Comments on Superman Is Dead

Comics are dead?

Strange, I see piles of manga in the libraries and stores - those are comics too ...

Wow. People still read comic books? I haven't read a comic book in 40 years. Didn't even know they still made them, to be perfectly honest. The article makes it sound like the only people interested in them are a bunch of slavering Peter Pan wannabees who can't get laid. That's sad.

Um, obviously constant reader is not constant when it comes to comix or zanadu for that matter. Having been to comix stores around the country (and in Spain! eek), plus the small press porny one in portland (dude no one says alternative, in fact there is even a small press expo every year back east) I pretty much call bullshit on what constant is saying. For accuracy sake - the right side of zanadu - old "alternative" comix issues, the left side, past the counter, ALL CURRENT/RECENT ISSUE COMIX, regardless of publisher. And that's rare - most places separate out the current alt press, segregating it from super heroes - zanadu doesn't. Please stranger folks, resist your urge to go somewhere, spend five minutes, interact with no one and the report on your opinion as if it is gospel. And seriously this is also bullshit, with as many artists of the comique as we have in this town. Alternative weekly, puhleeze; stop perpetratin' and I probably spelled nothing correctly 'cause i'm a mite bit pissed off.

Um. What? I have had nothing but good experiences as a girl in Seattle comic stores - particularly The Dreaming & Zanadu in the U District. Also, and I know this is shocking, it is not uncommon to have female clerks in Seattle shops.

Children stopped reading comics decades ago, and the audience age keeps climbing: It’s not outrageous to believe that the average superhero-comics fan is a man in his early to mid-30s.

You mean, this guy?

The dreaming in the U-District is by far the best comic book store around. Aron, the owner, is by far the most well read and kindest person I've met in my life.

The comics collection at the library - at least at Central - is rapidly expanding. The thing I've noticed is that the teens all seem to read manga, and the homeless men read superhero comics.

Just to add to the chorus, I've seen female clerks at almost every comic store I've been to in the city and most 30+ comic fans I've talked to casually in stores pick up just as much of the small press/alterna-whatever as the cape and tights stuff.

It could maybe be said that superhero comics are dying in the sense that many of them are more actively incorporating a lot of the visual/story tropes of movie genres (crime/noir, sword & sandals, horror, etc.) along with more episodic stories rather than the serialized repetition that's been a hallmark. But a lot of those genre influences have always been there, waxing and waning in relative popularity but it may be more noticeable since movies/tv have incorporated comics as source and supplement more and more.

The genre has declined many, many times before, and horror, crime, biographical, romance, and other comics have all filled the gap so that the medium continues to sell. I love superhero comics, but I blew my Christmas gift money on five volumes of Death Note, a manga title.

Give it a few years, and superhero comics will grow again, particularly as the writing has gotten pretty good again.

#1 and #2 need to learn to read more carefully.

Also, just to add, wasn't it just last fall or something that some politicos were lamenting the death of Captain America and shit, when the whole marvel universe got fucked in a civil liberties/legislation that was an allegory for the current state of war we've been in? Dare I invoke the Mudede and say perhaps this is a job for the chuck to ascertain the other meaning of death of the superhero? He hasn't used ubermensch in a sentence yet this year, so give him a go.

I love comic books.

Superman may be dead, but Invincible and The Goon and Kabuki are superheroes and very much alive--along with a parade of others.

Do you know what else I love? Other people who like comics. Only a small percentage of the readers I know meet Constant's 30+ and climbing male profile. Although they are cool by me too. I saw a dude reading Swamp Thing on the bus and had a hard time concealing my enthusiasm. So I didn't.

Viva comics!

Whatever. Batman fucking rules.

As a gay male comic fan and artist who frequents xanadu and comic book conventions, and who is also hypersenstive to straight male lechery and asshole behavior, i can vouch for the fact that Constant doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to comic books. Yes, there is a 30+ demographic, but there is also a 30+ demographic at every Rat City roller girls match. They are EVERYWHERE. I can take my attractive female to QFC, and they will get harassed and hit up there. So to say that a majority of comic book fans are 30+ male leeches, is not only incorrect, but just leaves me to conclude that Constant is just talking out of his ass after visiting xanadu once, and his conclusoins isn't really based on any type of real experience or knowledge of the medium. and fuck you too frizelle.

This is a cheap shot a geekboy readers, a grossly oversimplified critique of a vital genre and plain old weak reviewing.

Every once in a while you guys should try thinking before you write.

Another eye opening expose from Constant. What an insufferable schmuck. I'd say more but @15 summed up my thoughts nicely.

Wow, that article is one of the biggest diaper-loads of unadulterated bat-guano I've read in quite some time - are we certain Mudede didn't write it? ;)

If the "spandex perverts" (as comic author Warren Ellis half-faceteously calls the genre) were truly going belly-up, doncha think the comic store owners would be making more room on the shelves for things that DO sell?

But, if in fact, "corporate superheroes may be paying the bills for these stores", then that sort of contradicts your point that the genre is dying off, because, you know, anything that successfully and consistently "pays the bills" pretty much CAN'T be "on the verge of extinction" now, can it? I'm mean, Jeebuz, that's, like, Econ 101: "Supply And Demand".

Stupid, ill-informed, and more stupid.

You know, as a 23 year old lady who has been reading comic books since I was 6 and never really stopped, I have to call bullshit. There are some really good titles out there involving "superheros". Ultimate X-Men, Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, the alternate universe Superman book Red Son, CIVIL WAR that was out last year.....this isn't even a comprehensive list. Zanadu staff has always been really helpful (especially the girls) and I like the fact that they have comics from ALL types and sizes of publishers. Really Constant, after seeing you in a Spider-Man mask, yukking it up at a super hero party in October, I thought you shared the love. But I guess not.

Superhero comics are just giving way to the modern graphic novel-nothing wrong with that. I think I prefer the latter anyway.

as a comics reader with a vagina I'd have to say that comics are not dead but rather shifting, constantly.

If the big houses can't keep up, sorry charlie (I would really miss DC in all honesty) but I do believe they're catching on with more detailed, matured story lines and better art. It will be interesting to see what goes on, especially with over all print media dying out.

Shout out to the U District comic stores and Fantagraphics.