What comic/artist stands for the end of your teenage day comic reading times and which comic/artist brought you back?
To me the death of Gwen Stacy and the change to Ross Andru was the end of my teenage era. I loved Gil Kane’s Spiderman and Ross Andru was not so inspiring and so that was a good excuse to finally stop reading superhero comics. (In Germany that was about 1976 or so).
I came back to Marvel comics with Todd McFarlane's Spider Man. When I saw one of his covers, I realized Superhero comics have matured and I allowed myself to again read superhero comics after a more than 10 year hiatus.
*Please delete my first post. I am no native speaker*
Interesting question, I would say that the artist I most associate with my leaving comics was Al Milgrom and his Avengers work in the mid-eighties. I couldn't stand it. There were others certainly, but he leaps to mind first.
Jim Lee brought me back when a friend hipped me to his work on the X-Men. It was a style which had the detail of and some of the subtlety of John Byrne, which made me wish that he had been able to take over the book after that run instead of Cockrum.
Looking back on it, though, Lee's work seems over-detailed for the medium as it was then, and much better suited for the sharper, glossier pages of today.
I suspect that I simply stopped reading comics more/ less around the age of 13, around 1974, because I was maturing. Though, I must say that Gwen's death was a significant contributor.
I came back 15 years later because of the Death of Superman. The art and story were interesting enough. IMHO comics were overall greater in variety and production quality by the early 90s.
But my reading is very selective at this time for comics: Harley Quinn and catching up on the Bronze Age I missed e.g., some West Coach Avengers like death of the Vision around issue 40-45.
Hmmm, I guess the whole "Image" trend in the early 90s really killed comics for me, though I was in my early twenties by then, no longer a teenager.
As for what rekindled my interest, I'm not sure; I guess just wanting to catch up on some of the stuff I'd missed. I think the first thing I caught up on was Spidey, since he was always my favourite.
The last comics I read were Electra Assassin by Bill Sienkiewicz, and Blood: A Tale by Kent Williams in 1987. Both were painted in alternately realistic and expressionistic ways. I loved them both, and they suggested the next step in my life, which was going into Fine Arts at university. Dark Knight and Watchmen had come out earlier, and seemed to suggest a new style of comic writing beyond what had been done before. Sienkiewicz and Williams suggested a new style of comic art, fully painted in this skillful, fine art style.
All of these new styles suggested to me that it was time to leave regular comics behind. I returned to take a peek in 1991 to see Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri's art. X-Men #1 looked impressive as I browsed through it, but it's telling that I didn't actually buy it and read it. In 1997 I found the first 30 issues of Savage Dragon for sale cheap (right around the time comic stores were starting to close down) and I bought it on a whim. I loved it! Fun stories and characters, dynamic art, and irrepressible enthusiasm from the creator Eric Larsen. After reading through those, I was hooked again, and started reading comics both new and old.
Larsen was influenced big time by Jack Kirby, and Savage Dragon was my first step toward digging Jack Kirby's work. I hadn't liked his art the first time around, the late '70s- early '80s work, but now he's my #1 comic creator.
If I may post again, I found Image Comics mostly made a respectable contribution to our hobby and greatly enjoyed the McFarlane v. Peter David debates going on as chronicled in The Buyers Guide for Comic Fandom in the early 90s. Good times. And 30 years later Image is still publishing. Image was one of the reasons I got back in to comics.
Once I started regularly reading, and collecting comics at a very young age, I never stopped (until a few years ago).
What finally drove me to stop buying and reading new comics were writers such as J. Michael Straczynski (Amazing Spider-Man), Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers), and most especially Mark Millar (Civil War). Marvel made the decision to give these individuals (and others) free reign to do whatever they wanted, and they proceeded to "deconstruct" all of Marvel's classic characters and then take a dump on the remains. That was something that just didn't appeal to me at all. So, I decided to quit giving them my very hard earned money.
I did briefly come back to buying some new comics when Mark Waid started writing Daredevil, with great artists such as Pablo Rivera, and later Chris Samnee. Waid and company basically succeeded in bringing back some old-school fun to Daredevil (for a while anyway). However, once that run concluded, I jumped ship and went back to just reading older stuff in back issues and TPBs, etc.
