The Big Picture: Comics in The 90s: What Happened?
- Thread starter MovieBob
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That's a good possibility. Another I found is a rumor that Marvel may be revisiting the Heroes Reborn universe. Either of which would make a good episode.Nghtgnt said:
Yeah, not only have these "90's suck" videos not convinced me the 90's sucked, it's convinced me even further the 90's were a better time period then now.Redem said:
I dont need to watch the video to tell you what happened to comics in the '90's. They sucked because all they did was focus on gimmicks and artwork, and forgot what makes them truly great... the story. Chromium covers, multiple "collectible" covers, bagged comics with cards and such (which, by the way, those baggies they came in are acidic and will eventually destroy your comic.. not that most of those are really worth squat, anyway) and the list goes on. It was a bad time to be a comic collector back then. Anyone remember Valiant? /sigh, my wallet does.
As far as I know, only WildStorm (one of the studios in Image) was bought by DC. Image Comics is still independent.Smokescreen said:
So true. The video wasn't wrong about the first half of the decade, but the late 90s gave us a lot of brilliant comics - in addition to the ones you mentioned I'd add Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, and Peter Milligan's short-lived The Minx (and didn't Ed Brubaker's short Scene of the Crime come out in '98 or '99 as well?).Netrigan said:
Plus a lot of Warren Ellis' more recent weird big ideas were already around in a watered down form in the mid-'90s in his run on Excalibur (my avatar here is from that) as well as in DV8/Stormwatch/The Authority/Planetary.
And that's not even getting into all the indie stuff, or some of the European Sci Fi that was coming out at the time. Yeah, the early '90s were pretty crap (with some notable exceptions, of course), but there was a lot of good stuff (and maybe more importantly influential stuff) coming out in the second half of the decade.
Is it just me or does a lot of that sound like exactly what's happening with gaming at the moment? Too much money being circulated by everyone jumping the shark and a lot of indies and splinter studios (via kickstarter) trying to carve their slice of the market.
To add to previous posts for the sake of my online ego. Comics sucked in the '90's? Seriously? I think the view here was a tad narrow. I look at my comic book case and the overwhelming majority is Stormwatch, The Authority, Hellboy and large chunks of Vertigo and Moore, oh and a single more "mainstream" representation in Kingdom Come... The nineties was pretty good for some of us.
~cough~ TNG, DS9, Babylon 5, X-Files, Frasier ~cough~
~cough~ TNG, DS9, Babylon 5, X-Files, Frasier ~cough~
Heck isn't Kirkman pretty much the largest principle owner of Image these days? I'll give Image credit. They stuck it out through the awful years, and evolved from the art driven abomination of the 90's to a much more writer driven company today. And it has paid off. At least as well as anything can in today's comic industry. (News flash. The comics industry as we know it is doomed. As the big bookstore chains die so to die the main discoverable courses of their product. Until they figure out on how to truly capitalize on digital markets, they are all screwed. The writing is on the wall for Diamond and the independent comic shops.)SonOfVoorhees said:
After the artists failed at being writers, you get Geoff Johns who has changed the DC universe 3 times. That's some nice writing power on the level of Jack Kirby. Is that our big thing for next week, or have I just speculated too far?
Captcha: Make it so
Captcha: Make it so
I didn't get into the whole Comic Book till around 2000, It blows my mind to think Marvel filed bankruptcy.
you know, I started collecting comics in 1995 (I was only 10) when I found out that archie comics had put out a Sonic the Hedgehog comic. Though the series has had it's low points to be sure it's recently entered it's 20th year as it rapidly approaches it's 250th issue, making it the longest running licensed comic in the industry's history. In a decade driven by cheap event comics and pandering to "mature" audiences it's nice to know that one of the greatest success stories was a kid friendly cartoon comic.
Oh lord Image comics. I only remember two things from Image, and both infuriated me. One was Rob Leifield's unending stream of new characters and teams, all of which were horrible and his art was being emulated across comics, even though he was awful at anatomy. And two, their release schedules were non-existant. I remember comics like Maxx and The Pitt taking months between volumes. I seem to remember at one point Maxx had a 9 month window between like volumes 3 and 4. =\
You don't get around the internet much, do you?Redem said:
Pretty much this. Image started as an ego soaked bonfire sacrifice to guys who were, at best, good artists, and after the virgin sacrifices ran dry they managed to put a pretty good house together.faefrost said:
But yes, the current print comics market is a dinosaur. Something needs to change drastically or all we'll really have to enjoy is Movies and the like.
It always saddens me that Marvel & DC comics weren't really available when I was growing up (during 90s). Few years back we could buy Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimate X-Men, but they were kinda overpriced. As for the 90s comics, I'm far from expert on the subject but I think Hellblazer and Preacher were pretty damn good (Garth Ennis) as was Transmetropolitan (although it came out in late 90s)
Yep, keep in mind this is Bob's opinions.Rossco64 said:
For us children of the 80s the 90s suck.
80s kids are hitting their awkward teenage years, shows 90s kids love are considered beneath the 80s kids.
As those 80s kids grew out of that cultural group or really tried to leave it behind as kiddy stuff.
And if you grew up as a geek in the 90s this is especially a bad time, as the 90s was not geek friendly as popular culture is now. So many 80s kids like me or Bob whole 90s experience is so badly tainted that there very little redeemable qualities the way Queen Ceres in the Game of Thrones only good quality is that she actually loved her children no matter how much of a evil, manipulative whore she actually was.
I like how Rob Liefeld is still a focal point. Because, well...Yeah....He kinda deserves it.DVS BSTrD said: