Personally I started out reading comics as a child because I was interested in grownup stuff (relationships, jobs, drama) but obviosly I didint have the attention span yet for grownup books and movies. That's why I was super into Robotech (tons of relationship drama) and Spider-Man (circa slightly before and after getting married) since they where like soap operas with action, explosions and colorful heroes. I was a little too young for Batman the Dark Knight, Weapon X and Watchmen when I first read them but again that was exactly what I wanted, things that where mature yet childish at the same time.
Now my tastes are still along those lines. I love it when people use comics to address complicated subjects or use mutants and science fiction as cool societal and political allegories. My favorite books have been the 'realistic' ones since they are extremely far from being remotely real but the attempt to deconstruct and inject real world problems allows authors to ask some really interesting questions. In that sense one of my alltime favorites was the Supereme Power series from Marvel Max... it was an amazing deconstruction of the DC universe that felt both jaded and probably accurate.
Also I love the philosophy and science part of comics. That's why I love dorky essays on batmans psychology or books like The Phisics of Superheroes. I love it when you can ask some really unusual questions about time, space, memories and the human condition that simply dont work under other circumstances.
The medium rocks as well. There are things you can do with pacing and directing peoples attention in comics that are impossible in novels and film. Stuff like Maus, Kabuki and The far side are impossible to capture given their ability to control time in a way, taking several pages to render an action in hyper detail or telling an entire story within the borders of a single pannel.
And lastly I love the heroes. I'm not big on heroism and morality but I do love the larger than life wrestling aspect of it. While I wouldent get caught dead watching WWF (no offence to anyone here, I grew up on the much more agile Mexican stuff) I really love watching The Thing tangle with The Hulk or Batman laying down some kung fu on a worthy adversary. I mean hell, I would spend hours in Freedom Force watching battles between the Justice League vs The Avengers and The Authority vs The X-Men. Something about two fisted cape and cowl action never gets old.
So what is it for you? Nostalgia? Fantasy? Escapism?
Because novels don't sit on your lap as well in the can.
Quote from: Verfall on June 24, 2008, 08:56:00 PM
Because novels don't sit on your lap as well in the can.
Your collection just went from "near-mint" to "biohazard"! :blink: :P
There were lots of reasons I liked comics as a kid. The fantasy element has to be near the top of the list. The idea that there was a group of teenagers in the future who were super smart or strong or invulnerable or telepathic and so on was pure wish fulfillment for me. (Yeah, I was an
LSH fan early on.) Later on, I came to appreciate the cool stories that could be told in the medium and the nteresting interpretations of the characters (when I read Moore, Miller, Maggin, etc.).
It didn't hurt that my best friend was a collector (though he was more Marvel and I was more DC) and later we met other people who were into comics and gaming and so on. It was a common weekend experience in my childhood to meet up with my buddy, take three buses to get from the east side to downtown San Jose, buy a bunch of comics, read some on the way back, then catch up with these other folks and play AD&D, or Champions, or Car Wars, or some similar game. Frankly, it was awesome. I don't think I had as much fun again until I discovered drinking and girls. And even that's sort of a close call... (http://home.graffiti.net/stumpyanker:graffiti.net/emoticons/laughing.gif)
Today I don't read nearly as much and I have some series where I've bought the comics and they just sit on my shelf. When I do find a title I like, I enjoy the writing and the take on the character (as with
All-Star Superman), but I also still get something from the wish-fulfillment aspect of it. And, the nostalgia.
I learned to read off of Batman, Super Friends, and spider-man comics (amongst some others) when I was about four. Usually this was in-between all the hospital visits and sometimes during. I've pretty much stayed a Batman fan since then but I had quit reading comics around the early 90s.
Around the mid-90s, I picked up some of the 2099 titles but lost interest in them pretty quick. I was about to cancel my subscription at the comic store when the guy at the counter asked me if I had heard of the Sandman series. I told him I had heard of it but not read any of it. He showed me the Death graphic novel that had just come out and mentioned that the second mini-series was about to come out. I wound up getting into graphic novels and then other Vertigo titles. I eventually wound up back on the Batman titles which I currently collect.
