Can we talk about Silver/Bronze vs Modern comics.
I've been reading a lot of older comics over the last couple months and I can pretty much say the Silver and Bronze ages were cared more about telling a story and creating new stories while the modern age comics just care about making big events or doing shocking world character events.
Is this pretty accurate?
WAAHHHHH MOVIES ARE CHANGING MY COMICS
That's what you sound like.
>>81638668
I think this fad of character deaths and big huge dumb battles started before the movies came out.
>>81638668
Marvel has like 5 events a year now.
>>81638408
No, not at all. The most "literary" (for want of a better word) comics are all from the Modern Age, or helped kickstart it.
>>81638408
Its just the natural progression of the genre. These characters get so old, and so many stories have been told with them, that there's no where left to take them except these "shocking" events that keep upping the anti of the one before. Its like a DND campaign that goes on for far too long. Eventually youre just gods fighting gods and there isn't any drama.
>>81639011
New 52 for Marvel?
>>81638749
Long before.
>>81638408
Since the early 1990s the focus has been on sales; originally because sales kept going up and up no matter how bad the art was (the style was popular at the time) or how moronic the writing was; later because after the crash, both Marvel and DC had a hard job surviving. If DC hadn't been useful to WB as a tax writeoff, it would have had all its assets transferred to other areas of the group and stopped printing comics, just as happened to plenty of other comic book publishers in larger publishing groups.
Keeping sales above a certain level is very important to them, much more than taking a risk on telling a difficult story. Of course the effect of all this is cumulative, so now you not only have 25 years of extreme 90s comics pushing their continuity forward as we go, you have people who've never really known anything else reading them. There's no way back.
If a story isn't allowed to end, it eventually goes downhill.
>>81638408
80s was the best decade.
Older comics in general had lots of new content. Modern comics have NONE.
>>81638749
Death of Superman is generally considered what killed death in comics.
I believe a massive X-Men crossover in the 80s is what kicked off the event and crossover a year stigma? Can't remember.
>>81639134
80s is when cape comics became for manchildren almost completely rather than being for all ages
>>81638408
Writers have always cared about telling new stories, suits have always wanted to sell. The silver age was full of comics that sold their cover, leading to confusing and convoluted stories. Bronze age was better, then huge crossover events took place which aren't necessarily bad but happened too frequently.
>>81639134
It's not for a lack of trying. Too many modern readers reject new ideas and concepts.
The 80s and 90s were a time where new concepts boomed.
While part of that is the struggling market it's also many fans, even new emerging ones, perceiving the a-list characters as the only ones that matter. I know too many people who won't even waste their time with the good C-list books because "they're not important characters"
>>81639320
wtf are you talking about?
>>81639491
just look at current sales for that.
Popular characters sell well, regardless of quality of writing, unknoown characters don't sell, even if they have excellent storytelling.
>>81639491
Most readers reject new concepts because of two reasons; they aren't really new, and they aren't executed well. They make it blatantly clear that these are nothing more than gimmicks that will be thrown away after a year. Look at what Marvel's been doing lately; A rehash of Secret Wars that was mediocre at best, The ANAD which was so creatively bankrupt and lacked quality that it deserved to bomb, and now they're going rehash Civil War again. It's an endless cycle of rehashing ideas and giving them a new coat of paint, only to throw it away like a spoiled kid would a toy after he sees an even better one. Why would anyone outside of already established fanbases want to read this crap?
>>81641737
The content is inappropriate for kids. Things became overloaded with sexual content and suggestions rather than just skimpy costumes and the story content became gratuitously dark and laden with reference to drugs and violence without any real thought behind it
Also the one and done became more and more a lost art; everyone tried to give characters an arc when they're supposed to last a long time and not settle down or change drastically without any reason. Think about all the times Wolverine got a spunky sidekick to take the edge off him and make him a team player, which he eventually accepts and then is back to being a loser asshole shortly after. Probably not going to get anyone to agree with me considering how often NOT MUH is ridiculed, but cape characters shouldn't have too much development.
>>81639491
>The 80s and 90s were a time where new concepts boomed
People still dragged their heels. I love seeing negative/hate mail in letters columns from Post Crisis DC books. Now those were manchildren, their hate was so real that they wrote it down and sent it to the people making the comics
>>81643169
>The content is inappropriate for kids
Okay Fredric Wertham
>>81638408
Back then comics sold pretty well. Now they need the event gimmick to keep sells up.
>>81639491
>I know too many people who won't even waste their time with the good C-list books because "they're not important characters"
>>81643270
rude
>>81638408
Basically, yes.
