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COMIC
TALK
-by
Nick Alexandres
I
hate bitching about comics. I hate hearing about how bad the comic
industry is right now, what went bad with Spider-Man and I’m really
sick of all these people, from the guy who works at the comic shop to
Warren Ellis, saying how to fix the industry. Stop Complaining! It’s
not the prices of comics, the release of Playstation 2, or the bad
stories being produced that are hurting the comic industry. It’s the
damn complaining and bitching everyone is doing. Yeah, I know I’m
bitching about the complaining but this has to be said.
The
last week I’ve been reading The Amazing Spider-Man of the 70’s. The
stories were crap then too. But nobody complained. I mean the
Spider-Mobile…for God’s sake! The difference now is that the readers
and critics, especially Wizard, are freaking out and saying that a
character needs updating or fixing. So what does the publisher do to
please these bitter folks? They give Spider-Man a clone and bring back a
dead character thinking that will “inject some juice into the
character”. We would NEVER have had
a Spidey clone and a back-from-the-dead Aunt May if you didn’t complain. The best example of the readers’
influence on the comic is Wizards (again) piece on how to fix
Spider-man. One of the complaints was Peter Parker married. “No! No!
We liked him single! Get rid of M.J.!” they said. So Marvel did. THEY
KILLED MARY JANE!!!
So
you guys want the industry healthy? Stop Bitching. Being negative
influences the comic and everything around it more than you think.
Sooner or later everything will come together. Sure you can argue that
we wouldn’t have Paul Jenkins on Peter Parker if we didn’t complain
and we would still be stuck with Crappy Mackie. But would we really need
him if it wasn’t broken to begin with? You get the idea.
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