I’m not sure when I stopped, honestly. Sometime in Spencer’s Spidey run it occurred to me that I was spending a lot of money for something that didn’t ever seem to have a satisfying ending. So many of the comics I bought were just people standing around talking about their feelings, just straight up navel gazing. The rules of plot just seemed… abandoned. Look folks, I like Book of the Long Sun, but Wolfe does get to the point. For what I was spending I sure wasn’t getting what I thought was my money’s worth.
Oh, and I usually miss newsprint. I don’t know why, rightly. Something about the smell and the feel and the fading colors. I dunno. Put a pin in that.
Then one day I happened upon Alterna Comics. To be honest I wasn’t terribly impressed at first. I found it hard to figure out what was going on in their stories, and some of the art flat out didn’t impress me. But hey, two bucks for an issue! And three issue collections for five bucks? Okay, that was… better.
And then I read their submission guidelines. And I fell in love. Each issue was to be as self-contained as possible, with “writing for the trade” expressively forbidden. Instead of spending 24 bucks acrost six months for a “complete” story, it was two bucks for a whole story! And if it was part of a larger arc the comic still had to be mostly self-contained.
Oh, and newsprint.
Sold.
What I found beggared my expectations. Every. Single comic. Was good at worst.
Holy hell.
Alterna woke something up.
This blog is going to be three times a week now. The third entry? Comics. I’ve a lot to say. Stay tuned.
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