Who is ruining comics this week?
April 20, 2015 12:00 AM Subscribe
And I find it amusing that this “they’re fans of MOMENTS but won’t buy anything” complaint was being made at fans who were at a comic convention. Look, cons ain’t cheap. If someone’s spending their time and money to go to a con or make their own Captain Marvel costume or whatever, they clearly have some kind of passion and fondness for what they’re seeing. No one goes to a con just because they reblogged Unbeatable Squirrel Girl a couple times.Is Tumblr fandom ruining comics because Tumblr fans "love the characters and love MOMENTS of stories, but don’t read the actual comics ever"? The answer may not surprise you.
Fake geek girls ruining my comics, round I've lost count.
FWIW, I've been buying manga since the mid-90s, and I haven't bought superhero comics because who has the time to deal with 70-year-old canons and unending cycles of market-driven crisis and reboots. At least manga have a beginning and an end and a single team of creators.
(I do own some self-contained graphic novels like the LOEG or V for Vendetta and stuff like that because finite canon and single creator team)
posted by sukeban at 12:15 AM on April 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
FWIW, I've been buying manga since the mid-90s, and I haven't bought superhero comics because who has the time to deal with 70-year-old canons and unending cycles of market-driven crisis and reboots. At least manga have a beginning and an end and a single team of creators.
(I do own some self-contained graphic novels like the LOEG or V for Vendetta and stuff like that because finite canon and single creator team)
posted by sukeban at 12:15 AM on April 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
Actually, I'm ruining comics-I read webcomics. They're free, as close as my laptop, and give me my superheroes, my fantasy, my slice of life drama...
A hardcopy comic better indicate to me that it's damn special. Like, I dunno, having a fervered Tumblr fandom.
posted by happyroach at 12:19 AM on April 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
A hardcopy comic better indicate to me that it's damn special. Like, I dunno, having a fervered Tumblr fandom.
posted by happyroach at 12:19 AM on April 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
Oddly, this morning I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be.
I try to avoid Tumblr links for many of the reasons included in the original article.
But you know what I think is ruining everyone?
It's write at the bottom: Joining a fandom as a newbie can be scary.
The use of "fandom" as a term for a psuedo-religion, where you join - or not.
It almost seems to amplify the whole "filthy casual/serious fan" and "fake" (geek girls or boys, as t'were).
posted by Mezentian at 12:42 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I try to avoid Tumblr links for many of the reasons included in the original article.
But you know what I think is ruining everyone?
It's write at the bottom: Joining a fandom as a newbie can be scary.
The use of "fandom" as a term for a psuedo-religion, where you join - or not.
It almost seems to amplify the whole "filthy casual/serious fan" and "fake" (geek girls or boys, as t'were).
posted by Mezentian at 12:42 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oddly, this morning I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be.
Tumblr as I have experienced it has a lot of overly-earnest left-wing teens. This is much better than overly-earnest right-wing teens but you can possibly surmise the problems.
posted by solarion at 12:59 AM on April 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
Tumblr as I have experienced it has a lot of overly-earnest left-wing teens. This is much better than overly-earnest right-wing teens but you can possibly surmise the problems.
posted by solarion at 12:59 AM on April 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be
Tumblr as I have experienced it...
Pretty sure you guys are vastly, hilariously underestimating the size and diversity of Tumblr.
posted by straight at 1:04 AM on April 20, 2015 [39 favorites]
Tumblr as I have experienced it...
Pretty sure you guys are vastly, hilariously underestimating the size and diversity of Tumblr.
posted by straight at 1:04 AM on April 20, 2015 [39 favorites]
"Twitter, as I have experienced it, has a lot of philosophers and theologians linking to think pieces and trading jokes about academic politics..."
posted by straight at 1:10 AM on April 20, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by straight at 1:10 AM on April 20, 2015 [16 favorites]
Your tumblr experience depends a lot on your dashboard founder effect (you read the people you follow and what they reblog) and whether you use tag search. My little corner of tumblr is mostly inhabited by kimono and hanfu blogs and random East Asian history/ material culture blogs.
posted by sukeban at 1:10 AM on April 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by sukeban at 1:10 AM on April 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
Actually, I'm ruining comics-I read webcomics. They're free, as close as my laptop, and give me my superheroes, my fantasy, my slice of life drama...
A hardcopy comic better indicate to me that it's damn special.
Almost all of the 'hardcopy comics' I've purchased over the last few YEARS were print collections of webcomics I'd already enjoyed. So I'm paying them late for what I have already enjoyed (although most of them are re-readable.)
Oddly, this morning I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be.
Tumblr has become the place where many webcomickers put their personal blogs, like Richard "R." Stevens, Kate Beaton, Ryan North (wait, he's also writing real paper comic books now, too!) and John "the Whelk" Leavitt (heard of him?). One of the best thing about Tumblr is how easy it is to pick the parts you like and avoid the more toxic parts, much easier than Twitter or even Reddit.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:13 AM on April 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
A hardcopy comic better indicate to me that it's damn special.
Almost all of the 'hardcopy comics' I've purchased over the last few YEARS were print collections of webcomics I'd already enjoyed. So I'm paying them late for what I have already enjoyed (although most of them are re-readable.)
Oddly, this morning I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be.
Tumblr has become the place where many webcomickers put their personal blogs, like Richard "R." Stevens, Kate Beaton, Ryan North (wait, he's also writing real paper comic books now, too!) and John "the Whelk" Leavitt (heard of him?). One of the best thing about Tumblr is how easy it is to pick the parts you like and avoid the more toxic parts, much easier than Twitter or even Reddit.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:13 AM on April 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
They are, in essence, spending all of their effort preaching to the choir. Selling past the close. Selling decades past the close. Their core demographic doesn't need convincing to buy. I mean... "girls don't buy comics" is dumb and sexist, but if you make your living selling comics, dear god, why would you just lay down and accept that? Tumblr reblogs are, in essence, thousands of people wandering past your product and thinking, "oh, huh, that's kinda cool". They certainly don't owe anybody purchases, but if you're selling something and you ignore that much casual interest in your product from people with disposable income, you're an idiot. Serious fans dismissing casual fans is one thing, but people in the industry always surprises me.
posted by Sequence at 1:29 AM on April 20, 2015 [28 favorites]
posted by Sequence at 1:29 AM on April 20, 2015 [28 favorites]
From the point of view of someone who writes or draws comics and expects to get paid, then yeah, I wouldn't have much time for tumblr fans if they're not spending money (or any identifiable group that isn't digging into their pockets). That said, I have no idea that tumblr fans do or don't spend cash. Is there anything to bear out the theory other than anecdotal evidence?
Does anyone actually know the demographics of tumblr comic fans or are people just kind of assuming?
Full disclosure:
I read Daredevil, Hawkeye, Batman and other things that might catch my fancy and I get confused when people say that these things are impossible to jump into midstream. I've read a lot of comics that take maybe one issue or two to get caught up to what the state of play is, but while that's happening a panel is amusing me, making me think or making me go 'wow' at the coolness. And I google the characters if I need to. I started reading comics when I was 6. I had no idea what was going on, but I liked the pictures. 70 years of backstory might as well have been 1000 years for all I knew.
Like if you have Batman and he has 70 years of backstory to catch up on, like, what do you actually *need* to know about the characters? They don't bring up all 70 years in every episode. Grant Morrison brings up a bunch of old things that happened in the past, but I google them after I've read the comic, because I've no idea what he's on about. But I'm enjoying the ride he's giving me otherwise.
posted by Swandive at 3:20 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Does anyone actually know the demographics of tumblr comic fans or are people just kind of assuming?
Full disclosure:
I read Daredevil, Hawkeye, Batman and other things that might catch my fancy and I get confused when people say that these things are impossible to jump into midstream. I've read a lot of comics that take maybe one issue or two to get caught up to what the state of play is, but while that's happening a panel is amusing me, making me think or making me go 'wow' at the coolness. And I google the characters if I need to. I started reading comics when I was 6. I had no idea what was going on, but I liked the pictures. 70 years of backstory might as well have been 1000 years for all I knew.
Like if you have Batman and he has 70 years of backstory to catch up on, like, what do you actually *need* to know about the characters? They don't bring up all 70 years in every episode. Grant Morrison brings up a bunch of old things that happened in the past, but I google them after I've read the comic, because I've no idea what he's on about. But I'm enjoying the ride he's giving me otherwise.
posted by Swandive at 3:20 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
I read Daredevil, Hawkeye, Batman and other things that might catch my fancy and I get confused when people say that these things are impossible to jump into midstream
Obviously, they aren't impossible to jump into midstream. I just do not care about jumping into them midstream. This is a personal preference.
If you want another reason why I don't like superhero comics that much, the two manga titles I'd love if someone published them in English or Spanish or whatever are:
a) Chihayafuru, a sports comic for girls about competitive karuta playing.
b) The Legendary Musings of Professor Munakata, about a mature folklore professor who finds connections between mythical narratives of prehistoric Japan and current events wherever he goes (and with the flimsiest explanations and the most awesome ass-pulls).
While the latest series I've begun buying is the Hiromu Arakawa version of The Heroic Legend of Arslan which is based on a series of Japanese novels based on a Persian epic, and the most recent series I'm buying are Saint Young Men (Jesus and Buddha are on holidays in a Tokyo residential suburb), A Bride's Story (interconnected stories of residents of Central Asia around WW1) and Thermae Romae (a Roman thermae engineer travels in time to discover Japanese bathing culture).
I am not getting these stories from superhero comics.
posted by sukeban at 3:49 AM on April 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
Obviously, they aren't impossible to jump into midstream. I just do not care about jumping into them midstream. This is a personal preference.
If you want another reason why I don't like superhero comics that much, the two manga titles I'd love if someone published them in English or Spanish or whatever are:
a) Chihayafuru, a sports comic for girls about competitive karuta playing.
b) The Legendary Musings of Professor Munakata, about a mature folklore professor who finds connections between mythical narratives of prehistoric Japan and current events wherever he goes (and with the flimsiest explanations and the most awesome ass-pulls).
While the latest series I've begun buying is the Hiromu Arakawa version of The Heroic Legend of Arslan which is based on a series of Japanese novels based on a Persian epic, and the most recent series I'm buying are Saint Young Men (Jesus and Buddha are on holidays in a Tokyo residential suburb), A Bride's Story (interconnected stories of residents of Central Asia around WW1) and Thermae Romae (a Roman thermae engineer travels in time to discover Japanese bathing culture).
