Are your tastes stuck in the past in regards to music, movies, and tv as well? [Archive]

Jonathan Bogart

09-12-2006, 12:11 AM

I'm much more stuck in the past with regard to books, movies, and music than I am with comics.

My bookshelves groan with out-of-print hardcovers from the early twentieth century, my DVD shelf is almost entirely black-and-white, and music released during my lifetime makes up about 10% of my (out of control) music collction.

With comics, though, the majority of what I own was not only released during my lifetime, but within the past five years. Even the old stuff I own is generally a new reprint (like my adored Complete Peanuts and Walt & Skeezix books). I barely think about the comic-book format in regards to comics anymore (out of sight, out of mind; and they're in these long boxes where I never see them), and I'm one of those annoying indie people who can no longer stand superheroes and crushes on black-and-white stories about people doing real things. Or bizarre art trips that represent comix at their most experimental.

I'd say I have the exact opposite reaction to Reptisaurus; I'm deeply invested in the art form of comics, and I think that art form is undergoing a real renaissance right now (and I mostly have everything I want from its past). I'm just a dilettante with film, though, so I gravitate towards the stuff I plain ol' like and don't care for anything more serious or intellectual there; and with literature, I've got hidebound tastes and like the good old days before Joyce and Proust mucked everything up. Music, I'm right on level with Reptisaurus, except we don't agree about anything musically.

Reptisaurus!

09-12-2006, 12:50 AM

I'd say I have the exact opposite reaction to Reptisaurus; I'm deeply invested in the art form of comics, and I think that art form is undergoing a real renaissance right now (and I mostly have everything I want from its past).

I'm not arguing that modern comics don't do good stuff.

But there's stuff they've plum *forgot* how to do as well.

With a teensy handful of exceptions who produce tiny amounts of work, nobody in modern comics is doin' surrealism anymore. And nobody seems to have the talent for pacing based visual humor that, say, Stanley and Tripp did. And Eisner's got the best pure design sense of anyone who's ever worked in superheroes, and I'd probably call Jack Cole second.

'Though I'd guess in terms of... well, literary quality fer want of a less pretentious term, comics are as good as they've ever been. But there's so much stuff that's been lost along the way as well.

(And not just technical stuff. How 'bout Dinosaurs. Is anybody doing Dinosaur comics anymore? It's all angsty Chris Ware navel-gazing and superheroes, except superheroes are grown up now 'cause everybody gets raped all the time.* I want some freakin' dinosaurs!)

* Wish I were kiddin'. Blogger Ragnell has been keeping a running tally on the number of sexual abused and/or raped characters in mainstream comics on her blog. It's scary stuff.

Jonathan Bogart

09-12-2006, 02:08 AM

With a teensy handful of exceptions who produce tiny amounts of work, nobody in modern comics is doin' surrealism anymore. And nobody seems to have the talent for pacing based visual humor that, say, Stanley and Tripp did. And Eisner's got the best pure design sense of anyone who's ever worked in superheroes, and I'd probably call Jack Cole second.
Since I don't care about superheroes, the fact that Eisner and Cole don't have successors in that field is no great loss to me. (But as far as pure design, I'd say 70s Kirby can't be beat.)

And I'm right with you in regards to Stanley (uh, Tripp, not so much); but I think that certain cartoonists are inching towards that general area. Have you seen Seth's Wimbledon Green? It's pretty much a love letter to Stanley. Po-faced, but that's Seth.

And when was this golden age of comics surrealism? Have you seen Kramers Ergot?

'Though I'd guess in terms of... well, literary quality fer want of a less pretentious term, comics are as good as they've ever been. But there's so much stuff that's been lost along the way as well.

(And not just technical stuff. How 'bout Dinosaurs. Is anybody doing Dinosaur comics anymore? It's all angsty Chris Ware navel-gazing and superheroes, except superheroes are grown up now 'cause everybody gets raped all the time. I want some freakin' dinosaurs!)
www.qwantz.com

Okay, less snarkily, I understand that the sense of crazy fun that used to be part of comics is much less in evidence; but the older I get, the less I care for that particular aspect of comics' appeal. A lot of it has to do with me being a fuddy-duddy before my time, I'm sure. But when it comes to demanding that comics press certain pleasure buttons, well ... I'd rather just make my own than see anyone else do it wrong.

sheets

09-12-2006, 06:41 AM

I know there's a few readers who will only read older comics and refuse to read the newer issues. They do not like the direction of comics and like comics from certain decades.

My question to those readers who will only read comics from a time period, are you like that in regards to listening to music or watching tv programs and movies from a certain time period?

There's always at least *something* coming out that I like but I do tend to think that people in the Old Days knew their stuff better. I think I blame it on the increasing prominence of movies and to a lesser degree television in culture and the marginalizing of literature. It's just that as I read interviews with people it seems like most of the really good artists today have a working grasp of the classics, while a lot of the shallow and unsatisfying stuff is made by people whose "education" doesn't extend very far beyond Spielberg and Lucas films or 70's splatter films (I like this stuff a lot, too, but I see it as part of a long tradition and not the beginning). I know I'm really broadly generalizing, though :)

Cardiac

09-12-2006, 10:34 AM

Yeah, I'm like that. That is why I don't like the Ultimate Universe. I'm only 18,but I'm old in all my tastes.:o I listen to rock form the 70s and 80s, Sanford and Son is my favorite tv show. It's not so much the fact that I don't like the new comics it's just the fact that the continuities have gotten so out of whack and it is a real pain to constantly backtrack. I still read new comics,but not as much as I used to and I tend to like to start a series from #1.

Mr. Palmer

09-12-2006, 11:04 AM

I like my mmpb's and comics new, but my music and films "old". Though, like others, I'm always tempted to try both new/old of both.

RMThompson

09-12-2006, 12:25 PM

eh...

Not sure really. I certainly like some things from the past, mostly music. I am 27 and my favorite band (ever) is Steely Dan, but I equally rock out to Blue October, 30 Seconds to Mars, All American Rejects, The Subways, etc etc

(those are current bands)

BUT movies ? I like the late 90's stuff, Jurassic Park, both the book and the movie were amazing. There is just TOO much CGI nowadays, and it ruins the movie. King Kong was good, but sometimes too hard to even look at with 5 - 10 minutes in a row of complete CGI scenes! CRAZY!

TV? I like new things. LOST is great... as is SCRUBS and the short lived "sons and daughters". I never liked Arrested Development, I always thought it tried too hard!

so comics? Man I like it all. The only think I cant get down with is these stupid giant universe spanning crossovers that DC does. Infinity Crisis was SUCH a bore... because the main plot was that the worlds might not exist, and since we KNOW they are going to print comics next year, you KNEW that they were going to fix it.