Comics aren't making money anymore so a lot of what they do involves doing short-term sales boosters to make more money and break even.
Since they ARE a business they'll keep doing this indefinitely, whereas back in the Silver and Bronze Age most comics could be expected to decently sell more.
>>81641737
Continuity became a lot more important after the 80's hit.
It locked out a lot of casual readers, who unfortunately bring in a LOT more money and are in vastly greater numbers then non-casual readers.
So yeah, casuals and how they were locked out is why the comics market is dying. Ironic considering the negativity thrown towards casuals on here.
>>81645122
The thing that locked out casuals was the direct market
They really just don't make comics like they used to. It makes you appreciate what we had for the time that we did. Everything from art to writing has deteriorated in quality.
At least how I see it, both Marvel and DC effectively gutted everything interesting about their respective universes when they disregarded their continuity. That was what made these stories unique and interesting. The canon is what mattered the most. There used to be a sense of cohesion, but now neither universe has any real unity
>>81645402
>The canon is what mattered the most.
I honestly think the desire to adhere to this is what fucks things up over and over again.
Too much weight dragging shit down.
>>81645557
Yeah, my favorite period of DC is Post-Crisis when characters were getting reinvented left and right and a lot of continuity was just thrown away in favor of telling stories
>>81645557
The canon isn't dead weight, it's the soul of these characters. Each story builds upon what came before. It's the sole reason we can draw parallels between comic books and various mythological traditions. The Greek mythological canon is given it's meaning and significance by being interwoven through each individual figure it touches upon. It's the same with these superhero characters. They need to be a part of an expansive and cohesive canon
>>81645719
They never through away anything, they always built upon what was established
>>81645808
>It's the sole reason we can draw parallels between comic books and various mythological traditions
Shouldn't you be jerking off over a candle onto some paper Morrison?
>>81645402
>The canon is what mattered the most
No that would be the art and the writing, the same with any comic
>>81645808
It also will stop anyone except the collecter's market and hard-core fans from ever buying comics again.
You may not like it, but it's a satistical fact that as a narrower and narrower group of people got into comics the less and less successful it became until we have modern day where everything for the Big Two is an attempt to make their comics "matter" again.
>>81645808
I think it ends up being the exact opposite. You can have the soul of the character present without making sure all the boxes are ticked as far as following continuity exactly. Of making sure your story fits within near a century of backdrop rather BEFORE making a story that works today.
Canon should be a resource you draw from to build something rather than a shackle that forces a person to adhere to every thing each writer before him did.
Putting canon first is what fans who obsess over logic details care about and shouldn't be the priority for a creative work.
>>81646083
>Putting canon first is what fans who obsess over logic details care about and shouldn't be the priority for a creative work.
Especially since that's a tiny segment of the population and the objective of the enterprise is to make money.
>>81643169
I agree. The Marvel Adventures line was easily Marvel's best books in years and have yet to surpass that age because of the fact that they actually felt like comic books. They weren't giant arcs that spanned years with almost no payoff due to the mediums inherent need for status quo, they were simple one-off stories that they did really well.
>>81646343
Another problem is the huge overhead costs for Marvel and DC thanks to their centrally-managed publishing systems and the increasing cost of print comics.
More expensive=less pages. Less pages=more decompression. More decompression=longer stories drawn out. More drawn out=less interest in paying for each issue, especially from new readers. Less paying=less profit. Less profit=more desperation to make money, leading to rehashes of "what already works" or cross over events to temporarily boost sales.
The Big Two REALLY shot themselves in the foot way back when, and instead if getting it treated they limped along and it got all infected and gross and permanently crippled them.
DC and Marvel are fucking lucky their IP's are so valuable, because otherwise Disney and Time-Warner wouldn't have bothered ever buying them.
>>81646343
In my opinion there's no way the big two can salvage their stories or tone down the content when the demographic is entirely manchildren (us)
For good or for bad, that is the demographic. There's no way to overhaul it to be acceptable for everyone. One, that would kill it. Two, the 'for everyone' movie shit is full of death and sex and edgy quips so there is clearly no place for fun without relying on pointing out the absurdity of what is happening or adult references
I feel like a huge fucking prude
>>81639283
>a massive X-Men crossover in the 80s
Mutant Massacre, which begat Fall of the Mutants, which begat Inferno, which begat Acts of Vengeance, and so on and so forth
>>81647706
And I forgot to say that the year before Mutant Massacre, there was Secret Wars 2, which really began the end of Marvel's golden age of the 80's