I am not getting these stories from superhero comics.
posted by sukeban at 3:49 AM on April 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
Well, obviously if you're not getting what you want from certain comics or genres, don't read them. Wasting money on them would be weird.
I'm just a bit puzzled when people put up blocks about things, saying 'There's X years of this, I'll never learn it so I won't try' (which is not an argument you've made). Not being interested in it anyway is absolutely fine, but markedly different. I'm very much of the opinion that the only canon that matters is the canon that matters to the writer of the strip. And if she or he has made shite of it, then I won't read.
It could be 2 minutes of backstory but if it doesn't appeal, it doesn't appeal. If I wanted to start reading Chihayafuru, I'd probably have to learn how to play Karuta myself, which has the similar drawbacks of me not much liking card games, and not seeing how I *could* maintain interest in it over the long term. Saint Young Men sounds good though.
posted by Swandive at 4:19 AM on April 20, 2015
I'm just a bit puzzled when people put up blocks about things, saying 'There's X years of this, I'll never learn it so I won't try' (which is not an argument you've made). Not being interested in it anyway is absolutely fine, but markedly different. I'm very much of the opinion that the only canon that matters is the canon that matters to the writer of the strip. And if she or he has made shite of it, then I won't read.
It could be 2 minutes of backstory but if it doesn't appeal, it doesn't appeal. If I wanted to start reading Chihayafuru, I'd probably have to learn how to play Karuta myself, which has the similar drawbacks of me not much liking card games, and not seeing how I *could* maintain interest in it over the long term. Saint Young Men sounds good though.
posted by Swandive at 4:19 AM on April 20, 2015
I'm just a bit puzzled when people put up blocks about things, saying 'There's X years of this, I'll never learn it so I won't try' (which is not an argument you've made).
It's the double problem of endless footnotes saying "See issue #416 of The Remarkable Superhero Team" and the prospect of watching Batman fight Joker for *another* 70 years without any resolution. Oh, wait. A continuity reboot. Oh, wait, this happened in Earth-720, not Earth-616. Oh, wait, this is the Ultimates continuity, not the main continuity. It amounts to a lot of baggage and no cohesive narrative,
with repetitive plots and the same stable of characters and tropes regurgitated forever and ever.
If I wanted to start reading Chihayafuru, I'd probably have to learn how to play Karuta myself
Since the manga begins with the protagonist as a child discovering the game, the mechanics are explained at the beginning. Sports manga is a veteran genre in Japan, and the ones which are devoted to less well known sports (like for example Hikaru no Go, another manga about a traditional game) take care to explain the basics.
posted by sukeban at 4:29 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's the double problem of endless footnotes saying "See issue #416 of The Remarkable Superhero Team" and the prospect of watching Batman fight Joker for *another* 70 years without any resolution. Oh, wait. A continuity reboot. Oh, wait, this happened in Earth-720, not Earth-616. Oh, wait, this is the Ultimates continuity, not the main continuity. It amounts to a lot of baggage and no cohesive narrative,
with repetitive plots and the same stable of characters and tropes regurgitated forever and ever.
If I wanted to start reading Chihayafuru, I'd probably have to learn how to play Karuta myself
Since the manga begins with the protagonist as a child discovering the game, the mechanics are explained at the beginning. Sports manga is a veteran genre in Japan, and the ones which are devoted to less well known sports (like for example Hikaru no Go, another manga about a traditional game) take care to explain the basics.
posted by sukeban at 4:29 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah, in regards to content Tumblr is like Reddit in that it's a lot larger than you probably think and the content range is basically everything. No matter from what perspective you come at it, you are going to find some communities that are offensive, toxic, or problematic and others that are wonderful. (Of course, Tumblr has policies against things like hate speech that Reddit openly tolerates so the two sites are far from directly comparable when it comes to that sort of content.)
I would imagine that people who use Tumblr buy at the same rate as any other fans who come together online wherever they do it. I would suspect that heavily online fans may buy less but make up for it in other ways by promoting the work they are fans of to other potential interested customers. I'm not certain on either of those propositions though, it would definitely need study. I know a large part of the adult fandom for My Little Pony exists because of viral growth, but I also know a lot of them pirate the show instead of paying for cable. But they do spend on merchandise.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
I would imagine that people who use Tumblr buy at the same rate as any other fans who come together online wherever they do it. I would suspect that heavily online fans may buy less but make up for it in other ways by promoting the work they are fans of to other potential interested customers. I'm not certain on either of those propositions though, it would definitely need study. I know a large part of the adult fandom for My Little Pony exists because of viral growth, but I also know a lot of them pirate the show instead of paying for cable. But they do spend on merchandise.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
If I didn't hear about Rat Queens from tumblr, Kurtis Wiebe's tumblr probably helped. So far, I've bought every digital issue and two copies of the first trade paperback as gifts. To the extent that I post clips from comics, they usually come from digital editions.
But yes, calling the 5% of fans who show up at conventions casuals strikes me as absurd.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:34 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
But yes, calling the 5% of fans who show up at conventions casuals strikes me as absurd.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:34 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
But yes, calling the 5% of fans who show up at conventions casuals strikes me as absurd.
One of the most unlikely people I know, a cow-orker, attended the most recent Local Comic-Con. My partner went to one, as did a friend, none of whom I would think would attend.
It's a small sample, but 5% would not seem unreasonable.
Not that it's a bad thing, because you need not buy into the whole "cosplay Slave Leia or GTFO" vibe, but 5% curious "onlookers" seems not unreasonable.
posted by Mezentian at 4:47 AM on April 20, 2015
One of the most unlikely people I know, a cow-orker, attended the most recent Local Comic-Con. My partner went to one, as did a friend, none of whom I would think would attend.
It's a small sample, but 5% would not seem unreasonable.
Not that it's a bad thing, because you need not buy into the whole "cosplay Slave Leia or GTFO" vibe, but 5% curious "onlookers" seems not unreasonable.
posted by Mezentian at 4:47 AM on April 20, 2015
How does one ork a cow, and is it legal to do so?
posted by Paul Slade at 4:51 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 4:51 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
So comic books and Tumblr sort of inhabit the same kind of space for me as things that I keep thinking I should figure out but just have never had the motivation to do. They both seem like things I could enjoy but the barriers start using are high enough for both that I mostly just stand on the sidelines and view from outside.
I've bought the occasional comic book collection or graphic novel but figuring out how to buy all the individual copies of a comic book series as they come out and managing to buy all of them so that you can read the whole story is way more dedication than I've ever had. If I had a bigger tablet, I might try to read them digitally buy my Nexus 7 is way too small for that.
Similarly, I've got a Tumblr account that I created thinking that I'd like to use to blog some of my photography but the interface is confusing enough that I've never bothered to set anything up. I kind of vaguely know that Tumblr is a social network along with being a photo/image blog but I've never even come close to wanted to puzzle that one out.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 AM on April 20, 2015
I've bought the occasional comic book collection or graphic novel but figuring out how to buy all the individual copies of a comic book series as they come out and managing to buy all of them so that you can read the whole story is way more dedication than I've ever had. If I had a bigger tablet, I might try to read them digitally buy my Nexus 7 is way too small for that.
Similarly, I've got a Tumblr account that I created thinking that I'd like to use to blog some of my photography but the interface is confusing enough that I've never bothered to set anything up. I kind of vaguely know that Tumblr is a social network along with being a photo/image blog but I've never even come close to wanted to puzzle that one out.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 AM on April 20, 2015
So comic books and Tumblr sort of inhabit the same kind of space for me as things that I keep thinking I should figure out but just have never had the motivation to do.
If you mention to folks what sort of thing you like, folk'll have an opinion. So many opinions.
As far as I know, modern comics are written in six-issue arcs for the trade publications (at least Marvel and DC) so it's not actually as daunting as it might seem.
It is a costly hobby, and one subject to the winds of time. But it isn't as awful as people say, or may suggest. Just ignore the fans.
posted by Mezentian at 4:57 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you mention to folks what sort of thing you like, folk'll have an opinion. So many opinions.
As far as I know, modern comics are written in six-issue arcs for the trade publications (at least Marvel and DC) so it's not actually as daunting as it might seem.
It is a costly hobby, and one subject to the winds of time. But it isn't as awful as people say, or may suggest. Just ignore the fans.
posted by Mezentian at 4:57 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
How does one ork a cow, and is it legal to do so?
Not in my fine state!
(Cow-orker is ye olde, prolly niche, net speak for the people you work with because you hafta)
posted by Mezentian at 5:00 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Not in my fine state!
(Cow-orker is ye olde, prolly niche, net speak for the people you work with because you hafta)
posted by Mezentian at 5:00 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mezentian: Sure, if you're local, some conventions are convenient and in the same price range as other forms of entertainment. Where I live, the "local" con is still a weekend trip with hotel fare. Con attendendance would likely double my hobby spending for the year. Half my office are fans of some sort, but I think I'm the only one who's attended the con.
octothorpe: I think the easiest entry points are trade paperbacks. Personally, I'd recommend an independent such as Image or Dark Horse largely because they don't have the massive intertextual and inconsistent "canon" to deal with, and they're doing some really brilliant things.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:01 AM on April 20, 2015
octothorpe: I think the easiest entry points are trade paperbacks. Personally, I'd recommend an independent such as Image or Dark Horse largely because they don't have the massive intertextual and inconsistent "canon" to deal with, and they're doing some really brilliant things.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:01 AM on April 20, 2015
Where I live, the "local" con is still a weekend trip with hotel fare.
I am pretty isolated. My local con (as far as I know, depending on the definition) is once per year or two years, and it relies on the Lollapolooza style of touring.
Me? I've attended it, once, for work.
I'd recommend an independent such as Image or Dark Horse largely because they don't have the massive intertextual and inconsistent "canon" to deal with, and they're doing some really brilliant things.
See, I see "Image" and I see WildCATS or whatever.
CBrachyrhynchos is mostly correct, Dark Horse or Image might have some good starting points, but to wipe out Marvel or DC (or God Help Me, Archie) is bad.
I started my comic collecting back in the day with 2000AD, just jumped on in. And my American collecting with X-Factor #10 (the one where Angel gets crucified).
Personally, regardless, if you fund art you like and you get into the sequential art zone, it's all fine tuning after that between cape books, Vertigo, tie-ins or small press. But once you hook into one, others will follow.
posted by Mezentian at 5:28 AM on April 20, 2015
I am pretty isolated. My local con (as far as I know, depending on the definition) is once per year or two years, and it relies on the Lollapolooza style of touring.
Me? I've attended it, once, for work.
