There are so many great literary concepts on comics, (i.e. swamp thing: the plant that thought he was a man) that they should be more respected as literature.

I dont buy monthly comics anymore, but i collect graphic novels. My selections are usually leans toward the mature content and stories that don't pertain towards capes and tights. I think book stores should start carrying these types of comics.

They should stock up on things like 100 bullets, swampthing, hellblazer, lucifer...etc. They should be treated as books, not something that comes in monthly and then is later out of print.

comic stories should be preserved and people should be able to pick up a 20 year old comic story anywhere. like I became interested with an old book "the talented mr. ripley" and i found it for a good price. For comics however, the collector's market is ruining for people like me who don't collect, but enjoy reading comics. for me it's stupid to collect literature, especially monthly literature. literature should be enjoyed and read and passed on.

In japan they have library like places where you can read all the manga you want for an hourly fee.

I remember there was a time or still is a time when marvel and DC would over saturate the market place with crap comics just to push out the independent or small press companies... This is why i got turned off comics for a long time. it was like the same badly told stories and too many writers working on a single character which caused that character to have schizoid type stories and personality.

With crap comics everywhere, it's harder to find the good story comics or those with different subject matter.


in the end, it should be everyone's goal to keep the spirit of comics alive. comics should be accessible and easy to purchase through other stores. diamond media distribution should take it easy with small press or independent comics. down with saran wrapping great literature.

Have you ever heard the term 'preaching to the choir'?

I like this manifesto!

I definitely agree.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some superhero comics. But just the fact that you have to pay about 3 or 4 bucks now just for not even 30 pages, is just ridiculous.
And for their graphic novels? Marvel's, I mean. Seriously, it's not even worth it.

I'd rather see some different kind of stuff, maybe like reprints of Usagi Yojimbo collected books, or maybe even of the Turtles old stuff (which I see is actually coming out/is out, but I mean in book stores)

I think that graphic novels, in a way, are better. Because it's more like a book than a comic is. Most graphic novels are wrapped up in one book, some have multiple books, but it's not some ongoing thing, I think that almost every graphic novel has an ending of some sort.

That's kind of where comics differ from them.
So why don't book stores get the point that we need ittt.

I have a system...

I download the comic book as a torrent. If the series is any good, I will buy the books...if its a crapfest, well I saved myself 5 bucks a month, but I keep track with the series...

While I don't regret skipping things like One More Day or Countdown to Final Crisis, I would have punched myself if I didn't picked Blue Beetle or (back in the day) Infinte Crisis, Batman: Hush or Superman: For Tomorrow...

The thing (at least for me) is that comic books (including manga) are such an "upper-class pastime" in my country, that every day is harder to find even bad comics...

Graphic Novels are not neccesarily better, at least in the superhero genre (for every Superman: Secret Identity, there are several DK2), but the advantage is that the stories are not limited by the continuity.

I suppose we're moving towards this kind of thing already. Whereas comic shops are geared mainly towards stocking monthly pamphlet comics and often have a very poor selection of graphic novels (especially outside the superhero sector), the publishers themselves are finding that binding comics up into a book format will mean that they can get them onto the shelves of Borders.

New stories are often deliberately spread over four or five issues and then collected into a single graphic novel or TPB. Many of these stories are just as dreadful in a collected edition as they were when released as single issues but they do stay on the shelves longer, they do have an ending (of sorts) and you don't have to worry about missing an issue.

Even the golden age comics are being collected and reprinted in book form, so those of us who don't want to become collectors can now buy a copy of, for example, The Batman Chronicles and read the stories that kicked everything off way back in the 1930s. And at a non-collector price, too!

Personally, I still draw a distinction between a graphic novel (a book written to tell a single story with its own beginning, middle and end, and which has some form of recognisable character and plot development) and a TPB but the boundaries are blurring and the success of one is definitely helping the other.

I think this arguement is already well on its way to becoming a reality.

Most of the book stores and libraries in my area have a well-stocked graphic novel section. They include a wide range of material too besides the standard superhero and manga stuff.

And, well, it's easier this day than ever before to read an older comic book story for a reasonable price. DC and Marvel both put out compilations of older material at a modest price. (They even have 40 or 50 years of a book's history for sale on a CD-ROM) Both they and other companies keep the market flush with collections of material new and old. More people have read Neil Gaiman's Sandman in its graphic novel form than they ever did when it was a monthly series. It's common to find these graphic novels in stores today even though the series began over twenty years ago.

