of sites that have just about every comic ever published available on line. Did I mention that they are available for free?
To be honest, since I haven't collected anything in almost 40 years, when I go back and re-read some of my fav stories, I sadly think to myself "Wow, that was a lot more awful than I recall!" entirely too often. Especially about many late Bronze-era books that I never originally had...just slapdash villain of the month crap. Outside of a few key books and runs, there was a real lazy malaise to much of Marvel's 70s output.
Yoyo
To me it is the stories and art that I like, and I have very little to no attachment to the individual comics themselves.
In fact I actually prefer TPB and hardcover collections because you can read entire story arcs without having to stop and get out another book.
I even like reading in digital format. I recently bought the digital version of the Marvel Masterworks edition of "Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man" for my Kindle. I was originally going to buy the physical hardcover book, but it was like $75.00, and the Kindle version was only $8.00!! (That's for 15 comics). So, I was like "what the heck?" and got the $8.00 digital copy. And I must say I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. In fact I blew through the entire book in 2 or 3 days.
Plus when you read comics digitally you don't need to have a light on and you don't you need your reading glasses (if you wear them) because you can enlarge each panel to the size of the Kindle screen. I also bought the first volume of "Batman and the TMNT" and that was a lot of fun to read as well. And Kindle books take up zero shelf space.
So, for anyone who hasn't tried reading a digital comic you should check it out. You might find that you actually like it.
First and foremost, put me in the "Affirmative" category for the physical book. On the flip side, the whole reason I scan my comics is so I can digitally share my comics with my fellow Bronze Agers. I scan the entire issue, not so much to be a completist, but it's the easiest way to scan. 36 scans and you have an entire issue.
That being said, I have no attachment to any of my Image comics. ANY OF MY IMAGE COMICS. In fact, when I'm scanning my Image comics and realize that I don't have a complete run of Marvel Triple Action or Marvel Double Feature or Super Villain Team Up or Power Man and Iron Fist... I would gladly trade any of my Image Comics four to one for Tomb Of Dracula. No really, anyone? Four to one!!!
Reading back, I think I may have misspoke. Image comics are GREAT!!! Filled with awesome art and classic storytelling. A joy for anyone to own or read!!!
Tomb Of Dracula? 4 to 1!!!
(And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Early morning Manhattan,
Ocean winds blow on the land.
The Movie-Palace is now undone,
The all-night watchmen have had their fun.
Sleeping cheaply on the midnight show,
It's the same old ending-time to go.
Get out!
It seems they cannot leave their dream.
There's something moving in the sidewalk steam,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Nightime's flyers feel their pains.
Drugstore takes down the chains.
Metal motion comes in bursts,
But the gas station can quench that thirst.
Suspension cracked on unmade road
The trucker's eyes read 'Overload'
And out on the subway,
Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid
Exits into daylight, spraygun hid,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
The lamb seems right out of place,
Yet the Broadway street scene finds a focus in its face.
Somehow it's lying there,
Brings a stillness to the air.
Though man-made light, at night is very bright,
There's no whitewash victim,
As the neons dim, to the coat of white.
Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid,
Wipes his gun-he's forgotten what he did,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Suzanne tired her work all done,
Thinks money-honey-be on-neon.
Cabman's velvet glove sounds the horn
And the sawdust king spits out his scorn.
Wonder women draw your blind!
Don't look at me! I'm not your kind.
I'm Rael!
Something inside me has just begun,
Lord knows what I have done,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
On Broadway-
They say the lights are always bright on Broadway.
They say there's always magic in the air).
From Terry in Virginia:
Good topic, Yoyo.
Like Doug, I started selling my collection back in 2012. But every time I sold something special (a key Neal Adams Batman or an early Kirby Tales of Suspense), I immediately regretted it. Since then I’ve re-purchased most of my essential Silver and Bronze Age comics and bought quite a few more to fill in gaps in my collection.
I strongly prefer actual comic books -- newsprint, Baxter paper from the ‘80s, or glossy in the modern age. If I can complete an extended run of something I really love without breaking the bank, that’s still my main way of consuming comics.
That said, there are exceptions. I’d love to get any Fantastic Four between, say, #40 and #50, but they are mostly out-of-reach price-wise. Same with The X-Men from the 1970s. So I do have a small number of Trade Paperbacks, including The Phoenix Saga, Watchmen, Death of Superman, and a few others. I hope to eventually get the classic debut of Galactus and Silver Surfer in reprint form some day.
For collected editions, I have a pretty large set of DC Archives, but these are exclusively Golden Age stuff from the 1940s. Most of these I got at discount prices, since the list price was about $50 a pop.
But there’s nothing better than cracking open a crumbling, musty old Fair-to-Good condition Golden Age comic (I’ve got about 50 or so, or roughly 1% of my collection).
Online, I’ve been reading some of the public domain comics from Fiction House, Quality, and others from the 1940s. You can find Phantom Lady, Blackhawk, The Ray, Black Condor, and a lot of jungle/sci-fi material that is sometimes pretty entertaining. I’ve especially liked Planet Comics; some of that late-1940s sci-fi art was pretty nice. The site I go to for that stuff is: http://comicbookplus.com.
Finally, I’ll add that since I set-out to sell my collection and then backed-off, I’m more involved with my collection than ever. For the past 3 or 4 years I’ve been actually reading my comic books that sat in boxes untouched for years or even decades. All eras are fair game -- I’ve been reading everything from early 1960s Marvel through the entire Englehart run of The Avengers, then switching to the 1990s Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, then back to some Kirby Fantastic Four and some Kubert Tarzan or some George Perez Wonder Woman.
