>Hear about comic book series.
>It sounds cool so I go to read it.
>Hmmm, I wonder if I need to read anything before I read this.
>Look it up.
>Oh, I do, cool, I'll go read that.
>Y'know what? I bet I need to read something before that too.
>Look it up.
>Whaddya know? I do.
>Rinse.
>Repeat.
Does it ever get tiresome for you guys? I'm surprised more of you haven't been turned into Image or manga fans.
Nobody does this except moronic tourists.
There's no beginning or end. Just read what YOU want to read.
FPBP and /thread
samegay
Except when what you want to read is shit. Then your taste is bad and you should feel bad.
If I want to start at the beginning, I do that, but I usually just start where I want.
I also already read manga.
>>Y'know what? I bet I need to read something before that too.
You don't. You're purposely being a stupid twat. Anything that you need to know can be gained via context.
Did you also go back and read the entirety of Superman from issue #1 before watching man of steel? Fricking moron.
There is literally NOTHING that you "have to" read before reading something else.
This is FOMO (fear of missing out) that has been purposefully built up by the WHOLE entertainment industry to get you to buy more.
>want the whole story, read this extended universe book!
>this movie is a prequel or has easter eggs to another movie
>gotta watch all these spin off series
>oh no a comic references another comic
Back in the day we had no trades or collected editions. You'd read a story for its own sake and maybe get some back issues from a shop or friends. You are letting completionist mindset take over and I get why. The modern world is a stressful place and pressure makes you want to buy more but also sometimes burns you out.
Seriously, less anxiety, read what you want to enjoy. And maybe go to that other stuff if it interests you. But don't like corporate anxiety force you into a blind panic because you miss a tiny bit of context that didn't matter in terms of your enjoyment for a story.
Just read the damn comic!
When the hell did this become a problem? Entire generations where able to jump right into the middle of long runs, events and stories and follow a long just fine. Now all of a sudden despite having the easiest access to information than anyone in history people are suddenly terrified to just read things. It's like the slightest hint of information that they don't know immediately regardless of how germane to the story in question is enough to terrify them from even trying. Any long time comic fan did not start reading from the very first issue. Most of us have picked up random books off the shelf and were able to sort this just fine. You don't even want to try.
>When the hell did this become a problem?
Media moved from single serving one shots to everything having an arc. Good writers are expensive/rare and the industry doesn't value them hence why they went towards showrunners/executive producers. The industry pushed this FOMO hard because it meant loyal customers all bought in to their ecosystems as fans. When the buy in is small, a show or a couple movies people will be fine to pay. But when they are pushing too many spin offs, too much content you reach choice paralysis where people can't make basic choices. Hence why so many people now are watching old sitcoms like Seinfeld for their comfiness because you can just stick on an episode. People's brains are literally fried from the Internet, economics all the problems and how the media/social media just creates a certain kind of antagonistic pressure all the time. Most zoomers now would rather watch a random youtuber than actually read a book, comic or watch a movie/show.
>Media moved from single serving one shots to everything having an arc.
That's not new though. That suddenly didn't just turn into arc based stories over night sometime in the past decade. There wasn't someone in the middle of the 90s going "How do I read x-men" and that was a complete fuster cluck of events and over arching plots. Fans, both new and old took it as read that they might have to jump into the middle of a story.
Each subsequent event is messier and more spread out across different books. Who this guy? Check out The Amazing wienermongler Reborn New 52 NOW!
That's not new either. Comics were always inserting characters into other series and events in order to get potential readers to pick up their own stories. If The Amazing wienermonglere showed up somewhere in the middle of a Vagflap Squad event you weren't expected to know his entire history. You were meant to go "Hey this fella looks interesting maybe I'll add his book to my pull." But you would other wise be able to figure out what his broad deal was or at bare minimum just watch him use his powers as the story required.
None of this is new yet modern audiences can't handle the same things every other single comic reader has.
>That's not new though. That suddenly didn't just turn into arc based stories over night sometime in the past decade.
