Today, I have made a big decision.
For the past two and a half years, I’ve received a monthly comic shipment straight to my door. It was a time when I was buying and reading a lot of comics, and wanted to be in from the beginning on 52, the first of DC Comics series of weekly comics (and the only weekly comic I’ve enjoyed so far.) The local comic shop’s subscription deal wasn’t very good, and in fact, got worse not that much longer after I first inquired about it. I signed up with SciFiGenre because of their price, but I also have to say that I have always been VERY impressed with their service. Rarely any kind of issue whatsoever, and they always let me know when there was a problem with an incoming book. Plus, being able to view upcoming issues and the list of all available titles is a big plus.
However, all that said, I’m canceling my account as of today, and not picking up individual issues any more. There are a variety of issues for this. A few are personal: I don’t like all the space that each issue (which comes bagged and boarded) takes up in my house. I don’t have as much reading time as I did. I don’t feel like spending $30-$40 each month anymore.
A few however, I find echoed among many of my comics-reading friends. Chiefly, it seems as though the efforts by the Big Two to draw us into their mega-events and crossovers largely fall flat, and don’t encourage us to read the single issues as we go. The line-up of creators is largely stagnant, and even the creators I’m usually excited for fall flat (the recent Superman issues with James Robinson is the freshest example of this.) I found myself wondering why I don’t just save the money and buy the trades. (Even moreso when the price of comics is going up.) Plus, I don’t have to deal with cruddy fill-in runs or worry all that much about changes in creative teams: I just buy the trades that are good. Simple, eh?
Back in 2006, I was really energized about comics, mainly owing to DC and the controversial Identity Crisis series. I wanted to read everything and keep up with the massive sprawling storylines, but also experience solid comics that made me excited to read the next issue and find out what happens next, like why I got into comics as a kid. It used to matter to me that I was up to date on EVERYTHING, as evidenced by my comic reviews.
In time, that feeling has worn off. I’d like to pin it on the comic companies and their decisions, and also feel like I’m not alone and there are lots of disenfranchised people like me, but I realize that it may just be my tastes changing. Either way, my subscribing days are done for the time being, though I am looking forward to going back into comic stores regularly to buy trades.
What am I going to do with that money? Save most of it, but some of it is going towards a D&D Insider subscription. Guy’s gotta have something nerdy to read, right?
I quit single issues about ten years ago, for similar reasons. I’ve never been a collector, just a reader. I’ve come to embrace the Long Tail as well: once a storyline or mini-series is done I can read the reviews of the whole thing, and if it seems worthwhile I can go pick up the trade paperback collections at my leisure — for much less than the individual issues would cost.
An alternative I’m looking at is Marvel Online. For an annual fee (which seems kind of steep at first) you can not only read current issues online, but back catalog and exclusive online content. The drawback is that it’s only Marvel; if other publishers follow suit, I’d have to pay separate fees to read DC, Dark Horse, etc. The other issues is that I see it being a potentially huge time-suck; I could easily fall into reading the entire run of a series from 196x to present.
For geek reading, I’m happy picking up old issues of Dragon, Dungeon, and Asimov’s for a buck to buck-and-a-half each at the used book store.
Yeah, that’s a good point about Marvel Online. I generally prefer to read comics and magazines online, because I hate storing them and I hate having to move them. If Marvel, DC, et al, every really get their act together on providing that service, I’d definitely sign up. Unfortunately, they seem more bent on chasing down those who are already doing it (granted, illegally) then implementing a good solution that works as well.
There were so many Asimov’s and other similar magazines in my old house that we had to give away I don’t feel as though I ever have to pay for one ever again 🙂
I definitely mirror a lot of the same sentiment, but I stopped buying comics every week right after the Identity Crisis time. This wasn’t because of DC in particular, moreso Marvel and the fact that House of M had prelude crossovers, the event itself, then aftermath which led immediately into a separate crossover’s preludes, then that crossover, then aftermath from them. I stopped half way through the second crossover (Civil War) for a lot of different reasons.
Like Berin Kinsman, I also stopped reading individual issues about a decade ago. For me, one big reason was that after the comic market collapse of the mid 90s, many indies (my main interest) shifted toward graphic novels. This was a very happy tiding for me, as OGNs (and TPBs) are easier to read, easier to store, and most importantly, can be put on my Amazon wish list.
Sounds like I’m in good company!
I think stopping with the single issues will also expand my horizons a bit. While I’ve enjoyed quite a lot of smaller press comics in the past (as is evident by how much I spent at SPX last year), I now have additional budget for comics that’s not just taken up by mainstream comics.
Normally I am something of an iconoclast in these discussions, but maybe we are onto something. I’ve come and gone for years on the funny books, but the emotional return has dwindled and dwindled.
Part of it comes from the constant attempt of the big 2 to outdo themselves in terms of scope, forgetting that as we get older, many of us crave depth and angst even in our escapism. We crave mortality in our superheroes.
I daresay I will not be shouted down when I reiterate a few posts ago, when people were speaking between the ‘Dark Knight’ and the ‘Watchmen’ for quality reading. The old Miller Daredevil, even the 1970’s Spiderman, their in-between status, part gods and part men allows them to lodge in our hearts in a way that the latest “This Will End the Marvel/CD World as You Know It” epic never will.
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Yeah, I’ve always been more interested in the individual heroes than the universe-encompassing crossovers. I even bridled at crossovers involving heroes with multiple titles (e.g., Spider-man, Superman, Batman, X-Men) because of the varying quality of the creative teams (or the cast of characters, in the case of the X-books). I stopped collecting/buying individual issues about 10 years ago, but have been looking at TPBs recently. I imagine I may get back into individual issues when my son starts reading. He’s already a huge superhero fan.
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