Why do you read bad comics?

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I have the idea that a lot of people on ILC spend a lot of their time reading bad comics that they do not like very much.

If you are one such person - why do you do this?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:08 (twenty years ago)

To laugh about them on ILC, clearly.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:11 (twenty years ago)

1) Loyalty to the character
2) Hope that the bad streak will end
2a) News of a new writer / artist taking over, & wanting to see the bad streak through to the changeover
3) Desire to see a storyline / character arc through before cutting bait
4) Desire to inflict pain upon oneself
5) What Tom said

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:13 (twenty years ago)

It's worth pointing out that some of the people who read the bad comics don't buy the bad comics, in which case the motivation is partly larffter, partly just a sense of 'staying on board'. Some of it also is simply wanting to get the sense of brain-off escapism reading a comic provides, and not having any good ones to read - in this sense it's like playing a crappy videogame.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

I'm a big fan of Peter Milligan. When I got back into comics this past January, he was writing an X-Men book. I was intrigued by the thought of Milligan writing a straight-up, in-continuity X-Men title. I bought an issue. It really sucked. It was the start of a five-part story, though, and I figured I'd read the second installment to see if it got any better. It didn't. I gave it a third shot, and it was even worse. At that point I was 60% in, so I said fuck it and decided to stick around 'til the very end. I regret that decision. Still, if I ever decide to sell 'em on eBay, I'd maybe get a little bit more for the whole arc than if I tried to sell just the first two or three issues.

― chocolate kuegelhopf (Garrett Martin), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'm the type of sucker that often BUYS bad comics. Unlike Tom & others that're killing the industry w/ their wanton theft and disloyalty.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:21 (twenty years ago)

Dude, I think you're killing the industry MORE by BUYING bad comics and ENCOURAGING the rascals.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:22 (twenty years ago)

I read INIFINITELY CRISISFUL because I thought that they'd actually somehow manage to turn things around. I r teh dumb. And sadly, there's not enough of Morrison in 52 to keep me interested.

Of course, the joke is on anyone who thought that IC would represent the end of the age of grim and grittiness. Instead, it's a new celebration of said aesthetic. Hurrah!

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:33 (twenty years ago)

I can't totally agree, look at the Superman books, they've (so far) been exceeding BRIGHT and OPTIMISTIC and FUN. And the Batman books are sorta Grim-Lite, with a return to B:TAS configurations.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 22 May 2006 16:48 (twenty years ago)

i only buy comics which is weird cuz i only download music

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:25 (twenty years ago)

Reading comics on the comp is such a chore. With music it's not much different from listening on the stereo.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:33 (twenty years ago)

not really weird, i find reading comics off the screen a lot less fun than reading "real" comix, a much bigger funness dropoff than mp3s vs. cds

(xp... yeah)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:34 (twenty years ago)

and here I agree with s1ocki. I've got me some CBRs, and although the price is right they can't come close to matching the real thing. even if I had a laptop I don't think the computer experience could beat lying on a couch and/or hammock with a stack of comics, a soda (or Slurpee), and some Slim Jims. which reminds me, now that I'm back into comics, I gotta get back into jerkey, too.

― chocolate kuegelhopf (Garrett Martin), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:55 (twenty years ago)

Bad comics are fun, duh. They work on the same part of my brain that stands in a newsagents every week reading Heat.

Also, they're quick, so I don't necessarily feel like I've wasted my life reading them (as opposed to, say, watching 45 mins of the live Big Brother feed).

Although having said that, I finally read Kingdom Come this weekend, and I'm never getting those hours back.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Monday, 22 May 2006 21:29 (twenty years ago)

(And actually, the part of reading the bad comics that involves pissing around with Az3reu5 -- that feels like wasting my life.)

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Monday, 22 May 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

Although having said that, I finally read Kingdom Come this weekend, and I'm never getting those hours back.

That's what haunts me, the hours lost reading horrible comics. Judd Winick, I'm talking to you.

― i0dine, Monday, 22 May 2006 22:11 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading a lot of recent DC stuff out of curiosity and morbid fascination. Sometimes it ends up being pretty good (recent Busiek Superman is way fun) and sometimes totally horrific (Infinite Crisis) and sometimes...well, entertaining enough (52). So that's part of my excuse.

As for Marvel - I'm a big sucker for the X-Men, and I'm willing to read reallllly bad stuff just to get a fix or keep up on continuity. I admit it. The same thing applies to the X-Men movies. I know they are kinda not very good, but c'mon, it's X-Men. I just really like the X-Men, man.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Monday, 22 May 2006 22:25 (twenty years ago)

That said, there are times when a line must be drawn - unless it's a major part of continuity and features the main characters (ie, Deadly Genesis), I will not buy X-miniseries. I had to stop buying the Chuck Austen stuff because it was too awful for words and I refused to pay money for it. Ditto a lot of post-1991 Claremont X-Men, though I did buy and kinda sorta enjoy some of the issues with Alan Davis and the last six or seven issues of Uncanny X-Men after the Decimation.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Monday, 22 May 2006 22:28 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, the same thing happens to me with Flash, Superman and the Justice League. I don't really pay for any of those comics, but I would if I had to, even though I know they are going to be crap (haven't found the time to read Superman by Busiek and Johns yet). I will always complain if those comics turn out to be terrible, but I can't help liking those characters, and I would totally miss them if I didn't get to read them once a month.

― i0dine, Monday, 22 May 2006 22:49 (twenty years ago)

The only bad comics that I'm reading with any regularity are the immediate post-Crisis DC books. I've acquired a lot of stuff in the lovely .cbr format, and I've been trying to catch up on the DCU a little bit, as my familiarity with said universe is pretty scant. Reading some of that mid-80s crap is like punching myself in the brain, and yet I keep on.

I haven't read any in a while, so I guess that I couldn't come up with a good enough answer to the "Why?" to suit myself.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 00:36 (twenty years ago)

I don't.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 13:10 (twenty years ago)

Well, I try not to, but nice artwork can lure me in (back to ToD...).

― _chrissie (chrissie1068), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 13:27 (twenty years ago)

My worst bad comic shame was when I bought Shade The Changing Man for a year because I'd heard it was good, and then tried to read it and went "jesus this is shite".

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 11:59 (twenty years ago)

my answer to the question is "because i bought them in the hopes that they would be good and they sucked anyway"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 14:31 (twenty years ago)

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