I can see one potential upside to the Civil War delays — more time for the books you already have.

Every week I buy (on average) about a half-dozen comics. I bring ‘em home, find a comfy chair and a nice light source, and read through them in what is usually one sitting. It probably takes me about an hour, not counting collections, which I’ll save for later. I make a point to read all the new books before going to sleep Wednesday night, so I know I won’t be distracted later. When I’m done, the books go into a stack, and after a few months’ accumulation they’ll be catalogued, bagged, and (if I’m particularly organized) put in longboxes.

Thus, aside from flipping through them as necessary for this site or my own roundups (shameless plug), I tend to read the new books only once. I just don’t have time to sit down with the last several months of a title, or even a miniseries. There’s laundry, cooking, exercise, yardwork, socializing, Internetting, and the job that makes buying all those books possible. If I want to read the six issues of Batman and the Monster Men, I have to make time for it, probably from among all the other obligations. As you can guess, reading the new comics is one of those obligations.

When I was younger, and had fewer responsibilities, this wasn’t such a problem. In defending the Civil War delays, Bryan Hitch brought up the late issues of Watchmen and Dark Knight. I’d also add Miracleman to that list, since its delay involved a highly-anticipated big fight between our hero and Kid Miracleman in which the latter devastated most of London. Anyway, back in the day, my wastrel teenaged self used the waits to read the issues I did have, going over them meticulously, looking for predictive patterns and clues. This was particularly helpful with Watchmen, since every panel of every issue was crammed full of information. I think I actually figured out a lot of the mystery before it was revealed, but that’s probably just my memory giving my brain too much credit.

Part of today’s problem, too, is the mechanics of finding issues in the longboxes, taking them out of the bags, handling them properly before and after reading, etc. That’s not hard, and I’m really not that lazy so it shouldn’t necessarily be a barrier, but it is a lot easier to deal with actual square-bound books. Still, the new stuff by definition hasn’t been collected yet, and even if it has, the big crossover stuff tends to get collected in the individual titles’ separate volumes, so those have to be juggled too. 

Speaking of the crossovers, I don’t know about Civil War, but I got the feeling early on that Infinite Crisis was meant to be enjoyed mostly in the moment. You were supposed to take it a week’s worth of installments at a time, not as a massive stack of comics it might take (I’m guessing) a day or two to trudge through once it all ended. 

Let’s say Infinite Crisis was a(n American) football team. Sitting down with all the Countdown miniseries and specials, and all the crossover and tie-in books, would be like devoting a week or two in February to watching not just all the games, preseason through playoffs, but also all the SportsCenter reports on injuries, player salary negotiations, coaches’ press conferences, etc. Sure, you can put everything in proper chronological order, fast-forward through the commercials, and manage your time better than you would watching the same events unfold over several months, but you also lose the effects of those six months on you. Specifically, you lose the time in between issues, when your brain had a chance to relax and catalog a week’s worth of Big Event Madness (”This Week In Black Adam?”), and possibly read over those issues again.

Although the whole Identity Crisis/Infinite Crisis death-march took about two years, I didn’t realize until well into it that it would be such an endurance test. I was pretty tired of the whole thing by the end, and by comparison 52 seems a lot easier to take. However, now I’m not quite sure how to read 52. I can’t see myself emulating the one fan who convention coverage made famous, who reads a day’s worth every day. I don’t even read my Bible every day. However, it doesn’t feel right to realize that a week’s worth of events can be crammed into the 15 minutes or so that it takes to buzz through an average issue. This is the point where you realize just how little time I spend on the first read-through, and how much my comprehension must suffer as a result. That’s probably true, but again, it goes back to making time for a more leisurely stroll later on. I do need to slow down and pay attention, so I can appreciate the differences between Day 3 and Day 4. After all, the issue didn’t take 15 minutes to create (or, at least, I hope it didn’t).

On one level, though, I’m still not sure 52 was meant to be treated as much more than the Time or Newsweek of that “lost” year. I know there are Clues And Patterns that my Watchmen-appreciating 16-year-old self would appreciate, and to him I can only say I’m sorry; I have to check on the clothes in the dryer. Besides, unless one is writing a term paper or stuck in a waiting room, does one make a point to read a big stack of old newsmagazines? To (perhaps inappropriately) borrow the old saying about daily newspapers, 52 is the first draft of DC’s new history. DC probably hopes it will be the only draft for a while, but I think we all know better.

To sum up, I tend to think the week-in-week-out schedule of modern superhero comics doesn’t leave much time to pause and reflect on the comics themselves.  By the time I’m done reading one week’s worth, it’s back to reality until the next Wednesday evening rolls around.  Accordingly, a week with fewer comics, including a week’s respite from big crossover action, could be an opportunity for such reflection.  I still like the immediacy of the week-to-week grind, but Infinite Crisis was too much for too long.  There should be a happy medium between the pace of regular serialization and the enjoyment of individual issues.

Therefore, my advice to you, Civil War readers, is to find a comfy chair, a good light source, and when those delays free some time on your schedule, curl up with a big stack of crossover madness.  (You’re probably halfway there already.)  If this event is that enthralling, make the best of the delay.  There are bye weeks in the playoffs, and two weeks before the Super Bowl.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 17th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Comic Books, DC Comics, Grumpy Old Fan, Marvel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.