The "Screw it, im done with this title/book/series" thread...

Cross-title sagas in general made me stop buying comics altogether. Does that count?

I second the "Brand New Day" slam.

I love Dan Slott and I'm glad that the underappreciated Marcos Martin is getting his shot at drawing the book. It's just that we're getting a retread of all the worst stories by setting back the clock to the time of the mid DeFalco era where most of the shitty stories started.

A couple of other books I hate:

Cable - Just end him. Put a bullet through that fucking glowing mutie eye and end it.

Birds of Prey - It has gone downhill so fast since Simone left, that I had to bail out. There's no interplay between the team members like they're used to be.

Catwoman - It's been shit since Brubaker, Gulacy and company left. But, they just cancelled the book. Good for DC.

Possibly before most people's time around here, but Secret Wars II was pretty much the last straw. At that point, it became obvious that these things were becoming an annual event for both the Marvel and DC camps, and that they were nothing but cross-marketing ploys. After that, I stuck to buying trade paperback collections of well-reviewed storylines and abandoned monthly comics altogether. My bank account and storage space situations both improved immensely.

I'm pondering dropping The Punisher after Ennis leaves, but I'm waiting to see who they announce as his replacement. Any word on that yet? I also dropped Midnighter after Brian K. Vaughan's issue since the writer following him cocked everything up.

Most of the titles I've dropped tend to be DC. Batman, Brave and the Bold, etc. They just get too...DC-like for me.

I pretty much in the same mind about Ennis' run of Punisher MAX, which I think there's only one or two issues left. Marvel has been testing the waters with a couple of one shots done by different people but to me they just don't do it for me. So yeah, I'll most probably be done with Punisher once Ennis is done with it.

when i was a kid and reading Comic's Scene magazine (anyone remember that?) i remember reading a letter to the editor by someone who had quit reading comics and it had become so gradual that he didn't realize it had happened until there were no more comics that he bought. he traced it back and realized it all started when barry allen died in Crisis. something in him had died and comics were no longer fun.
of course, i guffawed and said that this would never happen to me....

....chris claremont quits/gets fired from the x-men because of jim lee and then not even a year later jim lee quits to do the whole image thing. i kept reading for a while yet found myself exploring the Distinguished Competition. even that fizzled out. i quit caring without the x-men i grew up with. i still can't believe some people look nostalgically upon the age of apokalypse. i shake my head with shame.

thank you alan moore and ABC comics, discovering grant morrison's Invisibles, wishing a pulitzer for From Hell, and brian k. vaughn and ed brubaker for bringing me back.

I dropped Clan Destine the second I heard Alan Davis was leaving the book.

I’ve read comics for waaaay longer than an adult should. Last year it ended for me, but I can’t pin it down to just one bad experience. I stopped midway through Marvel Civil War because decompressed story telling and the attendant high costs pissed me off*


Comics publishers don’t even pretend the stories they tell have meaning: they happily kill off a major character for “shock” value and you know he/she will be back in 2 fucking issues

Going back further, reading DC’s Identity Crisis , which was presented as “OMG this is the best most hardcore most everything ever” , only to find that the story concerns a guy with a plastic fin on his head who rapes the wife of fucking Plastic Man. It was like someone read Watchmen and missed the point, but thought having children’s characters raping one another was “Cutting edge”. I’m not a DC fan, but I detected a level of pomposity, contempt for the reader, and general incompetence from that series the likes of which I’d not seen before (I have seen it since though).

I grew up and loved the X-Men, but Grant Morrison ended that comic. There was nothing they could do but retread old scenarios after that.

