Drunken Comics Rage

Work is crap today, I'm in a bad mood, and so I'm taking it all out here.

Just warning you.

I went into a comic book shop this past Wednesday with DVO and Evil "The Man Who Will Not Post" Artist. Here's the thing though, I walked out of there without buying a damn thing. Even before going into the store, I had sort of resigned myself to getting something. I was hoping to maybe pick up some odd-ball comics, like a horror or fantasy based one. Mostly to ease into buying stuff, rather than just snagging an X-Title and bring on the pain. I didn't find anything I really wanted to buy though. It was like going into a strip club and not wanting a lap dance. Just weird.

I've started wondering why I didn't want to get anything. I mean, I like comic books. Hell, I'm going to the damn San Diego Comic Convention again this year. Other than to any trip to Vegas I take, it's probably the next thing I look forward to now. I love San Diego, and the only why the trip could get better is if it got rid of the God damned Travel Planners company to get the hotel rooms. I mean, I dig the discount room love, but the TP system absolutely sucked this year. Something like five times I got near the end, where I had a hotel room that I wanted, only to get screwed because their damn system freaked out. I was lucky to get a damn room at all, and I'm still not happy with it. Fuckers.

Getting back to the not wanting to buy comics thing, I think the biggest single problem I have is the that their monthly issues. I can go and buy a 400 page book for $8 (or $4 if I can find it at half price book store). At 400 pages, that's a good chuck of story where lots of stuff happens, sub-plots go places and are meaningful, characters are more than one dimensional, you get a beginning, middle, and end, with most, if not all, the lose ends being wrapped up. Plus, I can knock it out in a week instead of waiting a freaking year and a half for the story to wrap up, and paying a total or $50 for the privilege. We won't even get into the fact that in that 18 months the artist and writers might change, and screw everything up.

Usually this is the point where someone brings up the graphic novel. I get that I can now read old stuff with 6 - 12 comics slapped together. Some of them even have somewhat of a complete story to them, and normally cost less than buying the individual issues. It's just hard for me though to spend $15 on something that will take me a half an hour to read at the most. Then, have to wait a freaking year for the next one to come out, which might be useless to read if it's some part of a giant cross over extravaganza that I have no interest in.

The two saddest things about this is that:

1) I know that absolutely zero of any ideas I would come up with to change the way the comic book industry is run, would ever change a damn thing.

2) I'll probably end up getting sucked back into buying comics again, making all this ranting about not buying them moot, and probably stupid.

That's my rant for today. I know, doesn't accomplish a damn thing, but it made me feel better. Bite me.

Now I have to get back to work, and go run some useless meeting. 

Filed under: General Comics Rage, Ghostshark's Rants