“This is one I happened across by accident in the 90’s. Oh shit, here comes Old Man Pete.
In the day, comics were kinda hard to find out about and follow. Because you basically had to show up to the comics shop and look around. Maybe you’d get something you liked already, and once in awhile you took a chance on something that looked cool, or maybe you’d heard a little something about it in Wizard or whatever.
I ended up with a hodgepodge of Mage comics over the years. The publication on this one is more than a little confusing, going like Volume 1 Part 1, Volume 1 Part 2, Volume 2, and so on. Just give us the damn numbers! And back then it’s not like I could jump online and find out which books I was looking for. Confusing as all get-out.
So there are pluses and minuses to the modern era of comics, on the consumer side. It’s not all “It was better back in the day!”
The Things That Were Better Back In The Day:
+Discovery was exciting. I was the first of my comics nerds friends to discover Scott Pilgrim and Walking Dead. That was some exciting shit. It also made it seem likely that there were hidden gems out there just waiting to be uncovered. So even a bad comics was not so bad because you could check that off the list and say, “No thanks!”
+Just being in the presence of something was exiciting. I remember distinctly seeing my first Giant Size X-Men #1. Going to that shitty basement con was worth it because I SAW that book in real life. This isn’t a super rare book. Jump on eBay and you can get one with a high grade for $1-2k, which isn’t a small amount of money, but consider that an Amazing Fantasy 15 (first appearance of Spider-Man, true believers) is easily $12,000 for a very low grade, and that gives you an idea. So there was that aspect as well.
+Collecting was more fun back then. Now it’s really just a matter of money. If you can build up enough funds, you can get anything. Before eBay, you had to go out and find the shit.
+The cons were more fun. For me. Now that they’re more mainstream, that’s great, but for me personally, they just don’t hold the same appeal. More on this some other time.
+I think knowing artists and writers through their art and writing was a better experience than knowing them through their work AND through social media. When it turns out someone is also awesome online, that’s usually a non-factor, and when it turns out they’re a jerk, it ruins stuff. So the online portion of all this isn’t really additive to enjoyment of comics.
The Things That Are Better Today
+Almost everything is collected in trade paperback or available digitally. Lots of current readers don’t realize it, but back in the day only a few very key storylines were ever published in a format other than the original floppy books. That has done a complete 180, maybe to the point of ridiculousness. It’s like some companies that release old horror movies on Blu-Ray. Do I really need some of this shit in hi def? But anyway, it’s nice that you can get your hands on this stuff and read it.
+Being able to figure out which books you’re looking for is nice. I mean, even DC doesn’t know the goddamn reading order for Batman, its own book, but at least you can read some different thoughts on the matter and maybe approximate a reasonable order. Figuring out which Mage book to read today is WAY easier.
+Digital reading…is good in some scenarios. It’s nice to be able to read things that’d be hard to get ahold of otherwise, and for a reasonable price, but it’s a mixed bag as far as an experience. More on that some other time.
I miss the old era of comics, not so much because of the comics themselves, but because I miss the way that we used to interact with comics, which isn’t really an option anymore. It’d be like trying to interact with music the way we did in the 90’s, by going to a record store, reading reviews in Rolling Stone, and so on. But I don’t even know if bands put out records the same way they did in the 90’s, like do they cram 15 songs onto an album, and then you sorta have to figure out what’s filler? I don’t even know. What I DO know is that my phone doesn’t even have a headphone jack, most new computers don’t even accept CD’s, and it’s getting pretty difficult to experience music the same way. So if you wanted to, it would amount to a holy quest of sorts, and you’d be an intentional luddite in a weird way.
Comics would be kind of the same deal. So maybe how I feel about the differences is irrelevant because they are what they are, and my feeling about them doesn’t change them one bit. “