I'd recommend an independent such as Image or Dark Horse largely because they don't have the massive intertextual and inconsistent "canon" to deal with, and they're doing some really brilliant things.
See, I see "Image" and I see WildCATS or whatever.
CBrachyrhynchos is mostly correct, Dark Horse or Image might have some good starting points, but to wipe out Marvel or DC (or God Help Me, Archie) is bad.
I started my comic collecting back in the day with 2000AD, just jumped on in. And my American collecting with X-Factor #10 (the one where Angel gets crucified).
Personally, regardless, if you fund art you like and you get into the sequential art zone, it's all fine tuning after that between cape books, Vertigo, tie-ins or small press. But once you hook into one, others will follow.
posted by Mezentian at 5:28 AM on April 20, 2015
God forbid comics fandom be driven by people who like the characters and moments, whatever shall we do?
I'm a relatively new comics fan, and I got into it largely from reading about it on the internet and wondering "what's up with that?" It wasn't Tumblr per se, but it probably would have been if I were younger. I'm not a collector and I don't drop a ton of money, but I am a paying customer now, even if its just to the tune of a Marvel Unlimited subscription and a few digital trades per year. Complaining about Tumblr fans just feels like more "fake geek girls" grousing.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:48 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm a relatively new comics fan, and I got into it largely from reading about it on the internet and wondering "what's up with that?" It wasn't Tumblr per se, but it probably would have been if I were younger. I'm not a collector and I don't drop a ton of money, but I am a paying customer now, even if its just to the tune of a Marvel Unlimited subscription and a few digital trades per year. Complaining about Tumblr fans just feels like more "fake geek girls" grousing.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:48 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I don't buy/read comics for largely the same reason I have stopped reading science fiction. There is a huge problem of discovery. I've only got so much time and I don't want to waste it wading through crap or doing extensive research to bypass it. I want to read what I think is good and in both those genre I simply cannot reliably find it.
posted by srboisvert at 5:56 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 5:56 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
See, I see "Image" and I see WildCATS or whatever.
My collections right now are Rat Queens (fantasy humor), The Wicked and The Divine (aka WICDIV, mythic urban fantasy), Shutter (weird urban fantasy, with references to Lovecraft and Little Nemo), and Saga (science fantasy). I've not seen anything from Marvel or DC to justify getting back on their treadmill.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:59 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
My collections right now are Rat Queens (fantasy humor), The Wicked and The Divine (aka WICDIV, mythic urban fantasy), Shutter (weird urban fantasy, with references to Lovecraft and Little Nemo), and Saga (science fantasy). I've not seen anything from Marvel or DC to justify getting back on their treadmill.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:59 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
From Marvel, lately:
Hawkeye.
Superior Foes of Spiderman.
Ms Marvel.
Young Avengers.
Miracleman
All but Ms Marvel are limited (18 issue-ish) storiesm and crossover-free (Ms Marvel aside).
DC:
Eh. New 52 killed everything good.
I've heard good things about all your Image titles here, and have every reason to believe you.
posted by Mezentian at 6:11 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hawkeye.
Superior Foes of Spiderman.
Ms Marvel.
Young Avengers.
Miracleman
All but Ms Marvel are limited (18 issue-ish) storiesm and crossover-free (Ms Marvel aside).
DC:
Eh. New 52 killed everything good.
I've heard good things about all your Image titles here, and have every reason to believe you.
posted by Mezentian at 6:11 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've bought the occasional comic book collection or graphic novel but figuring out how to buy all the individual copies of a comic book series as they come out and managing to buy all of them so that you can read the whole story is way more dedication than I've ever had.
I have read many comics - I have absolutely no interest in buying individual issues, any more than I want to buy non-graphic novels a chapter at a time. And why would I want to spend more money on a flimsy issue, when I can just get a nice graphic novel, that sits on my shelf with the rest of my books?
As for fans who are snobby towards those who started reading comics via Vertigo: maybe it's tit-for-tat, since as a Vertigo fan, I often thought of Vertigo (and other alternative/non-superhero titles) as the more mature way to read comics.
Which is a bad attitude which I have changed. I still have no personal interest in superheroes - I'd much rather read about myths or conspiracies or post-apocalypse survival stories, or slice-of-life stories - but that's my personal preference, and isn't any better than anyone else's.
posted by jb at 6:17 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have read many comics - I have absolutely no interest in buying individual issues, any more than I want to buy non-graphic novels a chapter at a time. And why would I want to spend more money on a flimsy issue, when I can just get a nice graphic novel, that sits on my shelf with the rest of my books?
As for fans who are snobby towards those who started reading comics via Vertigo: maybe it's tit-for-tat, since as a Vertigo fan, I often thought of Vertigo (and other alternative/non-superhero titles) as the more mature way to read comics.
Which is a bad attitude which I have changed. I still have no personal interest in superheroes - I'd much rather read about myths or conspiracies or post-apocalypse survival stories, or slice-of-life stories - but that's my personal preference, and isn't any better than anyone else's.
posted by jb at 6:17 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I wouldn't do non-digital single issues.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:22 AM on April 20, 2015
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:22 AM on April 20, 2015
Random thoughts:
1. I thought tumblr skewed young, but evenly between males and females?
2. would have enjoyed reading the original piece from Gail Simone, but it's blocked at work for some reason.
Megan Purdy's piece seemed to have a strong thesis: "Artists are owed credit for their work and payment where it is requested or required, but they are not owed customers or engagement in their preferred mode. Let’s unpack.", but this got lost in the conversational tone of the article. It seems like there was more about how fans engage with tumblr and the legitimacy of casual fans. It comes close in a few places by talking about conversion rates and similar, but doesn't really address the assertion directly.
I'm not sure if "casual fan" translates into "non-comic-buying fan" or something else? Non-completionist? Not sure here.
The passage about "If someone’s spending their time and money to go to a con or make their own Captain Marvel costume or whatever, they clearly have some kind of passion and fondness for what they’re seeing." is fine. I'm not sure how going to a convention or cosplaying or having fondness for characters translates into security for those properties. I'm not saying your passion and fondness for a character requires you to buy the comics and trades and lunchboxes, but if you don't, maybe be prepared for another Firefly Scenario.
CBrachyrhynchos: "I've not seen anything from Marvel or DC to justify getting back on their treadmill."
Marvel's getting pretty good at pushing boundaries and producing fresher comics. I've been buying a lot of BOOM! comics (Adventure Time, Bee and Puppycat mostly), and some smaller indie stuff. The new Wonder Woman is ridiculous and good. Oh, and there's Rat Queens and I've got a soft spot for Bob's Burgers for some reason, even though it doesn't translate that well to comics (much like the simpsons, I think). The only interesting thing from DC has been Injustice.
posted by boo_radley at 6:23 AM on April 20, 2015
1. I thought tumblr skewed young, but evenly between males and females?
2. would have enjoyed reading the original piece from Gail Simone, but it's blocked at work for some reason.
Megan Purdy's piece seemed to have a strong thesis: "Artists are owed credit for their work and payment where it is requested or required, but they are not owed customers or engagement in their preferred mode. Let’s unpack.", but this got lost in the conversational tone of the article. It seems like there was more about how fans engage with tumblr and the legitimacy of casual fans. It comes close in a few places by talking about conversion rates and similar, but doesn't really address the assertion directly.
I'm not sure if "casual fan" translates into "non-comic-buying fan" or something else? Non-completionist? Not sure here.
The passage about "If someone’s spending their time and money to go to a con or make their own Captain Marvel costume or whatever, they clearly have some kind of passion and fondness for what they’re seeing." is fine. I'm not sure how going to a convention or cosplaying or having fondness for characters translates into security for those properties. I'm not saying your passion and fondness for a character requires you to buy the comics and trades and lunchboxes, but if you don't, maybe be prepared for another Firefly Scenario.
CBrachyrhynchos: "I've not seen anything from Marvel or DC to justify getting back on their treadmill."
Marvel's getting pretty good at pushing boundaries and producing fresher comics. I've been buying a lot of BOOM! comics (Adventure Time, Bee and Puppycat mostly), and some smaller indie stuff. The new Wonder Woman is ridiculous and good. Oh, and there's Rat Queens and I've got a soft spot for Bob's Burgers for some reason, even though it doesn't translate that well to comics (much like the simpsons, I think). The only interesting thing from DC has been Injustice.
posted by boo_radley at 6:23 AM on April 20, 2015
See, I see "Image" and I see WildCATS or whatever.
Image did a complete 180 from its edgy 90s origins in the 2000s and now is one of the premiere publishers of interesting creator-owned works. It's really strange if you've seen it happen from the beginning, but the current Image is actually what the founders claimed they had been trying to do in the first place.
God forbid comics fandom be driven by people who like the characters and moments, whatever shall we do?
I like reading stuff from the big 2. Obligatory MeFi comment about Marvel and DC being dumb anyway and who needs it. Okay, that out of the way, it's nice to be able to connect with people and be able to talk about what's happening or has happened in the actual comics beyond just characters or panels/pages that have made the rounds. If you're into reading Batman, it's nice to talk with people in depth about the stories beyond just "Batman is awesome!"
It would be like going to a gathering devoted to Game of Thrones and you're really excited to talk about the books and the show with fellow fans, but you discover that most people there haven't read the books or seen the shows beyond a few clips. They may think Jon Snow or Arya are totally cool but you can't talk with them about the stories.
I feel like I'm going to be castigated for this comment, but I don't think I'm Hitler for wanting a chance to get in deep about something I like with other people who know it well. I see a ton of comic book t-shirts and stuff everywhere, but IRL I don't really know anyone who regularly reads comics I can talk about them with, so I'm always really excited to go to cons and find them.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:23 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Image did a complete 180 from its edgy 90s origins in the 2000s and now is one of the premiere publishers of interesting creator-owned works. It's really strange if you've seen it happen from the beginning, but the current Image is actually what the founders claimed they had been trying to do in the first place.
God forbid comics fandom be driven by people who like the characters and moments, whatever shall we do?
I like reading stuff from the big 2. Obligatory MeFi comment about Marvel and DC being dumb anyway and who needs it. Okay, that out of the way, it's nice to be able to connect with people and be able to talk about what's happening or has happened in the actual comics beyond just characters or panels/pages that have made the rounds. If you're into reading Batman, it's nice to talk with people in depth about the stories beyond just "Batman is awesome!"
It would be like going to a gathering devoted to Game of Thrones and you're really excited to talk about the books and the show with fellow fans, but you discover that most people there haven't read the books or seen the shows beyond a few clips. They may think Jon Snow or Arya are totally cool but you can't talk with them about the stories.
