Some books I may be dropping and why (hope I don't bore you guys to tears):
Superman / Batman : Though it has nice art and two great heroes, there's not enough story to fill out the six-issue arcs that seem to be the format of the book.
Hawkman : The original creative team is leaving and I'm indifferent about the new team.
Outsiders : The old-school super-team stories done in a new-school style are interesting, but after eight issues I still don't find the characters compelling.
Change in creative direction. For every fan they think they gain from "a new direction" they lose me. Especially when the change in artist is so jarring or inappropriate.
...this tendency to do a cover with a pin up every issue. I won't mention any names but it's simply amazing how often they do this crap. If you look at the back issues over the past year, you would have no idea what went on in that issue. The artwork is fantastic quite often but totally uninformative. for the first issue, I can understand for introduction purposes but after that it should tell the story. Wasn't there a little unrest/surprise when some comic had dared to put word balloons on the cover? which is ridiculous since you can communicate so much on the cover, drawing people in, it's unbelievable. -R
I'll drop a book if I don't like the story anymore. I'll also drop a book, if the artwork falls into my " substandard art " category. I feel that a good story with good art, makes for a really good comic book. You know, like everything John Byrne has done.
I usually only pick up a book because of an artist I enjoy, so when the artist leaves, I leave. The only writer-only pros in the category are Geoff Johns, Roger Stern and Kurt Busiek.
More generally, when the character in a book no longer resembles the character as I know him/her/them, I give up -- for example, the X-MEN after #200 or ALPHA FLIGHT after Mantlo took over.
Chuck Austen or a total lack of understanding about even the BASICS of the main character(s).
Which is pretty much anything Chuck Austen writes.
I'll drop a book over lateness(Daredevil/Bullseye, Spider-Man/Black Cat), poor writing (Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, Action Comics), and bad art (Superman: Metropolis). I'll also drop a book if I know it's going to be cancelled, or it looks like the company's in trouble (Negation and Sigil).
when chuck austen takes over, which is why i've dropped half the marvel books i used to buy. i'm not trying to be negative, i just really don't enjoy his writing and they keep giving him titles that i (used to) enjoy.
I'm dropping Fantastic Four, despite it being a fun book. One, I don't care for the art much, and two, the characters are all off.
I dropped Superman/Batman despite liking the stories because of Ed McGuinness artwork. Bleech.
Right now I'm dropping just about everything with the exception of Birds of Prey, JSA, Conan and Doom Patrol (I count JB's JLA as Doom Patrol) to make financial room for my new back issue approach.
The art , anything that looks even remotely manga is out same for that Ramos & Herrera Cartoon Cartoon Style.
Writing, slow story telling to the extreme, absence of the main character from its own title, out out out.
I guess that's why I buy just a handfull of comics.
I usually do not drop a book just from a change in creative teams. I will give the new people the benefit of the doubt.
I drop comics that are consistently late. I drop comics when the lead character consistently does not appear. I drop superhero comics when it takes a storyline months to build up to any action, or when it takes months to see the heroes use their special abilities. Generally, I drop a title if it no longer entertains me.
If I've learned anything from JB on these boards it is: vote with your wallet! Comic companies keep publishing titles that everyone seems to dislike, because too many people keep buying those titles to complain about them!
I tend to drop books whenever a "bold new direction" is announced. This usually means that someone is dragged in to undo everything I've liked for years. I used to drop books that were late, but can't do that anymore, or I'll have nothing left to read. Generally speaking though, I drop books when they no longer appeal to me. Take JLA for instance(pre Byrne of course). I dropped the title because I just ddint like the stories anymore or the art for hat matter. Dropped GL when they made my hero a murderer. Won't be picking it up again until he is restored. Dropped Superman when JB left. Ditto for Wonder Woman, X-Men, Fantastic Four...hmmm, seesm a trend is developing. JB's departure drives me off of books.
My drop-o-meter is calibrated with how much I'm looking forward to the next issue. No anticipation factor - No purchase. Silver Surfer and Thanos were my most recent casualties.
After many years of following Amazing Spider-Man, I'm about this >< close to dropping it. The current direction just doesn't interest me anymore.
BTW, Conan is one of my favorite new titles. Kudos Kurt (I know you're out there).
It sounds like a trite answer, but when I just lose interest in the stories. There are a bunch of characters I like, but I just don't enjoy the stories. I'd love to be picking up a Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Captain America, and Fantastic Four title every month...but, well...BLEH!
REALLY bad art can make it too unpalatable for me, and anything resembling anime will never even get in my door, regardless of the title.
<<After many years of following Amazing Spider-Man, I'm about this >< close to dropping it. The current direction just doesn't interest me anymore.>>
Same here, it was nice to see Dr Strange and Loki
in the past few issues but the book is really dragging, JRJ art has kept me on board this long
(he should change inker) but now that JRJ is leaving I am going to drop it, 2 M... books left.
#1 Bad stories (Or mediocre stories that aren't worth the cost of the book.)
#2 A creative team leaves and I don't find the new one particularly appealing.
#3 I come to realize that I couldn't care less about what happens next.
