So just on Sunday I had the chance to get out and go to the Vancouver Comicon. I got a chance to see lots of people like Ed Brisson, letterer extraordinaire (yes, he lettered Abigail’s War for me but also runs his own publishing company New Reliable Press and is working on several new projects) plus I met Hartley at the con. William S. and I had a blast and got some good deals then we popped into Elfsar Comic & Toys where I got my comics for last week. I am still working through everything I got so Best Bang Reborn will be out on Weds morning, I am hoping (update: Friday if I am lucky). All this was good but it still reminded me that I am bored of comic books these days. Why? Well let me break it down for you and it is really rather simple.

The reason I am bored with comic books these days is that they have gotten pretty boring of late. Only those books that are not either apart of a larger scale event or not trying to do more than what is expected of them are the books I am enjoying. I am a die hard DC Comic book fan being but lately I have started to Make Mine Marvel due to the fact that Marvel does better books of late. From Avengers: The Initiative to Amazing Spider-Man and lastly their cosmic books like Annihilation, Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel works hard to put out good books that deliver issue after issue. I cannot say the same for DC Comics that I have/had been collecting lately. Batman R.I.P. is more of a bizarre Joker tale than a Batman story that seems to have raptured the entire line of bat books into its sleepy web. I just want it over and done with but now we hear that Nightwing, Robin, Birds of Prey are all going to be canceled and rumors of new books to fill in the gaps. The Battle for the Cowel storyline does nothing for me at all knowing that these books are going to be canceled, why should I care what these characters do in the books? Will it impact them in other ways? Will it bleed into whatever is being rumored? What is the punch line that I have to look forward to after getting into Battle for the Cowel? More long drawn out, overlly intellectual books by Grant Morrison about Gorilla Batman and his sidekick Bat-Mite? I just do not have the energy for that and I just outlined one small aspect of the DCU books, the Batman Universe. Let’s not even get into the Titansverse from which I have dropped all the books, the Justice League / Society verse which is too wrapped up in their bubble of Kingdom Come / Milestone stories which are kinda interesting but not enough for me to be looking forward to any new issues.

Now this may have to do with the fact that both the big companies have done / doing their big event storylines which either bleed into their books or are so isolated that is confused the sh*t outta me. Both companies are doing things wrong but I have to say that Marvel is doing less worse than DC with their big event book(s) and that may be why I am so bored right now. I am done with Skrulls and Crisis in any fashion. If you read what is being said at recent Cons by DC Comics people, they are not explaining what the post-Final Crisis books will be like ’cause I do not think that they even know well enough. If you have read about what Rich Johnston wrote about Dan Didio and Grant Morrison butting heads on the revision of the end of Final Crisis, it makes me think that DC are going for a new direction that they are not feeding to the fans right now which makes for a boring time. I want to be excited about comic books, especially in these days when the economic issues are headline news, I want to think about something else and get lost in the fun and fantasy of comic books. Give me something to be looking forward to other than a month of villains and now the “Origins and Omens” crap that was recently solicitiated for DC Comics. I used to question the Marvel Marketing Machine but I have to say that Dark Reign, however that ends up, had me more curious and kinda wondering. What does DC have? The end of Final Crisis which will be out some time in March. Wow, how boring.

So what is the answer? How do you get excited about comic books again, Robert? Well I don’t know if I will get excited about anything right now. I think I will just let things creep along and see if it hits me sideways with that one book, that one idea, that one marketing ploy that hooks me in. Sure I made a Skrull pumpkin to try and get hyped for comics to no avail, sure I try to listen to as much as I can about the creators talk the talk of their books but it seems no matter what, I end up rolling my eyes and the thoughts and marketing messages being pimped out. Nothing new, nothing fun and nothing worth chatting about. I will continue to pick up my comic books so the local comic shops will not go out of business but I have cut back quite a bit. Amazing Spider-Man has taken over other books I collected and I have done something I never thought I would which is dropping some Vertigo books that just were not flipping my boat of late and were on the bubble and I still eye others which are on the fence for me. I would love to have the moola to buy all the books I want but that is not realstic so if the publishers stop pimping out to the retailers and realize that once the retailers start dropping like flies and the fans themselves are the answer and target market then maybe I will start to pay attention and get excited again. Bring back the grassroots ideas and pimping out SOLID STORIES! Try to sell TO the fans and not the retailers, please DC & Marvel Comics!

Update: Before crashing head long into work last night till early this dawn, I went racing off to the local comic book store only to forget my wallet so EVEN if I was excited about anything (like the NEW Fables trade), I will have to wait until tomorrow for my last chase of the dragon! I wonder if this is a good way to weed me off my addiction?

PS: If you haven’t seen it yet – For the Love of Comics redid their website, go check it out here (if very cool) since I am on a mini-hiatus while I deal with all this work stuff these days:
http://www.fortheloveofcomics.com/