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Why do "Sci-Fi" people hate comic books?
Submitted by comicbookwriter on April 18, 2006 - 6:14pm.
Hey guys, I wanted to throw out a big hello to everyone here. This is my first post, and I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Brandon Easton, I have worked in the sci-fi/comic book biz for a few years now and I tend to spend a lot of time online doing tons of research on the science-fiction community.
The one constant I have noticed over the years is the contempt for the comic book MEDIUM that sci-fi novel readers seem to share. It seems that a lot of people confuse the super-hero subgenre as being representative of the entire medium of graphic novel or serialized pamphlet storytelling and that doesn't make sense since the "non-sci-fi" crowd loves to assume that all written science-fiction is nothing more than a Star Trek or Star Wars offshoot.
You would think that sci-fi folks would be a little less closeminded.
I just wanted to hear from people on this subject. There are some killer sci-fi stories written in the comic book format that many people may miss out on:
2000 A.D. by various
OCEAN by Warren Ellis
TRANSMETROPOLITIAN by Warren Ellis
THE METABARONS by various
A DISTANT SOIL by Colleen Doran
HELLBLAZER by various
V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore
These are but a few of the titles out there -- a couple of these have horror/thriller overtones as well -- but I hope that some of the hardcore novel readers will give the medium a chance because there is so much being produced out there it would be a shame to miss out on some great storytelling.
CBW
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I don't hate comic books, but I don't read them
Hi CBW,
Welcome to TWATEOTU. This is a topic that has been kicked around here a couple of times. There are several comic-book lovers on the board that are avid novel readers, but I agree that most novel readers don't consume many comic books. What are the reasons? Perhaps its the stigma of comic books being a medium for children. Calling them graphic novels hasn't seemed to help. In Europe and Japan, they are respectable reading for adults, but not in North America.
I don't consider myself a comic-book reader, but I wouldn't say I hate the medium. I've been reading some of the Star Wars graphic novels lately that I have borrowed from my local library. I'm a great lover of science fiction illustration and some of the art in those books is fantastic, but the stories are pretty routine.
Of the books you mentioned, I've read none except for a few installments of Transmetropolitan. Frankly, it didn't do much for me. I couldn't get past the anti-hero of Spider Jerusalem. After working nearly two decades in media, the idea of a journalist commanding that sort of influence seemed laughable. The character seemed to be just another teenage wish fullfillment common to the superhero genrre.
Probably the biggest factor that keeps me away from comic books is the price. They are expensive and the amount of reading time I get out of them is low compared to a novel. New paperbacks can be expensive as well, but that can be mitigated by buying them second-hand, something that's much easier to do with books than comic books. You can buy a novel for a fraction of the cover price, but comic books are sold at multiples of the cover price because they are "collectable." You can occasionaly find them at dirt-cheap prices when someone is dumping their not-so-valuable collection, but there are not as many reliable outlets for cheap comics.
Those are my two cents,
Capt. Xerox
A few thoughts to add to
A few thoughts to add to Xerox's comments.
I am one of the comic readers here, but I only 'converted' a half dozen years ago. For the longest time I too balked at the price of comics and also rationalized the fact that I could get a lot more SF reading material for the price of one comic. I still think that that is true, but there is something to be said about 'good' comics and I now read both mediums.
One of the reasons I started buying was that the overpriced glut of comics in the late 90's finally caved in when people realized that the price of their 'collections' was only a small fraction of what they thought it was worth. The comic 'bust' suddenly released a lot of good comics into the secondary market for reasonable prices. People like myself who were willing to give them a try mostly concluded that while a lot of those boom year comics were not worth the paper they were printed on, a lot of them were very good and even magnificent in some cases. I now post a few reviews here for comics or comics related books that I've read.
I still buy a significant amount of comics, but price is still very much a factor. I rarely buy new comics, but as luck would have it, I am currently buying the new six issue "Revolution on the Planet of the Apes", which is midway in the series now. (But I must point out that I am VERY partial to POTA, and that is the prime reaason for this exception.)
Oh, one other thing. Some people take exception that others have a preconceived notion about comics and tend to point out that "Not all comics are superheroes!". I have to chime in to these people and add "Not all super-hero comics are bad!".
~ Lazarus ~
A few thoughts to add to
I also read comics -- but read many more novels -- I agree with the comments made by Cap and Laz but will add that I have difficulty with the serial format -- I have the same difficulty with serial TV -- I get busy and just forget to turn it on -- with comics, I have trouble hauling my (not so tiny) behind down to the comic shoppe to pick up the latest installment -- I do realize that some of the titles you mentioned might have been/are "onlies" still that means going to a shop to which I do not normally go.. hence while I read comics, I don't do it as often as I would if they were sold in specialty book stores -- as a matter of fact I did buy more comics when the Sci-Fi book store that I went to also sold comics --
I'm one of the S_F fans here
I'm one of the S_F fans here also very much into comics. Have been for over 20 years now.
