Worst Comic Book Gimmicks

[Sharkey]

Having somebody else grade your comics based on a proprietary grading schematic and encase them in a sealed hard plastic case that prevents you from reading them.

 

 

 

 

[Sharkey]

PS: Just kidding, Steve-O

 

[Mister_Comics]

5.) No. 1 Issues - Why oh why did marvel revert to #1 issues after reaching the 300's and 400's. This short term thinking really hurt the market and the long-term fan base. If you lose your core base by trying to attract new and young readers, then all is lost.

 

This is so true. Totally agree.

But it isn't just MARVEL. DC's Justic League, Doom Patrol, to name a few, have been started over just for the same reasons. The thinking behind the ending of a series just boggles me. Here you have an established series with well known characters which have great following in most cases and because someone decides they ain't making enough $$$ from the series they just drop it. Then months down the road for some reason the characters become popular again, they scramble to start up the character in a new volume or comic. How stupid is that.

If a series is loosing money you think the "powers that be" would think of a way to make the series sell instead of dropping it. BRAVE AND THE BOLD was one of my all time favorites. No reason to stop the series. Sales for the Batman team-up stories were down. But you would think; Hey, this use to be a intro type series of books that would introduce news characters. Kind of like MARVEL's MARVEL SPOTLIGHT or MARVEL PREMIER. You would think they would just go back to the intro type stories. Instead they drop the B&B and start up something that didn't catch on with readers. It isn't just MARVEL. They all make the same mistake. No business sense. I'm just glad they never stopped BATMAN comics and DETECTIVE COMICS. What MARVEL did is a shame. A slap in the face to loyal readers. That ONSLAUGHT thing was a big mistake and so was the CRISIS series I feel. Those two really were the start of cancelations and big changes that never caught on. But I don't want to get started on ONSLAUGHT or CRISIS. Thats topic for another discussion. Its still not to late for the comic industry to return to what it was, loyal to its readers. I can see it happening with some of the new series. But until the comic industry turns around and brings back the LOYALTY TO THE READER, I don't think it will ever be the same as in the past when comics were king.

[stynxno]

Good list. Here's my rant which might be a little controversial:

 

The worst gimmick is the complete trashing of the comics code and making the medium very unfriendly to kids.

 

In some ways the 70s was the best of all worlds. Lots of comics on the racks for kids in every drugstore, but still there were comic shops in college towns where there was a corner for 18 and up. Now many stores just throw all the new books onto a common counter. The comics industry is simply pillaging and strip-mining what the pioneers have created. Gay Northstar? Gay Kid Colt? Waspy Vag*na Voyages with Yellowjacket? Wertham was an overreaction, but so is that dreck in books that should by rights appeal to both kids and adults. Every year the average age of comic book readers goes up but the total number of readers is declining. That means less kids are getting into the medium and the hobby.

 

Yeah, yeah, part of the reason is that kids, especially teen boys, have other diversions like gaming and on-line porn. Society as a whole is less kid-friendly and comics reflect that to an extent, but the bottom line is that this industry and this hobby is in many ways cutting its own throat.

 

So you're upset that comics no longer match your moral code? Considering how much violence and sex I saw on TV as a young kid, I really don't think that comics today are anyway less kid-friendly.

[Mephisto]

Having characters who appear on the cover that aren't even in the story or are just [!@#%^&^] robots, clones, or skrulls.

[OldGuy]

Gay Kid Colt?

 

I think you mean the Rawhide Kid.

 

They're both gay.

[Sabertooth]

 

So you're upset that comics no longer match your moral code? Considering how much violence and sex I saw on TV as a young kid, I really don't think that comics today are anyway less kid-friendly.

 

I guress you missed this:

 

In some ways the 70s was the best of all worlds. Lots of comics on the racks for kids in every drugstore, but still there were comic shops in college towns where there was a corner for 18 and up. Now many stores just throw all the new books onto a common counter.