#4 Occasionally the pull list gets a little TOO big, even for me, and I decide I need to trim some fat.
Change of creative team from one I like to one I don't
like or even don't know.
I have almost no character loyalty left in me. The
X-plosion of X-titles did me in back in the early
90s. The issues of Excalibur between Alan Davis
runs were particularly painful.
If a creative team changes on a book and that leads
to a dramatic shift in the characters, I don't mind
so much. JB began his run on Avengers West Coast
by effectively killing off my favourite character
in the Marvel Universe, and I loved it!!!
i think i've become very "ol' school" when it comes to
my comics. Unless the art (and story!) is very good, i
won't pick it up. My list of favorite artists has dindled
due to their limited work(except for JB!) and the crop of
new"talent" doesn't impress me.
Also as stated above, If a creative team changes on a book
i may not like the new team so i drop the title.
I drop titles when it dawns on me that I'm not enjoying them any more. Since I don't get to read my comics regularly, I usually store up two or three issues at a time -- sometimes more. If I read a run like that and feel that the book isn't holding my interest, I drop it.
I drop any book that doesn't excite me. I'll drop it in the middle of a story if I don't like the direction, I can always go back and fill in holes later if I change my mind.
I look at my purchase of a book as a reward for a job well done. Mostly because I can't afford to dump money on comics like I used to, but also because sales are the only way to tell unequivocally that a book is good or bad. Buying bad books keeps them bad and causes other books to become bad as well. It all gets judged by the bottom line. Chuck Austen sells tons of X-Books so editors think he is a hot creator and put him on other books. Is he really a hot creator or are people buying X-Books on autopilot and rewarding a book that they don't personally enjoy?
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Mike Nebeker - Super Genuis Good Judgement comes from Experience
And Experience comes from... Bad Judgement
Often a writing issue.
Some of my recent drops were
Green Arrow & the Outsiders: Judd Winick makes me want to take a shower when I read his stuff. Plus, too many "off" old characters. And uninteresting new ones. I can get enough Nightwing elsewhere.
Batman: I gave the current arc three issues. Should have went with one. Didn't like writing, didn't like art. And Winick is on deck.
Daredevil: I noticed it always flowed to the bottom of my read pile. Too slow moving. See it before done better.
Avengers: bailed with Geoff Johns. Haven't liked Chuck Austen. He gets one issue with Superman.
New X-Men: too many characters I wasn't interested in. Didn't like what was done to old favorites.
Robin, Gotham Knights, Detective, Hawkman, and the three core Superman titles are on the bubble with new writers.
I follow the talent. If someone I like is doing a book, I pick it up. If they stop doing it, I'll usually take a look at the first issue by the new talent and if I don't like it (as almost always seems to be the case), I'll drop it.
A more interesting question for me is: why do you start reading a title if you don't already know the talent involved?
Comics are a very visual medium for me, so the art has to be pleasing, first and foremost -- I can't think of any comic stories where I've felt the art was sub-par but the story was great. The artwork really sets the tone, and I actually dropped Iron Man during JB's run on the book because the artwork was hitting my sub-par mark.
To clarify a bit, I consider artwork in a comic to be sub-par when it either does a poor job of telling the story at hand, or when it makes it hard to discern just WHAT the story is, or when it just looks so poor that the story itself can't compensate for the artwork's shortcomings. (I have since acquired all of JB's run on Iron Man in back issues, FWIW.)
JB sets the high-water mark as a visual storyteller -- I can almost "read" a John Byrne comic without looking at the words . . . the art does a good enough job of convey what's happening, and the words/dialog are just the icing on the cake.
At the same time, purty pictures can't compensate for a lack of story. The Jim Lee Fantastic Four run during the "Heroes Regurgitated . . . er, Reborn" time period is a classic example of this. There WAS a story there, but there wasn't much meat to it, and Lee's artwork just couldn't carry the day on its own.
Parts of a story that are important to me include a definite, discernable plot, comprehensible character motivations, consistent portrayal of existing characters, a definite beginning/middle/end to storylines, and good pacing (i.e., writing that is NOT inflated to "fill the trades"). The story itself can fail to measure up if one or more of these things starts to fall short.
My days of blindly following a title through thick and through thin, or avidly following a given character or characters is over -- the art and story have to measure up to my criteria (as descibed above), or I won't waste my money on it.
I don't like any character or title enough to buy it without a good team creating it. I also don't like any writer well enough to buy a book that has unacceptable art. Example: I loved Brubaker's catwoman as long as ther were good artists on it like Pulido, Stewart and Cooke. now that Gulacy is drawing I buy it out of habit and can't enjoy it even with the writing-although I think even that has suffered. Soon to be dropped.
Now I will pick up a book for art alone, but that is limited to about 6 or 7 living artists and about 4 or 5 who have passed.
Basically, lackluster creative teams will make me leave a book.
A change in creative team. I'll usually stick with a new team for a few issues, to see if I like them. I won't automatically drop a book just because someone I like is leaving. Case in point HAWKMAN. I'm a huge fan of Geoff Johns, but I'll stick around a few issues as a test to see if I like the new guy. Did that with BATGIRL and promptly dropped it around #41 as I liked neither the art nor the story.