In TV the big change began in the 90s. Decompression in comics began a similar time going into the early 00s. But I am also talking about the overall shift in audience perceptions over time and the FOMO it leads to. Feels like you ignored most of my post tbh.
>Feels like you ignored most of my post
He's mentally ill homosexual, what did you expect?
This is like saying lead in gasoline doesn't cause problems. We've been doing it for decades! Things build up. People may initially accept things they won't put up with long term. The problem may genuinely become worse and more all encompassing. Other confounding factors may crossover and make something that hasn't seemed to have changed itself become more impactful in the new context.
Comics have been declining forever. At least the classic capeshit ones. And while they've managed to claw back some sales with various stunts, the sales keep going down over the longer trendline. That's the key right there: things build up overtime and attempts to do something drastic to draw more sales can only temporarily solve the problem if not actually exacerbate it by completely overfarming.
Look at this multiverse shit. The capeshit movies have driven themselves into the ground in record time. They did in a decade what it took the comics five to accomplish. The original Spider-verse was a dumb gimmick idea, a real "We're out of fricking ideas" hail mary. And like most "in case of low sales push more popular character" ideas, it seemed to work brilliantly. At first. The problem with "break glass in case of" ideas, is that you can't rebreak it. Spider-verse did well and the movie "adaptation" also managed to make Sony Animation finally have something that wasn't a total joke. MCU made bank off it too. But now we've done that. What next? The comics are on their... third? Spider-verse and you hear nothing about it. Second cartoon movie did well, but it also went bigger and betterer. We all know that's unsustainable unless they rotate the crop successfully, which just brings us back to the "what on earth do we DO" problem.
Things don't remain stagnant. The world changes, even if what you're doing doesn't. You can't just keep on keeping on, bcause eventually you've been keeping on for a long time, and that will FEEL different.
Wasn't the original Spider-verse just a videogame thing?
the issue isn't the decline (That's AN issue but it's not the one we're talking about now.) New audiences just got it in their heads that this shit is insurmountable. Like somebody told them that comics was an inaccessible mess that they can't open up and understand. And I don't think it's because manga gays either. But modern audiences are completely unwilling to try anything these days unless they get someone telling them how and what to do.
>but it's not the one we're talking about now
Why? Because you want to stay in denial and keep seething about inane shit that you've made up in your head?
>When the hell did this become a problem? Entire generations where able to jump right into the middle of long runs, events and stories and follow a long just fine.
Each subsequent event is messier and more spread out across different books. Who this guy? Check out The Amazing wienermongler Reborn New 52 NOW! issue #2 (not to be confused with The Amazing wienermongler Reborn series, The New wiener-mongler series or The wienerMongler wiener to Block reboot) to find out, and while you're at it here's this and this and that and all these things happened sometime before now in yet another reboot of a rebirth of rectonned crossover reimagined for modern audiences by famous writer that brought us some edgy shit ten years ago and has been coasting on this random success for years because nepotism is one hell of a drug.
>blah blah blah blah crossovers
Just buy trades and this is not a problem because the crossovers tie-ins are included. You’re just whining for the sake of whining because boohoo occasionally there might be a month or two of tie-ins you can skip if you’re this upset about it. Real fans like seeing nee characters and reading about them if they find them interesting. That’s the fricking appeal of shared universe.
>blah blah blah just buy things ok
Heh.
>I am entitled to dictate everything related how comics are published and my demands are important but also I won’t pay for anything. WAIT WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME??!!!!
My guess is that it started in the late 80s but got worse over time. More and more comics were written with the idea of just being a graphic novel in the end and being part of a big arc. Additionally during the early 2000s there was more influence coming from anime and manga in cartoons and people began to expect an overall story rather than the more episodic style usual in western comics and cartoons.
Streaming has also enforced the idea that media can be binged, starting from the beginning easily and catching up without much difficulty. Comics are one of the few styles of media nowadays that really aren't bingeable instead relying on jumping on points that can be difficult to know about if you aren't already into comics. It also doesn't help that the most popular characters tend to be the hardest to get into due to long running series and alternative titles and versions.
