Home > Letters to CR
Michael J. Grabowski On The Way Comics Unfold Now Making Them More Susceptible to Economic Trauma
posted November 6, 2008
This is subjective, but I think it is "the way comics unfold now" that would make me say "whoa" before paying $10 for 3 comics. A friend of mine loaned me some New Avengers trades last month. I enjoyed the temporary time trip to my youth when I cared enough about these characters, and (not having read any Marvel Comics in at least 15 years) the whole rogue operations of SHIELD plot is 24-enough to make me almost interested in catching up, but I was kind of astonished at how short each individual chapter seemed, and how little the stories progressed from one chapter to the next. Were these really entire individual issues the first time around? I could read each chapter during the typical prime-time commercial break. The story page count per issue might be the same as it was in the 70's-80's, but the storytelling sure isn't the same. That's the sort of result that would have me reevaluating my purchases when it comes time to tighten my belt. (Even the trade editions read too quickly to seem like worthy purchases to me.)
It doesn't apply to all of them -- last spring I could spend $10 in one visit to buy Speak of the Devil, Berlin, and American Splendor (Vertigo) and know confidently that I would enjoy the reading experience that afternoon -- and the opportunity to re-read them later -- more than I would miss the money. That may say more about my reading taste now, but what I mean by it is that were I looking at books to cut from my monthly habit in order to save money, the amount of satisfying story, measured in part but not only by how long I could expect to take to read each book, would be a primary criterion.