Civil War works, because its individuals hanging in the balance, not the entire world... we know that they are going to print Spider-Man for years to come, but how sure are we that Iron Man or Captain America or The Punisher all will be around?

I also like a lot of the indy stuff, as long as it's not overdrawn out Star Wars wannabes. Those drive me nuts.

Jolly Mon

09-12-2006, 01:28 PM

eh...

Civil War works, because its individuals hanging in the balance, not the entire world... we know that they are going to print Spider-Man for years to come, but how sure are we that Iron Man or Captain America or The Punisher all will be around?

The same way as during any "event": are they money-makers? If they are, then they survive. They would no more get rid of any of those three than they would Wolverine.

MDG

09-12-2006, 03:28 PM

I pretty much stopped buying new DCs and Marvels (never many of the latter) cold turkey in the mid-90s and was shocked that I never really missed them. I still love to read/re-read Silver Age (and some favorite Bronze age and 80s) comics, but can't get into later stuff at all any more. A friend of mine gave me the Julie Schwartz tributes that came out a couple of years ago, but I couldn't get through them.

There's been great stuff happening in comics since the 80s and 90s--I'm talking about Love & Rockets, Eightball, Optic nerve, etc.--and I've never understood why DC and Marvel choose to remain in the superhero "ghetto." And Vertigo isn't the answer.

Ditto movies. In the 90s, my wife had a job where we were getting free preview passes every week, and i still felt ripped off--so many movies that sucked at levels unachieved since the silent age. I make do with Netflix, TCM, and screenings at George Eastman House and see maybe four new movies a year. Unfortuantely, several of these are comic-based movies that I attend with my "comic book friends," and a lot of these are terrible.

What I see as the problem is both comics and movies is that technicallythey are very slick, but they just seem empty inside. They seem made for an audience that's saying, "Go ahead. Try to blow me away." But it's all surface, whether CGI in films or computer coloring in comics.

MDG

Sir Tim Drake

09-12-2006, 06:47 PM

My tastes in comics are not stuck in the past. I'm very interested in current comics, especially alternative comics, though I do think that the superhero genre was much better in the past than it is now.

I don't consume a lot of movies, music or TV. I tend to prefer '60s music to contemporary music. My tastes in literature are pretty broad-- my favorite authors range from Malory to Salman Rushdie. But as for literary theory, the newer, the better.

shaxper

09-12-2006, 07:10 PM

I pretty much view, comics, music, art, literature, and film in the same way. The same amount of great stuff is happening now as was happening in most other time periods in history (at least, I have no reason to believe this isn't true), but hindsight is more convenient. The good stuff that was made in the past has now been sorted and distinguished from the hundreds of thousands of mediocre works that surrounded them at the time. True, some great stuff goes unremembered and some horrible stuff is praised as masterpieces but, generally speaking, it's easier to find the masterworks in the past. Remember how great everyone thought Infinite Crisis, the All-Star titles, or Spider-Man's "The Other" series were going to be? It's still fun to venture out and try the new stuff, but so much less frusterating to dig into the back issue bins, where the legendary runs are pre-distinguished for us.

Reptisaurus!

09-12-2006, 08:30 PM

Since I don't care about superheroes, the fact that Eisner and Cole don't have successors in that field is no great loss to me. (But as far as pure design, I'd say 70s Kirby can't be beat.)

Now, nobody loves seventies Kirby more than me. (Except for Berk.)

And in terms of drawing a cool looking world, I totally agree. In terms of page design an' story flow... Not so much.

And I'm right with you in regards to Stanley (uh, Tripp, not so much); but I think that certain cartoonists are inching towards that general area. Have you seen Seth's Wimbledon Green? It's pretty much a love letter to Stanley. Po-faced, but that's Seth.

Po-faced? My dictionary lists that as "archaic" dude. Just a friendly reminder.

And, yeah, I DID read W.G. And I liked it a lot. Didn't read it as a Stanley homage at first, but I see whatcher getting at.

HOWever...

(A) It was solidly amusing from page one t' page last, but I wouldn't call it "Funny." Certainly not laugh out loud like the best of Stanley.

(B) As I read it, the most distinguishing themactic characteristic of Little Lulu and Thirteen Going on Eighteen is the contrast between the characters fairly sterile and boring suburban environment and the pure dynamism (I wonder if that's a word?) Of the characters lives. Like, they might as well live in the town of "Nowhere special" but their lives are constantly full of nigh-on-Shakesperean drama and ebulient joy.

It just ain't the same with an adult protaginist who's not confined to the spacial dimensions of childhood, and can go off and DO whatever he wants.

(C) What was up with the introduction? Y'made a fun little comic, but you gotta explain to us that it's REALLY nothing more than a sketchbook doodle. Just 'cause it's not like Seth's otherstuff and ain't bitersweet examination of how nostalgia an' the human condition

(And how nostalgia both Limits the lives and Frees the fancies of Seth's fictional protaginists... OOH! Thread relevancy...)

Doesn't mean you have to hem and haw an' basically dismiss the work in the introduction. YOU MADE A FUN BOOK YOU TREMENDOUS WUSS! Why not assume the audience is bright enough to deal with the work on it's own merits? Geezus. Wimbeldon Green is killing comics.

*Nods*

Hey, did you see "Meow Baby?" That was, again, ALMOST Stanley good at silent, visual humor.

And when was this golden age of comics surrealism?

You want a link to the Oddball board? Herbie, dangit! And Jingle Jangle Comics! And Plastic man!

Have you seen Kramers Ergot?

Drawn and Quarterly antholgies make my head hurt. (I read Sammy Harkam's Crickets, but didn't dig it. Too... What's the word for when a story takes too long to tell?)

And sure, there's Frank. And BJ and Da Dogs. And (weirdly) that last issue of DC's Solo.

But what we got with the Oddball generation was these completely bizzare, off-the-wall elements being injected into mass culture via comics. That's what I miss. Today's comic surrealists are pretty much writing for literate grown-ups, which is way less fun.

Okay, less snarkily, I understand that the sense of crazy fun that used to be part of comics is much less in evidence; but the older I get, the less I care for that particular aspect of comics' appeal. A lot of it has to do with me being a fuddy-duddy before my time, I'm sure. But when it comes to demanding that comics press certain pleasure buttons, well ... I'd rather just make my own than see anyone else do it wrong.

Well, I like stuff that hits my buttons.

I've got buttons all over seems like SOMEBODY could get some of 'em.

I dunno. I just read the first half of "Fun Home" and it felt like getting kicked in the soul. So somber and depressing and... Un-fun. Between Fun Home, and Crickets and Clyde Fans I'm seeing almost a flat-out rejection of fun in current indies. And an overload of bitter melancholy.

