From: kps@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Karthik P Sheka)
Subject: Re: PAD & Pros
Reply-To: kps@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Karthik P Sheka)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 04:16:11 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.212351.134291@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> ckc1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (CEDRICK KIT CHAN) writes:
>
>    Given PAD's comments about this board and some fellow "pro's" reactions, I
>think there are many valid questions and points that arise:
>
>    First let us look at USENET and its contributors.  I believe that I'm safe
>in assuming that most of the netters are currently in college or have graduated
>from a college in recent years.  Therefore, I conclude that most of the people
>on this board are around the average age of a comic book reader;  20 years of
>age (as of 2 years ago).  I believe most of us like to believe that, to a
>certain extent, we're somewhat intelligent and mature.

I'll agree that most of us are the average age of a comic book reader.
Unfortunately, I don't think we are representative of the average
intelligence of the average comic book reader.  If we were, Superman would
never have met Doomsday, Claremont would still be on the X-Men, and the
world would be a much better place. :-)

>    Finally, I believe we can safely assume that most of us love comics.  Why
>else do we devote so much of our lives to it?  It is this very love of comics
>that makes many of us so 'rude' in our criticsms.  I personally have loved
>comics for as long as I remember.  I also happen to have grown up and fallen
>in love with many of the characters at Marvel.  Of course, I'm going to be
>critical when I see some of my favorite characters being handled as nothing
>more than 2 dimensional marketing tools!!!  I don't believe its completely
>wrong to treat characters as such, but I think these characters can be and
>have been so much more.

Yes, we have flame wars, but we also have a lot of mature discussions about
the comics that we love.  The fact that we are critical about the comics
that we read has nothing to do with the quality of these books.  The way I
see it, it would be impossible to have a large percentage of the newsgroup
like any single title, becausewe have such varying ideas of the direction
these titles should travel in.  

>    On the other end:  The "pros" that PAD spoke of don't get much respect
>from me.  As "pros", I'm sure they've heard many sharp comments about their
>work.  Why ignore us?  We're that generation that made comics so huge in the
>70's & 80's.  We've seen how great they can be!  Comics have kept me around
>for so long because it seemed to have gone through an adolescence in the
>'80's along with me.  Marvel and DC grew up with me.  What is happening?  Many
>of the books out there seem to be pre-adolescent drivel.

Well, I suppose the books you think of as drivel, some 12 year old thinks
of as a cool slugfest.  The problem that the comics industry has to deal
with is how to attract new readers while keeping old readers.  This has
actually been made more difficult by comics such as the X-Men, which has
been popular for around 10 years now.  The comics publishers have three
choices in a situation like this -- 1) Make the comic book more mature every
few years, so that they do not lose the crowd that has supported the title,
2) Keep the book at an adolescent level, to hook youngsters into the book,
or 3) Hire high-calibur writers who can both hook in the next generation of
readers while keeping the old guard.  The comic book companies seem to have
chosen choice two, because it is a "sure thing".  They have a formulae that
has worked for years, so why change it?  As a bonus, they can try to win in
the older crowd with "mature" titles, which they would not risk without
haveing the secure base of slugfest books.

I remember buying the New Mutants when they first came out.  I really liked
the issues after the Beyonder "killed" the New Mutants, but thought the
suicide issue was a bit booring.  When I read the issues now, I still like the
rehabilitation of the New Mutants, but the suicide issue is something that
I find special...




Karthik Sheka              | It's not an optical illusion.  It just looks like
kps@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu |    one.
karthik@cs.columbia.edu    | By "recursion" I mean "defined by recursion".