I made a trek out to Midtown Comics today. A gigantic store located in Manhattan. I was looking for the Serenity comics which are based on the Firefly TV series I've talked about before. There are 3 comics to be released that provide some backstory to the movie that's coming out. I always get a anxious feeling when I start looking for comics. I've had my moments. I read a little in highschool and I read a lot of Sin City back in the late 90s. I always feel like I should be a rabid comic freak. Most of the story matter is unique (at least once you get away from the men in tights stuff). It's counterculture. It's art and it's writing. And it's reasonably inexpensive. There are however a few problems.
I rarely see comics that live up to my expectations. The covers of comics always create a world that looks interesting. Once you start reading, both the art and the storyline seem to let me down. It's happened over and over.
The second problem is I'm worried I might find something I like. While individual comics can be cheap, getting sucked into series can be dangerous. And getting sucked into multiple series can by very dangerous. I decided to pick up some stuff I vaguely remembered reading about a while back - Flight, The Goon, and The Last Man. I suppose most of it will let me down again.
And lastly it's like finding good alternative music. Unless you have the one key resource you can rely on it can be overwhelming. Midtown Comics has comic after comic after comic. Where do you start? Which ones have been going so long it'd be impossible to pick it up now and truly understand the story? The concept overwhelms me at times. I've subscribed to a few blogs that cover the industry. Perhaps they'll provide some insight.
2 comments:
i feel the same way. i always had a fascination for comics, or rather their promise, and yet never made the dedicated leap that was necessary to be a true fan.
one that i might recommend that some friends turned me onto recently is Planetary. it's got some unusual things going on (if you can get past the pseudo-science).
I think I might take another stab at finding some decent comics. The Last Man was good. The Goon, while receiving a lot of praise and awards, wasn't anything special. And Flight so far is interesting but it's just a single book (actually there's a volume 1 and 2).
I think what I need to do is head to Midtown Comics and ask someone what to purchase. I need a "Mike" from Mod Lang :).
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