I feel like I'm going to be castigated for this comment, but I don't think I'm Hitler for wanting a chance to get in deep about something I like with other people who know it well. I see a ton of comic book t-shirts and stuff everywhere, but IRL I don't really know anyone who regularly reads comics I can talk about them with, so I'm always really excited to go to cons and find them.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:23 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
I often thought of Vertigo (and other alternative/non-superhero titles) as the more mature way to read comics.
OMG. I just remembered "Vertigo Snobs" from the '90s.
I guess this is a thing every generation deals with.
posted by Mezentian at 6:36 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
OMG. I just remembered "Vertigo Snobs" from the '90s.
I guess this is a thing every generation deals with.
posted by Mezentian at 6:36 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've not seen anything from Marvel or DC to justify getting back on their treadmill.
For what it's worth, I know a bunch of people (including myself and my girlfriend, who's an enormous comic fan) who read that exact list ou posted along with a handful of Marvel titles that are similar thematically and in quality level. Miss Marvel (Pakistani teenager in jersey city struggles with growing up, balancing her parents' culture with her own, and having superpowers) is a great place to start, as are Hawkeye (ordinary guy does ordinary things when he's done saving the world with his coworkers), Captain Marvel (awesome lady pilot is awesome), and She-Hulk (super powered lawyer defends super humans in court).
Everything DC is putting out is trash.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:08 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
For what it's worth, I know a bunch of people (including myself and my girlfriend, who's an enormous comic fan) who read that exact list ou posted along with a handful of Marvel titles that are similar thematically and in quality level. Miss Marvel (Pakistani teenager in jersey city struggles with growing up, balancing her parents' culture with her own, and having superpowers) is a great place to start, as are Hawkeye (ordinary guy does ordinary things when he's done saving the world with his coworkers), Captain Marvel (awesome lady pilot is awesome), and She-Hulk (super powered lawyer defends super humans in court).
Everything DC is putting out is trash.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:08 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
This has been going on forever, in the early 00s they called them "livejournal" fans (as mentioned in the article) and even back then the response was, if you want "offline" "brick and mortar" fans then maybe you should work to make sure the stores your shit is being sold in are less fucking overtly hostile to anyone but str8 white cis dudes.
posted by SassHat at 7:10 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by SassHat at 7:10 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
i started reading comics about 15 years ago. i ended up leaving a couple long boxes when i left my last relationship and the thought of starting from scratch again was really disheartening so i went a very long time not buying comics.
all of that changed last month - thanks in large part to tumblr, i went into our one local shop to pick up bitch planet. before i went i asked twitter what else i should be on the look out for - many of my tumblr involved friends came up with great recommendations. i ended up coming home with a stack. bee and puppycat i had only seen scroll past on tumblr and thought it looked cute. after getting home we watched the 3/6 episodes and a few days later i ordered a bee and puppycat wallet. from that we'll probably also finally start watching (and then likely reading) adventure time and bravest warrior.
thanks to that excursion and a well timed buy 1 get 1 sale, i also got a bunch of graphic novels from vintage stock - and then just for shits and giggles i went to the best fucking used book store and came home with a wonderfully weird assortment of books. since then i've been back to the comic store at least once a week, occasionally more than that - i have 8 or 10 things on order, a subscription box, and a growing wishlist of things i've missed in the last 15 years.
also, all the books i had to order and wait on? they've all been the sorts of things the internet boys swear the tumblr girls aren't buying...according to my shop, those things are just flying off the shelves.
posted by nadawi at 7:11 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
all of that changed last month - thanks in large part to tumblr, i went into our one local shop to pick up bitch planet. before i went i asked twitter what else i should be on the look out for - many of my tumblr involved friends came up with great recommendations. i ended up coming home with a stack. bee and puppycat i had only seen scroll past on tumblr and thought it looked cute. after getting home we watched the 3/6 episodes and a few days later i ordered a bee and puppycat wallet. from that we'll probably also finally start watching (and then likely reading) adventure time and bravest warrior.
thanks to that excursion and a well timed buy 1 get 1 sale, i also got a bunch of graphic novels from vintage stock - and then just for shits and giggles i went to the best fucking used book store and came home with a wonderfully weird assortment of books. since then i've been back to the comic store at least once a week, occasionally more than that - i have 8 or 10 things on order, a subscription box, and a growing wishlist of things i've missed in the last 15 years.
also, all the books i had to order and wait on? they've all been the sorts of things the internet boys swear the tumblr girls aren't buying...according to my shop, those things are just flying off the shelves.
posted by nadawi at 7:11 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't think we really have the data to say "Tumblr kids just want the fun gifs but never buy anything, and that's why comics creators are broke."
And even if we could say that, would that mean that those kids would have bought books in the past but don't now because of the evil technology of Tumblr, or that there have always been people who, say, buy a Batman t-shirt but never read the comics? Which seems just as likely.
I am definitely on the low end of the comic-buying market, but I have a nearly complete run of Fables, all of Promethea, Sandman (but not the newest ones), one Rat Queens collection (which I have decided is Not My Thing), some now-defunct YA titles, and the hardcover Volume 1 of Saga, which was a Treat Yo'Self gift. Because I really don't like tiny single-issue comics much, I read them in 5 minutes and it's hardly worth paying for. I don't bother with pull lists. I do try to shop my local woman-friendly shop for gifts for the kids in my life, or to try something new.
I also read a lot of webcomics, and have bought stuff by Kate Beaton and Lynda Barry that often doesn't get counted as "real comics."
Oh, and most of the Avatar comics.
But I know/care very little about Batman, never been to a con, and have only seen one of the Avengers movies.
And I fucking love Tumblr. I love the fan art (some of it as good as anything done by the pros), I love the gifs and in-jokes and AUs and gender-swaps. It's a place where people who love comics (and movies, and books) turn them inside out and reconstruct them, or dissect them, or fanfic the shit out of them, because they love them so much.
If creators aren't making enough money, is it really because of these kids, or because we are in a shit economy where creators are being exploited? I think you could make a pretty good case for that.
posted by emjaybee at 7:13 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
And even if we could say that, would that mean that those kids would have bought books in the past but don't now because of the evil technology of Tumblr, or that there have always been people who, say, buy a Batman t-shirt but never read the comics? Which seems just as likely.
I am definitely on the low end of the comic-buying market, but I have a nearly complete run of Fables, all of Promethea, Sandman (but not the newest ones), one Rat Queens collection (which I have decided is Not My Thing), some now-defunct YA titles, and the hardcover Volume 1 of Saga, which was a Treat Yo'Self gift. Because I really don't like tiny single-issue comics much, I read them in 5 minutes and it's hardly worth paying for. I don't bother with pull lists. I do try to shop my local woman-friendly shop for gifts for the kids in my life, or to try something new.
I also read a lot of webcomics, and have bought stuff by Kate Beaton and Lynda Barry that often doesn't get counted as "real comics."
Oh, and most of the Avatar comics.
But I know/care very little about Batman, never been to a con, and have only seen one of the Avengers movies.
And I fucking love Tumblr. I love the fan art (some of it as good as anything done by the pros), I love the gifs and in-jokes and AUs and gender-swaps. It's a place where people who love comics (and movies, and books) turn them inside out and reconstruct them, or dissect them, or fanfic the shit out of them, because they love them so much.
If creators aren't making enough money, is it really because of these kids, or because we are in a shit economy where creators are being exploited? I think you could make a pretty good case for that.
posted by emjaybee at 7:13 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Runaways was really good. Until it stopped being good.
Daredevil I really enjoy. Mostly now I buy stuff I know gets an ending after reading that Captain Britain comic that lasted like 13 issues.
I was big into Vertigo in the 90s. Sandman I thought was so deeep. I think Preacher just made me gag on the edgy stuff. Before that it was 2000AD.
posted by Swandive at 7:13 AM on April 20, 2015
Daredevil I really enjoy. Mostly now I buy stuff I know gets an ending after reading that Captain Britain comic that lasted like 13 issues.
I was big into Vertigo in the 90s. Sandman I thought was so deeep. I think Preacher just made me gag on the edgy stuff. Before that it was 2000AD.
posted by Swandive at 7:13 AM on April 20, 2015
anyone but str8 white cis dudes.
As that kind of person, I never feel that welcome in comic shops.
Runaways was really good. Until it stopped being good.
I loved it, all. Even the less good bits,
Daredevil I really enjoy.
Waid's Daredevil is amazing. The only run of Daredevil I've "got".
posted by Mezentian at 7:24 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
As that kind of person, I never feel that welcome in comic shops.
Runaways was really good. Until it stopped being good.
I loved it, all. Even the less good bits,
Daredevil I really enjoy.
Waid's Daredevil is amazing. The only run of Daredevil I've "got".
posted by Mezentian at 7:24 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I find this really interesting, because the company I work for recently did the redesign for a major cable station's web site. It revolved around the concept of "moments" as important touchpoints for new fans, and shared conversation starters for existing ones. They understood that the vast majority of television watchers would hear about their shows via social media and short clips of "big reveals" or controversial segments posted to YouTube, mentioned in tweets, discussed on Tumblr, etc. They also knew that the majority of the people who saw (and even discussed) those moments wouldn't necessarily be highly engaged fans.
The successful strategy wasn't to denigrate those people for being casual observers, only interested in the peak moments. It was to accept the challenge of engaging with them based on those moments that were important to them. Their new (soon to launch) site prioritizes and emphasizes these moments, gives them permalinks, cross-references them with other material that give more background on the specific characters and stars that are part of those moments, and generally treats their fleeting interest as worthy of respect rather than ridicule.
I'm struck by how the folks griping about "moment-fans" could fare if they actually realized what a valuable foundation of goodwill and support they're turning their backs on.
posted by verb at 7:29 AM on April 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
The successful strategy wasn't to denigrate those people for being casual observers, only interested in the peak moments. It was to accept the challenge of engaging with them based on those moments that were important to them. Their new (soon to launch) site prioritizes and emphasizes these moments, gives them permalinks, cross-references them with other material that give more background on the specific characters and stars that are part of those moments, and generally treats their fleeting interest as worthy of respect rather than ridicule.
I'm struck by how the folks griping about "moment-fans" could fare if they actually realized what a valuable foundation of goodwill and support they're turning their backs on.
posted by verb at 7:29 AM on April 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
My things were: Brubaker Captain America, Bendis Daredevil, Waid Daredevil, the Gillen (I think it was) fantastic four, where they expand the family a bit) Waid's Fantastic Four. The Utlimates until Hulk started eating people.
