... and being forced to buy 1/6 of an eventual TPB each and every month in all my monthly titles!

It's gotten so bad that I'm seriously thinking of swearing off this hobby until the worm turns (which it will.)

KP, I agree with you 100%. Almost every Marvel comic that I buy is based on the idea that it is 1/6 of a trade paper back. From long drawn out stories in Avengers, to never-ending stories in Hulk, and so on and so forth, Marvel has absolutely no title that can be called "bang for your buck". I love Supreme Power, Amazing Spider-man and Daredevil, but even these titles are pushed to be trades.

And DC is starting to do it too, which is too bad. Hopefully books like Catwoman won't be forced into this hole.

The industry is calling it "padding", and I hate it. Some books can get away with it, but most can't.

This story padding (although I think of it more as "thinning") is an awful trend. Sometimes I feel so ripped off with a title. I've dropped a few because of this - and buy very few superhero books other than Legion now. Even in the trade version, the stories read quickly.

You seem to get less of that in the non Marvel/DC books. I've gotten a mix of trades and individual issues for A Distant Soil and Strangehaven- the single issues have things like letter columns (remember those?) or creators' comments, while the trades add extra sketches.

The thing about this...

DC books I like are far less likely to be TPBed... so I'm gonna keep buying them every month.

and even some Marvel titles (THE INHUMANS) that I love aren't likely to see TPB treatment, so I'm gonna keep on keepin' on every month.

Up until a year ago, I collected HULK, THOR, DD, ASM... I dropped 'em when I realized I just wasn't enjoying them. Stupid editorial decisions have thinned out the rest of my Marvel herd back down to one or two books after a recent resurgence in what I considered quality titles from them. But looking back, the number 1 reason I dropped the first those titles originally was the God-awful TPB mentality. Daredevil in particular was a title I wanted to enjoy, but the TPB story-spread got to be too distracting. I miss the old days of single issue complete stories and the cliffhanging two-parter.

Pov, that's exactly how I feel. I collect with my Dad and uncle, and since we have the entire runs of Thor, Hulk, FF, Spidey, Iron Man, etc., we just keep collecting all those titles, even when they aren't that good, since we know they'll eventually go through a period where they'll great again. But right now, I look at all the Marvel titles that we collect (all of the 'classic' titles plus a few extra), and I find that I'm not really enjoying most. DD, ASM and Supreme Power are about it, with Alias and New Mutants as two others that I enjoy.

It seems that some writers, Peter David on Captain Marvel and Geoff Johns on Avengers, really didn't want to adapt to the TPB format, and their writing suffered for it. Other comics just seem to drag on and on, never-ending, like Thor, Iron Man and Fantastic Four especially. And then there are some comics you can read in under a minute, the biggest examples being Uncanny X-Men and Ultimate X-Men. This TPB format has pretty much screwed up the writing on all of these books in different ways.

Forty years ago, Jack Kirby could have fit the last twelve issues of any of these books into ten pages of action. The original Galactus saga would now take at least two TPB's to be told, and it wouldn't be done any better. If Marvel really expects a random customer to shell out $2.99 for a book that can be read in under a minute, they must be crazy.

I agree with you KP! We can all thank Bendis for this stupid trend.

What did Bendis have to do with it?

And considering the current state of the market, is it greed at this point or "scrambling to make a buck"? (although it was their greed that got the industry into this situation in the first place, of course)

Wouldn't it be cool if, by buying all the individual issues in a story arc, you could merge them together into a collected edition that includes special content not otherwise available to those who wait and buy the TPB later?

Maybe I've got Transformers on the brain...

Wizard listed Bendis as its best writer for 2003, this is part of what they said about him- It's worth noting that Bendis' successful character driven, slow burn five and six parters in Ultimate Spider Man have set the tone of Marvel's entire line, evident in its made for tradepaperbacks arcs from Incredible Hulk to Runaways.

Bendis IS a good writer. But I see an editorial mandate these days, at Marvel especially, to try to wring as many TBPS as possible from the monthly books, which means that many writers are being encouraged (or pressured, if you care to look at it that way) into writing this way as well, and I don't think the style fits every writer. I don't feel gypped by a Bendis book. I DO feel gypped by the last 2 arcs of Avengers. UGH!

And don't get me started on the Ultimates. If you look at the characters and situations the first 12 issues of Avengers took on back in the 60's...

I know, different writing style, different era, yada yada yada. And comics were 10 cents. I just want to get my money's worth for my $2.99 per comic book and I feel that the publishers are less and less concerned with giving my my money's worth when they can slap a $20 price tag on a TPB 6 mos. down the line. It's just irritating.

It definately is encouraged and pressured. Peter David has come out and said that they've asked him to make his arcs more adaptable to TPB's.

And Neil Gaiman said that Marvel wanted him to have 1602 be 6 issues, but then he couldn't do it in under 8. Since he's widely accepted as a comics genius, he was able to convince them to let him do 8 issues and have a bigger trade, like his last Sandman arc.

So there is without a doubt an editorial push for these long drawn out arcs.

I know how this feels!

I bought "Ultimate Six" by Bendis and I'm really not liking it at all. The story's just too slow and those huge panels...wow! It's supposed to be cinematic...sheesh...! Conversely, with JMS on "Supreme Power", I don't mind the exposition at all, as each issue either advances the action or the characterization.

However, I did like the 2 "Y: The Last Man" TPBs. Vaughn's writing is compelling! Thing is, even if his stories are 6 issues long, Vaughn's able to make every issue fantastic in its own right, moving the story along quite nicely without that "padded" feeling.

Geez, they even have a PC word for "padding" now..."decompressed storytelling"! grrrrr....

I do dislike it when you buy a comic and read it and its like nothing really happened. Everything is in the same place because the writer doesn't move the story forward at all to continue the arc. I usually drop books like that.