shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 21, 2018 23:08:16 GMT -5
Meanwhile, back in the Silver Age, publishers were afraid to have a #1 on the racks. Green Lantern #1 purposefully bears no issue # because the publisher feared readers would avoid it as some untried flash in the pan.
I have never ever ever bought a #1 issue of a renumbered series that I hadn't already been following prior to the renumbering. I do not understand why people continue to fall for that stunt.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 21, 2018 23:35:34 GMT -5
Meanwhile, back in the Silver Age, publishers were afraid to have a #1 on the racks. Green Lantern #1 purposefully bears no issue # because the publisher feared readers would avoid it as some untried flash in the pan. I have never ever ever bought a #1 issue of a renumbered series that I hadn't already been following prior to the renumbering. I do not understand why people continue to fall for that stunt. In alot of cases, the new number 1 does indicate either a new creative team or a new status quo for the character, so it makes sense they would be attractive. Then there's the publishers themselves doing things like variant covers to incentive-ize the numbers. Could those things happen with #72? Of course they could. But I think in today's world of on demand entertainment, people don't want to 'miss' anything.. they want to start from the beginning. A #1 at least feels like a beginning, even when you know it really isnt. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,870
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Post by shaxper on Dec 21, 2018 23:41:51 GMT -5
But I think in today's world of on demand entertainment, people don't want to 'miss' anything.. they want to start from the beginning. A #1 at least feels like a beginning, even when you know it really isnt. Funny. I feel like I have a higher chance of missing something with all these renumberings. Disney has been doing this a lot as of late, and it's been maddening. I can't set up a pull at my LCS and be assured of getting full stories anymore, as they are frequently shuffled from one-shot, to one-shot, to new volume #1, and so on. It's obnoxious and confusing if you don't want to make pre-ordering into a part time job. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2018 23:42:20 GMT -5
Meanwhile, back in the Silver Age, publishers were afraid to have a #1 on the racks. Green Lantern #1 purposefully bears no issue # because the publisher feared readers would avoid it as some untried flash in the pan.I have never ever ever bought a #1 issue of a renumbered series that I hadn't already been following prior to the renumbering. I do not understand why people continue to fall for that stunt. -- That's very true and I was reluctant to buy it because the subject matter is in unknown territory whether it is a hit or a flop. Second Bold -- Makes a lot of sense and I do remember a reader bought a Number 1 (Sadly, can't remember what that issue was) and he took that Number 1 and along with other issues in order and return them to the store and got resold in the used comic book bins for resale. Sadly, I did that ... with Rima #1 ... to me it was untried flash in the pan and,  regret getting rid of that issue and the other issues that followed that ... COST ME MORE to get them back and I was mad getting rid of them in the first place. I fall for that stunt and made some mistakes not keeping them in the first place. This is best that I can do ... to support your claim. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 21, 2018 23:57:58 GMT -5
But I think in today's world of on demand entertainment, people don't want to 'miss' anything.. they want to start from the beginning. A #1 at least feels like a beginning, even when you know it really isnt. Funny. I feel like I have a higher chance of missing something with all these renumberings. Disney has been doing this a lot as of late, and it's been maddening. I can't set up a pull at my LCS and be assured of getting full stories anymore, as they are frequently shuffled from one-shot, to one-shot, to new volume #1, and so on. It's obnoxious and confusing if you don't want to make pre-ordering into a part time job. They did at least pick up where they left off on the numbering for Uncle Scrooge...though I happened to stop getting a monthly pull right when the mini started. Donald's mini picked back up numbering wise. Where these are reprints with little rhyme or reason, I think it kinda makes sense to have a multi-part arc separate. I don't get the others, but it appeared they condensed the Donald and the Mickey book into one quarterly double sized book, then added a Duck Tales comic (based on the cartoon). |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2018 6:49:44 GMT -5
The thing that bothers me is when I read articles about how high-numbered volumes are off-putting. Somehow that doesn't seem to affect The Walking Dead or the Judge Dredd Case Files (isn't that one on about volume #32 by now?).
