Apparently, comic geeks aren’t the only kind of geeks who make grand sweeping statements:
Okay, I figured a long while ago that comics in general had jumped the shark. I haven’t really read any serial comics since the 90s, and the only comic that I’ve read recently was Preacher… only when my friend gave me the complete trade paperbacks.
But I love the comic mythos, so, while in my local Books-a-Million on Sunday, I picked up a recent issue of Fantastic Four to see what was happening. I soon found out that Reed and Sue had quit the team, to be replaced with Storm and Black Panther.
…
WTF?
Yeah… so, jumped the shark. Confirmed.
Yes, that’s right: Comics have entirely jumped the shark because the lineup of the Fantastic Four has temporarily changed. Good to know that someone has a sense of perspective.
(Thanks, Dave.)
May 30th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Carl Parsons sums it up quite nicely:
From now on I’m going to only listen to 30 seconds of any new songs, and I’m only going to watch the middle 15 minutes of any new movies coming out. That way I will be an expert on the music and movie industry.
The standard comic format used for decades now is an ongoing monthly serial. It’s the format FF uses. Each comic book ties into the one before it and the one after it. I’m sure the subscribers to FF who have read the issues prior to the one you read and plan to read subsequent issues find the situation you describe to be incredibly interesting. It’s part of a complex and involved story line that takes more than one issue to relate.
Whether you like the contrived continuity in comics or not is a matter of opinion. It certainly doesn’t mean that comics aren’t any good any more. There are some incredibly talented writers and artists putting out some really good stuff who may have something to say about that.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Clearly there are some folks out there who must be fooled by every single disguise of the Trix rabbit.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Graeme-
How do you find these things? Do people e-mail them to you, or do you just have some kind of a “Rampage-sense” that tells you when someone makes a silly statement.
Oh, right - you probably don’t need any kind of special powers to find silly statements on the Internet.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:39 am
“Comics have entirely jumped the shark because the lineup of the Fantastic Four has temporarily changed.”
So where’s he been? Let’s see who has been a FF member in the past? Medusa, Crystal, Spider-Man, Cage, The Hulk, She-Hulk, Thundra… that’s just off the top of my head.
Anyways, I agree the spidey clone ’90’s snafu, Carnage and good-guy Venom were severe jump and back flips over the shark. For the past couple of years though, there’s been some talented writers out there doing great stuff. Jeph Loeb tops my fav list with Brian K. Vaughn and Reginald Hudlin tieing for second.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:39 am
You know, though, the book just hasn’t ever been the same since Ben Grimm stayed behind during the Secret War and She-Hulk took his place.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I don’t get it is Sean Neuerburg someone sort of famous that I should know?
May 30th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I don’t get it is Sean Neuerburg someone sort of famous that I should know? Why is this news? I mean if this is news why isn’t some random complaint from the comments section of AICN news?
May 30th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Damn web browser.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Problem is, as unfair as such a generalization is, this is exactly how many new readers - you know, those new readers that the comics industry should feel bad about not catering to more? - really do judge comics, which was why Joe Quesada was so intent upon breaking up Spider-Man’s marriage in the comics, since it didn’t match up to his other mass-media depictions … except that, then again, neither does outing Spider-Man’s secret identity.
And as for this argument …
From now on I’m going to only listen to 30 seconds of any new songs, and I’m only going to watch the middle 15 minutes of any new movies coming out. That way I will be an expert on the music and movie industry.
… If the music industry charged you per every 30 seconds of a song, or the movie industry charged you per every 15 minutes of a movie, then, yes, you’d be absolutely right to judge them based upon those increments, because they’d be asking you to judge them that way, by asking you to pay money for them that way.
If, by contrast, the comics industry ever decides to stop charging money for single issues, then, yes, I’d say it would be a bit less fair to judge each individual issue on its own, rather than as part of a larger product, but as long as I’m expected to pay for individual increments, then each individual increment must be worth the money that I’m paying for it, or else I’ll either (a) wait for the trade, or (b) decide it’s not worth my time, money or attention at all.
As much as people talk about “fan entitlement,” producers of media seem to have gotten it into their heads that the audience somehow “owes” them attention, sometimes even stating outright, “We deserve for you to give us a chance.” Um, no, you don’t, and you never did, no matter how good your products may well be. You know what’s owed? When the audience pays money for a media product, they’re owed entertainment. That’s it.