I have not purchased a single issue Comic for over a year. I used to love comics and the serial nature of the story telling. I’d look forward to that next issue or X-men or Swamp Thing or Hellblazer, because those comics were created by people who cared for the characters, cared about telling a good story, and loved stringing their readers along. Since the late 90’s (I’m sure someone will argue it happened long before) the comics publishers decided to just milk the fanboys for every last dollar they could (and why not? We’ve paid them well to do so)

This I Believe

*Consider this: a single issue of The Incredible Hulk or Iron Man is now $2.99-$5.99 for one 30 page issue. Of that 30 pages you get maybe 20 pages of actual story, the rest being ads. Of that 20 pages how many are single panels? And how often is there a single story? Or even any movement in a larger “arc”? Oh, and unless you are mentally challenged, it will take you maybe 5-10 minutes to read that issue.
Meanwhile I spent $7.50 for a matinee of the movie Incredible Hulk (same for Iron Man) , got the same aesthetic thrill I’d get from the comic (I.e cool looking scenes), plus good acting, plus ONE STORY that BEGINS and ENDS in that ONE movie, and was entertained for 2 hours. I may get the DVDs of both movies (and pay $10-20 depending on if it's BlueRay or not)_that will have even more stuff that will entertain me and tickle my nostalgia a bit.

Marvel: Identity Disk.

DC: Metal Men (2008) (I can't stand Duncan Rouleau anymore.)

agreed in so many ways.

bonus thought:

identity crisis and new frontier presented two competing visions of what the future of the industry could be. we could take the grim and gritty aesthetic and amp in up into pure mean-spiritedness (pretty much mark millar's whole take on the marvel universe and the aforementioned rape of sue debney) and bad assery or we could take up the promise in moore's ABC line and, while not returning to childish themes, we could bring back a child like since of wonder to super heroes.
the sales have spoken and now we have crossover after crossover where the "heroes" do nothing but battle other "heroes."
i'm ashamed.

My comic book Wednesdays ended thanks to a lot of things converging against them at the same time. But the timing happened to coincide with the first four issues of DC's Countdown. Read into that what you will...

FUCK COUNTDOWN!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT BOOK WASN'T MADE BY AUTISTIC KIDS!!!

Ryoken: Daredevil's actually pretty good these days. Then again, I'm a Bendis hater, but it's currently one of the few Marvel books that I feel is remaining true to the character's past high points.

And for the drop list, I'd like to nominate: The Incredible Hercules. I gave it five issues, and for the life of me, I don't know, and I really don't fucking care. The idea to boot the Hulk from his own title and hand it off to a totally disconnected (and altogether boring) character makes zero sense in the Book of Erik.

After a childhood based almost entirely on reading X-Men comics (along with Spider-Man and Batman), I'm curious by what you mean by this. I dropped comic reading right after the whole Onslaught bullshit and realized it's whole purpose was to reboot a few titles, so I don't know what Morrison did with the team.

Damn, now that I mentioned the Onslaught saga, I'm getting all pissed off again. I'm not sure why this needlessly complex event did it, since I followed the Batman Knightfall story religiously. I can't even say that it was because the story was stupid, since the concept of Xavier and Magneto merging could have been interesting. Maybe it was just me growing up, realizing that the comics weren't really being made to tell a story but to just make some money. I saw my sister watching soap operas that I hated so much and I realized that these shitty comics were fucking exactly the same.

though it suffered much at the end (which i blame on a combination of grant knowing he was leaving thus rushing things and the management fucking sucking) the first issue of grant's run showed just how much the previous writers and been treading dead grass. it was different, it was new, it wasn't trying to trick the readers that chris claremont was still writing. it was the first original voice in the mutant world since 1975 and it turned out the fan boys couldn't handle it. grant left marvel with the keys to 1001 stories and they preceeded to retcon it out of existence. except for joss whedon's run, the x-men are dead to me.

Exactly the conclusion I've come to. Comics used to be popular with kids because they were such affordable entertainment. With the advent of the adult fanbase and the collector, comics suddenly had to be printed on high-quality paper, with work-intensive, fully-painted art. The printing costs went up, and were passed on to the consumer. At this point, it's beyond me how anyone can consider comics any kind of bang for their entertainment buck. Three bucks for ten minutes of entertainment is outrageous. Say what you will about the rising cost of movie tickets, but they still kick the ass of comics for return on investment.

I used to read Blade of the Immortal till I found some guy was translating the stories on the net years ahead of where dark Horse was at. Not only that, the stories had gotten really crap and slow. And thus the first comic I started buying seriously, stopped getting bought.