I think certain titles should be proud to have a certain number of issues under their belt. If Marvel hadn't relaunched Darth Vader, and if it's still running in a few years' time, it could have been heading for a 60th or 70th issue.
It just puts me off. I don't want to do "homework". Turns out it's "Vader Down" that I need, the third one sequentially in the original volume released in 2015, but I picked up a different third volume. My bad. But even the bookstore had stacked it incorrectly. I'll check next time, but it's getting tedious.
And it isn't just me. A lapsed reader I know e-mailed me as he was confused over which modern Thor volume to pick up. I managed to find out what he needed, but some sort of renumbering there confused him.
I'd just let titles and trade volumes run. If that means we get to Vol. 25, reprinting #100-105 of something, then so be it. It'd be a lot simpler to follow.
I'm a lapsed The Walking Dead reader. I wrote down in my notebook where I got to. I last read Vol. 14. I now know to pick up Vol. 15 when I resume reading. If they were renumbering and rebooting constantly, I'd have some "homework" to do.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2018 8:53:05 GMT -5
The thing that bothers me is when I read articles about how high-numbered volumes are off-putting. Somehow that doesn't seem to affect The Walking Dead or the Judge Dredd Case Files (isn't that one on about volume #32 by now?). I think certain titles should be proud to have a certain number of issues under their belt. If Marvel hadn't relaunched Darth Vader, and if it's still running in a few years' time, it could have been heading for a 60th or 70th issue. It just puts me off. I don't want to do "homework". Turns out it's "Vader Down" that I need, the third one sequentially in the original volume released in 2015, but I picked up a different third volume. My bad. But even the bookstore had stacked it incorrectly. I'll check next time, but it's getting tedious. And it isn't just me. A lapsed reader I know e-mailed me as he was confused over which modern Thor volume to pick up. I managed to find out what he needed, but some sort of renumbering there confused him. I'd just let titles and trade volumes run. If that means we get to Vol. 25, reprinting #100-105 of something, then so be it. It'd be a lot simpler to follow. I'm a lapsed The Walking Dead reader. I wrote down in my notebook where I got to. I last read Vol. 14. I now know to pick up Vol. 15 when I resume reading. If they were renumbering and rebooting constantly, I'd have some "homework" to do. So true. If us lapsed readers or long term readers are frustrated can you imagine how a new reader would feel? This is one of the reasons new readers don't start reading after a movie. That and the version of the hero in the movie isn't currently being published. Could you imagine going to the store looking for Iron Man, Thor or Capt America as a new reader and the titles had Riri, Jane and Sam as the heroes? |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2018 9:04:46 GMT -5
Indeed.
Like I said, I look forward to resuming The Walking Dead, knowing Vol. 15 is the next one. So very, very simple.
Regarding the disconnect between movie versions and comic versions, I get ya. Totally. It's not unreasonable to imagine someone going into a store to find the "further adventures" of a character - and finding it jarring to see someone else in the role.
In the "Twelve Days of Christmas" threads, some of my choices represent licensed properties that helped me fill the time, e.g. when Star Trek: TNG was off the air, I was able to buy a comic featuring "on model" characters. Had I gone in and found a TNG comic with a totally different captain, and totally different crew, would I have been as interested?
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 22, 2018 10:01:08 GMT -5
I think that's a good point.. when it's not clear what you're getting, it limits the impulse buys a person makes. If you see a volume one list, you think it's the beginning of a story, but often it isn't... then there's always multiples of the same volume.
Marvel's doing it right with the Epics, but they should have been doing it all along so they have an actual library instead of random bits and pieces with all different trade dresses.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2018 10:06:52 GMT -5
I did ask a couple of people about the Star Wars trades. A few of them were confused. And it's telling that bookstores are placing them in the wrong order. I don't blame the bookstores for that at all. After all, they manage to stock The Walking Dead properly.
There was an issue with a UK reprint title here. I'd rang the subscriptions department with a query, but the woman was confused. I don't blame her or myself. It was another example of a relaunched/renumbered title.