There's still some of that joy in the Mainstream, I guess. Grant Morrison LOVES his job, and even the guys who are all "I wanted to write the Flash since I was six and Now I'm writing the Flash! Hooray!" Must really like their work.
That's something/

Jonathan Bogart

09-12-2006, 09:07 PM

Po-faced? My dictionary lists that as "archaic" dude. Just a friendly reminder.
I said I was a fuddy-duddy.

I don't disagree with any of your criticisms of Wimbledon Green, and Seth's Required Serious Content makes me want to shake him good and hard.

Hey, did you see "Meow Baby?" That was, again, ALMOST Stanley good at silent, visual humor.
You kidding? Jason practically has his own shrine in my room. (It's kind of an anthropomorphic-cartoonist thing). Meow, Baby is the least of it, and he's smart enough to work with genre tropes instead of apologizing for it.

You want a link to the Oddball board? Herbie, dangit! And Jingle Jangle Comics! And Plastic man!

Drawn and Quarterly antholgies make my head hurt. (I read Sammy Harkam's Crickets, but didn't dig it. Too... What's the word for when a story takes too long to tell?)

And sure, there's Frank. And BJ and Da Dogs. And (weirdly) that last issue of DC's Solo.

But what we got with the Oddball generation was these completely bizzare, off-the-wall elements being injected into mass culture via comics. That's what I miss. Today's comic surrealists are pretty much writing for literate grown-ups, which is way less fun.
Eh, kids get enough of that stuff on the Cartoon Network these days, don't they? Anyway, I think you're romanticizing comics' past to an unwarranted degree; there were metric tons more stiff-shirted dealing-from-the-top-of-the-deck comics than there were bizarre gems. I've felt like Scott! was scraping the bottom of the Oddball barrel for years. (But then, that's not really my taste either.)

(And Kramers isn't D&Q, it was self-published until the latest issue, when Buenaventura Press took over. Just in the interests of strict accuracy; I know it all blurs together.)

You've seen the Art Out of Time collection, right? You seriously need that thing.

I dunno. I just read the first half of "Fun Home" and it felt like getting kicked in the soul. So somber and depressing and... Un-fun. Between Fun Home, and Crickets and Clyde Fans I'm seeing almost a flat-out rejection of fun in current indies. And an overload of bitter melancholy.
Well, I guess I just don't see that stuff as representative. I see Dupuy & Berberian's smart sitcom Monsieur Jean and Jessica Abel's sarcastic thriller La Perdida and Eddie Campbell's fun-with-mirrors The Fate of the Artist and even high-school-literary-anthology Flight as being more representative of the true mainstream of comics (i.e. not just the comics shops). None of them are as fun as pirates & dinosaurs, maybe, but they're a good deal closer to the things people watch TV and go to the movies for than what you're talking about. The angsty "I had a crappy childhood, and here are some fictional people who had crappy childhoods" genre shouldn't be dominant anymore than superheroes should; I think the market is slowly swinging round to a more sane and reasonable middle ground. Oni would be it if rejected-for-all-the-right-reasons screenplays didn't keep getting made into graphic novels there.

A lot of my favorite cartooning is online these days; a good deal of it is imported from Europe; and my very favorite stuff is from the 1920s and 30s and slowly trickling back into print (which is why it's So! Good! To! Be! Alive! right now). Which might contradict what I said yesterday. I wasn't thinking very clearly then.

Reptisaurus!

09-13-2006, 03:44 PM

Jason practically has his own shrine in my room. (It's kind of an anthropomorphic-cartoonist thing). Meow, Baby is the least of it, and he's smart enough to work with genre tropes instead of apologizing for it.

Awesome. I want a Jason shrine. Jason and Lynda Barry are my favorite cartoonists working today.

But, yeah, "Meow Baby" wasn't as absolutely awesome as his other, sadder work. I could almost feel him straining for jokes.

And maybe I am romanticizing a bit, but there used to be at least five, six major comic book cartoonists (Stanley, Mayer, Cole, most of the Mad guys) who specialized in unpretentious visual humor and were really, really GOOD at pure visual humor... And nowadays (IE last twenty-five years or so) I can't name one.

Eh, kids get enough of that stuff on the Cartoon Network these days, don't they?

Maybe. Dunno.

Anyway, I think you're romanticizing comics' past to an unwarranted degree; there were metric tons more stiff-shirted dealing-from-the-top-of-the-deck comics than there were bizarre gems. I've felt like Scott! was scraping the bottom of the Oddball barrel for years. (But then, that's not really my taste either.)

Well, yeah. Comics are super-quicky produced genre entertainment, and most of them aren't good.

We all KNOW this, even if we don't wanna admit.

But even with the stuff that wasn't so good... There's a kind of mix of pure crafstmanship and ironic detachment that I really miss.

Nother example; I've been reading a buncah Gardner Fox's DC superhero work from the sixties, especially the Atom. And they're not really superhero books, exactly. It's a kind of educational science fiction mixed with bizzare sight gags.

And you just couldn't DO that any-more. I get th' sense that Fox was writing exactly what he wanted to write, DESPITE the genre he was working in. He was this really smart dude who's interested in the world around him and how it works, but he wasn't trying to do deathless art.

Not to overgeneralize, but today we got a bunch of smart dudes who are really interested in Justice League comics and the internal history of Justice League comics writing Justice League comics. It's circular snake chompin' on it's own tale writing.

OR ELSE you got folks honestly trying to elevate the medium of comics to respectability.

Which I see the value in, 'cause some comics are really, really good. But on the other hand, Fuck literary respectability, y'know. One of the great historical strengths of comics is that they're so In the Now, written by folks who aren't worried about how their work is going to be recieved in twenty years. Gives 'em a kind of vitality.

And thats GONE, mostly. Everybody's either writing about comics past or thinking about comics future and not doin' what they wanna do, here and now.

(And Kramers isn't D&Q, it was self-published until the latest issue, when Buenaventura Press took over. Just in the interests of strict accuracy; I know it all blurs together.)

Drawn and Quarterly did do an anthology book, though, right?

You've seen the Art Out of Time collection, right? You seriously need that thing.

Flipped through it. Very cool book, which I hope I see cheap somewhere, sometime.

Well, I guess I just don't see that stuff as representative. I see Dupuy & Berberian's smart sitcom Monsieur Jean and Jessica Abel's sarcastic thriller La Perdida and Eddie Campbell's fun-with-mirrors The Fate of the Artist and even high-school-literary-anthology Flight as being more representative of the true mainstream of comics (i.e. not just the comics shops).

Yeah, I hope so. None of them are really in line with my taste or my percieved taste.

(I ALWAYS have trouble with comics translated from French (Even Epileptic and Dungeon, not just Asterix), didn't like Artbabe, (Is La Perdida better?) Flight was... um... aimed at people younger than me and often sort of crappy, and I dunno why I can't get into Campbell's stuff but I just. Totally. Can't. Gave up halfway through Fate of the Artist. Maybe he's a little too navel-gazey? I dunno. Sometimes I like navel-gazey.)