For me, it's about the story. I have friends who get all into the art but there has to be a story there to keep my interest. Even then, I sometimes lose interest because of other reasons. (100 Bullets and Fables comes to mind here) I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the Batman character is a favorite of mine. I think he has the best rogue gallery of any costumed hero out there, even if some of his rogues are not always handled well. But by and large, of the titles I collect, I like the ones that can present a good story.
I started reading comics at first to teach myself to read when I was 2 or 3. My mom declined to do it because she didn't want me to be more ahead than I already was before I started school, so I grabbed some of my dad's x-men comics and went to my room. I came out an hour or two later and read her the whole thing.
Why do I read them now? I don't know. Fanciful world filled with extraordinary things, which helps take my mind off of day-to-day life.
I got into comics because it was an escape at time, when you have to go to school and do chores. Spidey was my first comic I read and at the time I was an nerdy kid and very smart in my class and like Peter, I got picked on. By reading Spider-man, I knew just how Peter felt. I grew up and read other comics, but Spider-man comics (well at least before they screw the story over) has a special place in my heart. FYI - My wife initials are M.J. :thumbup:
I love something somebody said in another forum: the sheer goofyness that you can get away with in comics. One thing that comes to mind are the Subway Pirates in the seven soldiers of victory miniseries... crazy homeless dudes who comandeer subway cars and rob passengers!
Umm... There's people with supernatural powers fighting each other in unnecessary costumes? Obv a must-read.
When I was younger, I used to read comics for the escapism. The whole superheroes battling the forces of evil thing.
As I've gotten older, I started reading comics because I was interested in the medium itself (and not solely because of superheroes), to the point where I don't really care if a comic book I'm reading has superheroes in it or if it's a slice-of-life drama, or a horror story or a crime comic, as long as it has writing and art that reaches a certain level of what I consider to be worthwhile craft.
My mother originally got me into comics. We used to watch the '60s Batman and Spider-Man shows together, and she bought me some older ones. I believe I started off with lots of JLI's, or at least that's what I was really into. It was colourful super heroes doing exciting things, but was also really funny. Soon I discovered EC reprints and devoured them. I've always been way into monsters. Honestly though, I couldn't tell you the exact reasons or even what my first comic was or anything like that. As far back as I recall I liked this sort of thing.
From there, like zulu, I just got really interested in the medium as a story telling form. My tastes have refined quite a bit since then but bright costumes and monsters still greatly fill my mind. And pulpish detective types. Still, there's just something about pictures and words together that makes it so much more interesting to me.
I couldn't say why it appeals to me. My first memory of reading was an old silver age JLA comic where the Atom defeats the Shadow thief. My earliest TV memory is watching the Adam West Batman show. i learned to write Superman before my own name. I can't remember a time when comics weren't present in my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way :)
The reason that I read comics is very simple....because they're fun! :thumbup: It doesn't really need to get deeper than that for me. ;) ^_^
I always loved the idea of super heros but didn't really get in to comic books until I was older. (I, too, adored the Adam West Batman!) When I was younger I mostly read the newspaper comics but if I thought there were too many words I would just look at the pictures and make up my own story. I think I was in middle school when I received "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in graphic novel form and from there I started to appreciate them as an art form. (And after frequenting these boards I learned so much more to consider!)
I loved the larger than life heroes who did what was right without all the junk that dilutes or demeans or complicates heroism in the real world. I loved that almost anything was possible and could be coexistent. I got into comics for much the same reason I got into reprint of pulp stuff like Doc savage. sadly although recent movies have delivered this magic to me, Modern comics don't seem to have for me. They just stress me to read.
For me it was a combination of the colors, the art, and seeing the bad guys get what was coming to them.
I don't really read comics. I make them. ;)
A movie, TV show or computer game take millions of dollars to put together. As a result, only the most conservative ideas tend to get greenlit for production, since the studios financing these projects want a good chance of making their money back.
Comics is the cheap visual medium, it take two or three people a month to tell a story, and the effects budget can be expensive as you like without costing money.
As a result, comics can afford to be much more experimental and out there.
Books, too, but I'm a very visual person.