Just been thinking recently about comics of all sorts.  The comics I loved growing up varied, but the ones I bought were few.  I can't help reflecting on how different they are now, compared to when I started getting into them and collecting.  

Okay, so what's so fantastic about comics anyway?  Well when I grew up comics were cheap and everywhere.  I found them at the grocery, the minute mart, the book store and the drug store.  Finding a comic shop was a bit like finding gold, and being in one a gold mine.  Comics were the only way to get to see my favorite heroes in all new stories that I could never find when it came to TV.  After all, we only had SuperFriends, Spider-man and His Amazing Friends (unless you lived where I did, then it was only SuperFriends), and cheaply done "kids entertainment" like GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, She-ra, GoBots (which as far as I'm concerned stunk) Jem, Thundercats, TMNT, and many, many others.  But after seeing the same episodes at least three times you wanted more.  Well comics became the great way to see more adventures, and go more places than was available than the limited run of toons.  (Though I have to admit to making certain to see any episode with the heroines in bathing suits or changes of clothes more than three times. ~)  When I read comics then the only thing I thought about was how cool the art was and how much better it was than the animation.  It wasn't until I was in my mid teens I started thinking, "Why the heck don't they make this into a cartoon.  This is better!"  I really started seeing a connection and the potential to animation.  I started seeing that comics were what animation was lacking.  In the eighties to say that animation could be used for more and wasn't just for kids, well let me tell you, that was like saying, "Rated R means a good movie." (Boy has that changed, but that's a subject for a different time.)  

And the comics that were available at the time were fantastic, even if the comics always weren't.  I remember seeing my first "The Real Ghostbusters" comic.  The art was horrible to me, but the story was just like the cartoon.  I also remember NOW Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Continuity Comics for the first time.  I loved the stories, the art, and all the different titles like Concrete, Ms. Mystic, Spiderman, Superman, Robocop, Terminator, Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, and a few titles from Marvel.  (Never had much in my town until Punisher, Midnight Sons, and very few others.)  The best thing about these were the writers didn't talk down to me.  The next was the many more adventures that stood out in my mind.  Seeing the Ghostbusters take two issues to deal with a great ghost instead of a single episode, was great.  Having something from a few issues back to have an effect on what was going on then, was even better.  Here writing and the characters weren't mindless and they did things that had an effect on their personal lives.  For a kid that would watch the Hammer House of Horror movies to the Scooby-Doo cartoons in a single day, this was fantastic.  Here was something I could get a hold of that dealt with characters I loved and they weren't always doing something corney!  And for a kid that had limited funds for his comic purchases, I stuck with Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and anything with bare breasts if I could find it.

So what changed?  Well for me I got sick and tired of reading a comic and having to force the story line to make sense based on what I had already read.  I got tired of special issue this and special issue that, that had nothing really significant to contribute to the overall story.  I got tired of all the changing of the characters from people I could respect,  to people I could no longer believe.  As many Batman fans out there as I know there are, I get sick and tired of this guy that has a contingency plan for everything!  No one is that good.  Not even Batman.  What happened to him being a detective?  To me that was fantastic.  He didn't always have to have a contingency plan.  He could read you, figure you out, and find a way to beat you.  He was always three moves ahead, of his opponents because he figured them out.  And guess what, that type of person makes a damned scary CEO as well.  This was a guy that could, and did give Lex Luthor a run for his money because he had the brains to do so.  From Odysseus to Sherlock Holmes that's what makes a great hero that has no powers so intimidating.  

Though to be honest comics have changed a lot.  Wonder Woman is no longer trying to understand this strange world of men, now she doesn't even feel all that female.  Superman is no longer this guy working to do right and good in a world where so much is against him, he's just a guy who beats up other super powered guys.  Spiderman is no longer dealing with the issues of being a lower middle class guy struggling to figure out his place in the world, he's an accomplished leader, father and struggling spouse. (okay, not as gigantic change there).  But the point is, and one of the most aggravating things about comics, is that they change based on the trends of the era.  As you're growing it's good to step away for a bit and find other interests in comics, and let the next group in so they can have comics their way, but that leaves the previous generation without a close to the comics they've left behind.  That means we get to see the characters we love change in ways we don't recognize.  

In the end does it matter?  Yes and no.  Yes because we get to bring our kids into the worlds we grew up in.  No, because we no longer a part of that world.  I'm not saying that a person that enjoyed comics twenty, thirty or more years ago can't enjoy comics today, I'm just saying we hard pressed to find what brought us into it in today's comic.  Sure a lot of the themes are there, but not the same characters as we read about.  Then there's the cost.  (Okay, I know the way the comic market works and I could write an even longer topic on it than this one, but I'm not going there right now.)  As I mentioned before I had limited funds.  I could pick up any DC or Marvel comic for $0.75.  That was the great thing about comics, they were everywhere!  Now you've got to go comic shops and book stores to find them and spend $4-5 dollars each.  I'm sorry, I'd rather have my comics printed on cheap magazine paper than archival special blend that jacks up the cost needlessly.  I'd rather save the expensive stuff for the trades.  For that matter I'd rather buy a trade of that comic's run for the year than issue by issue, because that would be cheaper.

So, there's a great deal of change in comics.  This happens.  It happens in everything.  There are a lot of the same characters then as now, and there's a lot to choose from even today, and the selection is different.  

So, what have we learned?  I'm a cheap, nostalgic bastard and that you should go out and have fun with comics if you can still afford them screw what anyone else says because you're supporting an artist and we need to eat!  It also supports the movies and cartoons we love watching so buy your greedy little hearts out but be ecologically responsible in the process.