As Pink Floyd said, "Is there anybody out there?" Lol.
If so, do you think Marvel should have just buried Gwen Stacy and never resurrected her as a clone, Learning she had an affair and children with Osborne, etc?
I think I may have accepted her death more if that had been the case instead of periodically being reminded.
Sorry I am late to the discussion, and CH 47 I think Gwen should have stayed dead, no clone, no alternative history.
I think her death reinforced the serious sense of responsibility and risk that Peter takes. After Uncle Ben’s death ignited that spark, Gwen’s death added to the pressure just when Peter was starting to relax. I am of the opinion that death of characters in comics should stay set unless there is a plot initially designed around that death and resurrection. Uncle Ben, Gwen, Bucky, Aunt May, Mar-Vell should stay dead even though I like them all. Bucky had an interesting return but I still think it diminishes some aspect of Cap’s personality to not have that grief and responsibility haunt him. Captain Marvel was a favorite character but I still think his death means more than continued fisticuffs. If anything he can inspire other heroes.
I’ve always thought Marvel should just script a book that occurs in the land of the dead. That I would be okay with.
Marti - now that is a great idea! Some kind of Marvel featuring our characters in the after life... and NOT as zombies.
I was actually disgusted (OK I know it is an over-used word) when Zombie Spidey took a bite out of Aunt May. And the zombie marvel heroes keeping the human Blank Panther alive and fileting him as necessary for a piece of real meat was grotesque. I didn't even buy these issues... just read them at the LCB store, lol, and still got grossed out!
Hey Marti, I'm later to this party than you are! Anyone still reading?
To answer the question, the artist/book that saw me out of comics? Hard to say, as I kind of gradually phased out book after book. The first to go was X-Men when John Romita Jr. took over, the last to go was Amazing Spider-Man after McFarlane left (although I still picked up a few issues here and there, under the artistic work of Mark Bagley). After ASM, it was some years before I started back. Returning was sort of the same staggered process, going from nothing, to a few occasional books, then later to regular purchases again. The closest thing to a triggering return combo may have been Simpsons Comics from Bongo, especially when written by Ian Boothby.
Oh, and regarding the Clone sagas: I actually enjoyed the initial clone story in ASM 141-151. But they should have left it at that. The 90's version was awful, and led me to drop the title again for a couple years (although issue 400, with the 'death of Aunt May', was really a fine story). The Gwen/Osborn affair arc was abysmally bad, and a gawdawful mistake best forgotten.
And I never answered the question ... and a good question it was... I got out around the same time as others who mentioned the Al Milgrom Avengers. I just wasn’t feeling it as much, and lost interest in the stories and plot lines of most books. Also I believe it was around that time that there was experimentation with the coloring which I disliked. It was garish in a way I was not used to.
But I didn’t stay away long. I was back by the time John Buscema started penciling the Avengers again. But I seem to remember jumping back in for some other books like Alpha Flight and Captain America but I may have some timing off.
I drifted away from Marvel around 1987, my favourite books weren't doing it for me (X-Men circa Inferno, Daredevil under Ann Noccenti, Bill Mantlo's Alpha Flight...). I was into mature DC books for a year or two after, but sort of drifted away outright, pursuing other interests.
When I went to university I bought a bunch of Marvels: Jim Lee X-Men, X-Force, Infinity Gauntlet, it seemed like a good time to get back into comics, and Wizard magazine roped me into the whole speculation game with Image, Valiant, etc. By Death of Superman I'd drifted out again.
Then JLA #1 and Avengers vol. 3 #1 gave me something to be excited about again. Later, new Marvel under Bill Jemas sparked my interest, as well as a lot of the "Crisis" minis from DC around that time.
But once again, I drifted away, and don't buy any new comics...just borrow series from the library on occasion. I don't see myself getting interested in new mainstream books again, as constant reboots make it impossible to be emotionally invested in the heroes. I know there's some quality storytelling in Marvel or DC, but it all reads like a "What If?" series, where nothing counts in the long run.
15 comments:
What comic/artist stands for the end of your teenage day comic reading times and which comic/artist brought you back?