 

And this:

 

Wertham was an overreaction, but so is that dreck in books that should by rights appeal to both kids and adults.

 

So, no, I'm not upset that comics don't fit my moral code, but I think it's a shame that comics are increasingly unfriendly to kids. I think I said that pretty clearly.

 

[Kevin Boyd]

They're both gay.

 

In the sense that they are happy, yes.

[Sabertooth]

Nirvana it may have been, but don't let rose -tinted nostalgia cause you to forget the events of Spidey 121 - 150. No that they were bad comics (they were great) but Gwen Stacy's death was a big event, and her return a bit of a fiasco.

 

Damn you Gerry Conway! Damn you to hell!

 

No, really, my 70's quote was meant to be somewhat sarcastic. Comics are comics, you have good ones, you have bad ones. Sometimes you have a lot of bad ones...

 

Sheesh, what to I gotta do?

 

I said "In some ways the 70s was the best of all worlds. Lots of comics on the racks for kids in every drugstore, but still there were comic shops in college towns where there was a corner for 18 and up. Now many stores just throw all the new books onto a common counter."

 

Comics were more available, there was a modified Comics Code, and there were also non-code venues that were appropriately displayed for the appropriate clientele.

 

In the early 90s I walked into a shop in L.A. for some S.A. back issues and was told they were in back (go figure). My first grade daughter was with me and as I'm walking down an aisle from the front of the shop I realized that we were surrounded by Cherry and manga porn. There was no sign at all indicating that there was adult material in that aisle. I pointed out the omission to the guys working there but they just sorta shrugged. Other shops in the area had the same attitude so I just made sure that my daughter and I stuck to certain aisles. But how hard is it to designate an adults only area of the store? Many of those books would be illegal to sell to children anyway.

[*paull*]

Batman: Death in the Family

[howardhallis]

The Green Goblin boinking Gwen Stacy.

[Kevin Boyd]

Comics were more available, there was a modified Comics Code, and there were also non-code venues that were appropriately displayed for the appropriate clientele.

 

The code was applied to books, not venues. Your "non-code venues" sold code approved books as well as non-code approved books and I can't think of a single shop that doesn't "lump" their new books in a single area (hardly ever a counter, usually it's a rack of some sort) when they arrive and that's in over 25 years of buying in shops.

 

In the early 90s I walked into a shop in L.A. for some S.A. back issues and was told they were in back (go figure). My first grade daughter was with me and as I'm walking down an aisle from the front of the shop I realized that we were surrounded by Cherry and manga porn. There was no sign at all indicating that there was adult material in that aisle. I pointed out the omission to the guys working there but they just sorta shrugged. Other shops in the area had the same attitude so I just made sure that my daughter and I stuck to certain aisles. But how hard is it to designate an adults only area of the store? Many of those books would be illegal to sell to children anyway.

 

Yes, I cannot defend that kind of silliness. They should have put more thought into product placement, but the early 1990's was clearly the worst time to walk into a comic shop as jiggle books like Lady Death were all over the place.

[Sabertooth]

The code was applied to books, not venues. Your "non-code venues" sold code approved books as well as non-code approved books and I can't think of a single shop that doesn't "lump" their new books in a single area (hardly ever a counter, usually it's a rack of some sort) when they arrive and that's in over 25 years of buying in shops.

 

25 years takes you back to the beginning of the direct sales era when everything started to change, and misses most of the 70s, which I was talking about. I started going to comic shops in the early 70s, and even in the SF Bay Area shops all had "no one over 18" sections where comix were sold. That's partly what I meant by "non-code venue" but I was also referring to the magazine rack where the Warren and Marvel black and whites were sold. There was a sense of appropriate boundaries for the apporpriate clientele. Adult faire wasn't displayed side-by-side with Harveys and Archies.

[stynxno]

 

So you're upset that comics no longer match your moral code? Considering how much violence and sex I saw on TV as a young kid, I really don't think that comics today are anyway less kid-friendly.

