Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities I had to quit comics

If anyone's wondering why I dropped out for a while, I finally decided I had to give up comics. [US comics, that is. I still read a few manga, in collected form.] Everything in the DCU has been connected so intricately for so many years now that it got to where it took me too much time and money to keep up with it all.

It got to where finding the time to go buy them and then read them was more work than fun, which defeats the whole purpose of comics.

I miss the old days, when

(1) Comics didn't cost that much.
(2) Many kinds of stores sold them.
(3) You could keep up with a few favorites that didn't cross over with everything else [the Legion used to be real good about that].
(4) The comic companies didn't have huge sprawling nothing-will-ever-be-the-same epics every sprocking year.
(5) "Crisis" just meant the annual JLA/JSA crossover. [At least DC finally had the sense to restore a multiverse, though one reason I haven't gone back to comics is because I know YET ANOTHER SPROCKING CRISIS IS COMING!] I miss the days when writers knew how to tell a story without turning the whole sprocking world upside down.

Comics on the spinner rack at the corner store.

If I were to run a CBS, there'd be spinner racks.

Anyhow, don't have to buy to come around here and talk. Browsing is allowed.

Welcome back.

I feel your pain, Kid Charlemagne.

Three years ago, I switched careers and found that this transition left me with no disposable income. I had to quit comics cold turkey almost overnight.

A friend kept me informed by letting me borrow his comics. His tastes, however, were exclusively Marvel and DC, whereas I had moved on to enjoy several independents, including super-hero (NOBLE CAUSES) and non-super-hero (STRANGERS IN PARADISE) titles. Going back to reading exclusively Marvel and DC was jarring and unsatisfying, mostly for the reasons you cite.

It's sad to give up on a hobby that you've had for many years, but change is good. I've found other things to read, both fiction (Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy) and non-fiction (Coretta Scott King's My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr.). And dropping comics hasn't precluded my involvement here.

So, chin up! When one door closes . . .

Hmm... maybe we need to start a "Quitting Comics Support Group"?

If it's ceased being fun, then giving it up is the right thing to do.

And I completely share your frustrations with the current DCU.

At one time my father and I were collecting every single DC and every single Marvel comic (and I was having tons of fun with it). Recently I've made huge cancellations across both lines of comics. I'm not finished either as my patience continues to wear thin.

I'm more frustrated with DC than Marvel at the moment, but my standards for Marvel fell some time ago. Both have islands of greatness but unfortunately those islands are in seas of pure crap.

If it isn't fun anymore, than moving away from them is the right thing to do.

But like BB said, that doesn't mean you have to leave the boards.

Thanks, all of you.

Cobalt Kid came up with the perfect description: "islands of greatness in seas of pure crap".

Many of us have at one time or another been at similar places in life. Sometimes we resume, sometinmes not. Often we trim back; I myself shy away from almost every crossover, and dialike "universes" where a character I might follow will inevitably cross over with characters I don't care about.

I agree that if if it's not fun, you shouldn't do it.

But please feel free to stick around and participate as much as you'd like.

Kid, just remember, a sea of crap...makes great fertilizer. Those islands we all like, and i admit that i am just like others in this (having cut back greatly after marriage and a child), are from minds that read other islands in the sea, lol. Never fear, in a few short years, another renassaince (sp?) will take place and once again great stories that make you ache for them will be told.

Til' then, weez be mighty fine folks ta be hangin' with.