Away My X-Men

Lately, I've been thinking about the X-Men and the different things I like about them. This train of thought then brought me to how much "House of M" really bugged me. Besides de-powering one of my favorite X-Men (the mighty and awesome Jubilee). It also really annoyed me how much they shrunk the mutant population. One of the things I dug about the X-Men pre-House of M was the variety in mutants and powers and how the different groups within the Xavier Institute. Of all the things I miss about the X-Men and their affiliated "X-Teams" the pre-House of M variety and the combinations that led to make my really miss those days. sadly, stories like House of M have become a trademark of Joe Quesada's editorial run at Marvel. After all who would of thought after this terrible story we would have the whole Civil War fiasco followed by Peter Parker selling his soul to the Devil and getting a divorce out of the deal. One the plus side it looks like they're finally undoing a couple of these stories and even though DC has been better at the major event promotions as of late. One of the things that really has been bugging me about both companies has been the whole Nothing Will Ever Be The Same!!! events. Of course, the main reason I'm not a fan of these events is because, the only thing that makes one of these events stick is wholey dependent on how good the story is. After all once another writer takes over a book (s)he is able to throw out the stuff they don't like while keeping the continuity they either like or were fans of back in the day and in teh end I guess, even us fans have the power to do that as well and in my X-Men Universe Jubes is still a mutant and the kids that starred in the X-Men Academy books are all still at the school and they all still live in New York state.

Fading Glory

Today I thought I'd harsh every one's mellow and add my two cents to the biggest problem affecting the comic book industry today. Namely, readership. Stroytellingwise this maybe a golden age for comics. But, according to sales this may be one of the lowest points in comics. From my own observations the main reason that comics seem unable to add new readers in any significant way are twofold. the first one is distribution because of how the direct market mainly sells comics only to comic book retails unless you know where a comic book shop is you really can't get into reading comics. Now this wouldn't be that big of a problem if there were comic book shops in most neighborhoods, however this is not the case. Personally, since Free Time Comics (in Westminster) closed down and the Mile High Comics(in Thornton) moved, it has been quite hard for me to get my weekly comic book fix and that's without adding in the money woes that have been effecting everything as of late. At school (as I know for my comic book knowledge)I have been asked on quite a few occasion from classmates who really dig the movies based on our four color heroes. These folks regularly say to my that they dig the movies but don't know where to go to find comic books. Of course, when they do I give them the locations of several good comic book shops,and as far as I can tell they rearly go, part of the reason I feel is how intimidating walking into a comic shop could be if you are not already into them.
Which brings us to the other problem of pulling in new readers. Which is mainly editorially mandated strangeness and stories based on dense continuity. Stories like; Civil War and Final Crisis. though stories like these sell big with regular readers they do nothing to bring in new readers. Herein lies the problem. How do you generate bigger sales without adding readers? The quick answer is what the big two have been doing, you play to the base. Of course, the problem with this is that this strategy only works as long as there is a base. Part of the problem is also the variation between the books and the movies. Not to say the comics and movies should have the same continuity but, I could see how it is hard to reconcile the two when someone whom wants to read Spider man comics because they really dig the movie and after finding a comic book shop they get a new issue of Amazing Spider-man and there is no MJ even worse is their expected reaction when they ask someone they know who is into comics why there's no MJ in the book and you a forced to tell them about Brand New Day and it's satanic divorce. I'm sure it hasn't helped when I've been asked about it that the first thing out of my mouth is... UGH! Just like in politics, if you want to be successful in entertainment. You can't simple play to the base. If for no other reason, a base that is not adding anybody new is that humans are mortal and as such if you never adding one new your movement or business will only decline.

Thought on the Final, Final (for now) Crisis

Hmmm... I don't really have a post for today. So, I thought I would do some rambling on the whole Final Crisis fiasco. First off, I haven't read Final Crisis. Becuase I'm against buying crossover books. So, all of this comes from secondhand knowledge. But, from what I've heard and seen about the book on other blogs. It sounded pretty lame from the beginning. I should also mention as I wrote here: http://jaysbadfuse.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-dont-care-if-its-literature-i-just.html I'm not a big fan of Grant Morrison. Anyways, I think the biggest problem with books like this one is the whole Earth Shattering Event Thing. For one these things usually after a couple of years make your head hurt trying to explain the continuity of it all. Then there is the problem of getting new people into comics which is very hard to do when you have to give lectures on Earth - 1 and Earth - 2 Superman and who Superman Prime is and all the other useless junk about continuity that even hardcore fans shrug their shoulders at. The problem with "events" like this one is they do absolutely nothing to engage potential new readers, heck they don't even do that good of a job at engaging long term fans like myself. The biggest problem in the comic book industry these days is that they aren't adding many new readers. Of course, one of the reasons for this is making continuity dense works like Final Crisis where in order just to know who all the characters are you have to have been reading comics for the last 10 or 20 years. Well, that's my 2 cents anyways.

I don't care if it's literature, I just want to know if there's any action and maybe a little meladrama

With all the stuff floating around about Final Crisis and the fact that nobody reads this I thought it was a good time to speak up on what I think about some of the "genuis" writers in comics. No doubt this will make some people angry but, then again it's not like they'll read this so, i'm not too worried about their wrath. I guess I should start with Grant Morrison, I think he's an alright writer but, certainly not as great as everyone else seems to think. His run on JLA was okay, I never read his run on X-Men because the art was terrible and his run on Batman was decent but personally, I liked Paul Dini's stuff on Detective better. Alan Moore, again I think his work is a bit overrated. I really dug his Superman stories and The Killing Joke was pretty good as well. Even The league of Extrodordanary Gentlemen had its moments and my only real complaint about The Watchmen was its shear density (and no I'm not talking about its near phonebook size). He's definitly a good writer but, I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Then there's Frank Miller, His run on Daredevil was great and so was The Dark Knight returns but as far as I'm concered that was his peak. Everything since then seems like retreads of the stuff he did in those books. Personally, I prefer the journeymen writers like Chuck Dixon, Keith Giffen, The Simonsons, Goeff Johns, Peter David, etc, etc. I don't know know I've just never been into the stuff (in movies and comics) where critics and fans are like "Now this is high art." Me, I'm like "Meh."