Over at The Weekly Crisis, Kirk Warren asks several comics folks “Why do you buy the books you do?” including Kristina Wright of the blog Geeked:
Occasionally, it’s series loyalty – even when I’m finding the current arc or arcs unsatisfying - I have a hard time letting go of something I’ve been collecting. Like JLA right now or Batman and the Outsiders. Maybe it’s a bit of collector’s OCD, because I know that I’ll flip through my storage boxes later and be driven a little nuts by thirteen missing issues, even if I know those thirteen issues are useless. I have to have been collecting a book for a while before feeling beholden to it though. That said, I still dropped Teen Titans during this current writer.
I do, also, know that if reviewers or bloggers I read and like spend eight paragraphs on a book in an attempt to explain how awesome it is, I’ll snag it to check it out. I can be a good lemming like that.
He also spoke to Greg Hatcher of Comics Should Be Good!, Rokk from Rokk’s Comic Book Revolution, Lee Newman of Broken Frontier and this joker.
Actually on a personal note, I enjoyed writing out my thoughts, as it gave me a chance to walk down memory lane with Lone Star Comics and the good folks who were in amateur press associations with me over the years.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:30 am
That’s a really interesting question and it’s great hearing some of those responses.
I really don’t have much pity on people who complain about the diminishing quality of their pull list (read: almost all comic book fans at one point or another) when those same people claim to buy a title sheerly out of loyalty to a series or, more stupidly, a fictional character.
I follow certain creators avidly and I try to find new and interesting comics that strike me as being different. I buy what I buy because of the reading experience and because I plan to get something out of it. The rationale of readers who pour money into books they hate just so they can have a full set only facilitates crappy books.
“I’m the best fan in the world. I cheer when they’re good and I boo when they’re bad.”
- My uncle, discussing his favorite football team
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
“I’m the best fan in the world. I cheer when they’re good and I boo when they’re bad.”
- My uncle, discussing his favorite football team
Quote from D. Peace…
That pretty much sums up why people are loyal to books. I love Batman, I love Batman right now, but there are times when one or more of his titles are subpar, I still get them because well, he’s my boy and I have to be with him through the bad and the good.
For example, I like much of the comic fan base had numerous problems with One More Day, but it never occured to me to drop the book and if I had, I would have missed out on all the fun I have when Slott or Guggenheim is writing it, sure I still have to slog through Gale’s stories, but it is worth it to have the fun stories again.
-Lee Newman