Grey Matters by Jason M. Bourgeois

The Great Purge of 2012

By Jason Bourgeois

In order to write this column, at least that's the excuse I give my wallet, I buy a lot of comics. As anyone can see these days, the economy is in the crapper, and thanks to momentum, I was buying a LOT of comics. Many of which were okay, but no great shakes. Something gave over the summer, and I realised I had to seriously cut back on books. As much for my bank account, as for my sense of enjoyment.

One company in particular was a big help in this, and that was DC. Gee, whatever could they have done? Yep, the New 52 has driven me seriously away from their catalogue. The biggest thing that keeps any comic fan on a title is momentum. We always hit a slump in any long running title. We love the characters, or the writer, or artist, or SOMEthing about that book. So we stick with it when maybe part of us knows we should be gone. We hold out hope that things will pick up again. And usually they do. Eventually. It may be just an issue or two, or it could be months, or even years. Quality goes in cycles.

With the New 52 though, there isn't really that much momentum. Not anymore. I have zero connection to so many of these characters. This Batgirl isn't the Barbara Gordon I'd been reading for decades. Supergirl isn't any recognisable version. Who the hell is this JLI? So it became very easy to drop many, many DC titles when the time came. In many cases, I waited until at least the zero issues, since that was a great jumping off point. But once I decided to drop titles, many of them were just as easy to drop a few issues earlier than that, since that momentum was gone, and the desire to stick it out for two months was nonexistant.

I started off reading around half of the New 52 books, and as if this month, I am down to only reading the Green Lantern titles, the two Legion titles, Worlds' Finest, and Batwoman. That is a pretty terrible track record there. Now, don't get me wrong, some of the titles I dropped were fine. But that was it. Merely okay. And in this day and age, 'okay' is a tough sell. And to be fair, the only thing keeping me on New Guardians is the fact it's kinda tied to the other three GL books.

But oh, DC, you are not alone. Marvel is giving me a jumping off point of their own in the next few months. Marvel NOW!, unlike the New 52, is just renumbering and restructuring. They do this every so often. Rarely with such a large push behind it though, and so many at once. Fortunately, there is still momentum thanks to that, and that's keeping me around on a few titles. Marvel is harder to pin down just how much I'm dropping, since I'm bailing on some, new titles are coming in, and things are being spread out over a few months.

Still, I normally got 35-40 books from Marvel, and by the end of the year, I am down to 20-25. The biggest change there is that Marvel seems to be cutting way down on their double shipping of many titles in the same month, and that is a big sigh of relief. But again, that's a bit of a drop from where it has been.

And I have to say, while on the one hand I miss a number of books I dropped, I also feel good. So many meh and mediocre books are gone, and I am genuinely enjoying almost all the titles I get now, with a few still in the average category. They're entertaining enough to not be in any danger. Yet.

What this means for the future of this column? Well, nothing, fortunately! I do review a lot of things I like, and will naturally continue to do so. And there's a few books each month I check out, and if they suck, well then... You will hear all about it.

Come back next month to hear all about my nerd rage over Phantom Stranger #0!

 

Jason M. Bourgeois


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