So a little bit of (free) online reading, a little bit of TPBs and hardcovers, but mostly, just good old comics for me….
I like your outlook, Terry!
Count me among those who accept any format. Like Prowl, I have scanned some books and enjoy them digitally. Like others here, I've been selling off comics and picking up tpbs and Omnibi. But there is no experience like that of leafing through a vintage comic, ads and all.
Eventually I'll probably dispense most of those 'floppies'. However, there will always be a few choice originals in my library. Sometimes you want to read a story, and a ton is great for that. But every now and then, you just want to lose yourself in the experience; just leafing through the pages, admiring the art, chuckling at the Bullpen Bulletins, studying the House ads, feeling the paper in your fingers. For that, you need to keep at least a few...
Hmm old fogey that I am, I'll have to say that I prefer the physical tactile old school way - reading an actual comicbook rather than viewing it on CD ROM, or on a tablet, cellphone or other device. Nothing beats the original way of reading it, and of course I'm the kind of guy who likes reading the letters page, ads and all (never did order any sea monkeys though!).
I did start reading some comics online on the old BAB site and others like Groove's only because it was becoming too darn expensive to continually buy my favourite comics from my LCS.
Still, I prefer the real comicbook over the digitized version.
- Mike 'what's bitcoin?' from Trinidad & Tobago.
OhI For us guys who don't like the shiny white paper I have been reading the Archive forbThe Guardian and Newsboy Legion and it feels and looks like it is on some type of paper I would associate with newspapers. This paper really is nice and makes the book feel old to an extent. And, no shiny problem!
Totally agreed with Yoyo about the '70s malaise.., which started about 1975/1976. A few good storylines (Thanos, the new Xmen, perhaps Miller's DD), but nothing I was I was particularly interested ('cept Thanos..).
My main comic interests were just plain dull (ASM, FF, CA&F, Avengers, the brief DC Titans revival...), hence my departure for other media interests.
These are all great arguments, price, convenience, nostalgia, space, etc ...
I fall into the physical camp by and large myself, but it's great to know that there is so much out there digitally if I ever want to get my virtual 'hands' on it.
I prefer the look and smell of the older books. Lichtenstein did a marvelous job of abstracting and aestheticizing comic images, but he did so by sanitizing them. Cleaning up the paper background and its grain, and correcting any 'off' printing of the colors. These are all part of the viewing experience and in many ways I'm sure influenced the artists and writers in the composition of the bubbles, letter and figures as a whole. It's sort of analogous to the experience of digital vs. vinyl in music.
Charlie brings up a good point about the look of contemporary books with the paper and gloss (which contributes also to the price). I appreciate the former, but despise the latter, but if there were a way to profitably chart a middle ground then I'm sure a brighter mind than mine would somehow have managed it by now. It's said that books are more "cinematic" now and there's more than some truth to that, I think.
When I was in grad school one of the promises I made to myself was that when I got my degree, I was going to read whatever the hell I wanted wherever I liked. So that guy who's waiting in the airport who whips out a stack of comics and people start giggling? Yeah, that's me. And would that they all could know the wonders I have in the doing!
Selenarch - if I may borrow a tune from the Blow Minkeys, "I'm digging your scene." LOL But I work at OHare so I'd you are flying through Chicago let me know. I'm sure I'll spot you with a stack od comics!
One thing i didn't mention before - while i greatly prefer the actual books to scans, i read the digitized versions a lot. The main reason is portability. I can carry complete runs of titles in my pocket, so i'm never without some reads. Of course, as per my previously indicated preferences, it's always cover-to-cover scans, not just story pages.
Selenarch - that trend to more "cinematic" comics is a big problem from my perception. It's a large part of why things like thought balloons have gone away - they've abandoned one of the unique strengths of the medium to better emulate a "more grown up" medium.
Charlie Horse, i don't know how he feels about it, but that'll get you added to my Love Parade. (And i think that was on the Living In Oblivion collection mentioned in the previous post)
Gents - Have any of you read the reproductions of Golden Age comics that are ubiquitous on ebay now? I like to read the old Blackhawks from Quality Comics from the 1940s. I think there was only one archive produced. O/wise one is left buying the originals or reprints from 100-page giants.
Now, my ebay search engine is choked with individual reprints for like $6.99 each. My guess is that they are being printed "just in time" from a digital source? But would anyone know if they are worth purchasing? (I can't convince any of the dealer to send me a freebie, lol.)
-3- You inspired me to search "Living in Oblivion" There seems to be at least 4 compilation CDs from the 80s. The one I first saw even had Ebon Ozn's AEIOU an sometimes Y on it! I mean Holy Cow! NOw that's what I call music! Fingers crossed someone posted it on Youtube b/c I don't have a CD player in any of the cars!
Charlie Horse 47 - If that's the song that caught your eye, you'll definitely want to go hunting for the series. And i'm liking your music more & more. That song is on my currently running playlist, sandwiched in between Trio's Da-Da-Da and The Vandal's Urban Struggle. ("I couldn't make it as a punker")
But you should know that there are at least 5 volumes in the collection.
*Ahem*. It's Ebn Ozn. And yes, there's actually several YouTube posts featuring "AEIOU sometimes Y" (with at least two of the old music video, plus the song's long version).
My apologies Edo! Spell check had no suggetions for Ebn, LOL!
My apologies Edo! Spell check had no suggetions for Ebn, LOL!
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