Don't Marvel and DC have streaming apps where you can read their back log digitally? I'm pretty sure I remember that being a thing.
Marvel is about $70 annually for a 3 month delay and dc is about $75 or a 6 month delay or about $120 for a 30 day delay plus imprints. I can't say anything about the quality of these services.
Popular characters also often have the issue that starting at their first issue is often not the best place to start, especially characters like batman.
>Popular characters also often have the issue that starting at their first issue is often not the best place to start, especially characters like batman.
The really popular ones, however, are so ingrained into pop culture that even non readers should know the brass tax version of them to get started.
Yeah like everyone knows that Batman is a schizoid who only does the whole superhero thing to because he likes hurting people and that Superman is a jobber and Wally West and Barry Allen are the same character and
audiences have changed and entertainment competition has gotten stiffer. A cool premise isn't enough. People largely want to get invested in these characters and stories which cape comics are abysmal for
So buy trades and nor floppies. Problem solved. It takes you less than a minute on Amazon to order a trade paperback.
You answered your own question.
>having the easiest access to information than anyone in history
Filling in the gaps is a learned skill. Primordial man had to learn it and learn it fast from the moment they were born. If they didn't quickly reach a point of instinctively knowing "there's probably a good reason no one else in the tribe is eating the red berries that grow all over the place" without it being spelled out to them, they probably died. Then, we invented the concept of education and began spoonfeeding children with our collective knowledge in a formatted and linear manner. The skill was still a requirement in entertainment, though, so everything was fine. The past 30 years have slowly chipped away at it there, too. Pirating, and later streaming, meant that a kid never had to think things like
>the first game in the series isn't sold in stores anymore? Oh well, I'll try the sequel anyway because my only other option is not playing the game grandma bought me.
>I can't find issues 1 through 558 because they're not on the newsstand or at the library? Guess I'm starting with 559 since that's what they're selling.
>I missed the first half of the season of this brand new show? That's fine. I'll watch tonight's new episode and start catching the reruns sporadically over the next 6 months. I've already watched everything else, so I don't have a choice.
Yes, having access to informantion and having options in general is kinda cringe, I agree. We should consoom whatever slop we're fed and get excited for new slop.
Amen, brother. Zoomers just don't understand the virtues of adaptability and critical thinking.
>adaptability and critical thinking
You mean coping? Like you're doing right now?
>heckin' zoomerinos tryna to pick and choose instead of slupring whatever is put before them ungrateful bastards back in my day we ate shit and we're thankful for that!
>You mean coping?
Correct. A life skill.
>Oh nooooooo, there’s more comics to read? How horrible! That’s it! I will not read anything anymore! I only wanted to read all 700+ issues of Superman (which has new issues coming out every month) and now you mean to tell me that there’s actually more Superman I could read? Frick this shit, never again!*
* This does not ever happen with your average reader.
This is literally every single marvel comic ever, you hear some "cool" shit like Cyclops shooting punches made of energy and you think it's gonna be a cool comic but you need to read first an entire decade of lame x men comics, then you give up and go straight for the comic and it's like one page of punching beams.
>He thinks he has to read a bunch of story arcs before picking up the one he wants
>Even when thinking that going through all the appearances of a character is too hard for him
I've given up on capeshit.
>>Hmmm, I wonder if I need to read anything before I read this.
you don't. stop being moronic.
>Picks up Doomsday Clock and is confused because I didn't read Watchmen.
B-but the anon on Cinemaphile told me I didn't need to read anything before anything else.
Doomsday Clock is one of those things no one should read.
But in effect, there are some things, especially recent ones, that do lean on prior stories pretty hard. Best to skip those altogether.
I enjoy doing that when I'm looking to branch out or get into a character I don't know much about. Mostly I just jump in wherever I want because I'm not moronic.
just read dc comics whater ever you want, if you want to read you will read, if you are subnormal you always will be a subnormal.