About the title of this piece: I’ve hardly quit buying comics.
I have stopped buying them regularly. While, less than a week ago,
I snatched up Ben Katchor’s Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer
on sale, I also haven’t been in a comic store in a month—the
longest I’ve gone since I started collecting in 1989.
Still, just because you haven’t been into a bookstore in a long
time doesn’t mean that you don’t read anymore. However,
reading comics is very much a weekly event for many people; it includes
regular trips to comic stores.
Not for me. Not anymore.
There are so many directions for me to go in with this piece that
I’m afraid, for you, the reader, it will certainly be a rant—disjointed
and all over the place. “Why I Quit Buying Comics” lacks
the drive and direction of anything under the heading, “essay.”
It would have made much more sense for me to quit in high school,
or just before I entered college. Socially, it would have made a hell
of a lot more sense. However, I’m happy to say this isn’t
a social decision. I’m not embarrassed to read comics—Paul
Pope, as many of you may already know, is the easiest to read in public—and
I don’t feel to old for them. In fact, this past year has been
a benchmark for comics. From David Boring and Jimmy Corrigan
to Maakies and Snake ‘n Bacon, there are many reasons
for me to keep reading. I’m certainly not about to stop reading
comics.
So, why did I quit? It’s not that I don’t have the money
for comics. I do—relatively. I can always buy fewer comics or
buy comics less often. It was a combination of lack of time—books
that I bought in September sit half-read—and other burgeoning
interests, which, I admit, I would much rather give my time, money
and constant attention. By and large, these interests are travel and
love— at its best the latter includes the former. Furthermore,
when I did find the time to sit down and read the books that I was
interested in, I was becoming more and more disappointed. Many of
the serialized books that I enjoy— including The Authority,
Hellblazer, Optic Nerve and Deadenders—
were hitting the same point issue in and issue out. And each time
this happened the point had less of an impact. Imagine: the thrill
of books like Optic Nerve (which I was in awe of when I first
read it) and Deadenders (which for its first few issues, I,
too, foolishly thought would be the next flagship Vertigo book) was
being lost. This is a criticism that is often being leveled at David
Lapham; however, he is one of my exceptions.
Lapham’s work has had the lasting impression on me that Superman
is supposed to have on a child. For the time being, I’m not ready
to let go of Stray Bullets or Murder Me Dead because
they are more than comics to me. They are my childhood, or rather
my adolescence, or maybe my early teen years. I also have every intention
of picking up the final THB6 and, likely, more of Pope’s
work. However, more and more, I will wait for the trade paperbacks.
While I will walk into a store on the day that a Lapham book is released,
I can wait for Vertigo to collect Pope’s 100%. I will
probably read Planetary— which continues to go way beyond
what we should expect of modern comics in the way that it picks apart
genre fiction—until I reach the next logical stopping point.
But instead of trying my luck at Greg Rucka’s Batman or
anymore of Brian Michael Bendis’s work, which quickly became
absurdly redundant, I will sit down and read From Hell again.
And then Alec and Hicksville. Because I want to be a
powerful critic of comics—something that multiple readings of
important works, as well as some time away from comic shops, will
afford me.
I feel I can do more of my part to save comics by stopping my eleven-year
relationship with them. There are plenty of reasons for each of us
to stop buying comics, each of you should consider these before you
rebuke this idea, and then you should remind yourself of the reason
to continue reading them—they’re there as well. A few:
1. It wasn’t until I went to school in Boston and discovered
Kenmore Square’s Comicopia that I realized how wide the talent
pool in comics is. For that, I’m not about to start buying my
comics in a filthy bookstore that has the most modern of the postmodern
genres in the humor section.
2. The mainstream press’ attention to independent comics—thanks
to Pantheon Books, although Joe Sacco is probably the most deserving
of the attention—gives independent creators hope for the future.
The market for smaller books is bigger while everyone and their sexually-molested
cousin seems to be coming to the realization that superhero comics
are utter shit.
3. People are finally coming to their senses when it comes to original
graphic novels over serialized pamphlets.
4. Everything Eisner has done is slowly coming back into print.
There are more—I’m sure of it—however, my inability
to list anything else of worth is probably part of the reason that
I’ve gotten out of this racket. That and no one likes my idea
for Charlie Parker Comics.
Unfortunately, I’m better at coming up with the list of reasons
to stop reading comics, which we’ll call—for the sake of
Savant’s goal—reasons to change comics:
1. Think of where DC’s superhero line was two years ago and where
it is now.
2. A decent monthly anthology doesn’t exist.
3. Yes, they are too expensive. Much too expensive.
4. You could be reading Midnight’s Children.
5. Snake ‘n Bacon did not get the mainstream attention
of the two big Pantheon books.
6. Garth Ennis hasn’t shined outside of Preacher in years
and now Preacher is over.
7. No one seems to be able to get Manga and Anime fans to read American
comics. I honestly fear that the marketing people in comics spend
their days beating their heads against cinderblocks. (The X-Men
bit is equally ridiculous.)
8. That Sin City trade paperback released last month. Up next:
The Dark Knight Returns Returns. (sic)
I’ll stop there. I consider it quite a low point in comics. But
I’m just angry and annoyed and the change isn’t coming fast
enough—nothing is getting saved just yet. What is this? The year-end
issue? Hell, I know Fraction is saying
that we’ll look back at 2000 as the next 1986. Still, I say:
better luck this year.
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