But, still, I think it's damn cool that these all exist, and I think that people could get a lot of value out of them. Not people who are ME so much, though.

The angsty "I had a crappy childhood, and here are some fictional people who had crappy childhoods" genre shouldn't be dominant anymore than superheroes should; I think the market is slowly swinging round to a more sane and reasonable middle ground.

But, I dunno. Has the comics market ever swung round to a sane and reasonable middle ground? I mean, I hope yer right. But I'm just seein' the "I Had a Crappy Childhood" genre overtake the superhero genre, with maybe 10% of work produced bein' more individual idiosyncratic stuff like you mentioned.

Oni would be it if rejected-for-all-the-right-reasons screenplays didn't keep getting made into graphic novels there.

Yeah. Amen. But I really like Blue Monday.

A lot of my favorite cartooning is online these days;
a good deal of it is imported from Europe;

That's actually really heartening. I wait 'till the online stuff comes out in book form, but it's good to know it's out there.

and my very favorite stuff is from the 1920s and 30s and slowly trickling back into print

Huh. Like what?

Jonathan Bogart

09-13-2006, 09:50 PM

And maybe I am romanticizing a bit, but there used to be at least five, six major comic book cartoonists (Stanley, Mayer, Cole, most of the Mad guys) who specialized in unpretentious visual humor and were really, really GOOD at pure visual humor... And nowadays (IE last twenty-five years or so) I can't name one.
Ivan Brunetti, Lewis Trondheim, Mike Mignola, Richard Sala, Kyle Baker. Off the top of my head. Yeah, it's not all any of them do, but the days of mining one specific vein for decades are over, because it's simply not a mass medium anymore and it's not going to be again. To survive in comics today, you have to be able to wear more than one hat.

Nother example; I've been reading a buncah Gardner Fox's DC superhero work from the sixties, especially the Atom. And they're not really superhero books, exactly. It's a kind of educational science fiction mixed with bizzare sight gags.

And you just couldn't DO that any-more. I get th' sense that Fox was writing exactly what he wanted to write, DESPITE the genre he was working in. He was this really smart dude who's interested in the world around him and how it works, but he wasn't trying to do deathless art.

Not to overgeneralize, but today we got a bunch of smart dudes who are really interested in Justice League comics and the internal history of Justice League comics writing Justice League comics. It's circular snake chompin' on it's own tale writing.
Which is why I'm done with superheroes for the foreseeable future. I love the old Silver Age wackiness too (or I used to; haven't looked at any of it for a long time and would probably have serious issues with the pacing these days; trying to be a cartoonist plays havoc with your sympathy for comics which work on a completely different level from yours), and the attempt to make every superhero comic book an HBO series is bound to fail, because television does television better. Comics need to be comics.

Which is kind of what you're saying, but I think you're too concerned with the mainstream. Let 'em rot, I say; the beating heart of comics lies elsewhere. Diff'rent strokes, I know.

OR ELSE you got folks honestly trying to elevate the medium of comics to respectability.

Which I see the value in, 'cause some comics are really, really good. But on the other hand, Fuck literary respectability, y'know. One of the great historical strengths of comics is that they're so In the Now, written by folks who aren't worried about how their work is going to be recieved in twenty years. Gives 'em a kind of vitality.

And thats GONE, mostly. Everybody's either writing about comics past or thinking about comics future and not doin' what they wanna do, here and now.
Fuck literary respectability, absolutely. But fuck vitality, too: comics is bigger than any one idea of what comics should be. I think most people are doin' what they wanna do here and now; but they might not be doin' what you wannem to do.

Drawn and Quarterly did do an anthology book, though, right?
Yeah, it's called Drawn and Quarterly; there hasn't been a new one for years, but past issues contain some of my favorite slabs of comics.

(I ALWAYS have trouble with comics translated from French (Even Epileptic and Dungeon, not just Asterix), didn't like Artbabe, (Is La Perdida better?) Flight was... um... aimed at people younger than me and often sort of crappy, and I dunno why I can't get into Campbell's stuff but I just. Totally. Can't. Gave up halfway through Fate of the Artist. Maybe he's a little too navel-gazey? I dunno. Sometimes I like navel-gazey.)
French comics are definitely a different reading experience than American ones, even if they're not as wholesale different as manga, but you get used to it if you like the stuff enough. La Perdida is to Artbabe as Let It Bleed is to Chuck Berry covers. Quantum leaps. I didn't say I liked Flight, just that it's representative of the new mainstream. And Eddie Campbell is a personal hero of mine, intellectually as well as artistically, so I might be biased.

But, I dunno. Has the comics market ever swung round to a sane and reasonable middle ground? I mean, I hope yer right. But I'm just seein' the "I Had a Crappy Childhood" genre overtake the superhero genre, with maybe 10% of work produced bein' more individual idiosyncratic stuff like you mentioned.
Well, we'll see, obviously. But it's also obvious that the "I had a crappy childhood" stuff has limited appeal. Maybe less limited than superheroes, but still definitely limited. If there's a public appetite for comics, it's not going to be entirely filled by the equivalent of mopey low-budget indie flicks.

But I also think the very idea of "the comics market" is outdated. Such a beast only existed for about two decades, from the rise of the direct market up to about three or four years ago (when manga and graphic novels started having a real bookstore presence), and it was constantly being manipulated by people who were only interested in having things their way; of course it was never sane or reasonable. Comics isn't just the direct market any more (not that it ever only was), and people who don't know who inked Gil Kane on The Atom -- people who've never heard of Gil Kane, the poor sods -- are the comics market now, too.

Huh. Like what?
Walt & Skeezix, first and foremost; then Krazy & Ignatz, the reissue of Milt Gross' silent comedy He Done Her Wrong, and the huge Little Nemo reprint. Also, Fantagraphics is going back to the Thimble Theatre well and doing it right this time, and there are unconfirmed rumors of stuff like Barney Google, Polly & Her Pals, and Moon Mullins making it to a between-covers format. (Oh, dear God, please let it be true.) I've become more of a strip guy than a comic-book guy over the years (the fact that I do a comic strip might having something to do with it), and I've come to really prefer the older, more staid newspaper and magazine traditions to the seat-of-your-pants pulp tradition that sprang up in the 40s.

Also, it intersects neatly with my interest in jazz, literature, theatre, film, radio, and humor from the same era. I'm a between-the-wars junkie, what can I say?

Sir Tim Drake

09-13-2006, 10:40 PM

I have to comment on the issue of "literary respectability," because I've done some research on the relation of comics to literariness, and it's actually what my MA thesis is about.

