Lack of editorial asterisk

[Rommin]

I'm starting to sound like a grouchy old man, but, I gotta ask!!

 

/assume form of stooped over white headed old dude with a cane

 

Back in my day, they used to use a powerful character that looked like this --> * to tell me where the heck I should look to find out what in the dickens a comic book character was talking about in another comic that I had missed.

 

Fer instance " * As seen in Book You Don't Collect But Ties In With This Story #248 on sale now!"

 

I appears that DC, or at least the editor for Green Lantern (Corps) doesn't do that. It took some looking to find out that Kyle's mom seems to have keeled over in an issue of Ion I don't own.

 

So, I guess the question is, is this something that has fallen out of favor or is it just something that the GL editor, or maybe just Johns doesn't do?

 

Thanks

-Barry

 

[OldGuy]

I can't remember the last time I saw the * used in a modern comic other then to denote a translation from a different language.

[Mushie]

I can't remember the last time I saw the * used in a modern comic other then to denote a translation from a different language.

 

ASM has those often...

[Karma23]

it's ridiculous that this isn't used as a marketing tool if nothing else.

 

I know in the 70's it certainly had me looking for issue # whatever to find out what had happened previously, or in a related book that I didn't normally read. It doesn't make much sense to leave them out.

[helionaut]

Various theories have been put forth on this subject. The most plausible ones, to me, are:

a) The internet has all this information at your disposal, so if you want to know what's important about a certain line or event, you just have to look, or post a question on a board like this one

b) editors are lazy and/or don't know and/or don't care

 

Back when the star was common, there was a small and growing collector community and group of stores where you could actually go find issue X. But today, it seems few stores carry any good backstock, plus there are trade paperbacks reprinting at least half of what's published, at least from the major companies. There's a decent chance a reader might be seeing a certain comic for the first time in a trade, so it doesn't make sense to refer to issue #12. They could redo the text for trades to refer to Amazing Smegman Volume 3, but they usually don't. I'd think that they'd have an even bigger stake in selling other reprint material than old, out-of-print books so they'd be tighter on that sort of quasi-hyperlinking.

 

I know I always took a certain pleasure in finding star comments and then when I finally got those books it felt good to get the whole story. But things have changed. It seems there is a lot less editorial/narrative comment overall, no more 'meanwhile' or 'what Peter doesn't know is that across town at that very moment...'. Gone the way of 'Continued on 5th page following' and letters pages.

[seank]

* www.wikipedia.org

[awe4one]

Disappeared in the mid-late 90s...about the same time as thought balloons were phased out. I don't think it has as much to do with leaving people in the dark as it does with stories being purposely separated from continuity so they're not "bogged down"...

 

Jim

[OldGuy]

I can't remember the last time I saw the * used in a modern comic other then to denote a translation from a different language.

 

ASM has those often...

 

I should have specified "a good modern comic". (thumbs u

[Rommin]

it's ridiculous that this isn't used as a marketing tool if nothing else.

 

I know in the 70's it certainly had me looking for issue # whatever to find out what had happened previously, or in a related book that I didn't normally read. It doesn't make much sense to leave them out.

 

That's how I see it too. I mean, if I saw an issue of another book notated, I would seek it out

 

 

[Rommin]

Disappeared in the mid-late 90s...about the same time as thought balloons were phased out. I don't think it has as much to do with leaving people in the dark as it does with stories being purposely separated from continuity so they're not "bogged down"...

 

Jim

 

Heh, I didn't even notice the lack of thought balloons. How does Chris Claremont get along now? heh

[Tatterdamillion]

I loved the star

[Mushie]

I can't remember the last time I saw the * used in a modern comic other then to denote a translation from a different language.

 

ASM has those often...

 

I should have specified "a good modern comic". (thumbs u

[jordanscott]

I can't remember the last time I saw the * used in a modern comic other then to denote a translation from a different language.

 

ASM has those often...

 

So does every issue that references something in the past now have an * on the cover to indicate something that may or may not have happened prior to Mephisto?