I have a GAF Bias against comic books.

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Just ask comic book-Gaf. Well point you to the books that'll match your tastes. And they'res tons of indie comics that have a single voice and a start, middle and end that range a wide variety of genres
 
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How can you hate a medium that gives you this OP
 
A lot of panels are heavily contextual. You are right though, comics are a mess and perhaps one of the most tedious things to get into. It's been a lot better in New 52 though, you can read Batman #0 to current without having to buy any other titles to understand any of the arcs. Your best bet are trade paperbacks.
 
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How can you hate a medium that gives you this OP

I enjoy these silly, old-school panels.

Every time I see any modern stuff posted, it seems...too try hard? Like the dialogue is trying to be deep and funny, or sophisticated, and it always falls flat. Or it tries too hard to be referential, like that Doom panel where the guard breaks the fourth wall posted a few posts back which doesn't do much for me. I know it's perhaps a sacred cow among comic fans, but I never saw the appeal of Deadpool for example from what I've seen of him, but maybe I have to be a big comic fan to get it, otherwise it just comes across as random humor.
 
I know it's perhaps a sacred cow among comic fans, but I never saw the appeal of Deadpool for example from what I've seen of him, but maybe I have to be a big comic fan to get it, otherwise it just comes across as random humor.

Don't worry too much, Deadpool's more recent depictions (especially as written by Daniel Way) have been rather controversial from what I've gathered.
 
I don't know why folks think you need 50 years of study just to read a comic series, 98% of comics are just as easy to jump into as 98% manga. If not more so
Yeah, I just picked up a random issue of Spider-Man with my only exposure being the 90's cartoon and the movies and I was straight.
 
Don't worry too much, Deadpool's more recent depictions (especially as written by Daniel Way) have been rather controversial from what I've gathered.

duggan and posehn have done wonders for his character, but waypool, while his most popular incarnation, is hated by fans of deadpool prior to his writing
 
I enjoy these silly, old-school panels.

Every time I see any modern stuff posted, it seems...too try hard? Like the dialogue is trying to be deep and funny, or sophisticated, and it always falls flat. Or it tries too hard to be referential, like that Doom panel where the guard breaks the fourth wall posted a few posts back which doesn't do much for me. I know it's perhaps a sacred cow among comic fans, but I never saw the appeal of Deadpool for example from what I've seen of him, but maybe I have to be a big comic fan to get it, otherwise it just comes across as random humor.

Not saying you can't dislike something (I'm certainly not a huge superhero comic book fan) but I think that there is enough diversity in art and writing that there is something in the genre for everyone. Superhero comics are pretty inherently silly by nature, so you either gotta find one that plays around with that, or just embrace it. Lots of stupid comics, bad art, and uneccesarily convulted plotlines, but then you also have stuff like Matt Fraction's Hawkeye:
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or Frank Miller's Batman: Year One (if you consider 87 to be modern)
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They are on opposite spectrums of tone, but both have great art and are well written. You just gotta sift through a bunch of stuff until you find something that grabs you.
 
It's no surprise. Currently the big two, Marvel especially, seems to have a hard on for big earth shattering events with universe wide ramifications that they'll be sure and endlessly reference until the next one. Especially X-Men stuff.
 
I'll be honest, I don't get this...the dialogue is just weird.

Hawkeye is just a chill, down to earth guy who acknowledges he's basically the lamest of the avengers, and those are Russian gangsters that have a penchant for calling people bro. The characters are amusing and have lots of idiosyncrasies. It makes for a lot less eye-rolling than the self-serious approach most superhero comics take.

But my point was, there are tons of different superhero comics. Like Hawkeye is probably vastly different from what you think of superhero comics as, and there are plenty more. I bet you could find something you like.
 
I'll be honest this is slightly infuriating.

I mean, I don't really know much about Hawkeye outside of the Fraction stuff...but when you have a team of guys who have super strength, can fly, have power armor etc....a guy who is a good archer seems a little out of place.

I didn't mean to insult him I promise! I just like that in Fraction's Hawkeye, he's very aware of the company he keeps and of his own abilities. It makes for good self-deprecating humor and makes him more relatable. Plus, he's all the cooler for it when he actually does do awesome things with his bow.
 
I skip over any anime or comic book/movie thread. I always imagine adults into that like the comic book guy from The Simpsons.
 
What's most impressive is Doom's ability to blow a horn without lips, lol.

Fool! Doom needs no lips to blow what he pleases!