When the damn thing becomes akin to "homework", it's time for the comic companies to WAKE UP. Often, the simplest way of doing things is also the best way of doing things.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 22, 2018 10:15:41 GMT -5
I did ask a couple of people about the Star Wars trades. A few of them were confused. And it's telling that bookstores are placing them in the wrong order. I don't blame the bookstores for that at all. After all, they manage to stock The Walking Dead properly. There was an issue with a UK reprint title here. I'd rang the subscriptions department with a query, but the woman was confused. I don't blame her or myself. It was another example of a relaunched/renumbered title. When the damn thing becomes akin to "homework", it's time for the comic companies to WAKE UP. Often, the simplest way of doing things is also the best way of doing things. For the Vader book in particular it made some sense to renumber.. the 1st series was running parallel in time to the main book (which cuminated in the 'Vader Down' crossover you're asking about).. when they went back to #1.. it was a new creative team and a different era.. the 2nd series was just after Vader was 'born' and he is carving out his place within the Empire. It think some sort of subtitle or whatever would have definitely been appropriate. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2018 10:31:56 GMT -5
Fair enough, just wish it hadn't involved "homework". I accept what you have said, though.
It just means being extra-cautious and not trusting that the way the books are stacked in Waterstones are the right ones (again, I never blame them).
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Post by rberman on Dec 22, 2018 10:53:43 GMT -5
It's a no win scenario. The last time I went to Books-A-Million, they had several shelves of different Batman trade paperbacks, in no obvious order. Yet the stories within them build off of each other. I had no idea which one was better, or which one came first. And I'm way more comics-literate than the mythical new reader that we wish was out there.
The obvious solution would be for every binding to contain either a date range of publication (Nov 06-April 08) or a volume number (Vol 4, Issues 10-16). But neither one of those really solves the continuity problem since stories carry over between different titles so often. Look how many different titles were contained within the short DC One Million TPB I just finished reviewing.
Also, people like to start at the beginning of the story, and the prospect of having your first Superman comic trade collection be "Vol 25" is off-putting. Yet nobody really wants to start in the Golden Age, even if all the intervening volumes were perpetually in print, which they are not. (DC seems better than Marvel about keeping its Silver Age material in print, from what I've seen.)
Basically, the thing that experts love about mainstream comics (the connectivity of the shared world) is once again the hurdle that prevents newbies from coming on board today, even if they were accustomed to print media, which by and large they are not.
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Post by chadwilliam on Dec 22, 2018 12:00:10 GMT -5
I've been dismayed for a while over comic companies' renumbering of titles, especially when it appears they cannot make their minds up (Marvel reverted to legacy numbering a while back, but then resumed with renumbering). Some of those renumbered titles seemed to have been assigned a high number as arbitrarily determined as slapping a new number one on a random issue. How did Venom get a 150th issue when as far as I can tell, none of his series went beyond issue 42? Why did Marvel's renumbering of Hulk which at first glance restored that title's numbering, factor in all those 12 issue, seven issue, whatever, Volumes one, two, three, etc but ignore the first six issues put out in 1962? Now that some of these titles have been reset at #1, will "Legacy" numbering kick in again once Marvel determines that since Wolverine had a few Keebler Elves, Listerine, My Little Pony giveaway comics his current title should be on its 1000th issue before deciding a few issues later to go back to number one? Anyway, as a kid I loved the high numbers. I remember getting Detective Comics 319, Batman 158 when those were about the oldest issues I could find, enjoying them immensely and then reflecting upon the fact that somewhere out there must be over 400 previous issues presumably of equal quality since surely, these guys must know what they're doing by now. 319 issues of Detective Comics? In that time, Batman could have squared off against some incredible bad guy I'd never even heard of 100 times and I'd never even know about it until I stumbled upon one of those comics. Seven different Batman first issues though? Man, how many tries does it take to get a first issue right? |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2018 12:24:03 GMT -5
Absolutely, Chad!
I'm beyond bored with it now. As you show, it's arbitrary, anyway. I don't know why they don't just abolish numbering - and have a month/year. I mean, it makes Marvel Comics look indecisive, reverting to legacy numbering, but then relaunching again MONTHS LATER.
Imagine a business that re-branded and brought in old management, but then reverted to original branding, and brought in new managers, months later. It'd hardly inspire confidence in customers, I feel.
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