The United States of Esoterica

About seven or eight weeks ago I just stopped. Quit buying and haven't really thought much about it since then.

I literally walked into the shop one day, saw the shelves covered with Final Crisis and Secret Invasion and Tie Ins and other assorted shit and left without anything. And I don't miss it.

I know there are still good books out there and I'm missing them. Perhaps I'll revist them in trade form. But I don't know. I don't really miss buying comics. I think Marvel and DC and Didio and Quesada and Bendis and all their collective bullshit finally burned me out. Maybe I'll get the itch again one day, but right now I'm enjoying catching up on my novel and short story reading.

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Modern Science: Where a crappy answer is better than no answer at all.

Yeah, DC and Marvel are pretty lame these days.
What's it take for Q to get fired?
Now that Waid and Perez are both off Brave and Bold, I stopped reading anything DC.
With Marvel, I'm down to X-Force, Wolverine, and Kick Ass.

Other than that, I just read the stuff Warren Ellis' Avatar stuff: Black Summer, No Hero, Crossed.

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"I didn't need to learn what I learned today." -- Jesse Ventura.
"There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty. " - Ron Paul.

I did the same thing Orpheus. What got me was the way Marvel handled stuff on their message board. I made a legitimate remark about how they have negated 25 years of Marvels history so Quesada and Bendis could do two stories, One More day and Secret Invasion.

They banned me from the boards.

Here I was spending at least 30-45 bucks a WEEK on Marvels stuff and they basically say my opinion doesn't mean shit to them. I called their offices and complained, then sent e-mails. When that Wed. rolled around I went to the shop and the owner handed me my stuff, I sorted out the Marvel books and said, keep these. (I told them that in the Stan and Shooter days this stuff wouldn't happen)

I stayed with DC for another few weeks, but by the maker, was I getting bored reading leadups into stories that were going to be told sometime in 2009-10.

I finally dropped them all, now I spend my time reading my real books (never stopped to begin with) and getting video games and the new anniversary GI Joe figures.

I just asked my brother tonight who all was a Skrull in SI, and all this buildup for Jarvis and Spider-Woman (who mysteriously came back after dying in like 1982, that was a shocker) to be Skrulls. It's a big FU to everyone who followed it and gave a damn. But will Quesada and Bendis care? Hell no, they sold their millions of issues and hundreds (seemingly) of tie-in minis.

I don't miss it. If I want to read about my old pals Spidey, Bats, and the rest I have my thousands of back issues that were done before Quesada even picked up a pencil to draw that shitty firefighter, Ash.

If you're fed up with the Big 2, Image is dishing out some good books lately. The Walking Dead and Invincible by Kirkman are both quality, and Toddy himself is about to starting writing/inking for Spawn again this month.

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Tired: Dog bites man. Weird: Dogman bites alien.

Here's the skinny. As a child of the late 70s early 80s, I collected comics with a religious fervor.

But, then it dawned on me. If Batman were to say, KILL the Joker, instead of locking him up in Arkyham Asylum AGAIN ... then he would save thousands of future innocent lives. But no, because the guy running around in a costume won't "sink to the Joker's level" he keeps him alive.

Well, news flash to Neal Adams, Denny O'Neil, Mike W. Barr, Gerry Conway and everyone else involved in plotting and writing for Batman over the years: He's not sinking to Joker's level because he's killing someone evil who's hurt people. Joker kills innocents.

Enough with the charade. Well, that and the fact that when I got out of the collection biz, it's because Spiderman was re-released at No. 1 with 10 different foil covers on it. The greed got ridiculous. Then I was waiting in line to buy X-Factor #1 with my allowance and some grownup in front of me was buying 20+ issues of it. I was lucky to find one on the shelf after he raped it.

I still go back and buy a few here and there, especially "elseworlds" graphic novels (Kingdom Come, etc.) but combined with how expensive the issues are and sometimes the stunted (on purpose) availability, that's a rat race I want no part of.

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"This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine."

Well, the nice thing is you've put together a collection. So now you can re-read them, figure out which ones you'd like to hang onto. Then possibly sell ones you aren't so attached to and make some cash!

I was a "Silver Age" , twelve cent, DC comics sort of girl myself. Every so often I'll buy a few off of eBay for fun.

I have about 20 years worth of Trek stuff- books, zines, figures, you name it. The problem for me is that anyone who'd enjoy buying some stuff from me doesn't need it, because they collected it too! Just have to leave it to the kiddo in the will!

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Dorie
"Freedom of thought... is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." Justice Benjamin Cardozo, 1937

another reason to quit...

IDW is relaunching the GI Joe series in 2009.
Chuck Dixon is on the main book.
Larry Hama is writing another one called GI Joe Origins.
and there's another book, GI Joe: Cobra.

the old continuity is being wiped away.

This is a little unique, given that Hama is part of the "re-imagining". But I still hate that they have to "redo" things instead of just carrying things forward.

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"I didn't need to learn what I learned today." -- Jesse Ventura.
"There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty. " - Ron Paul.

Isn't that like the fourth or fifth G.I. Joe re-launch in the last few years?

Still comics free and not missing it a bit. Part of that may be because I'm so busy, but I think I finally outgrew them. I'm reading way more novels and enjoying them far more.

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Modern Science: Where a crappy answer is better than no answer at all.

It's the third or fourth relaunch with an issue 1 and new publisher, but they have all played off the continuity (except Sigma-6) of those 150 or so Marvel issues. As a huge Real American Hero era (1982 and up) Joe fan, I'm not really sure how I feel about a complete reboot to the franchise. On one hand I can see where they are going with it and getting rid of a lot of the baggage that the franchise has such as way too many Ninjas running around and the fact that they play such a role in the origin of Cobra.

Ok, I admit it, if they get rid of the ninja elements I'm fine with the relaunch LOL.

Seriously though, well as serious as one can be about 3 3/4 inch action figures and the comics based on them, if you get rid of the Ninja stuff, then it also gets rid of great stories like the Cobra Civil War, Silent Interlude and the whole Fred VII story. With the relaunch I'm scared that it will become nothing more than Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow every issue, which is part of what brought the line down in 1993-94, they saw that the ninja characters were popular, so they kept adding them and adding them until it no longer resembled GI Joe and seemed like a 1980's Cannon Film.

If they do what I've read and keep it to a core group of 15 or so Joes and an equal number of Cobra (not counting Bullet Stoppers), then it could work. But if they have a Joe Unit that resembles a small nation, then it loses it's bearings with all the characters. That's one of the things that made the first, say, 25 issues of the Marvel Series so awesome. It was pretty much the original 13 (with a few added between issue 10 or 11 to issue 25) against Cobra. Then it got to the point that even with a scorecard, you couldn't tell who was who.

With all that said, my brother will buy them and I will read them. I just hope they aren't doing this to make it the Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity (aka the PC Joe) of the new movie.

I just home Tomax and Xamot are included. Best Cobra characters ever.

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"I didn't need to learn what I learned today." -- Jesse Ventura.
"There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty. " - Ron Paul.

I love those guys. I'm a Major Bludd guy myself, though...Zartan, too.

And who was the big toxic guy that the Joes had to team up with Cobra to take down? Cesspool or something?

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Tired: Dog bites man. Weird: Dogman bites alien.