To me the death of Gwen Stacy and the change to Ross Andru was the end of my teenage era. I loved Gil Kane’s Spiderman and Ross Andru was not so inspiring and so that was a good excuse to finally stop reading superhero comics. (In Germany that was about 1976 or so).
I came back to Marvel comics with Todd McFarlane's Spider Man. When I saw one of his covers, I realized Superhero comics have matured and I allowed myself to again read superhero comics after a more than 10 year hiatus.
*Please delete my first post. I am no native speaker*
Interesting question, I would say that the artist I most associate with my leaving comics was Al Milgrom and his Avengers work in the mid-eighties. I couldn't stand it. There were others certainly, but he leaps to mind first.
Jim Lee brought me back when a friend hipped me to his work on the X-Men. It was a style which had the detail of and some of the subtlety of John Byrne, which made me wish that he had been able to take over the book after that run instead of Cockrum.
Looking back on it, though, Lee's work seems over-detailed for the medium as it was then, and much better suited for the sharper, glossier pages of today.
Thanks!
I suspect that I simply stopped reading comics more/ less around the age of 13, around 1974, because I was maturing. Though, I must say that Gwen's death was a significant contributor.
I came back 15 years later because of the Death of Superman. The art and story were interesting enough. IMHO comics were overall greater in variety and production quality by the early 90s.
But my reading is very selective at this time for comics: Harley Quinn and catching up on the Bronze Age I missed e.g., some West Coach Avengers like death of the Vision around issue 40-45.
Hmmm, I guess the whole "Image" trend in the early 90s really killed comics for me, though I was in my early twenties by then, no longer a teenager.
As for what rekindled my interest, I'm not sure; I guess just wanting to catch up on some of the stuff I'd missed. I think the first thing I caught up on was Spidey, since he was always my favourite.
The last comics I read were Electra Assassin by Bill Sienkiewicz, and Blood: A Tale by Kent Williams in 1987. Both were painted in alternately realistic and expressionistic ways. I loved them both, and they suggested the next step in my life, which was going into Fine Arts at university. Dark Knight and Watchmen had come out earlier, and seemed to suggest a new style of comic writing beyond what had been done before. Sienkiewicz and Williams suggested a new style of comic art, fully painted in this skillful, fine art style.
All of these new styles suggested to me that it was time to leave regular comics behind. I returned to take a peek in 1991 to see Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri's art. X-Men #1 looked impressive as I browsed through it, but it's telling that I didn't actually buy it and read it. In 1997 I found the first 30 issues of Savage Dragon for sale cheap (right around the time comic stores were starting to close down) and I bought it on a whim. I loved it! Fun stories and characters, dynamic art, and irrepressible enthusiasm from the creator Eric Larsen. After reading through those, I was hooked again, and started reading comics both new and old.
Larsen was influenced big time by Jack Kirby, and Savage Dragon was my first step toward digging Jack Kirby's work. I hadn't liked his art the first time around, the late '70s- early '80s work, but now he's my #1 comic creator.
If I may post again, I found Image Comics mostly made a respectable contribution to our hobby and greatly enjoyed the McFarlane v. Peter David debates going on as chronicled in The Buyers Guide for Comic Fandom in the early 90s. Good times. And 30 years later Image is still publishing. Image was one of the reasons I got back in to comics.
Once I started regularly reading, and collecting comics at a very young age, I never stopped (until a few years ago).
What finally drove me to stop buying and reading new comics were writers such as J. Michael Straczynski (Amazing Spider-Man), Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers), and most especially Mark Millar (Civil War). Marvel made the decision to give these individuals (and others) free reign to do whatever they wanted, and they proceeded to "deconstruct" all of Marvel's classic characters and then take a dump on the remains. That was something that just didn't appeal to me at all. So, I decided to quit giving them my very hard earned money.
I did briefly come back to buying some new comics when Mark Waid started writing Daredevil, with great artists such as Pablo Rivera, and later Chris Samnee. Waid and company basically succeeded in bringing back some old-school fun to Daredevil (for a while anyway). However, once that run concluded, I jumped ship and went back to just reading older stuff in back issues and TPBs, etc.
As Pink Floyd said, "Is there anybody out there?" Lol.
