Two months and counting.

This year one (perhaps my only) New Year’s resolution was a simple one - it was to kick the weekly comic book habit. Two months in it seems I am having little problem keeping to it.

There are a few reasons for the decision I took.

Oddly enough, comics have never been more mainstream than they are now in perhaps the past 40 years. If you look at Hollywood fare, we are regularly treated today to comic originated properties being bought to the big or small screen. Comics has proven to be a very fertile ground for the medium of film and TV and reaches a broader audience than ever before because of it.

Still, there is a certain stigma to the image of the comic book reader or store proprietor that remains firmly etched in the minds of most people.

So, there’s that.

Second, the monthly book is becoming prohibitively expensive in comparison to what is was when I started out buying the damn things. While I date myself by saying that I started buying comics just at the tail end of the 10¢ cover price period, today the things cost at a minimum $2.99. That $3 proportionally puts a bigger dent in the wallet than 10¢ ever did.

Comics. at the price point they are at today, are just getting way too expensive!

Well, at least they are getting too expensive for me.

So there’s that too.

But, that’s not all there was into the decision.

Another thing very prevalent in the industry today are ‘event’ comics. Event comics are these big publisher-wide story arcs that have chapters across many titles and issues. I suppose it makes some business sense in promoting readers to go out and buy titles they wouldn’t ordinarily follow to keep up on all the chapters of the story but, if you are a regular reader of title ‘A’ and don’t have a great deal of interest in title ‘B’ (or spare cash lying around) you wind up in the unsatisfying position of missing a chapter (think of reading a paperback where pages have just been held back or cut out entirely).

Then, finally there is the style of writing today.

Well... maybe I should qualify that.

There are a lot of good writers out in comic book land today but for every good writer there are five times as many copycats or lesser imitations of those writers. Where a writer might use something as a plot device and may do so eloquently and deftly not all the writers the industry today have the same skill and there is a certain ham handedness in plots or dialog that is painful to read.

Finally, there is the art.

Look, I understand everyone wants to contribute when they work on a project but modeling a frame that will ultimately be 1.25" X 2" in Photoshop over already dark pencils and inks just makes for a muddy mess. Surprisingly enough I have a bunch of people I know in the industry who are pencilers and inkers and it’s something they are aware of too. These are the days when I desperately miss Glynis Oliver and Christie Sheele (among others), people who understood the limitations of the medium and who didn’t try to be DaVinci on a pinhead.

So, like I said, two months into the new year and you know what?

I’m not missing them at all.

Now to get about selling the oh too many boxes of the things I have lying around here and getting some coin for the effort.

Meantime, if you think I’m off the medium as a whole, you would be mistaken. I just find that hardcovers and trades are more of a way to go and I’m being much more selective in what, and when, I get something. I don’t know about other fans but, I have to say if I was a shop owner I would begin to worry.