Comics is achieving some degree of literary respectability, and I think this is a good thing, because there is no inherent reason why comics needs to be strictly a mass or popular medium. However, there is also no reason why comics should stop being a mass or popular medium. Comics is, among other things, the art of the seamless fusion of opposites. One of the key features of comics is that it unites things which are traditionally seen as opposed or incompatible. Two of those things are high culture and mass culture.

So I don't think we should say "fuck literary respectability." I think we should embrace literary respectability, while embracing mass appeal at the same time. If this sounds contradictory, well, comics is all about the resolution of apparent contradictions.

Also, when Mark says "literary respectability," I assume he means "literary" in the sense of high-cultural, exalted, privileged, etc. But "literary" also has another related meaning: it means textual, word-based, verbal, etc. If we describe comics as "literary" in this sense, we risk forgetting that comics are also visual. We shouldn't casually throw around the word "literary" without realizing that it's a two-faced term.

Ronnigon

09-14-2006, 12:32 AM

I tend to somewhat be stuck more in the recent past... my interest in popular culture started coming to a screeching halt around 1995.

After that, popular culture and most of the world just fell too much in evil, cruelty, and general shittiness for me to even care anymore.

Hell, I don't even watch TV anymore. I haven't seen TV since May sometime. And the last movie I saw was Superman Returns, for free. If it hadn't been free, I probably wouldn't have seen it, either.

Agentum

09-14-2006, 02:14 AM

Well i am a bit struck in the 80s, collecting things from that period.
But i see new films and read new books of course, I don't watch TV that much and doesn't follow any series at all, i have not seen stuff like 24, Lost etc. i don't care about it.

gentlesatirist

09-14-2006, 09:48 AM

Shellhead

09-14-2006, 10:59 AM

...for a lot of us boils down to liking the stuff you discovered when you were younger and had more time (and money) on your hands, allowing you to focus more intensely on a wider spectrum of available books, comics, movies, music, etc. For me, this era stretched fron grade school through college. I'm 35, so that means I've got a soft spot for most pop cultural stuff from the mid-70s through the early 90s.

Even stuff I've ended up liking since then is pretty much affected by the preferences I established in those earlier years.

You've got some great points, especially about preferences being established in the early years. But even though I'm six years older than you, I am less nostalgic about pop culture from the 70's and 80's. For me, the early to mid-90's were probably the best years of my life in many ways, so a lot of my favorite music comes from that time period.

When it comes to comics, I still have great nostalgia for Marvel in the 70's, but when it comes to movies and tv shows, I'm more interested in what's new right now than most of the past shows. In fact, I find it mildly painful to watch most 70's and 80's movies, because they seem very dated now, and give me unpleasant reminders of the crappier aspects of those times, like bell bottoms or cheesy 80's synthesizer music.

Scott Shaw!

09-14-2006, 11:59 AM

I've felt like Scott! was scraping the bottom of the Oddball barrel for years. (But then, that's not really my taste either.)

Excuse me? Hey, scrape MY bottom, Jonathan!

Seriously, I dunno how to react to a comment like that. Fortunately, the readers of my ODDBALL COMICS column and audiences of my ODDBALL COMICS show (now in its 4th decade!) disagree with you.

I wasn't thinking very clearly then.

I wouldn't touch that straight-line with a ten-foot pole.

Aloha,

Scott!

Jonathan Bogart

09-14-2006, 01:11 PM

Excuse me? Hey, scrape MY bottom, Jonathan!

Seriously, I dunno how to react to a comment like that. Fortunately, the readers of my ODDBALL COMICS column and audiences of my ODDBALL COMICS show (now in its 4th decade!) disagree with you.
I'm sorry if I offended you; I guess I only meant that my interest in the kinds of comics you profile is low. Sometimes I don't see the goofy charm in them that you do.

But again, I'm a humorless fuddy-duddy.

gentlesatirist

09-14-2006, 01:44 PM

...linking the best times of your life with the comics/movies/music you're experiencing then :

First, I'm believing the best times of my life may lie ahead of me.

And B of all, the great times so far - at least for me - didn't always include a lot of time for me to immerse myself in a lot of pop culture. That doesn't make them any less great, only means I may have been enjoying popcult stuff I had discovered earlier.

- FE

dreamweaver

09-14-2006, 08:14 PM

i.m stuck in a time warp i only collect gold and silver age comics i collect classic cartoons,scifi horror and western tv shows and movies and i listen mostly to classic rock:)

Mr. Palmer

09-14-2006, 09:02 PM

There's been great stuff happening in comics since the 80s and 90s--I'm talking about Love & Rockets, Eightball, Optic nerve, etc.--and I've never understood why DC and Marvel choose to remain in the superhero "ghetto." And Vertigo isn't the answer.

I really liked reading your post. But it's that above quote that stuck with me - specifically the last line.

I'm interested in finding out why you think "Vertigo isn't the answer"?

benday-dot

09-14-2006, 09:11 PM

I've always rejected these sort of straw dog set-ups. Old-school or new. Traditional or modern. Stuck in the past or present. Like others I say why use such an artificial criteria upon which to base taste, aesthetic or value? I don't choose between say the Watchmen, Seven Soldiers of Victory, and contemporary Daredevil on the one hand and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Kirby's New Gods and Beck/Binder Captain Marvel on the other. I take it all. Why? Because its all worth taking. In music I don't choose between the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers in one camp and Sparklehorse and Dinosaur Jr. in another. Yep, its all good. In movies, well Sunset Boulevard and Rear Window are still about as fine as Capote and the Squid and the Whale last year were. I think it is pretty sweet to have one foot each firmly stuck in both the old and the new. I must say I've enjoyed hearing what others have to say.

Sir Tim Drake

09-14-2006, 11:23 PM

Responding to a couple more points in Jonathan's post:

French comics are definitely a different reading experience than American ones, even if they're not as wholesale different as manga, but you get used to it if you like the stuff enough.

As you suggest, though, the gap between American and Franco-Belgian comics isn't as vast as the gap between Euro-American comics and manga. French-language comics develop out of a fairly similar cultural tradition as compared to English-language comics, and they use similar storytelling techniques-- e.g. they read left to right, the average page has a fairly large number of panels, which are arranged in a rectilinear grid, and the artwork is detailed enough that the reader has to spend a fair amount of time on each panel. The primary difference, in my opinion, is that French comics are taken more seriously as a unique art form or medium.

La Perdida is to Artbabe as Let It Bleed is to Chuck Berry covers. Quantum leaps.

Having just read Artbabe vol. 2 #3, I agree with you on this. The Artbabe issue was a bit too polemical and obvious. The story is about a certain Jamal, who's leaving his home (I don't think it says where the home is) to go to New York and become a writer, against the advice of all his friends. The trouble is that much of the story is taken up by conversations between the friends about why they disagree with Jamal, and these conversations are pretty much one-sided: the friends all feel the same way about Jamal's decision, and they all feel that way for the same reasons. Because of this, all these characters start to blur together, so it's as though there are really only two characters in the story: Jamal and everyone else.

