Comic book reading is like being addicted to drugs.
You take the drug (your favorite comic), you enjoy the drug (reading your character's life and adventures), you take your drug again (keep reading), then you need more drugs (your favorite character has a special cross-over series with another title that is getting a TON of great pre-hype for its storyline), and that means investing more money that you committed to not spend in yet another title. All the while your dealer/pusher is laughing all the way to the bank, selling you variant covers, shitty storylines, and then "cross overs" so that, if you've made a decision to follow ONE and ONLY ONE character, you're still obligated to pick up other titles to follow your favorite character's adventures.
Addiction takes hold and you soon realize drugs are now controlling you.
There are a lot of drugs out there and not just the usual ones like cigarettes, e-cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, cocaine, weed, etc. There is also shopping. (Retail therapy? It's called that for a reason. To get you "high" on shopping and make the pain go away...before buyers remorse if you get that.
There are also anti-anxiety meds, anti-depression meds, and yes the most notorious drug of all...sugar.
I've come to the conclusion that the comic book industry is just as bad as cigarettes, except it's not your lungs and arteries taking a beating, it's your wallet.
They hook you on, say, Iron Man.
Life is good. You're only spending about $5 or less on this exciting title and it's really good! It's like a great series. Breaking Bad or Mad Men with Tony Stark.
And before you know it, Iron Man is crossing over into a ton of Marvel titles for several issues for a big mega-cool slugfest storyline. It's a big, badass battle royale crossing over into Fantastic Four, X-Men, Amazing Spiderman, Blade, Namor, Avengers, Captain America, and the whole gang! "Holy shit, I don't want to miss that! That sounds awesome!"
Ok, yeah, it's a few extra bucks for several weeks, but that sounds good. Once that storyline is over, I can go back to my one Iron Man comic.
Yeah, sure.
You fork over the extra money, expecting it to be akin to "Enter the Dragon" with Bruce Lee in all his nunchaku, ass-kicking glory.
I mean, shit...Iron Man has such great writing right now, this cross-over special has to be great. Hey, wait, my Iron Man title is usually $3, but this cross-over has some special glossy cover that's like $7. Oh, it's the only cover, ok, I'll buy it, I want to read the story.
You buy the series, and by the time it's over, you realize you've been had. $50 later, instead of "Enter the Dragon" you got "Bruce Lee Comes Back From the Grave with imitator Bruce Le as the lead. Instead of the real deal, you got Bruceploitation.
No big deal, you move on, that cross-over sucked. Hey, waitaminute, the cross-over sucked, but I really did like that ONE plot-point with the Fantastic Four crew, and they said something about exploring Delta quadrant because an alien named V'Ger was heading towards earth and they were going to explore it. I better have a look at that.
You pick up FF issues and enjoy the writing too, and now you're reading Iron Man and FF.
And it wont' be long until another gimmick, variant cover, or some industry scheme tries to fool you into spending the extra dough.
Now you might say, "That's your fault for not controlling yourself."
True. They're not forcing me literally to buy extra comics. But if you're engrossed in Star Trek TNG and there's a DS9 crossover, you just have to make sure you watch the other show.
It's not so much that they're leading me to buy other comics, it's that what they're leading me to isn't very good. If you're going to lead readers to buy into the cross-overs, fine. Is it too much to ask that the writing quality is good?
At least the Marvel Cinematic Universe is CONSISTENTLY awesome. I would venture to say that if comics were that consistently great, the industry would be in better shape.
These days, I *stay away* from ALL comics. And if there's a storyline I want to read, great. I'll pick up the TPB, thank you very much.
I got into comics heavily in the mid 90s when the industry were like drug pushers with all their cross-overs, variant covers, and poly-bagged titles. I kept trusting that the titles would get better, but after a few months, I got burned out once I felt like I was taken advantage of and QUIT.
I got into comics again in the early 00's, when the Ultimate universe came into play. Again, lots of good stories, and then the cross-overs and new titles began and the glut came rolling its ugly head AGAIN. And pretty soon, quality writing gave way to title saturation and bad writing.
I QUIT...again.
And haven't been suckered back since.
I love comics, I love superheroes, and I love reading good stories. But I've had enough.
Trade paperbacks ONLY for me.
Oh, and by the way, just to be fair: I was using Marvel comics only as an example. All the comics companies are guilty. In fact, in the mid 90s, my favorite characters were Superman, Batman and Spiderman. So I was reading more DC than Marvel at the time.