I really got back into comics in the 00s and Marvel particularly. Parenthood and phones have necessarily reduced this reading time.
posted by Swandive at 7:32 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I really got back into comics in the 00s and Marvel particularly. Parenthood and phones have necessarily reduced this reading time.
posted by Swandive at 7:32 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Actually, on the concept of moments, one of the risks is that you lose a lot of context. Without talking about canon. But lets say someone likes an image of Dr. Doom facing down a group of angry villagers while saying 'Ah Gentlement I believe you have some grievances to discuss' without knowing the backstory was Luke Cage was owed a small sum of money and flew a Fantasticar to Latveria, accidentally leading a revolution to Doom's gates.
I really just wanted to post that cos its cool
posted by Swandive at 7:39 AM on April 20, 2015
I really just wanted to post that cos its cool
posted by Swandive at 7:39 AM on April 20, 2015
I have read and purchased several comics because of Tumblr, including a $90 (!!!!) small press run hardback from Scandinavia (obviously an indie creator, that one). I have also watched a couple of movies that I would not otherwise have bothered with and have purchased a variety of Magneto impedimenta. I'm not exactly sure why this is a problem for Big Comics. It's as though I'd get upset that, for example, someone who doesn't really like science fiction decided to buy some Octavia Butler because she was reading black women novelists, or someone picked up Ancillary Justice because she read a big article about it in a non-SF venue. I meet those people all the time.
I'm not sure why it's a problem that Big Comics went from Zero Dollars From Frowner to Small Number of Dollars From Frowner With The Added Possibility Of Additional Dollars. Ann Leckie, for instance, isn't whining that people who buy her first novel are not all True Fans; she's laughing all the way to the bank. (In a nice way, I mean.)
And god knows SF has just as much if not more fan ridiculousness as comics.
posted by Frowner at 7:47 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure why it's a problem that Big Comics went from Zero Dollars From Frowner to Small Number of Dollars From Frowner With The Added Possibility Of Additional Dollars. Ann Leckie, for instance, isn't whining that people who buy her first novel are not all True Fans; she's laughing all the way to the bank. (In a nice way, I mean.)
And god knows SF has just as much if not more fan ridiculousness as comics.
posted by Frowner at 7:47 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not exactly sure why this is a problem for Big Comics.
I'm not an expert, but office banter leads me to believe the same issue exhibits with Local Sports Team worship.
posted by Mezentian at 7:51 AM on April 20, 2015
I'm not an expert, but office banter leads me to believe the same issue exhibits with Local Sports Team worship.
posted by Mezentian at 7:51 AM on April 20, 2015
I'm sure Marvel's doing some great stuff. I no longer trust them to continue doing great stuff with characters I love when the business model involves creative musical chairs and publisher-wide event crossovers every few years. I'd rather pick up that stuff in TPB form than to grind the monthlies.
Comics marketing has always been built on "moments." Take, for example, the iconic Action Comics #1 cover, or the dozens of retelling of origin mythologies. And if your audience of the weekend are paying concert-ticket prices just to see you, I see no reason to assume that they're not watching the shows, buying movie tickets, and/or buying the books.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:03 AM on April 20, 2015
Comics marketing has always been built on "moments." Take, for example, the iconic Action Comics #1 cover, or the dozens of retelling of origin mythologies. And if your audience of the weekend are paying concert-ticket prices just to see you, I see no reason to assume that they're not watching the shows, buying movie tickets, and/or buying the books.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:03 AM on April 20, 2015
I've gained and lost interest in comics repeatedly over the years, and I'm sort-of back into them right now, and Tumblr is almost entirely to blame. I saw excerpts from Hawkeye and Rat Queens (and possibly Prophet) and realized that these were books I absolutely had to read, and I did, and they were great, and I evangelized the hell out of them to anyone who would listen. I don't really read any comics blogs anymore, and get the occasional "oh this books is great" on Twitter, but my Tumblr is basically a firehose of all sorts of content and, yeah, I can't really imagine it isn't leading people to (or back to) buying comics.
posted by griphus at 8:11 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by griphus at 8:11 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also, in terms of people from "outside" fandom engaging with it: when I encounter people who haven't read much SF and who are talking about, for example, Octavia Butler - sometimes it is frustrating because they don't always understand key aspects of the logic of the books, or where Butler fits in terms of being a groundbreaking SF writer generally and a groundbreaking black woman SF writer in specific, or how Butler reworks certain ideas about dystopia, etc. But on the other hand, it's just as important to see Butler in context as a black woman novelist of the eighties and nineties, or to approach her work as part of a tradition of resistance novels. (It's not like Butler lived in a bubble and never thought about anything but SF, either.) People approaching fandom from "outside" bring valuable experience and perspective, and we are dumber when we ignore them.
posted by Frowner at 8:12 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Frowner at 8:12 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh and if it wasn't for Tumblr I probably would've never heard of the upcoming Jem and the Holograms revival which looks like the raddest fucking thing.
posted by griphus at 8:13 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by griphus at 8:13 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
To add my me-too into the discussion, I honestly hadn't touched an actual comicbook until I joined Tumblr. I came for the artblogs, and now I have a stack of American comic paperbacks.
It's interesting that the discussion is framed in terms of the industry stumbling upon a new audience of Tumblr "Moment" rebloggers, as if it happened accidentally and they don't know what to do with us, when there's a whole host of new comic books that seem to have been created with half an eye on creating a buzz in social media. Titles like Saga, The Wicked and The Divine, Rat Queens, Soule & Pulido's She-Hulk, Fraction & Aja's Hawkeye, and others like the new Ms. Marvel*. They all share common themes: They are encapsulated stories that don't require newcomers to have too much knowledge of the background, they feature prominent female characters with diverse but strong personalities, and they tend towards short-form character-based stories rather than epic-length crisis-thrillers. The comics are perfectly tuned for an untraditional audience, and they're too full of endlessly rebloggable awesome/funny/cute moments that they can honestly say they weren't doing it deliberately.
The complaints seem to be that after attracting Tumblr "moment" fans, they haven't found a way of fully monetising us. Which they could do, quite easily in fact, by keeping on selling great new comics.
* Which I haven't read, so I'm just guessing that it fits the trend.
posted by Eleven at 8:14 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
It's interesting that the discussion is framed in terms of the industry stumbling upon a new audience of Tumblr "Moment" rebloggers, as if it happened accidentally and they don't know what to do with us, when there's a whole host of new comic books that seem to have been created with half an eye on creating a buzz in social media. Titles like Saga, The Wicked and The Divine, Rat Queens, Soule & Pulido's She-Hulk, Fraction & Aja's Hawkeye, and others like the new Ms. Marvel*. They all share common themes: They are encapsulated stories that don't require newcomers to have too much knowledge of the background, they feature prominent female characters with diverse but strong personalities, and they tend towards short-form character-based stories rather than epic-length crisis-thrillers. The comics are perfectly tuned for an untraditional audience, and they're too full of endlessly rebloggable awesome/funny/cute moments that they can honestly say they weren't doing it deliberately.
The complaints seem to be that after attracting Tumblr "moment" fans, they haven't found a way of fully monetising us. Which they could do, quite easily in fact, by keeping on selling great new comics.
* Which I haven't read, so I'm just guessing that it fits the trend.
posted by Eleven at 8:14 AM on April 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
ms. marvel is fantastic and yeah, fits that trend. i mean, there's a clueless white feminist on page 2 of issue 1.
speaking of social media moments - my currently pinned tweet is from teen dog.
and omg the new jem is cute! i bought the first issue but i think i'm just going to wait on the trade for that one (same for teen dog - it's good, but will be better in book form).
posted by nadawi at 8:29 AM on April 20, 2015
speaking of social media moments - my currently pinned tweet is from teen dog.
and omg the new jem is cute! i bought the first issue but i think i'm just going to wait on the trade for that one (same for teen dog - it's good, but will be better in book form).
posted by nadawi at 8:29 AM on April 20, 2015
Oddly, this morning I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be.
Eh, porn is porn. Reddit, Tumblr whatevs.
posted by MikeMc at 9:21 AM on April 20, 2015
Eh, porn is porn. Reddit, Tumblr whatevs.
posted by MikeMc at 9:21 AM on April 20, 2015
When I was a teenager reading Sandman, there was this attitude I would encounter a lot where comics dudes were initially very excited for me to be reading comics, then confused and inexplicably upset when I moved on to other Vertigo titles, Fantagraphics and indie comics instead of "real," i.e. superhero comics, when the entire spark of interest for me with Sandman was that it showed me that an entire medium does not have to be held hostage by a single genre and the shitty nerds who want to own it. Which is a lesson I carried with me into videogames and animation, the other mediums that have that exact problem.
There are probably a million flavors of that attitude. But I just started reading a new comic (Brian K. Vaughn's Saga) for the first time in years, last night.
posted by byanyothername at 9:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [8 favorites]
There are probably a million flavors of that attitude. But I just started reading a new comic (Brian K. Vaughn's Saga) for the first time in years, last night.
posted by byanyothername at 9:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [8 favorites]
OMG. I just remembered "Vertigo Snobs" from the '90s.
I guess this is a thing every generation deals with.
Comic Book Guy: You read comics? Do you read Cerebus?
Young Me: Uh, yeah, I read comics and I liked early Cerebus' phonebooks but then it started to turn ... wierd.
Comic Book Guy: Meh. Poser.
This was twenty-five years ago. It seems to be a perennial problem in comics - somebody feeling like I don't enjoy comics the right way. I have to enjoy it the right way, which just happens to be their way. Jesus, man, just fuck off and let me read my funnybooks. I'm a fan of 'comics' in the big-tent Scott McCloud sense of the word 'comics' and I think the barriers to entry should be even lower than they are now, and our acceptance of the ways of enjoying those comics should be equally broad.
posted by eclectist at 9:34 AM on April 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
I guess this is a thing every generation deals with.
Comic Book Guy: You read comics? Do you read Cerebus?
Young Me: Uh, yeah, I read comics and I liked early Cerebus' phonebooks but then it started to turn ... wierd.
Comic Book Guy: Meh. Poser.
