Thread "Tales from the long box (or how to solve the where to start problem.)" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 3:06PM, Jun. 23, 2023

Something that has been bother me about the American comic book community is the answer to a common question.
'Where do I start?'
Their answer is always just read manga for a lot of stupid reasons like they say there's no crossover events (they are), spin offs (they are), extended universes (Clamp alone could give Marvel a run for their money), so on and so on. Basically it a feels like they just are jumping on the bandwagon and what not.
It is kind of frustrating because there's a ton of Western that are pretty awesome*, and it feels more like the community is just having sour grapes over a lot of bad decisions.

But, to counter that I always say to anyone starting out is to honestly take twenty something bucks, find the dollar bins and grab what looks interesting. Whatever you like, keep. Whatever you dislike or hate, sell it, trade it or give it away.
I build up a damn good sized collection before being forced to sell my 500+ collection for a couple of bucks during the move to Phoenix.

I thought I had a point to this rambling, but just thought I bring the topic up.
*Ironically I learned about more recent American comics from Japanese fans.

Posted at 2:06AM, Jun. 24, 2023

Its extremely quiet online and I dont got a lot else to do, so this might come across as more nitpicky or ranty than I intend.

1) I only know what a longbox is from watching Cartoonist Kayfabe on youtube. The closest comic book shop is an hours drive away. Ironically popping up in the town I moved away from 17 years ago now. When I lived there, the closest comic book shop was still an hours drive away.

2) How can I possibly be interested in characters that have existed since I was a tiny little bub. Is the world really so stuck for ideas that these characters from the 40s are the best bet at being an entertaining story? There was a cool batman show I saw once. And an okay movie. And everything else batman is rinse and repeat all of that over again.

3) I did let a random youtube channel talk me into buying some Green Lantern. The way they described the story was significantly more exciting than it ended up being. Once bitten…

4) Honestly… I'd rather just make. And if I need to read a comic, I can poke around for a good web comic.

Posted at 1:06PM, Jun. 25, 2023

If want to write the first thing to do is read
Generally read what you want to write.
So if you want to do comics; read comics.
It should be the genre you want to do.

You want to do manga, read manga. You want to superheroes, read superheroes.

Hate to tell you this but broadly speaking ALL superhero comics have been on rinse and repeat for decades. Period. There is nothing new. You can pull up NEW XYZ and someone who knows the genre will say that was done in 19XX and/or 20XX by Old SOS.

That's why it helps to read old shit. A lot of old shit. You get a feeling for the genre that you can't get from an article in TVTROPES. A lot of context is missing there especially anything before 1960. Practically nothing about radio dramas. You know how I found out? I had the XM radio show station during a trial and listened a lot.

So you want to do comics? Read lots of comics. If you want to do a certain genre, read everything in that genre you can tolerate from Action Comics #1 if so inclined. I've gone through any number of bound DC and Marvel collections as well as Strenyenko's history of comics. Had a huge tabloid size edition you could lay out on a table top and just pour over.

Where to do start? What do you want to read? You see one way to get into what you want to write is to look through stuff and see what isn't there that you want to see. Again some historical context is necessary because invariably some reader will compare it to something and it really helps to know what they're referencing before they accuse you of copying. It doesn't matter if you never heard of it because you HAVE heard of plenty of things you just don't remember so it might have gone right into the subconscious. You can't really know in our intensive 24/7 media world.

Sure you never saw Star Trek but you write about a spaceship with an alien first officer and everyone will assume you did.

How's that for a ramble? Now excuse me but I have a few old movies to watch to get a feeling for pacing fight scenes.