Comic Books

So, I just finished reading up to issue 68 of The Walking Dead, a comic by some guys who do other comic stuff, apparently. It's a fantastic comic, but it has the same underlying issues that prevent me from really getting into comic books.

The main issue with comics, for me, has to be the sense of perpetuity. In one of the ending 'letters from fans' sections of the comic, one of the authors (don't know who, can't remember which comic it was from) mentions that the series has "a good few years if not decades" to go.

I guess for the average comic book reader, this isn't a bad thing. But speaking as a much more avid BOOK reader than a COMIC BOOK reader, I find that somewhat irritating. Comics aren't accessible to most of the general public because they go on for FUCKING EVER and no one knows where to start.

Let's say I want to read some Batman comics. Where do I start? The old, golden age Batman comics? The gritty, new Batman comics? Fucking Justice League? There's a billion-odd storylines to consider, plus I'm sure I'd have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the superhero universe to even understand a majority of the references.

Successful comics (I say 'successful' here because they crossed over to the public mainstream) are typically those that have a set end point, like the fantastic Watchmen. They have a beginning, a chunk of middle, and then an end. No dorky spinoffs, no ridiculously complicated storylines, nothing to stop a reader from just picking up the first episode and reading through it.

Back to The Walking Dead. It's a great comic, and I advise you all to read it. That said, it's still a comic, so it goes on for fucking ever and the only way to really understand it is to start from the beginning. Whatever.

/rant