This was twenty-five years ago. It seems to be a perennial problem in comics - somebody feeling like I don't enjoy comics the right way. I have to enjoy it the right way, which just happens to be their way. Jesus, man, just fuck off and let me read my funnybooks. I'm a fan of 'comics' in the big-tent Scott McCloud sense of the word 'comics' and I think the barriers to entry should be even lower than they are now, and our acceptance of the ways of enjoying those comics should be equally broad.
posted by eclectist at 9:34 AM on April 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
oh my god - i am actively trying to read other comics so i don't just suck down all of saga right now - i'm trying to read no more than one book/chapter a day so it can ruminate. the other night i went from laughing out loud to gasping in about 20 seconds flat.
posted by nadawi at 9:35 AM on April 20, 2015
posted by nadawi at 9:35 AM on April 20, 2015
I'm one of those Tumblr people mostly consuming comics via whatever pages I see reblogged or integrated into fan art, so I know a fair amount about Marvel comics via osmosis, but I was never going to be a regular reader. I find it difficult to actually read comics when they're not in webcomic, a few panels at a time form, because it's a whole tedious process for me where I read the words first, then look at the art, then put together the art with the words, and read the words again and just blah. I could have read like ten pages of regular text in that amount of time. I never much liked picture books as a kid either for the same reason. So I have to really be interested or invested in a comic or graphic novel to overcome that barrier of additional effort. I'm also just not into the soap opera like qualities of long-running comics where there's all this continuity that may or may not have a relation to the current storyline, and where resets and reboots and crossovers are constant things.
For me, Tumblr is the ideal way to get a highlights reel of the best of whatever's going on in the comics world. And I do buy the occasional comic, mostly from Boom! at the moment. There are a few others I've been meaning to take a look at in physical form to see if it's worth the effort for me compared to non-graphic novels, and those comics that are on my "to buy if/when I get the chance to pick up a trade paperback" list are there entirely because of Tumblr (Bitch Planet, Lumberjanes, Ms. Marvel, Rat Queens, The Wicked and the Divine...).
posted by yasaman at 9:38 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
For me, Tumblr is the ideal way to get a highlights reel of the best of whatever's going on in the comics world. And I do buy the occasional comic, mostly from Boom! at the moment. There are a few others I've been meaning to take a look at in physical form to see if it's worth the effort for me compared to non-graphic novels, and those comics that are on my "to buy if/when I get the chance to pick up a trade paperback" list are there entirely because of Tumblr (Bitch Planet, Lumberjanes, Ms. Marvel, Rat Queens, The Wicked and the Divine...).
posted by yasaman at 9:38 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well this post about how Tumbler peeps don't buy the right way has led me to finally buy a Ms Marvel trade and a Rat Queens one cause it looks pretty awesome.
So take that naysayers! Tumbler has made someone to buy some things they haven't before.
posted by Jalliah at 10:01 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
So take that naysayers! Tumbler has made someone to buy some things they haven't before.
posted by Jalliah at 10:01 AM on April 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oddly, this morning I was wondering if Tumblr was really the cesspool of the internet I'd heard it to be.
Eh, porn is porn. Reddit, Tumblr whatevs.
If that's what you're looking for, there's plenty of it, but that's not what defines Tumblr for most people and you can block all porn-type posts and still never be able to keep up with great stuff that you care about.
I mean, that's like saying Twitter is only for Mad Men livetweets. You can use it for that, but that's just a tiny bit of what you can do with it.
posted by emjaybee at 10:08 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Eh, porn is porn. Reddit, Tumblr whatevs.
If that's what you're looking for, there's plenty of it, but that's not what defines Tumblr for most people and you can block all porn-type posts and still never be able to keep up with great stuff that you care about.
I mean, that's like saying Twitter is only for Mad Men livetweets. You can use it for that, but that's just a tiny bit of what you can do with it.
posted by emjaybee at 10:08 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
looks like i'll be picking up the wicked and the divine very soon...
posted by nadawi at 10:10 AM on April 20, 2015
posted by nadawi at 10:10 AM on April 20, 2015
Does anyone know if that Glory reboot Sophie Campbell was on is any good?
posted by griphus at 10:19 AM on April 20, 2015
posted by griphus at 10:19 AM on April 20, 2015
the other night i went from laughing out loud to gasping in about 20 seconds flat
Yay! I don't have any thoughts or feelings so far (one chapter in) beyond loving the Robots and the weird, weird world but it sure does feel like it'll fill the Vertigo-shaped hole in my life I didn't even realize I had.
Incidentally, Ms. Marvel is something I've seen pop up on Tumblr, and it looks...pretty readable, to me. Even Watchmen is something I respect as a book but don't really get the layers of superhero/comics history references in. But from the snippets I've seen, Ms. Marvel comes across more as an enthusiastic fanfic writing internet nerd who made her own costume and just got out there than a "real" superhero who survived some crazy trauma. And that's way more appealing to me.
It helps that I honestly love her design, which never happens.
posted by byanyothername at 10:20 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yay! I don't have any thoughts or feelings so far (one chapter in) beyond loving the Robots and the weird, weird world but it sure does feel like it'll fill the Vertigo-shaped hole in my life I didn't even realize I had.
Incidentally, Ms. Marvel is something I've seen pop up on Tumblr, and it looks...pretty readable, to me. Even Watchmen is something I respect as a book but don't really get the layers of superhero/comics history references in. But from the snippets I've seen, Ms. Marvel comes across more as an enthusiastic fanfic writing internet nerd who made her own costume and just got out there than a "real" superhero who survived some crazy trauma. And that's way more appealing to me.
It helps that I honestly love her design, which never happens.
posted by byanyothername at 10:20 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I grew up on comics. I credit comics with doing more to teach me to read than elementary school ever did. And I couldn't care less if someone loved comics as a whole or piecemeal or whatever. Gatekeeping is for insecure jackasses.
Here's the thing, though, and granted I'm speaking largely about Marvel but DC falls pretty squarely into this, too: those comics I grew up on often had pretty dull art, brief and disappointing action, and unnecessarily stiff and verbose dialogue. The plotlines, however, were wonderful. When we talk about the awesome stories of twenty years ago, they really do sound awesome.
Now? It's almost the reverse. The art is often so much grander. The fights are often better. The dialogue in comics, in particular, is now vastly more lifelike and human and engaging. But the plotlines? WTF are they even doing anymore?
So given that -- a current status quo where everything but the storylines as a whole can be truly great -- I don't blame people for being fans of "moments" at all.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:27 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here's the thing, though, and granted I'm speaking largely about Marvel but DC falls pretty squarely into this, too: those comics I grew up on often had pretty dull art, brief and disappointing action, and unnecessarily stiff and verbose dialogue. The plotlines, however, were wonderful. When we talk about the awesome stories of twenty years ago, they really do sound awesome.
Now? It's almost the reverse. The art is often so much grander. The fights are often better. The dialogue in comics, in particular, is now vastly more lifelike and human and engaging. But the plotlines? WTF are they even doing anymore?
So given that -- a current status quo where everything but the storylines as a whole can be truly great -- I don't blame people for being fans of "moments" at all.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:27 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also, because a fan's gotta plug stuff: If you enjoy comics and you aren't reading Rat Queens and Ms. Marvel, you're just hurting yourself. Seriously. Stop hurting yourself. They're amazing.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
oh my god - i am actively trying to read other comics so i don't just suck down all of saga right now - i'm trying to read no more than one book/chapter a day so it can ruminate.
Perhaps I can help! Current comics I like, from 'very weird' to 'less weird':
PRETTY DANG WEIRD
posted by flibbertigibbet at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
Perhaps I can help! Current comics I like, from 'very weird' to 'less weird':
PRETTY DANG WEIRD
- Zero: super-spy weirdness. Very dark. Deliberately fractured in terms of pacing, so you have to like that. New artist every book, but colourist (the fantastic Jordie Bellaire) stays constant.
- Manhattan Projects: Also quite dark, very NSFW. The nuclear program was a cover-up for weirder stuff. Features presidential orgies and a scientist who is an irradiated skeleton. Every other scientist is also... not the version you know from the history books. Hickman.
- Phonogram: first volume is this highon weirdness scale, as there is an entire nigh-incomprehensible issue. Singles Club is much more normal (but fantastic!). By Gillen and McKelvie, of WicDiv/Young Avengers.
- Pretty Deadly: jaw-droppingly gorgeous oral history of Death.
- Sex Criminals: the fact that this isn't higher on the weirdness scale should tell you something.
- Wicked and the Divine: Phonogram with more comprehensibility and more godly popstars.
- East of West: sci-fi alternate history (the United States are less united than before!) with real horsemen of the apocalypse... except Death has gone rogue. Hickman, again.
- Hawkeye: pretty weird for a superhero story. One issue has Hawkeye trying to set up his TV. Seriously. It's fantastic. Pizza dog!
- Ellis' 6-issue run of Moon Knight (1-6): it's just so good for superhero comics.
- Lumberjanes: Nimona writer Noelle Stevenson pens this story about adventrous lasses at a profoundly strange summer camp. Only ranked this low on weirdness scale because 'secretly super bizarre summer camp' is fairly well-trod territory.
- The Midas Flesh: Midas really did ask Dionysus to turn everything he touches to gold. Midas' corpse is a society-ending weapon. Space-pirates versus space-evil-empire. Only gets weird at the end, so long as you're ok with space-dinosaurs as a conceit. Also: written by Dinosaur Comics guy, Ryan North.
- Lazarus: the world is a dystopia run by rich families. Every rich family has a Lazarus, someone engineered for their defense. Meet Forever, the Carlyle Lazarus and their youngest child.
- Atomic Robo: now available for free online, but I hate its online format. Good-hearted mysterious robot fights with science! And also fists.
- Ms. Marvel: Pakistani-American Kamala Khan as a reluctant teen superhero.
- Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: second entry by Ryan North, this time about irrepressibly chipper Squirrel Girl.
- Velvet: Velvet (Ms. Moneypenny) can destroy you, and she's been framed. So, she'll destroy you. If you like this, check out Brubaker's other neo-noir stuff with his more frequently collaborator, Phillips. Because of the time period of Brubaker's work, there does tend to be casual sexism from characters.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
Does anyone know if that Glory reboot Sophie Campbell was on is any good?
Yes! I really liked it. Super gory, though, to warn you.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes! I really liked it. Super gory, though, to warn you.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
flibbertigibbet - thanks! i have the first lumberjanes and sex criminals books, first 2 of ms. marvel. i'll likely get wicked and the divine before the month is out. i'll look into the rest of those soon!
posted by nadawi at 10:40 AM on April 20, 2015
posted by nadawi at 10:40 AM on April 20, 2015
If that's what you're looking for, there's plenty of it, but that's not what defines Tumblr for most people and you can block all porn-type posts and still never be able to keep up with great stuff that you care about.