Yeah, I just picked up a random issue of Spider-Man with my only exposure being the 90's cartoon and the movies and I was straight.

and you have an avatar of Tana Moon. damn, Kon-El had the hottest girlfriend.

I'll be honest, I don't get this...the dialogue is just weird.

what's the there to get bro? dog likes pizza bro. good pizza dog bro.
 
Manga, you can pick a series, and jump in without any problems, but like comic books, there's all these confusing terminology to learn, how each story ties into one another, the various continuities, it's pretty intimidating.
Man, that first page jumped on this comment, but it's true. Superhero continuity is very intimidating and convoluted. Everything is intertwined. Japanese comics are more serialized as a whole, but One Piece #1 doesn't require you to read Ippo 1-50.

I've read comics since I was a kid, but I stopped for a bit and it was really hard to get back into it. Miss a year and you miss out on tons of history because everything bleeds into everything else these days. And DC had their shake-up that meant some stories you knew suddenly weren't true, and some were, but you can never be sure which... it's a damn mess.

It can be fun catching up on everything through wikis and whatnot. I get lost in the rabbit hole once in a while. I remember back in the day Wizard and the hero encyclopedias were a way to get all the timelines straight, but these days it's a much bigger scope.

When people bring up nerds, they no longer bring up Dungeons & Dragons and comic books. They bring up WoW. I think a lot of people have had fat, sweaty relatives have their lives taken over by WoW. And, if you ever hear a WoW conversation unfold, you can see why it's so grating to normies.
 
What do you mean by "filler"? If you asked me about filler in the manga itself, I'd say, "No such thing." If you're asking me about filler in terms of the anime, I'd say that any of the episodes or story arcs that were created expressly for the anime would be filler - so basically these lists.

Jesus H W Christ those episode numbers go up to 600+.
 
I personally dont like the superhero genre. Far too reliant on action, past charachters that wont go away and retcons for any ideal that disturb the status quo. Go for Franco-Belgian comics OP if you want to see the best the medium can offer! I can personally recommend Thorgal and The Third Testament. Both have a historical focus, tremendous art, and storylines that could not have been told better in any other medium! Also check out Elric: The Ruby Throne if you have the chance. You will not be dissappointed!

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Individual panels by Rosinski (illustrator of Thorgal):

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Alex Alice ( illustrator of the third testament):

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It's always manga fans that start this argument. I mean, I get that comics aren't everyone's cup of tea (I stopped reading for over a decade myself, just got bored) but it's ALWAYS manga fans. Making the exact same complaints.

Glass houses, bro
 
It's always manga fans that start this argument. I mean, I get that comics aren't everyone's cup of tea (I stopped reading for over a decade myself, just got bored) but it's ALWAYS manga fans. Making the exact same complaints.

Glass houses, bro

I think it's just that they see all the comic movies and they feel that they're not aimed at them or their interests? Or it's just "Stupid Americans can't appreciate foreign culture." (I'm Irish btw, and I think Americans are great).

"Why isn't Hollywood throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at things for ME?"


That'd be why. I hope Ghost in the Shell does well though.
 
Honestly, your avatar is what I'd consider an example of bad-art (but since it's an avatar, I assume you chose it for the impression it gives rather than how good it looks), or at least unappealing to me.
You might as well keep saying it's unappealing to you because saying it's bad art is bull and it's very hard to take you seriously.
 
I think it's just that they see all the comic movies and they feel that they're not aimed at them or their interests? Or it's just "Stupid Americans can't appreciate foreign culture." (I'm Irish btw, and I think Americans are great).

"Why isn't Hollywood throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at things for ME?"

I think you're looking into this too far, I don't really have a desire to see any manga adapted for the big screen as a live-action film...and I'm not jealous of Hollywood adapting comic books, in fact I even said I enjoyed most of them.

You might as well keep saying it's unappealing to you because saying it's bad art is bull and it's very hard to take you seriously.

No, I feel like a lot of people would probably agree with me that it doesn't look that good on a technical level. I'm not even an art critic or anything, it just looks a bit amateurish. Would you mind posting the full panel?
 
I think it's just that they see all the comic movies and they feel that they're not aimed at them or their interests? Or it's just "Stupid Americans can't appreciate foreign culture." (I'm Irish btw, and I think Americans are great).

Guy says in the OP he enjoys comic book movies... This topic really gnaws at some of you.
 
Really fucked up shit.

