Lately, writers have been falling in love all over again with characters, breathing new life into their childhood faves and burning down the creative house while they were at it.
It started with Brian Michael Bendis' weird obsession with Luke Cage in the pages of Alias and continued with...
Matt Fraction on The Immortal Iron Fist.
Greg Rucka on Checkmate.
Geoff Johns on Booster Gold.
John Rogers on Blue Beetle.
What these all have in common is a certain mission statement, a certain creative bent. These comics are written by fanboys waving their fanboy banners at other fanboys saying, "Look, they gave me that jetpack I've always wanted! Fellas, let's take a ride!"
What this does is give the writer a chance to shine new light on their childhood faves while getting the urge to "jetpack" out of their system.
They move on, leaving the book in different hands and we, the readers, are left with the difficult question of whether or not to drop a book.
That's just one reason to drop a book.
Of course, there's the economy. Another reason is that a book has simply gotten bad, meaning Bruce Jones has started writing it. Or you got bored as I was with Trinity.
We drop books every week for own individual and particular reasons and the numbers eventually tell the story.
What isn't told is the reason behind the drop.
That's where you, The Second Printer comes in.
At least once every other week, we're going to give you a forum to let us know which books you're dropping and why.
Who knows why we do what we do? Only we do, actually.
Are there any comics you have on your pull list that are dangerously close to meeting the chopping block?
Hopefully, this will be a forum for fans and everyone involved to voice their opinions in a right and proper setting.
So, with that said:
Let's enter THE DROP ZONE...
9 comments:
Well now, you've opened a whole new can of worms! Let's dive right in then.
I dropped the All-New Atom two issues after Gail Simone left, taking the humor and plot with her.
I was dangerously close to dropping Checkmate, but have recently discovered that it is going to be cancelled anyway. Again, I wanted to read about spies and Fire and stuff, not a giant warthog.
I love Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, so I am both fearful and hopeful.
I finally dropped Supergirl after 2 years of some of the most pointless comic book I've ever read. Even Witchblade had more going for it then Supergirl as of the last 6 months of issues. I may pick up the book with the new creative team but we'll see.
I also dropped Rann-Thanagar War. Jim Starlin has done great space opera but he keeps doing the SAME DAMN space opera over and over! Lord Papal, the Magus, some great Universal Church-OVER AND OVER again! Plus, none of the characters ever speak in anything but Starlin's "voice".
I dropped Infinity Inc. after the 3rd issue. Bleah. Substandard art with nothing happening.
These days, I think I want to drop a book after its successful creative team leaves it, but I'm willing to give the new team a chance, which usually lasts one issue.
For example, right now, I'm pleasantly surprised at Iron Fist.
The Twelve is on my chopping block. I don't need to pay $3 to read about liberal PC. I can get that for free. Instead of being an examination of the golden age and it's differences from the modern age, it's really a vehicle for the author and his audience to congratulate themselves on being more "evolved" than these troglodytes on the page.
I recently dropped the Justice League of America. It was like losing a family member who has been sick for a long time... you know... that weird combination of sadness and relief.
I dropped Trinity, but I didn't feel very emotionally invested in it anyway.
Dropping a book when it gets bad can be a really good thing. Plus, as I'm experiencing with Uncanny X-Men right now, having been away makes you realize how awesome it is to come back to a book when it improves.
SallyP outlasted me on All New Atom... I gave Remender a one-issue test, and he failed pretty badly. All the fun and quirkiness that made the book such a good read were just instantly gone. And from what I've heard, it got worse from there.
Dropping Brave and the Bold with the departure of Mark Waid. Liked the Batman/Jay Garrick story, but the current thing isn't very good at all, and the issues by Wolfman, and then later by JMS, don't interest me at all.
Blue Beetle is my favorite ongoing title by any company right now (in its way, I like it better than All Star Superman and Cooke's Spirit, and I luuuuurve those books a lot), so I'm terrified of what could happen to it under a new writer, though I'm optimistic, too.
I dropped Final Crisis and Batman.
The Batman drop was a long time coming as Morrison's run on it just hasn't been that impressive to me. One day I just had to say to myself "Why am I still reading Batman...I don't even like the title anymore"
Final Crisis got dropped because after two issues I already felt Morrison's writing drowning out anything Geoff Johns had to say and to be frank I am just done with "event titles". Short of Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge, event titles in either of the big two have become almost passe at this point, and to a greater extreme just a money grab.
All this being said though, Dini's run on Detective Comics is still good as ever and I am gonna miss Catwoman now that Will Pfeifer is finishing up on it...shame they couldn't keep it going.
Books I've dropped:
Jonah Hex. Got so repetitive.
She-Hulk. Sorry, Peter David. I gave you a chance.
Hulk. After 2 issues of not knowing who the title character was, I decided I didn't care who he was.
Trinity. Mark Bagley + Kurt Busiek should = the awesome. Instead I got three straight issues of interior monologues.
JLA: If the prime book of the DC Universe is gonna be this boring....I mean c'mon.
Nightwing. Dick Grayson skydives from 20,000 feet with a ROUND parachute? Sorry, my disbelief doesn't suspend that far.
Dropped last month: Green Arrow and Black Canary. That one hurt, Judd Winick. It's cool if you just wanted to write Green Arrow without the spouse, but don't call it one thing and write another. Jerk.
Dropped two months ago: The Spirit. It's not that it got bad, it's just impossible to do what Darwyn Cooke and Co. were doing on that book. Hard act to follow.
Dropped three months ago: She-Hulk. Again, I love Peter David, but following Dan Slott was too damn hard. I'm glad Dan's on such cool books as Avengers: Initiative and Spider-Man now, he deserves good things.
Next up: JSA.
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