I have been collecting comics for a good part of my life. When I was a kid I collected all new comics which unfortunately aren't worth much. I now collect classic silver and bronze age comics. I have added 2 nice comics recently. Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 and Daredevil #7 Vol 1. Both key comics and in excellent condition. Anyone here collect?
I loved getting on my hands and knees, and really stuffing my nose into it. Comics began to lose value to me the day I saw Essential Wolverine #1. 25 issues for 30 dollars (I'm foreign, shut up.) compared to 40 to ninety $ per issue.
I love comic books, and I have an ok number of individual issues, but I did basically get "ruined" by tradepaperbacks, and things like the Marvel Essentials and DC Showcase Presents books. I still buy a lot of comics, but its all collected stuff. I haven't bought an individual issue for a few years, although I'd be open to it if I saw some for cheap, stuff that was never collected, or something i really wanted.
I still enjoy them to just read but I also like to collect key comics as long as they are affordable. The books I mention have great cover art. I pull them out just to look at the covers. I do collect many lower priced silver and bronze just to read. I don't buy many current books because they just don't seem to be as fun as comics once were and there are to many reboot events that it gets discouraging. I like some of the independents though.
I'm not interested in "key issues" or completing a run or any of that stuff. It's about the story, the characters and a certain amount of nostalgia. I don't care if the story is in a trade collection or digital download. It doesn't have to be the original.
I've loved comics since I was two years old. When cover price increased to 2.99 for new monthly books, they started losing me. When it went above that, I was out. Honestly, I don't know how the average joe can afford to keep up with them these days; even with subscriber discounts, I was burning 300 or more a month when they were all 2.99 cover price. I may as well have been leasing a car.
Public Libraries are excellent unless you live in the town from Footloose. Online ordering from libraries means that you can work through trades in order without cursing god about how #8 had to have been eaten by werewolves. Comics are for the stupidly rich or the stupidly stupid.
Which is why are rarely buy new ones anymore. They are way over priced. I buy from the dollar bin or try to find silver and bronze age comics at a good price. I buy 1 or 2 really nice key comics a year and that's about it. The companies no longer care if people buy as many since they are making huge amount of money off the movies. Once the people tire of superhero movies the comics will hopefully get more attention in story and price.
I pick up occasional TPB's on the cheap from Amazon. But there just isn't enough bang for the buck in single issues anymore.
Agreed. Back in the old days they had lots of panels, pages and dialogue. Now its few panels, few pages and much less dialogue. Its just not worth 3 to 4 dollars per issue now. The art and stories for many of the comic leave much to be desired. Thankfully great artists like Neal Adams still do some work but most artists today don't do realistic art that Adams brought in back in the 1970s. The art today is now a Japanese anime style that American artists try to emulate. It just not as good.
I'm probably a touch younger than you, but my favorites were Kevin McGuire and, later, Adam Hughes on Justice League International/America.
Did you give up before the 2004/5 reunion books Formerly known as the Justice League and I can't believe it's not the Justice League?
The two mini-series? Yeah, but I picked up a few issues second hand. Some good and not so good stuff in those.
Well I actually got into Neal Adams by looking at some of his work in a batman book that compiled some of the greatest stories when I was a kid. I unfortunately wasn't around when Neal's early stuff was being published. I actually met him at Comic Con this year and he signed my Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85. Pretty nice guy. I remember Justice League International I have a few issues. I also managed to get a early issue of silver age Justice League America for a few bucks at comic con. It just seems to me that a lot of the earlier art was cleaner and more realistic looking(60, 70, early 80s). There is still some goof stuff out there but so much of the art just isn't as clean as it once was and its way to busy and cluttered.
Good, don't want you to feel excluded or nothing. The summer event Convergence from a couple months ago tried to bring back the JLI and a lot of old feelings, but it felt flat.
Who worked on the book? I remember Giffen and DeMatteis were working on JL 3000, McGuire was suppose to work on it as well but dropped out at the last minute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_(comics) Ron Marz. Oddly it was (that hack?) Scott Lobdell who wrote a nice Convergence Blue Beetle miniseries where Blue Beetle (The Question and Captain Atom) defeated the Legion of Superheroes.
They later tried to turn it into a backdoor pilot to the unfunny 80s shit. Sales turned to shit and they have been relaunched. Hopefully they learn their lesson and realize no one gives a flying fuck about the Reagan era 80s Justice League.
I don't bother with single issues anymore, I only buy TPBs. I also don't really read many superhero comics these days. Most of the comics I buy are published by Image.