On the broader issue of comics... I don't buy the superhero stuff (except the one off classics, Dark Kinght returns, Marvels etc) and I frankly don't understand why people do. With all the cross-overs and continuity shenanigans, it seems like such a mess.

These days I strictly buy trade paper backs (despite a brief flirtation with BPRD single issues). I read them multiple times, loan them to my friends and can read reviews of a whole story before buying the more acclaimed series.

Go for it man, the "Daredevil in prison with his worst enemies" arc is one of the most entertaining stories I've read in a while.

SPOILERS I guess...

Dropped The Walking Dead (yeah yeah I know, the last person to do so) once 80% of the cast died, but the icing on the cake was they killed their chief antagonist for about 25 issues in the most anti-climactic and lamest fucking way possible.

I think what started the downward spiral was, after escaping the Governer and his fucked up city, Rick returns back to the prison, eager to reunite with his family, only to find it overrun with zombies. Folks, this was a great fucking cliffhanger, ruined by the next issue, which "cleaned out" the zombies off-screen. Kirkman's excuse? "I'd already shown several scenes of them clearing out the prison and figured I'd be boring to show another."

Er, what? You thought it would be...let me get this straight...you thought it would be boring to show your characters...killing zombies? In a zombie comic book?

Combine that with Kirkman's awful, awful, FUCKING AWFUL run on Ultimate X-Men (to be fair though, the only writer who did anything better than a "greatest hits rush job" with that title was Vaughn), plus looking back through The Walking Dead trades and find the majority of the dialogue rather...dull...and not how humans talk at all...and yeah...bye...


Oh, and on a final note, I can't believe we've come this far and not mentioned The Ultimates 3 yet. Jeph Loeb essentially raped everything that had come before, and the fact that Joss Whedon is entrusting him with an arc on Buffy is...mind blowing.

I got out in late '93, early '94. Available funds for it was the mitigating factor but the stories were getting redundant.

Xcutioners song was the last straw as I had with Marvel. By that time the other books I was picking up had all dwindled to X-Men and the related.

Image was a part of it. Like most of the lambs I bought more of it than I should have (All of the Youngblood mini, Shadowhawk mini, Spawn 1-9, Wildcats mini, etc)

I was never a DC fan, I dabbled in it but nothing ever caught my attention (I categorically ignored Batman, which was probably a mistake)

Valiant was the last company I paid attention to and it dwindled out by the end of Deathmate (crossover with Image)

Anything purchased since then was generally back issue, graphic novel/HC with the exception of the Onslaught crap and Kingdom Come.

Every once in awhile I take a look at what is on the rack since I don't have a decent LCS near enough for me to bother to go to, its at places like Chapters and the price always turns me away.

I'd been steadily weeding out my pull lists for a few years (both DC and Marvel were getting more depressing and I was sick of crossovers), and finally dropped both DC and most of Marvel right before the issues leading up to "The Other" storyline in Spider-Man. Around that time, Spidey was a full-fledged Avenger, Aunt May knew who he was, he was back with MJ, they moved into Stark Tower, etc. I picked up the trade for "The Other", and saw Spidey's powers upgraded. That was when I bolted - my favorite character was on top of the world, and I knew it wasn't going to get any better in the near future (Civil War, OMD/BND rumors were starting). I figured, "go out on a high note", and stopped collecting at that point. The only monthly I get is Ultimate Spider-Man, and a trade here or there.

Perhaps this is for a thread of its own, but of the people who still do purchase weekly comics,

How Much Do You Spend on Comics Monthly?

I've been recently budgeting it out, and it floats between $25 (min) and $40 (max).

And just so I'm not derailing the thread-

Ultimate Spider-Man ended last week when I realized it was just a force of habit, and starting next month, the core Avengers titles are being axed...because, well, I'm a slow man for keeping them this long.

I quit buying Cerebus trades after "Rick's Story" (which is further than most people make it, I gather). It was finally inarguably the case that Dave Sim had let his personal...problems derail his sense of characterization, and that the things I loved about the first 200 (or so) issues weren't going to be a part of the series anymore.

