What is on your "to read" list?

[NorCalCO]

Finished off Whedon's entire run on Astonishing X-Men yesterday. It definitely lived up to the hype and was money well spent. I'll probably start X-Men: Days of Future Past tomorrow. I also added X-Men: Rise & Fall of the Shi'ar Empire to the bookshelf the other day. I've got lots of reading to do!

[Decoy Elite]

Just got current with Homestuck. Faith in Hussie restored.

[NorCalCO]

In the last 10 days I've read Rise & Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, Days of Future Past and The Dark Phoenix Saga. Absolutely loved Rise & Fall. I also enjoyed TDPS, but I had trouble getting in to DoFP. I'm glad I bought and read it, but a lot of the stuff from the late 70's and 80's is difficult for me to really get in to.

[ckal]

Yeah I have a problem reading anything that isn't relatively current and looks nice.

[NorCalCO]

Good to know that I'm not the only one. I'm glad comics have evolved the way they have.

[ckal]

Me too because if not I wouldn't read them. Maybe if I was reading them in the 70s-90s my opinion would be different, but alas, I wasn't.

[Power NeXus]

Ordered two of Nightcrawler's miniseries from my comic shop yesterday.

I still really want to read AoA and Scott Pilgrim, but I just don't have the money.

[jakefury]

Dec 28, 2011 22:37:30 GMT -5 ckal said:

Yeah I have a problem reading anything that isn't relatively current and looks nice.

Co-signed. I read some old Moon KNight stuff and it was pretty boring.

[NorCalCO]

Sometimes when I'm reading older comics I feel almost like the writer was saying "we think you're stupid, so we are going to spell this out for you." Everything was way too wordy and there was a ridiculous amount of narration/explanation boxes. Also it seems like every issue had to have some type of set-up for all the key characters. I feel like now more of the story is told with the artwork and also it's understood that most readers know something about these characters and their history.

[Supreme Marvel]

Finally reading Daredevil: Reborn.

[NorCalCO]

Just finished reading X-23: Target X. What a great read. I highly recommend it if you have any interest in X-23 at all. One of the best things I've read in awhile. Story, writing and art are all very solid IMO.

[jakefury]

Just bought the trade for Hickman's SHIELD. I hope it meets the hype behind it.

[NorCalCO]

Dec 31, 2011 18:18:55 GMT -5 @jakefury said:

Just bought the trade for Hickman's SHIELD. I hope it meets the hype behind it.

Let us know what you think. I've been thinking about picking it up.

[jakefury]

It's good but pretty complicated.

[Power NeXus]

Dec 30, 2011 2:10:42 GMT -5 NorCalCO said:

Sometimes when I'm reading older comics I feel almost like the writer was saying "we think you're stupid, so we are going to spell this out for you." Everything was way too wordy and there was a ridiculous amount of narration/explanation boxes. Also it seems like every issue had to have some type of set-up for all the key characters. I feel like now more of the story is told with the artwork and also it's understood that most readers know something about these characters and their history.

The worst parts were when some text would have an asterisk by it, and there would be a footnote at the bottom of the panel saying something like "Find out more about what happened there in Fantastic Four #20! --Exelsior!"

[jakefury]

I loved the footnotes from the 80s.

[NorCalCO]

Jan 1, 2012 19:25:00 GMT -5 Power NeXus said:

Dec 30, 2011 2:10:42 GMT -5 NorCalCO said:

Sometimes when I'm reading older comics I feel almost like the writer was saying "we think you're stupid, so we are going to spell this out for you." Everything was way too wordy and there was a ridiculous amount of narration/explanation boxes. Also it seems like every issue had to have some type of set-up for all the key characters. I feel like now more of the story is told with the artwork and also it's understood that most readers know something about these characters and their history.

The worst parts were when some text would have an asterisk by it, and there would be a footnote at the bottom of the panel saying something like "Find out more about what happened there in Fantastic Four #20! --Exelsior!"

No the best is when it says "Last ish." like 20 times in the same book.

[jakefury]

I like the old school comic reference system.

[Decoy Elite]

Jan 2, 2012 0:37:31 GMT -5 @jakefury said:

I like the old school comic reference system.

I agree, that was actually very helpful and should still be in use.

[Beatboks]

Dec 30, 2011 2:10:42 GMT -5 NorCalCO said:

Sometimes when I'm reading older comics I feel almost like the writer was saying "we think you're stupid, so we are going to spell this out for you." Everything was way too wordy and there was a ridiculous amount of narration/explanation boxes. Also it seems like every issue had to have some type of set-up for all the key characters. I feel like now more of the story is told with the artwork and also it's understood that most readers know something about these characters and their history.

And now i feel the need to defend "my era" of comics.

• Comics writers of the SA and BA were trying to show that they had "grown up" from the simple stories of the GA and adding complexity. At the same time the precepts of GA story telling were kept to a degree. In the GA stories were told in 10(ish) pages and rarely carried over (very simple), they were also for the most part in anthologies. Writers could never be certain that the readers of one anthology (like say All American) also read the other anthologies that that characters appeared in (;ole say Comic Cavalcade)
  
• In the SA stories rarely carried on through another issue. stories were tied up within the issues they started, at most two issues. twenty five to fifty pages was all you got to tell the tale. In the Bronze age there might be the occasional story that went for three or more issues, but that was not common.
  
• The percentage of readers who were regular readers in the SA was very low. Remember there weren't comics specialty shops back then. Here in Australia you bought comics at the equivalent of a news stand. In the US I believe they were in grocery and Drug stores. These retailers didn't know the market they were operating in. Didn't know one title from another. there was absolutely no guarantee that you'd get every issue of every title. Those of us who did collect all were usually subscribers. There was a reason why so much of the back stories were covered in editorial notes and it wasn't as an insult to those reading. You only had to look at the questions in letters pages (from in many cases regular writers) to know that A who read issue X didn't read issue Y or K (where the answer would have already been pre given)