If so, do you think Marvel should have just buried Gwen Stacy and never resurrected her as a clone, Learning she had an affair and children with Osborne, etc?
I think I may have accepted her death more if that had been the case instead of periodically being reminded.
"Learning she had an affair and children with Osborne". Really? The real Gwen Stacy or the clone? I hope the clone.
They killed her off too early for my taste. They left a lot of stories untold. But still, kudos for having her killed. What a bold move back then.
Sorry I am late to the discussion, and CH 47 I think Gwen should have stayed dead, no clone, no alternative history.
I think her death reinforced the serious sense of responsibility and risk that Peter takes. After Uncle Ben’s death ignited that spark, Gwen’s death added to the pressure just when Peter was starting to relax. I am of the opinion that death of characters in comics should stay set unless there is a plot initially designed around that death and resurrection. Uncle Ben, Gwen, Bucky, Aunt May, Mar-Vell should stay dead even though I like them all. Bucky had an interesting return but I still think it diminishes some aspect of Cap’s personality to not have that grief and responsibility haunt him. Captain Marvel was a favorite character but I still think his death means more than continued fisticuffs. If anything he can inspire other heroes.
I’ve always thought Marvel should just script a book that occurs in the land of the dead. That I would be okay with.
Marti - now that is a great idea! Some kind of Marvel featuring our characters in the after life... and NOT as zombies.
I was actually disgusted (OK I know it is an over-used word) when Zombie Spidey took a bite out of Aunt May. And the zombie marvel heroes keeping the human Blank Panther alive and fileting him as necessary for a piece of real meat was grotesque. I didn't even buy these issues... just read them at the LCB store, lol, and still got grossed out!
Hey Marti, I'm later to this party than you are! Anyone still reading?
To answer the question, the artist/book that saw me out of comics? Hard to say, as I kind of gradually phased out book after book. The first to go was X-Men when John Romita Jr. took over, the last to go was Amazing Spider-Man after McFarlane left (although I still picked up a few issues here and there, under the artistic work of Mark Bagley). After ASM, it was some years before I started back. Returning was sort of the same staggered process, going from nothing, to a few occasional books, then later to regular purchases again. The closest thing to a triggering return combo may have been Simpsons Comics from Bongo, especially when written by Ian Boothby.
Oh, and regarding the Clone sagas: I actually enjoyed the initial clone story in ASM 141-151. But they should have left it at that. The 90's version was awful, and led me to drop the title again for a couple years (although issue 400, with the 'death of Aunt May', was really a fine story). The Gwen/Osborn affair arc was abysmally bad, and a gawdawful mistake best forgotten.
And I never answered the question ... and a good question it was... I got out around the same time as others who mentioned the Al Milgrom Avengers. I just wasn’t feeling it as much, and lost interest in the stories and plot lines of most books. Also I believe it was around that time that there was experimentation with the coloring which I disliked. It was garish in a way I was not used to.
But I didn’t stay away long. I was back by the time John Buscema started penciling the Avengers again. But I seem to remember jumping back in for some other books like Alpha Flight and Captain America but I may have some timing off.
I drifted away from Marvel around 1987, my favourite books weren't doing it for me (X-Men circa Inferno, Daredevil under Ann Noccenti, Bill Mantlo's Alpha Flight...). I was into mature DC books for a year or two after, but sort of drifted away outright, pursuing other interests.
When I went to university I bought a bunch of Marvels: Jim Lee X-Men, X-Force, Infinity Gauntlet, it seemed like a good time to get back into comics, and Wizard magazine roped me into the whole speculation game with Image, Valiant, etc. By Death of Superman I'd drifted out again.
Then JLA #1 and Avengers vol. 3 #1 gave me something to be excited about again. Later, new Marvel under Bill Jemas sparked my interest, as well as a lot of the "Crisis" minis from DC around that time.
But once again, I drifted away, and don't buy any new comics...just borrow series from the library on occasion. I don't see myself getting interested in new mainstream books again, as constant reboots make it impossible to be emotionally invested in the heroes. I know there's some quality storytelling in Marvel or DC, but it all reads like a "What If?" series, where nothing counts in the long run.
-david p.
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