On Comic Book Reading

First up, I wanted to share this article from Polygon – DC Comics’ Rebirth worked because it’s actually good. Long read, but well worth it, and to be honest I happen to agree on many accounts. I tried buying into the new 52 when it came out, avoiding some of the bad (Starfire scantily clad? really?) and focussing on the fresh retelling of some of the “core” characters. Aquaman in particular caught my interest, and I really enjoyed it. For a while. But I’m part of that percentage of sales Susana mentions, that initial bump that later just faded away. With the two major comic book publishers going through yet another reset this last summer, I stumbled away from reading all together. But maybe there’s something to reconsider here.

Marvel’s song is no better to my ears, I have to admit – and yet I bought into Marvel Unlimited. Why? Because while a lot of the current story arcs are of no interest to me, MU gives me access to the entire digital history of Marvel. I can read (so long as it’s been digitized), every issue that came out in any month ever. Think about that for a second, comic readers – imagine if you could have a retroactive pull list that covered every title for only $10 a month. We all know there are little hints and tie-ins, usually nothing that affects the main story line, but always present between related comics. With MU, you can actually sit down and read every issue published in January of 2015 (for example) and build that complete picture. By the way – there are 70+ titles from January of 2015 available. At an average cover price of $3, that would have been over $200 in comics.

I know some folks out there are just scratching their heads and wondering – why comics? The best I can offer is that they offer a little something to the creative brain, pulpy stories that lay the bed for further what-if’s. Even when they reset the entire universe you’re enjoying to start the characters over again in a new mould.