I was kind of joking. Kind of. The Tumblr format seems so limited that it appears to generate mostly visual content (including porn of course), pictures, animated GIFs , image macros/memes etc...
posted by MikeMc at 10:48 AM on April 20, 2015
I was kind of joking. Kind of. The Tumblr format seems so limited that it appears to generate mostly visual content (including porn of course), pictures, animated GIFs , image macros/memes etc...
posted by MikeMc at 10:48 AM on April 20, 2015
I can kind of see where concern about "Tumblr fans" is coming from, but I don't consider it a real problem. My comic Orientation Police went viral on Tumblr last year, and I sell it at conventions as a mini-comic. I get a lot of people who wander past my booth, see the cover, and say "I know that! I saw it on Tumblr! It was great!" And I say "Awesome, glad you liked it!"
And then, 4 times out of 5, they keep moving, without buying anything or even looking at my other comics.
And I could grumble about that (and sometimes the bit of me that worries about table costs does). But they don't owe me anything, and I got a great interaction with them! Also, the remaining 1 in 5 will either buy a copy, or flip through my other books, or (a couple of times) tell me a story about how the comic changed their life. And that's awesome. And in terms of sales, that's a much higher conversion rate than it is for most of the people walking past. With so much stuff at a convention, maybe 1 in 20 will actually stop, and much less will buy anything.
So the people who like a character (or, in my case, personal stories about sexuality and gender identity) but don't buy anything are a lot more visible than the vast majority, who keep moving without calling attention to themselves. And I think that's the issue. If you're selling Thor comics, and someone in Thor cosplay walks past without looking at anything, then it feels like a lost sale, in a way that the other 20 people walking past doesn't.
posted by Bill_Roundy at 10:50 AM on April 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
And then, 4 times out of 5, they keep moving, without buying anything or even looking at my other comics.
And I could grumble about that (and sometimes the bit of me that worries about table costs does). But they don't owe me anything, and I got a great interaction with them! Also, the remaining 1 in 5 will either buy a copy, or flip through my other books, or (a couple of times) tell me a story about how the comic changed their life. And that's awesome. And in terms of sales, that's a much higher conversion rate than it is for most of the people walking past. With so much stuff at a convention, maybe 1 in 20 will actually stop, and much less will buy anything.
So the people who like a character (or, in my case, personal stories about sexuality and gender identity) but don't buy anything are a lot more visible than the vast majority, who keep moving without calling attention to themselves. And I think that's the issue. If you're selling Thor comics, and someone in Thor cosplay walks past without looking at anything, then it feels like a lost sale, in a way that the other 20 people walking past doesn't.
posted by Bill_Roundy at 10:50 AM on April 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
I am so happy to be participating in Ruining Comics. And I don't even really use Tumblr.
I mean, earlier this month I went into a local comic shop and dropped a hundred bucks on a couple of imported French hardbacks*. And my own stuff is a perennial seller at another local shop**. My bookcase is full of softback and hardback graphic novels. I pay my rent some months entirely from my comics work.
But none of it is about dudes who wear their underwear on the outside of their spandex bodysuits***. None of it is owned by Disney or Warner Brothers. Very little of it came out as single issues sold on the newsstand. It's not the right comics by the standards of the worshippers of the X-Bats.
It'd be really nice if someday those kinds of people would realize that comics can be other things besides superhero stories for angry boys, and that a large part of the money coming into comics is from people who are not angry boys.
* Foligatto and The Celestial Bibendum by Nicolas deCrécy, amazing painted surrealism.
** Phoenix Comics, in Seattle's Capitol Hill district. Queer, weird, and chill. If you're a Seattleite looking for a regular shop I highly recommend them.
*** well okay there are the four hardback volumes of Jack Kirby's Fourth World. Every rule needs an exception.
posted by egypturnash at 10:54 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
I mean, earlier this month I went into a local comic shop and dropped a hundred bucks on a couple of imported French hardbacks*. And my own stuff is a perennial seller at another local shop**. My bookcase is full of softback and hardback graphic novels. I pay my rent some months entirely from my comics work.
But none of it is about dudes who wear their underwear on the outside of their spandex bodysuits***. None of it is owned by Disney or Warner Brothers. Very little of it came out as single issues sold on the newsstand. It's not the right comics by the standards of the worshippers of the X-Bats.
It'd be really nice if someday those kinds of people would realize that comics can be other things besides superhero stories for angry boys, and that a large part of the money coming into comics is from people who are not angry boys.
* Foligatto and The Celestial Bibendum by Nicolas deCrécy, amazing painted surrealism.
** Phoenix Comics, in Seattle's Capitol Hill district. Queer, weird, and chill. If you're a Seattleite looking for a regular shop I highly recommend them.
*** well okay there are the four hardback volumes of Jack Kirby's Fourth World. Every rule needs an exception.
posted by egypturnash at 10:54 AM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Does anyone know if that Glory reboot Sophie Campbell was on is any good?
It was great. Gory but great.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:15 AM on April 20, 2015
It was great. Gory but great.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:15 AM on April 20, 2015
One of the only things that makes me wish I enjoyed Tumblr more is the amount of comic artists and creators who use it as a platform, plus fan made superhero joke accounts (Avengers office memos, texts from superheroes, et cetera).
Maybe I should unfollow some more porn accounts so I can see more comics (yep, the Internet has made me bored with sex, probably desensitized to violence too; the only thing that I can feel outraged about now is other people's outrage).
But for real, I'm a dude dork who's been spending money on capes and indies for over 20 years. I live with a valkyrie and I listen to TWO comic book related podcasts (the Nerds Writers Panel [which is mostly television writers but intermittently puts out a comics edition] and Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men [which I learned about here!]). The only thing that's ruining comics for me are dumb crossover events that reboot the whole dammed shared multiverse and the whiny, reactionary old guard who can't deal with any change (A couple volumes of Savage Dragon was already kind of an spot on my bookshelf but after reading Erik Larsen's twitter rant about the "vocal minority" [linked from within the linked article], I'm probably not gonna try to complete that series, even if it is a DRAGON COP FROM CHICAGO)
posted by elr at 11:20 AM on April 20, 2015
Maybe I should unfollow some more porn accounts so I can see more comics (yep, the Internet has made me bored with sex, probably desensitized to violence too; the only thing that I can feel outraged about now is other people's outrage).
But for real, I'm a dude dork who's been spending money on capes and indies for over 20 years. I live with a valkyrie and I listen to TWO comic book related podcasts (the Nerds Writers Panel [which is mostly television writers but intermittently puts out a comics edition] and Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men [which I learned about here!]). The only thing that's ruining comics for me are dumb crossover events that reboot the whole dammed shared multiverse and the whiny, reactionary old guard who can't deal with any change (A couple volumes of Savage Dragon was already kind of an spot on my bookshelf but after reading Erik Larsen's twitter rant about the "vocal minority" [linked from within the linked article], I'm probably not gonna try to complete that series, even if it is a DRAGON COP FROM CHICAGO)
posted by elr at 11:20 AM on April 20, 2015
Does anyone know if that Glory reboot Sophie Campbell was on is any good?
Well, I put Campbell in the pantheon of incredible current comics artists, so take my comments with that grain of salt, but yes, Glory was awesome. As others have said, it was gory, but it was awesome! (Also, I am no relation to Sophie Campbell).
I am really into the recommendations that people have provided so far and will provide two more: Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye by James Roberts and Alex Milne. It IS backstory heavy, but in a really, really good way. Also, I have liked the first two issues of Silk, the new Spider-family character.
posted by Slothrop at 11:31 AM on April 20, 2015
Well, I put Campbell in the pantheon of incredible current comics artists, so take my comments with that grain of salt, but yes, Glory was awesome. As others have said, it was gory, but it was awesome! (Also, I am no relation to Sophie Campbell).
I am really into the recommendations that people have provided so far and will provide two more: Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye by James Roberts and Alex Milne. It IS backstory heavy, but in a really, really good way. Also, I have liked the first two issues of Silk, the new Spider-family character.
posted by Slothrop at 11:31 AM on April 20, 2015
Ok, looks like I'll pick up Glory. Campbell's been on my radar since a friend of mine introduced me to Wet Moon and her stuff always delights me.
Also, after reading Prophet I think I'm immune to ill effects from "gory" now.
posted by griphus at 11:37 AM on April 20, 2015
Also, after reading Prophet I think I'm immune to ill effects from "gory" now.
posted by griphus at 11:37 AM on April 20, 2015
Great post. My first reaction was "Man, I don't want to talk about this." And I kind of don't, because it feels like every comics-related conversation I've had since the 90s has been the same conversation. Just sub in "manga" for "tumblr" or whatever. It's frustrating.
I love tumblr, and it's directly or partially responsible for getting me into certain shows (Parks and Rec, Adventure Time, Legend of Korra, Sleepy Hollow, etc.) and comedians (Hari Kondabolu, Hannibal Burress, etc.). I've also read a ton of eye-opening sociological commentary there; after Metafilter, it's probably done the most for my awareness of the world. And it keeps my enjoyment of other things strong (there is SO MUCH great Star Trek content there, you guys). It's also a lovely source of visual inspiration, with a much, MUCH muuuch broader range than typical magazines or websites. Plus it's often hilarious.
Has it gotten me sort of superficially interested in a few other things that I haven't really pursued yet? Yes, for sure: Night Vale, Community, Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, etc., are all things I haven't yet gotten around to. Comics...well, I don't enjoy single-issue-based comics and never really have (they take about 3 minutes to read, for one thing). But I picked up Rat Queens partly due to Tumblr's adoration of it, so basically, what Frowner said. And there are a bunch of (mostly young, mostly female) artists who are using it as a platform, as mentioned above, and they'll get my money at conventions. I mean, not every single one every single time. Of course, occasionally I'll say "I love your stuff on Tumblr" and not buy anything, because I just see SO MUCH MORE STUFF than I used to in Ye Old Days when I depended on my local comic book shop and Diamond Previews and extremely sketchy web "galleries" for learning about new things. I can't buy it all.