A dramatic shift in character or storytelling I dropped THUNDERBOLTS like a hot potato when it went from a superhero tale to a Fight Club-style comic book. Blech.
When the stories are no longer engaging to me. I'm close to doing that with IRON MAN, X-STATIX, and SUPERMAN/BATMAN. I did it with HARLEY QUINN when the original creators left (akin to JB leaving SHE-HULK), taking all of their creative spark with them. I may like the characters, I may like the talent, but if the book stops getting me excited to read it month after month, it's gone.
I am a loyalist, however. I love Spider-Man. I think JMS is doing a 75% good job, with the mystical crap filling the other 25%. He hasn't touched on it in over a year, so I'm hoping (although recent "leaks" are making me afraid) that it's going to fade in the woodwork. And I love JRjr's art. Too fantastic for words. So I've read AMAZING, through thick and thin, month in and month out, since 1977. Soemtimes I'm rewarded, other times I feel punished. But that, to me, is the definition of serial fiction. Not all of it will be to my taste, nor will it always be consistant. It's the characters, however, that keep me coming back week after week.
1.) I have a once short, but now depressingly long list of creators who's names adding to a books credit list automatically mean i won't be ordering it anymore
2.) this is more applicable to books i'm giving a try rather than ones i've been reading for a long time, but if i find none of the characters likeable, i'll drop it Pretty Darn Fast.
3.) The lost painfull drops that i've noted of late are when the pace of stories slow down to the point i lose interst month to month with nothing happening (this is what happened with many of CrossGen's books, which i initially liked but then they just started to tread water)
3. b.) Late BOOKS can have the same effect of breaking the hold of interest, tho there are a few exceptions which manage to hold interest dispite the slow trickle (ie. Planetary)
4.) The sad tightening of the budget, or New books which seem more interesting pushing titles out of the budget --
Well said, Brian. If I read it and forget to pick it up the next month (one reason I don't order much in advance), it must not be worth buying. Art can do it, writing definitely can do it.
This message has been edited by Mark_McConnell on Mar 27, 2004 12:53 AM
I agree with Brian... Boredom. Books where the title character DOES NOT appear!! (I won't mention any names... Hulk, Iron Man, you know who you are!!)
I drop books when the characters stop "acting" like themselves.
edditid 4 spellan
This message has been edited by ChrisHutton on Mar 26, 2004 10:01 PM
Looking back at the last few things I dropped, let me count my reasons:
1) Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate. I liked #1 and #2 of Battle Chasers back when I was 18. But by the time #3 hit the stands (just after my 21st birthday) I no longer liked the same things...
2) Crappy art and pointless stories. I could only give X-Statix so many chances...
3) The 'feh' factor. X-Treme X-Men was like this for me. Lovely pictures, but ultimately, I just didn't care anymore. Plus, of course, I'm tired of Prima-Storm being a warrior-princess-goddess-nobler-tougher-more-heart-than-anyone-else...
4) 3 pages of story stretched into 22 pages of comic. That ain't a comic, it's an overweight pamphlett.
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You are a god among insects. Never let anyone tell you different.
There's nothing worse than starting a story written by Kurt Busiek , then having to switch over to Fabian Nicieza's book to find out what happens next. I usually drop the one I like right at the onset.
not so bad if it's the same creative team telling a continuing story all a character's books (Zeck's Kraven Spidey issues for example)
I have dropped many a book that JB has left sometimes instantly (She Hulk) or pretty quicly (Avengers West Coast).
Sometimes though I will drop a book as I just stop caring. My most recent example would be Avengers, I lost interest rapidly following Alan Davis's short stint, slept through Geoff John's run and dropped it when he left.
I am in danger of dropping both mainstream Spider-Man books soon, though I will doubtless start reading Uncanny X-Men again for the Claremont, Davis Team.
When a character is turned gay or homosexual storylines. When a character is written way off from their previous incarnations. Lack of the staring character in the title. Over use of sexuality and over abundance of coarse language. Too much drama and not enough action.
It's been a while snce I dropped a comic for something other than it being canceled. I'm down to about ten titles these days. At one time I was buying 75% of what DC and Marvel produced. Most of those were dropped because I realized I didn't enjoy them and was buying them out of habit. So I pared my pull list down to the books I actually enjoyed. Gone were the X-titles, the Bat titles and the Super titles. A well as JLA and a hand full of solo books. I also dropped a few Vertigo and ABC books. Some how they just didnt do it for me anymore. I guess I out grew decontructionism. It gets boring after a while.
Mike
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."- Teddy Roosevelt
Definitely, a change in artist. I always followed books because of the artist. John Byrne leaves, I'm out of there, with one exception. I tried to keep going with X-Men, but I just didn't dig the second coming of Dave Cockrum, and bailed after #150. When Gene Colan left Daredevil, I gave that punk Frank Miller about four issues to win me over, then I bailed. (I've since learned to appreciate him.)
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