 

I guress you missed this:

 

In some ways the 70s was the best of all worlds. Lots of comics on the racks for kids in every drugstore, but still there were comic shops in college towns where there was a corner for 18 and up. Now many stores just throw all the new books onto a common counter.

 

And this:

 

Wertham was an overreaction, but so is that dreck in books that should by rights appeal to both kids and adults.

 

So, no, I'm not upset that comics don't fit my moral code, but I think it's a shame that comics are increasingly unfriendly to kids. I think I said that pretty clearly.

 

Actually, I didn't miss that. What I should have said is that there are people (ie me and my buddies) who feel that a lot of the comics from the big 2 are still kid-friendly but that's probably because you and I have have different definitions of what kid-friendly really means. But I agree with you about product placement problems in comic shops. If I had a daughter and experienced what you did in the early 90's, I'd be upset too.

[Smokinghawk]

"Director's Cut."

[WiseGuyX]

I totally agree with the first list and its almost word for word why I quit buying comics in the 90's. Now I'm faced with the fact I may have to quit buying comics again because of the trashy stories. I don't want to read about some chick being badly raped and if I wanted to see porn I would go to a adult book store. not a LCS. I feel for anyone as a kid or taking there kids into a comics store only to find their titles surrouned by porn. I think God my town didin't and still doesn't allow this stuff. You can buy some porn here but its is a seperate section from comics. This comes in handy since now days you can't tell the difference between covers of a comic book or a porn book. Well atleast Animation for now.

[bobpfef]

I totally agree with the first list and its almost word for word why I quit buying comics in the 90's. Now I'm faced with the fact I may have to quit buying comics again because of the trashy stories. I don't want to read about some chick being badly raped and if I wanted to see porn I would go to a adult book store. not a LCS. I feel for anyone as a kid or taking there kids into a comics store only to find their titles surrouned by porn. I think God my town didin't and still doesn't allow this stuff. You can buy some porn here but its is a seperate section from comics. This comes in handy since now days you can't tell the difference between covers of a comic book or a porn book. Well atleast Animation for now.

 

I was going to make a crack about this being the typical well reasoned position we get from from the upstanding citizens of the great state of Texas, but I decided against it.

[rob_react]

I totally agree with the first list and its almost word for word why I quit buying comics in the 90's. Now I'm faced with the fact I may have to quit buying comics again because of the trashy stories. I don't want to read about some chick being badly raped and if I wanted to see porn I would go to a adult book store. not a LCS.

 

Forgive me, but that's the most backwards statement I've ever read on these boards.

 

Yeah Identity Crisis is right up there with other "porn" classics like the film "The Accused."

 

Merely having rape be a plot element now makes a comic PORN? The rape was implied? Nothing was shown AT ALL. But it's PORN? WTF?

 

I guess there's a lot more porn out there than I thought. Better lock up your Shakespeare and work your way down...

[Kieranel]

I... I don't want to read about some chick being badly raped and if I wanted to see porn I would go to a adult book store. not a LCS....

 

Well, what is it you want to read from you comic books? If what you want to read were the stories you grew up with, then most comic books nowadays aren't that kind anymore. But you can still read those stories by buying back issues. I am not trying to be sarcastic here, my point would be that the stories written nowadays are reflective of the present time. Much like the stories of the 50's, 60's, and 70's were. It's comparable to what you watch from the tele nowadays as well. Where in the 50's the model for a family unit is the Cleavers, and that Lucy and Ricardo sleep in separate beds, nowadays, you have the Bundy's and the Simpson's on and as well as two men or women cohabitating and sleeping on the same bed...spooning...

[brcudas]

I was wondering, over the years, which comic book gimmick really got under your skin and made you want quit reading comic books altogether.

 

Not a gimmick, but one thing that got under my skin?

Writers or artists who cant complete an issue on time!

Know what? It still does!

 

TGFBI (Thank God For Back Issues )

-brcudas