I think I liked the essay on the inside back cover more than I liked the story. Jessica writes very effectively about how sad it is to move away from your home and leave your friends behind. Having done exactly this on three occasions in the past six years, I completely agree.

It's been a while since I've read La Perdida, and I still haven't read all of it, but I do get the sense that it represents a major leap forward for Jessica. La Perdida does more showing and less telling. Instead of making a polemical argument, it just presents a story and invites the reader to decipher it.

And Eddie Campbell is a personal hero of mine, intellectually as well as artistically, so I might be biased.

No argument there. Eddie is one of the world's best cartoonists.

MDG

09-15-2006, 06:43 AM

I really liked reading your post. But it's that above quote that stuck with me - specifically the last line.

I'm interested in finding out why you think "Vertigo isn't the answer"?

Okay--bear in mind I don't think I've read a Vertigo book in eight years, and I've heard some great stuff about Transmetropilitan and others. But while the line tapped a certain segment of the audience, it's still a sub-culture of a sub-culture--it doesn't really break out to a wider audience.

However, I think whoever at DC sensed the demand and proposed spinning off the initial Vertigo Titles (Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Doom Patrol, Animal Man--was that it?) should get a medal. I also think that whoever saw Vertigo take off and proposed Helix ("Look, horror's big again. Obviously there's a market for science fiction.") should've been fired.

Ironically, the Vertigo title I enjoyed the most was in many ways the most traditional--Sandman Mystery Theater. In general, though, I found Vertigo titles too similar in tone--it's just not a tone that appeals to me.

But I've never understood why DC and Marvel--esp. DC with Time Warner behind them--never established an imprint for creator-owned material similar to Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, etc.

I saw this article this morning that kind've capture my thoughts about comics (even though it's about TV): http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200609/aaron-spelling

MDG

Jonathan Bogart

09-15-2006, 07:53 AM

But I've never understood why DC and Marvel--esp. DC with Time Warner behind them--never established an imprint for creator-owned material similar to Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, etc.
I can tell you why: there's no money in it. Fantagraphics and D&Q regularly hover on the brink of insolvency (or at least Fantagraphics did before scoring the Complete Peanuts reprint).

scratchie

09-15-2006, 08:28 AM

But I've never understood why DC and Marvel--esp. DC with Time Warner behind them--never established an imprint for creator-owned material similar to Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, etc.Maybe I'm missing some important distinction, but isn't that what Vertigo is?

dan bailey

09-15-2006, 09:17 AM

Maybe I'm missing some important distinction, but isn't that what Vertigo is?

& then there's icon (does it still exist?), defined in wikipedia as "an imprint of Marvel Comics for creator-owned titles," though of course vertigo is much higher-profile.

scratchie

09-15-2006, 09:20 AM

& then there's icon (does it still exist?), defined in wikipedia as "an imprint of Marvel Comics for creator-owned titles," though of course vertigo is much higher-profile.Icon just started publishing "Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters", of possible interest to denizens of this board and other musty old farts. It's characters created (or at least designed?) by Jack, written by his daughter.

dan bailey

09-15-2006, 09:33 AM

Icon just started publishing "Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters", of possible interest to denizens of this board and other musty old farts. It's characters created (or at least designed?) by Jack, written by his daughter.

good deal. hadn't realized it's an icon title. i think the only reason i ever realized icon existed is because i plucked j michael straczynski's dream police one-shot from a 50-cent box a year or so ago.

i gather from wikipedia that powers is an icon title as well, but i know that one only from the first few tpbs (which i have yet to read, though their time is coming now that i've finally sat down & knocked off all of ed brubaker's captain america & dc's 52 & have started the 3rd noble causes tpb), during which interval it was coming out from image.

Jonathan Bogart

09-15-2006, 10:15 AM

Maybe I'm missing some important distinction, but isn't that what Vertigo is?
Not really. Neil Gaiman couldn't just up and take his Sandman books to another publisher, for example. When dealing with the Big Two, "creator-owned" is more PR than fact.

Not to mention that Vertigo publishes genre material manufactured assembly-line style and drawn in a largely interchangeable classicist style, not personal visions by idiosyncratic cartoonists.

MDG

09-15-2006, 12:19 PM

Maybe I'm missing some important distinction, but isn't that what Vertigo is?
I'm not sure that Vertigo titles are creator owned--the originals sure weren't, and later titles like Kid Eternity, House of Mystery, and Sandman aren't. But you're not getting any Eightballs or Chuckling Whatsis out of Vertigo (heck, you're not getting any Concretes or Zots for that matter). It's still very much genre fiction. And that's fine.

But I've never seen DC or Marvel do anything that says, "we believe in comics as an artistic medium," like Fantagraphics or Kitchen Sink. Or Bongo--I'd certainly call putting out comics by Gary Panter and Mary Fleener a bigger risk than lesbian Batwoman.

IfDC and Marvel are the flagship comics publishers in the U.S., it would be nice if they helped the medium grow up and build an audience that goes beyond the comic store crowd.

MDG

scratchie

09-15-2006, 01:14 PM

Not really. Neil Gaiman couldn't just up and take his Sandman books to another publisher, for example. When dealing with the Big Two, "creator-owned" is more PR than fact.OK, but conversely, I don't believe DC could kick Willingham off of Fables and hand it over to Mark Waid or someone. But of course, now that I think of it, a lot of the Vertigo titles are DC properties, so that's obviously a different case. I guess it falls somewhere in the middle; I would imagine that creators like Willingham or the guys who do Exterminators are licensing their creations to Vertigo and could take them somewhere else once the contract expires.

Jonathan Bogart

09-15-2006, 08:38 PM

I would imagine that creators like Willingham or the guys who do Exterminators are licensing their creations to Vertigo and could take them somewhere else once the contract expires.
Which DC will make sure doesn't happen, like they did with V for Vendetta and Watchmen. Not that I'm privy to the terms of the contract, obviously, but in general, rights will revert back to the creator only when the faintest chance of DC making any money off of it has long since expired. For practical purposes, never. Which is fine: I'm sure the creators signed the contracts with their eyes open, and it's not that much worse a gig than writing for TV (well, there's no union). But it's not at all the same thing as Dan Clowes, Craig Thompson, or Chris Ware, who can hop from Fantagraphics and Top Shelf to Drawn & Quarterly and Pantheon without batting an eye.

Marvel and DC treat creators more like big record labels than like legitimate publishers.