Granted, I'll be the first to admit that there are tons of great comics that lack the reprint love that Sandman has received. I'd like to see this trend continue with them.

And yes, there is a secondary market for old comics. There is, however, a secondary market for first editions of old books too. I don't think that degrades either medium's artistic integrity.

i went to barnes and noble to check out the graphic section. had some good ones there, but i doubt they will have the more mature content that i wanted just cause families go into that store. would have been good to have hellblazer, preacher, or lucifer there.

i am proud of those non superhero GN that were made into movies such as history of violence or road to perdition. although not a lot of people know that the first inception of it was a comic book.

creativity and good stories should be a drive for comics, not profit. which is why i shy away from marvel or dc stuff (except vertigo)

subcultured
creativity and good stories should be a drive for comics, not profit.

Profit will always be the motivation for publishing and distribution no matter what. That's just how business works. -But it's much better when creativity and good stories are the route to that profit and not cheap throwaway franchise milking.

Think he meant how DC/marvel stuff is pooped out every month for the sheer point of making a quick buck and tends to suffer quality loss in the writing department as opposed to the writers that spend many many months editing their scripts and ideas. Hell on many marvel scripts the writer just gives a basic page idea to the artist and makes up the dialogue once he receives the page. :/

it's been known that uncreative editors are planning and running the stories, writers just flesh out the bad plots.

thats why unless they have carte blanche the writer will always have to conform to the continuity therefore suppressing creativity.

the best stories come out when a book is not popular and management says they can do whatever they want with it i.e. frank miller's run on daredevil.

subcultured
it's been known that uncreative editors are planning and running the stories, writers just flesh out the bad plots.

thats why unless they have carte blanche the writer will always have to conform to the continuity therefore suppressing creativity.

the best stories come out when a book is not popular and management says they can do whatever they want with it i.e. frank miller's run on daredevil.

I think that's only half true.

I completely agree that editorial interference has been responsible for some of the worst plot developments in mainstream comics. But, the more successful and famous a writer becomes, the more freedom he has and that has also led to some dreadful, self-indulgent story-lines because the editor isn't powerful enough to tell him he can't just do what he wants.

Some Big Name writers do actually need a little reining in, just as most novices need real guidance. The best stories come when the writer and the editor can discuss ideas as equals.

The thing with the Superhero genre in mainstream comics, is that the characters and history do not belong to the writers, but to the company.

There needs to be a balance between what a writer wants for the character and what the company needs for the character.

We have the case of excesive editorial medling resulting in some convoluted piece of crap (Civil War and One More Day) but give to much freedom to certain writers is not a good idea either (Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder...you know...the goddamm Batman).

Regular series are not an author's work, because at the end of the day, the characters don´t belong to artist or writers, but to a company...

However, from time to time there are some pretty good regular series...most of them cancelled due to crappy sellings (Blue Beetle, Gotham Central) and some huge success inside the regular continuity (52 and Green Lantern: Rebirth).

Most of the superhero books I like are a little under the radar. They use minor characters that aren't involved in big screen movies, T-Shirts, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and other such things. Therefore, the editors are a little more willing to give the creative team a bit more freedom.

I love Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk. I think it's one of the best things Marvel has put out in ages. Slott's writing on Amazing Spider-Man, however, left me a little cold. It wasn't terrible, but it was pretty clear that the writer's hands were tied by the editors.

This plays itself out throughout the whole of comicdom. Frank Miller was allowed to give Daredevil a massive noir edge because he was a third tier character on the brink of cancellation. Chris Claremont was able to tear things up on X-Men because nobody was reading them during the blue and yellow pajama period. There was a lot less risk in a giant retooling of the X-Men compared to then-successful books like Spider-Man or Avengers.

Every now and then a popular character gets a creative direction applied to them. But, well, for the most part not really. It's understandable. Nobody wants to poison a cash cow, especially when their comic book is only a blip on their sales potential.

Someone
Graphic Novels should be treated like books

ok, Will Eisner :rolleyes:

hahah kidding.

On all seriousness, i think there needs to be a good balance. I love the comics medium. Duh, cuz im on here, right? But I love everything about comics. Which means I even love the sometimes campy nonsense of it. I love word balloons. I love thought balloons. I love sound effects. I love speedlines. These are things that NO OTHER MEDIUM can achieve.

When comics tend to get a bit too pretentious *Im looking at you, A Contract with God!* I get turned off. And I think that the current comic book mindset is that. which is why i love the super goofiness of ASBAR and Ultimates 3.