I find it deeply irritating when people mischaracterize Tumblr (or, for that matter, Twitter) without ever having really experienced it. It's like if you said "Metafilter" and I immediately said
oh that's where people astroturf Pepsi ads
oh that's the site that got in trouble with Google
oh that place is just wall-to-wall 30-something brogrammers, yechhhh
oh it's like Dear Abby for people with poor social skills
oh that site is ALL TEXT right, how do people even communicate that way
oh it's just another clickbait aggregator right
oh you know Mefites literally murder you if you don't post cat photos
oh *eyeroll*
(note: well, to be fair, not all of the above is totally untrue. photos of your pets are ESSENTIAL on Mefi, and tumblr DOES have its share of zealous teens. but we are not defined by these traits, dammit, so please resist the urge to trot out the kneejerk stereotypes.)
posted by wintersweet at 11:38 AM on April 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
I love tumblr, and it's directly or partially responsible for getting me into certain shows (Parks and Rec, Adventure Time, Legend of Korra, Sleepy Hollow, etc.) and comedians (Hari Kondabolu, Hannibal Burress, etc.). I've also read a ton of eye-opening sociological commentary there; after Metafilter, it's probably done the most for my awareness of the world. And it keeps my enjoyment of other things strong (there is SO MUCH great Star Trek content there, you guys). It's also a lovely source of visual inspiration, with a much, MUCH muuuch broader range than typical magazines or websites. Plus it's often hilarious.
Has it gotten me sort of superficially interested in a few other things that I haven't really pursued yet? Yes, for sure: Night Vale, Community, Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, etc., are all things I haven't yet gotten around to. Comics...well, I don't enjoy single-issue-based comics and never really have (they take about 3 minutes to read, for one thing). But I picked up Rat Queens partly due to Tumblr's adoration of it, so basically, what Frowner said. And there are a bunch of (mostly young, mostly female) artists who are using it as a platform, as mentioned above, and they'll get my money at conventions. I mean, not every single one every single time. Of course, occasionally I'll say "I love your stuff on Tumblr" and not buy anything, because I just see SO MUCH MORE STUFF than I used to in Ye Old Days when I depended on my local comic book shop and Diamond Previews and extremely sketchy web "galleries" for learning about new things. I can't buy it all.
I find it deeply irritating when people mischaracterize Tumblr (or, for that matter, Twitter) without ever having really experienced it. It's like if you said "Metafilter" and I immediately said
oh that's where people astroturf Pepsi ads
oh that's the site that got in trouble with Google
oh that place is just wall-to-wall 30-something brogrammers, yechhhh
oh it's like Dear Abby for people with poor social skills
oh that site is ALL TEXT right, how do people even communicate that way
oh it's just another clickbait aggregator right
oh you know Mefites literally murder you if you don't post cat photos
oh *eyeroll*
(note: well, to be fair, not all of the above is totally untrue. photos of your pets are ESSENTIAL on Mefi, and tumblr DOES have its share of zealous teens. but we are not defined by these traits, dammit, so please resist the urge to trot out the kneejerk stereotypes.)
posted by wintersweet at 11:38 AM on April 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
I'm pretty much someone who went from being the stereotypical comics nerd--continuity-obsessed, had a healthy pull list, would stick with a title through lengthy periods of mediocrity just so that I could keep up with the continuity--to someone who reads a few daily and a few weekly-or-whenever-they-feel-like-updating webcomics, and also checks his Tumblr feed which is top-heavy with both web- and print-cartoonists to see if there's anything interesting coming down the pike. Through some careful curating of the ones I'm following, I've managed to nice down the signal/noise ratio pretty well, and I have in fact gotten a bunch of GNs and TPBs through some of the previews and bits that I've seen there. (And speaking of Sophie Campbell, in addition to her main Tumblr, she's got a few auxiliary ones (linked to in the sidebar) for individual titles and pet projects that are also worth pursuing.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:41 PM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:41 PM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tumblr has become the place where many webcomickers put their personal blogs, like Richard "R." Stevens, Kate Beaton, Ryan North (wait, he's also writing real paper comic books now, too!) and John "the Whelk" Leavitt (heard of him?). One of the best thing about Tumblr is how easy it is to pick the parts you like and avoid the more toxic parts, much easier than Twitter or even Reddit.
Look, I know about Stevens, Beaton, and North, but I refuse to acknowledge your no-name indie hipster losers like Leavitt. I mean, seriously, what in the blistering green fuck has he done that matters to me? Seriously? GTFO.
posted by Samizdata at 1:39 PM on April 20, 2015
Look, I know about Stevens, Beaton, and North, but I refuse to acknowledge your no-name indie hipster losers like Leavitt. I mean, seriously, what in the blistering green fuck has he done that matters to me? Seriously? GTFO.
posted by Samizdata at 1:39 PM on April 20, 2015
I read "single issues" and somehow interpreted that as one-offs, and wanted to link to Sam Kieth's Legs. I'd been out of comics buying for years, but this one caught my eye.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:01 PM on April 20, 2015
posted by Existential Dread at 2:01 PM on April 20, 2015
that leavitt guy sounds like a nerd
posted by NoraReed at 2:05 PM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by NoraReed at 2:05 PM on April 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Hiromu Arakawa version of The Heroic Legend of Arslan which is based on a series of Japanese novels based on a Persian epic
If this is the series they started to make an anime out of and never finished it (or it never got imported), I need to read this. Also a lot of the other recommendations. As for the Tumblr fans, I am 47 and I like tumblr and get off my damn lawn; I've been hearing this fake geek girl shit at the comics shop since I started going there about 30 years ago. #I can't believe we're still hearing this shit
posted by immlass at 3:46 PM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
If this is the series they started to make an anime out of and never finished it (or it never got imported), I need to read this. Also a lot of the other recommendations. As for the Tumblr fans, I am 47 and I like tumblr and get off my damn lawn; I've been hearing this fake geek girl shit at the comics shop since I started going there about 30 years ago. #I can't believe we're still hearing this shit
posted by immlass at 3:46 PM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I only found out about Matt Fraction because a Mountain Goats fan-tumblr posted all his MG references, and that was before I got into Tumblr properly.
Jim Sterling had a great line in his Life Is Strange review:
I am curious, does the Tumblr shit literally mean, “Has some girls in it” now? Because that’s all this game is. It has some girls in it, and that means people keep calling it “Tumblr shit.”
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:04 PM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Jim Sterling had a great line in his Life Is Strange review:
I am curious, does the Tumblr shit literally mean, “Has some girls in it” now? Because that’s all this game is. It has some girls in it, and that means people keep calling it “Tumblr shit.”
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:04 PM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
If this is the series they started to make an anime out of and never finished it (or it never got imported), I need to read this.
It's a new manga adaptation of the novels (2 volumes published so far in English, the 3rd comes out in less than a month) and they've just begun broadcasting the anime to go with it, too.
posted by sukeban at 10:07 PM on April 20, 2015
It's a new manga adaptation of the novels (2 volumes published so far in English, the 3rd comes out in less than a month) and they've just begun broadcasting the anime to go with it, too.
posted by sukeban at 10:07 PM on April 20, 2015
Tumblr reblogs are, in essence, thousands of people wandering past your product and thinking, "oh, huh, that's kinda cool". They certainly don't owe anybody purchases, but if you're selling something and you ignore that much casual interest in your product from people with disposable income, you're an idiot.
In fairness to this kind of reaction, the media business for the last fifty years has been stridently stomping its feet (and spending money to get the government to make it mandatory) that people have to consume their product the way they want them to, in the prescribed dosage sizes, and doing it any other way is between wrong and theft. So who can fully blame them for believing what the industry has been telling them all their professional lives?
posted by phearlez at 10:37 AM on April 21, 2015
In fairness to this kind of reaction, the media business for the last fifty years has been stridently stomping its feet (and spending money to get the government to make it mandatory) that people have to consume their product the way they want them to, in the prescribed dosage sizes, and doing it any other way is between wrong and theft. So who can fully blame them for believing what the industry has been telling them all their professional lives?
posted by phearlez at 10:37 AM on April 21, 2015
I'm a bit late to read this, but in 2013 Archaia published Hacktivist by Alyssa Milano, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Marcus To and it's basically the most accurate-feeling technothriller about freedom-fighting hackers I've ever read.
I'm also getting into Genevieve Valentine's current run on Catwoman, especially the annual #2 that takes the perspective of a mob heiress watching Selina Kyle's machinations.
posted by brainwane at 11:36 AM on April 22, 2015
I'm also getting into Genevieve Valentine's current run on Catwoman, especially the annual #2 that takes the perspective of a mob heiress watching Selina Kyle's machinations.
posted by brainwane at 11:36 AM on April 22, 2015
so, uh.
Jem is hitting my nostalgia buttons pretty hard, and I really like Campbell's art. Colour's great, to boot.
So, I can't tell if it's actually good? But I like it.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 2:50 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Jem is hitting my nostalgia buttons pretty hard, and I really like Campbell's art. Colour's great, to boot.
So, I can't tell if it's actually good? But I like it.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 2:50 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
i agree about jem! adorable! i've decided after the first issue to wait for the tpb, but i think it's well done.
my one weird complaint is that - due to animation styles and trying to avoid lawsuits with mattel - the 80s jem, especially the doll, always came off as way more amazonian to me - like, thin, obviously, but also broad shouldered and wide hip'ed, you could imagine her palming a basketball no problem. the new comic jem is so super model-y. i dunno - as a lady who has the frame to fit a 5'10 height, the comic jem doesn't trigger the same feelings of seeing someone like me represented, if that makes sense...
but i still really like it.
posted by nadawi at 7:43 AM on April 30, 2015
my one weird complaint is that - due to animation styles and trying to avoid lawsuits with mattel - the 80s jem, especially the doll, always came off as way more amazonian to me - like, thin, obviously, but also broad shouldered and wide hip'ed, you could imagine her palming a basketball no problem. the new comic jem is so super model-y. i dunno - as a lady who has the frame to fit a 5'10 height, the comic jem doesn't trigger the same feelings of seeing someone like me represented, if that makes sense...
but i still really like it.
posted by nadawi at 7:43 AM on April 30, 2015
I dunno - as a lady who has the frame to fit a 5'10 height, the comic jem doesn't trigger the same feelings of seeing someone like me represented, if that makes sense...
Given the artist, I daresay representation of bodies is something of an issue for them.
On the other hand, comics have gotten more "comicy" lately.
posted by Mezentian at 6:50 AM on May 2, 2015
Given the artist, I daresay representation of bodies is something of an issue for them.
On the other hand, comics have gotten more "comicy" lately.
posted by Mezentian at 6:50 AM on May 2, 2015
oh yeah, totally - and i really do like the art. it's just that for me the nostalgia of jem is largely connected to those impressions of size and so while i like the new one, it's not hitting all the right buttons for me.
posted by nadawi at 10:54 AM on May 2, 2015
posted by nadawi at 10:54 AM on May 2, 2015
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