Jonathan Bogart

09-15-2006, 08:47 PM

As you suggest, though, the gap between American and Franco-Belgian comics isn't as vast as the gap between Euro-American comics and manga. French-language comics develop out of a fairly similar cultural tradition as compared to English-language comics, and they use similar storytelling techniques-- e.g. they read left to right, the average page has a fairly large number of panels, which are arranged in a rectilinear grid, and the artwork is detailed enough that the reader has to spend a fair amount of time on each panel. The primary difference, in my opinion, is that French comics are taken more seriously as a unique art form or medium.
There are more subtle differences in pacing and composition, though. American comics tend to be more dynamic, with a smooth flow of action that can often be "read" just as easily as the text. European comics, particularly the more illustrative, mainstream ones, tend to be much more static, often little more than illustrated text where the word ballons do all the heavy story lifting and the pictures, though frequently beautiful, are just decoration.

Obviously, this isn't a hard-and-fast rule, and there are plenty of exceptions every which way (Hergé is frequently very dynamic; but E. P. Jacobs is not), but it's as true as a generalization can be.

Not to mention the annoyance of having to struggle through slipshod or tin-eared translations (which is an even bigger problem with manga). Speaking of which, the above-mentioned Monsieur Jean has one of the most seamless translations in comics I've ever read, and as someone who knows more than one language, I usually have a pretty good ear for that kind of thing.

Voncaster

09-16-2006, 04:43 PM

I think if you're into older pop culture its great because 90% of marketing is trying to get you to buy the here and now...and largely forget about the past.

Comicsp
I'm mostly in the present. But I enjoy the Peanuts reprints by Fantagraphics, the DC Archives and the Marvel Masterworks/Essentials. I'm also looking forward to the Tales from the Crypt reprints coming out this Christmas. I also will get independent comics, comics from the big two and funnies...so I like pretty much all the comic genres...manga not included. My gripe with manga is simply the backwards printing...why take a life time of learned culture and turn it on its ear. The few mangas that I can find printed western style (Akira Inu Yasha) I enjoy.

TV/Film
I'd say I'm the most chronologically diverse here. I love horror movies from all time periods. I like Dracula '33 as much as I enjoy the Evil Dead or the Ring. I also dig Disney's hand drawn animation. So my movie collection is fairly diverse in terms of time periods (its not very diverse in terms of genres: its pretty much horror and animation).

Music
I'm the least diverse in my music. I pretty much listen to what I grew up listening to: 90s rock bands. I love pearl jam, smashing pumpkins, nirvana and Marilyn Manson. I've also been fortunate enough to see most of those bands live, which makes me even bigger fans of their music. I'm hesitant to get into older music simply because I know I'll never get to see some of the older bands perform. That being said I'm more likely to listen to the Ramones, the Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith than I am to try and listen to the Strokes, Wolfmother, or whatever new bands the kids are into at the moment.

InfoBroker

09-16-2006, 06:08 PM

re: creator owned signatures

Vertigo --> no

Wildstorm Signature(what was Homage) --> Yes

re: hovering on the brink of insolvency

I don't think being creator-owned is a major deal breaker one way or the other. There are a lot of problems that small publishers have to deal with to stay alive. Creators owning the product and sharing in the profits is no where's near their biggest obstacle to keeping the doors open.

While it is very obvious the publishers want to own what they don't create for all kinds of reasons, (see: little red hen, cake baking, and who owns the oven), I definitely concur that this attitude has stiffled the creative growth of comics.

From my viewpoint, the cycle down of creative owned product in the late 80s and early 90s was the turning point that lead to the speculator boom/bust. As Peter David pointed out at the time it was happening, the marketing suites killed the goose(s) that was(were) laying the golden eggs. Marvel was, and remains the worst offender at this particular practice.

-jb the (fables seem to abound today) ib -

Jonathan Bogart

09-16-2006, 06:16 PM

re: hovering on the brink of insolvency

I don't think being creator-owned is a major deal breaker one way or the other. There are a lot of problems that small publishers have to deal with to stay alive. Creators owning the product and sharing in the profits is no where's near their biggest obstacle to keeping the doors open.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that sharing the profits was the problem. It's just hard to do business selling quirky, personal cartoonists in high-end formats without regularly losing your shirt overestimating the taste of the American (or wherever) public.

Citizen V

09-16-2006, 06:48 PM

I know there's a few readers who will only read older comics and refuse to read the newer issues. They do not like the direction of comics and like comics from certain decades.

My question to those readers who will only read comics from a time period, are you like that in regards to listening to music or watching tv programs and movies from a certain time period?

When it comes to comics,i will usually read and accept the continuity of Marvel up to 1992,from then on,its argued that Marvel went down hill.As for DC,its a bit harder,with all the history of the DCU i tend to be stuck in Pre-Crisis times.Alot of my refrences are from pre-crisis sources,but only a tad bit in modern times,mainly due to Batman:TAS.

As for music,where i come from,i only listen to classical music.Television is not really watched either,as for movies,i usually watch movies from the 1930-50`s.

CaptChucky

09-16-2006, 07:19 PM

I try not to get too caught up on one or two decades of stuff. I listen to classical and current music. For comics, I like quite a few different things from Kirby and Barks, to present day Moore, Loeb, Brubaker, Busiek and Don Rosa.

rick

09-16-2006, 07:50 PM

benday-dot

09-17-2006, 07:23 PM

My taste in comics tends toward the early Silver Age up through comics true Golden Age of the 1980’s. And it isn’t that I’m stuck in a certain time period, because I have to say that there are still plenty of modern comics that I do read. It’s just that I think that the vast majority of comics published by the big two are just plain awful. And that is mostly because of the huge decrease in talented writers and artists working in the comics field.

Yes, there are still all sorts of decent writers and artists in the field, but the average comic artisan working these days is simply terrible. And that really includes not only the crappy writers and artists at Marvel and DC, but also the so-called artistic “geniuses” like the atrocities Chris Ware and the amazingly bland Seth.

This does not mean that there are not still talented people writing and drawing comics, it just means that they are few and far between.

As for music, I have to say that I do not listen to nearly as much modern music as I did even just a few years ago, but then again I’m well into my 40’s and most of the pop stations are not really aimed at me. But at the same time, I do listen to a really good college radio station most every day so I am still exposed to all sorts of people out there who are making some really good music.

Sufjan Stevens and Amon Tobin being good examples of modern artists making great music.

Movies are doing pretty well these days and are in my opinion going through a really good period, especially in the Independent market. But then movies are one of those art forms that have their ups and downs. For example the 1930’s were an awesome time for film, but the 40’s tended to suck, then the 50’s brought a huge upswing in quality, while the 60’s slipped back into a bad period, followed by what was probably the best decade for films, the 1970’s. Which was followed by the worst, the 1980’s. But really since around 1994 or 95, with the rise of the independent film movement there has been a steady stream of good film out there.

As for television, one thing that is good about 300 channels is that finally there is always something to watch.

Rick I agree with much of what you say, from the thumbs up for Sufjan Stevens to the accurate assessment of cinema's progression, however where I strongly differ has to do with my opinion of Chris Ware.