I do sometimes balk at the cost-reading time ratio of comics, mind you. I'm usually finished a comic in less than 30 minutes. On the flip side, I was reading A Game of Thrones over a months time, and it cost the equivalent of 3 comic books.
-- Hey Laz: the current POTA mini series is written by one friend (Ty Templeton), and another (Gabriel Morrissette) has drawn some of it as well!
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
All Canadian apes
Yes, "Revolution on the Planet of the Apes" is an ALL CANADIAN production! Ty has become active on one of the POTA discussion groups and I've also met Tom Fowler here in Ottawa (because of that chance encounter I was the first to bring the news of the new Apes comics to all the POTA DGs).
Like you say, these comics are still pricey when compared to their paperback novel counterparts, but when it comes to Apes I can't resist and thankfully these comics are very well written and drawn.
Again, it all comes down to a person's particular likes and dislikes. The Ape lover in me has compelled me to get all the Apes comics I can get my hands on, and I'll be the first to admit that some of those are really bad comics. But I seem to enjoy them nonetheless.
I like to keep and open mind and try things. For instance, I've tried reading Manga comics now and then and for the most part, I haven't really liked what I've read. But there was one that was simply awesome that I read years ago. (Can't remember the title offhand, but it was passed along to me by Cosmic. It may even have been at one of the EotU GTs.)
~ Lazarus ~
I read both Shonen Jump and
I read both Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat every month (the English versions)... just further proof that I'm in touch with both my masculin and feminine sides.
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
Shonen, Shojo what?
I confess that I did not know what these were, but as always, Google answered it in seconds.
I may try one some day. But at the moment my backlog comic reading is almost as bad as my SF reading backlog. Why? Recently my local comic shop closed and as a result everything in his store was 50% off. As a result I bought a bunch of 500+ pages of phonebook sized Marvel Essentials and DC showcase books. So basically I got another 5000 pages of comics to read! Getting even getting another mere 300 pages of Manga is NOT something I should be considering at the moment.
FYI: I read the Showcase "Superman's Family" last week. Normally I would not have bought this one, but there was a SF catch. 99% of this volume are reprints of "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" from the mid 50's. All but a few of the stories were written by none other that Otto Binder, (half of the "Eando" Binder team. Earl and Otto Binder. Get it?). So I was looking forward to reading a lot of SF style stories. It was not as much as I liked, but there were quite a few with distinctive SF angles.
~ Lazarus ~
Shojo/Shonen Backlog
I have several months of these volumes in a backlog myself.
I recall the bit about Eando Binder. Green Lantern also has an SF tie: Alfred Bester was involced in the character.
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
Bester: Green Lantern
Hey I forgot about that! Green Lantern Showcase was another of the 'phonebooks' I picked up. Can't wait until I get home tonight to check and see if I have Bester stories in there. Thanks for the reminder.
Actually there are a lot of authors who are cross domain writers: 'straight up' fiction writers and comic book writers. I don't care as long as they are GOOD writers!
~ Lazarus ~
Those writer carryovers were
Those writer carryovers were explained in the autobiography of the late Julie Schwartz: he was the first SF literary agent. When he moved over to comics, he also invited over some of his clients from there.
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
NO Bester GL 4 me
Well I checked my Green Lantern Showcase and unfortunately there were no Alfred Bester stories in there. But flipping through the panels led me to believe that there should still be some interesting stories to read.
Thoth: Thanks for pointing out Julius' bio. I'll note it for my UBS list. Never know what you may find in a UBS. I've now read bios of William Gaines, Stan Lee and Jack KIrby and found all of them to be fascinating reading. Julie should fit right in.
~ Lazarus ~
Laz: Unfortunately Julie's
Laz: Unfortunately Julie's autiobiography (Man of the Multiverse) doesn't instill any of the warmth many felt for him. It's fairly devoid of his reported charm.
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
I'll tell you one reason-
I'll tell you one reason- Comic Books tend to absolutely obliterate popular Sci-Fi settings.
Very much like animé a lot of the ante in Comic Books is attempted through doing the most extreme, unlikely and over-the-top thing with the stories instead of putting genuine, deep thought into the characters, setting and lisence you're using.
It's sort of a dumbed down 'bigger is better' approach to doing things.
I love the Alien movies and whilst Alien: Resurrection and AvP are awful, they haven't buggered the franchise up the arse like the various AvP vs Terminator comics and so on. They just try and cram as much 'stuff' into it all as possible and it overburdens it.
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