Nah, basically I just enjoyed the Shonen-genre pretty much as a kid (which is on the same level as superhero comics, so it's not like I consider them beneath me intellectually or anything), and whenever I feel nostalgic I might read through one.
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You should give Berserk a try if you haven't already.

I skip over any anime or comic book/movie thread. I always imagine adults into that like the comic book guy from The Simpsons.

Too perfect.
 
You might as well keep saying it's unappealing to you because saying it's bad art is bull and it's very hard to take you seriously.
I think saying you find some art is unappealing and saying that you think something is bad art is pretty much the same thing. Unappealing is just a nicer way of saying you think something is bad.
 
My only real problem with the Marvel Movies are I find their humor to be a bit...grating? I laugh, but I feel every Marvel movie tends to basically have the same jokes more or less. It's hard to explain, more like I feel they always set up their jokes too obviously. But I guess a lot of Hollywood action movies have the really artificial feeling humor beats.

Guardians of the Galaxy was fun, but the humor in it felt pretty much more or less on par with the rest of the Marvel films I've watched, just at a higher saturation.

You should give Berserk a try if you haven't already.

Is it really gory?

I sort of have a weak stomach for that sort of stuff. Like reading JoJo even is sort of uncomfortable for me with some of the body horror (anything involving eyes, that fucking soldier that Santana possesses), and I've heard Berserk gets pretty rough.
 
Is it really gory?

I sort of have a weak stomach for that sort of stuff. Like reading JoJo even is sort of uncomfortable for me with some of the body horror (anything involving eyes, that fucking soldier that Santana possesses), and I've heard Berserk gets pretty rough.

In that case you may have to give it a pass, then. :p
 
Is it really gory?

I sort of have a weak stomach for that sort of stuff. Like reading JoJo even is sort of uncomfortable for me with some of the body horror (anything involving eyes, that fucking soldier that Santana possesses), and I've heard Berserk gets pretty rough.

Berserk would destroy your soul. Stay away if body horror is difficult for you to handle.
 
I mean, I don't really know much about Hawkeye outside of the Fraction stuff...but when you have a team of guys who have super strength, can fly, have power armor etc....a guy who is a good archer seems a little out of place.

I didn't mean to insult him I promise! I just like that in Fraction's Hawkeye, he's very aware of the company he keeps and of his own abilities. It makes for good self-deprecating humor and makes him more relatable. Plus, he's all the cooler for it when he actually does do awesome things with his bow.

Heh it's alright. I just like my Hawkeye to be competent and clutch, and I don't hate Fraction's run I just don't want his Hawkbro to become the default.

Example of sensible emphasis in manga:

Comic books should learn from Araki.

Looks about the same as most dialogue in comics.
 
Yeah, I just picked up a random issue of Spider-Man with my only exposure being the 90's cartoon and the movies and I was straight.
That is how you do it.

duggan and posehn have done wonders for his character, but waypool, while his most popular incarnation, is hated by fans of deadpool prior to his writing
THe movie is going to be so bad.
I skip over any anime or comic book/movie thread. I always imagine adults into that like the comic book guy from The Simpsons.

Me thinks you protest too much
 
I mean if you tell someone you want to read about Goku, you know where to begin...Dragon Ball, Volume 1. There's an easy to understand linear progression of the character.

But you can't do that with, say, Spider Man. When you say you want to read about Spider Man, it's who's run, what universe, which continuity, etc.

Manga just has far less baggage than western superhero comics. I think people would agree with this point, right?

Pick up Ultimate Spider-Man Vol.1. Done.

Seriously, you're overthinking this, OP. I used to think like you, but then I grabbed a book and started reading. I don't know everything that's happening in the Marvel/DC universes, but the cool part is that I actually don't have to care. I can just care about the books I want to read.

The specifics of what universe, what continuity etc. don't really matter when it comes to discussing a single book. You can read Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, just read that book and you'll get a solid isolated story. You can pick up Batman by Scott Snyder, just read Batman, and you'll be fine. You don't have to engage in all the continuity, event books stuff if you don't want to.

If you start a series and you're unclear who a character is, it's rare that a book won't give a relatively basic explanation for newcomers, unless it really isn't important. Comics aren't nearly as demanding on prior knowledge as people assume.

And as far as "who's run" each book is, it's no different than when a different director comes on to take over a movie franchise. These characters have been reinterpreted countless times, and everyone has their own view. Some takes are better than others.
 
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