Far from "atrocious" I actually do consider him among comics true geniuses. A true auteur. Ware, with the finest, truly rigourous, craftsmanship has created among the most poignant and original comic creations I have seen. Both as writer and artist Ware is one of America's, and the worlds, greatest living cartoonists. Though I largely consider his talent sui generis, I also consider Ware following in a fine tradition of comicbook masters, including Tintin's Georges Remi. In fact, Wares devotion to the clear line tradition associates him with an earlier cartoon aesthetic that has somewhat disappeared in later years. I would even loosely place Kirby in this tradition, and more contemporary, if you wish, maybe Frank Quitely, currently responsible for All-Star Superman's brilliance. Adiitionally, Ware in his idiosyncratric embrace of a Victorian aesthetic joined with a modern wistfulness, a nostalgia in a shadow of despair, all crafted by an ultra precise labour of love, using no computers (except to colour) but only pencil and rulers (a Ware architectural drawing is a thing of beauty) is responsibe for some of comics most lovely presentations. I've not the time tonight to do justice to Ware, but I really do think he is an exraordinary talent, and amazing storyteller.

I know we are talking matters of taste here Rick, but Ware is one of my most admired cartoonists, and I thought I'd stick up for him here.

jesse_custer

11-08-2007, 06:19 PM

This is an older topic obviously--but a thread so good that it requires reviving (if the quality debates here are any indication).

With music, I'd say I'm moderately stuck in the past. True, I will go on and on about The Beatles, Howlin' Wolf, Miles Davis, and The Police. But that doesn't mean I don't listen to a great deal of more modern music, like Tool, Wilco, or The Bad Plus. However, being stuck in the past with music would be a beautiful thing for the most part.

As for movies, I'm all over the place. Although I tend to hold older movies in higher regard, if only because of their originality and influence, I watch an incredible amount of films from each and every decade. Out of all of these media forms, film is definitely the category I know the most about.

Regarding television, I would say that most of the best shows have been done already: "Seinfeld," "M.A.S.H.," "I Love Lucy," "All in the Family," "Blake's 7," etc. But that doesn't mean I haven't been tuning into "Lost" and "Arrested Development." Hell, the continuous creativity of "South Park" is staggering. However, high-quality work tends to be the exception now, and that goes more for television than any of these other media forms.

Lastly, for comics, I tend to lean on the side of more recent releases. But when I say "recent" I could be referring to "The Dark Knight Returns" or "Watchmen" because it doesn't seem that long ago. Comics have been doing exciting things in the last several years--everything from the "Deadpool" ongoing to "Preacher" to even rather modest works, like "The Other Side." For so long, comics were about simple entertainment, support. Now, they're finally becoming real art.

MichikoS

11-09-2007, 07:06 AM

I dunno. I just read the first half of "Fun Home" and it felt like getting kicked in the soul.
Splendid turn of phrase, Rep. I've been wondering what to call that feeling (I get it from reading Chris Ware, especially) and now I know! Hey! Indie cartoonist! Quit kicking me in the soul!

Michi

Hintermann

11-09-2007, 09:42 AM

I am definitely a "Silver Age" comic fanatic, but am more flexible with others that you mention. I tend to be nostalgic with music as well, preferring the Rock & Roll of the late 50s & early 60s, but do like some more contemporary stuff. I also have a weakness for Movies and TV from the bygone period, I also watch a lot of modern releases.

Shellhead

11-09-2007, 12:20 PM

Depends on the area of interest. One thing that has affected my interests strongly has been my very tight cashflows for the last 3 years now. That situation will continue for roughly 2 more years, and then I will be interested in catching up on a lot of modern entertainment.

Comics: I love the late silver age, when writers were starting to tackle serious issues and real characterization, and the artwork took a big step up. I still buy new comics, but the stuff that I'm enjoying doesn't tie into the big expensive continuity wankfests that dominate DC and Marvel output.

Music: I was born in '65, but my all-time favorite period for music was the early '90s, for trip-hop and also for the alternative music that temporarily dominated the mainstream. However, the internet and the excellent public library system here has helped me explore newer music, so I've been getting into more recent stuff like DeVotchKa, Tiger Army and Chris Joss.

Movies: There have been good and bad movies made every year that I can remember, so I don't see how anybody could have a strong preference for a specific era. Cashflows have cut my trips to the theatre down to about 1 or 2 movies per year. My girlfriend has NetFlix, but she is heavily addicted to anime, so I've been watching more of that than I want to in recent months.

TV: I watched a ton of mediocre television while I was growing up, but I went cold turkey during college. I only started watching again after I got a VCR, so I could keep up with my favorite shows without missing out on the rest of life. Since then, I have generally been keeping up with 4 or 5 shows every season, year in and year out. I like the idea of buying tv seasons for shows that I've enjoyed in the past, but due to money issues, I just focus on whatever is new on network tv each fall.

Rob Allen

11-09-2007, 01:40 PM

I realized the other day that I should probably stop thinking of Van Halen as a "new" band, i.e. a band that just started recently.

So I guess I am stuck in the past in some ways.

Kirk G

11-09-2007, 01:47 PM

Hell yes... back when comic were good, and music was undergoing growing and stereos were coming in.
Yeh, I'd say I enjoy the "oldies" as they are now called.
Used to be that they were always those crummy 50s do-whop songs, which I can't stand.
Now, it refers to the music of my age group. 60s and 70s...

Slam_Bradley

11-09-2007, 02:58 PM

Yeah, they are. Most of my tastes are stuck in the past...usually far before I was born.

Comics. I read predominently Silver and Bronze Age comics, with a smattering of Golden Age stuff. And some more recent books. The big thing for me is that I don't have access to new comics. The nearest comic shop is over an hour away. So I buy tpb's exclusively. And since I'm a cheapskate, I buy a lot of Showcases and Essentials because I love the bang for the buck.

That said there are still newer (last 20 years) comics that I love. Sandman, Preacher, Fables, etc.

Music. Most of the music I listen to was released before I was born. I'm a big jazz fan, particularly the 50s bop, modal and cool jazz stylings. I love old blues. I listen to a lot of R & B and Jump Blues from the 50s. Country from the 50s and 60s.

Books. Most of the books I read are older than I am. Pulp novels. Golden Age SF. Hard-boiled detective and noir novels from the 30s-60s. About the only new lit I read is non-fiction works looking at comics and genre literature.

TV. TV is hard. I watch almost no tv aside from college football, but its largely because its just hard to find the time to watch. My work and kids take up a ton of time and don't make it so I can sit down and watch a show at 8:00 ever Wednesday. I have watched a number of newer shows on DVD. Deadwood, Dead Like Me, Carnivale. I don't actually watch very much old television either. There are old shows I'd like to catch up with, to see if they hold up, but I just don't have the time.