I may pick them up one day, when I've got a lot more money to burn (as his cartooning and lettering skills are still unparalleled), but I'm in no hurry.

Honestly, as bad as it is, I don't see how it's any worse than the first two arcs. But then again, I think the Ultimate universe is a collosal waste of energy that would be best spent fixing the "real" books, but that's just my opinion.

Yes the potential that Morrison left them with, and their non-comprehension of it, are mind boggling. Morrison really took the X-Men mythos and pushed it to it's logical conclusion. He riffed off previous story arcs like "Days of Future Past" without making it derivative. There are things I dislike about his run (the art work always made the characters look smug) but overall he brought the first orginal voice to the comic since Claremont.

Yeah, I gave up the ghost around the time he went into his F. Scott Fitzgerald fixation, whichever story arc that was. It pains me to see the whole thing go south, as there was a time when Cerebus was easily my all-time favorite series. But Sim really has become completely lost in his own mind.

Continuity clusterfucks drove me away in stages. I'd occasionally find a fun story, but I tired of the $3 a pop gamble and quit altogether a couple years ago.

This? The funniest thing I've seen all day.

Yep, that's the way I feel too. I was a DC fanboy up until Final Crisis. I thought it was ridiculous that they decided to:

1. Bring back the worst parts of the silver age (Multiverse)
2. Mix in a ton of the Grim N' Gritty nineties
3. Have inaccessible event comics that never end and only makes sense to the writers at the helm

For the most part I like where Marvel is trying to go, but their execution is hit and miss. Brubaker's Cap, Bendis' DD, Fantastic Four.... all have been solid. And the crossovers are less headache inducing than what DC is doing.

One more day, that story made me give up Spidey (I should have after "The Other").

I also dropped walking dead.

Comic prices don't bother me that much. I have south of 8 titles on my pull list, and I get 30% off on everything I buy anyway. Trades, mostly non-superhero trades in the past several years, put me at the most at $50-$60 a month.

It also helps that I haven't counted videogames as a hobby for something like thirteen years, so it's not an alternative or a distraction for me.

I tend to follow authors, not titles, and I have no problem shelling out $30-40 for a dozen issues of Jason Aaron's Scalped over the course of a year, or Ennis' Max Punny, or Casey's Goldland.

I stopped doing comic books around about the time that Image got really big. It got to the point that you could read a comic book in 5 minutes flat because EVERY page was a splash page. No story, mediocre art...I checked out of most comic books after that. Once 'Preacher' ended, I gave up on them totally. If something is good, I buy the trade paperback and I'm content.

Funny thing... I never read anything DC. Never. I don't know the characters any more than I've learned from Batman and Superman cartoons and movies.

Then I got Identity Crisis when it was coming out. I didn't have ANY connection to any of the characters, and I just really enjoyed the hell out of it as a stand alone story. I also really liked that one shot book where Blue Beetle (knew nothing about him) got killed.

I'm wondering if my lack of knowledge of the DC universe helped with that.

Oh... and I tried Inifinite Crisis after that and thought it was dogshit.

I also loved Identity Crisis and have little to no knowledge of DC shenanigans, so you're not the only one, Boomstick.

I can probably count on two hands the number of comics that have had a good run of quality comics on the level of the DC Universe cartoons. The fact that they were forced to appeal to kids really helped out in capturing a great sense of fun and adventure without getting bogged down in the darkness and continuity clusterfucks of modern comics.

I really enjoyed Jimmie Robinson's first two Bomb Queen stories, but since then he's become more interested in presenting the character as a symbol than in entertaining the reader. Ironically, his political commentary was stronger when it was couched in hilariously disturbing sex and violence.

That's almost exactly what happened to me. I started reading Xmen at 'Days of Future Past' and right after 'Mutant Massacre' I thought it started sucking, so I stopped buying it.

I stuck to Grendel only(hence the screen name), and then when that ended, I tried Image. I thought Image was all flash and no substance. So I quit it all.

Thanks to Alan Moore, Garth Ennis and Mike Mignola, I've been reading everything I missed in the last 10-15 years.