How Much Rope?

Honestly, I just play it by ear and pocketbook.

If it's a new series, depends on the creator. I haven't been overly impressed with Infinity Inc or The Programme yet, but I've stuck with 'em because neither are awful and because Milligan's been great enough in the past to earn some leeway. I'm pretty sure I'll never buy another issue of Young Liars, though, 'cuz the first one was horrible and I never really cared for Stray Bullets. I've also been patient with books in the past if it involves a character I like; I stuck with Thor for three miserable issues, despite a total lack of faith in Straczynski, because Thor can be pretty damn awesome when done well.

When a series on my list gets a new writer I'll give it an issue or two to interest me, unless, like Milligan, the writer is somebody I've really liked in the past; then I'll give 'em a full arc before making a decision. If the new guy's first issue is awful, like with The Spirit, I'll drop it immediately. If it's just bad or boring I'll give it a second shot. Like, if the new issue of All New Atom is as angsty and unfunny as the last one, I'll totally be dropping that. I've been meaning to drop FF, but keep on forgetting to tell the store.

It varies. I bailed on the All-New Atom after a few issues, so bored that I have no idea if I got through a story arc or not. I'm going to keep reading Blue Beetle for a while out of orneriness and because I don't even know who the new writer is and if I've ever read anything by him/her. I have definitely dropped titles before when the creators changed (Simonson Thor), and hung around sometimes to my regret (Avengers after Englehart). Usually I'll give the new people an issue or two, but drift away. (American Flagg after Chaykin, Swamp Thing after Veitch)

I don't download new stuff and I don't get into shops all that regularly, so buying serially for me just doesn't happen. I'll grab an issue of something new from time to time and see if it reads well enough to warrant buying later in a collection. Though really, there's so much out there being reprinted that I've no shortage of books to put me into serious debt (yes, I'm looking at you Mr. 2000 AD Collections.)

Sadly, most serial superherodom just bores me to tears these days, so that cuts out a lot of possibilities right there. But even when I was buying regularly, I wasn't a character zealot; rather more creator-driven.

What would be the most successful creative handoffs in comics? Bendis to Brubaker on Daredevil? Moore to Veitch on Swamp Thing? Moore to Gaiman on Miracleman?

Stern to Englehart on West Coast Avengers?

time and money is a bigger factor probably than anything actually happening in the comic. other factors like 'are issues of it coming out the same weeks as issues of stuff i'm devotedly following' come into play alot also.

Those last two are good, Rock. Brubaker was an improvement over Bendis. But I'm not a fan of Bendis' work, either. It's tougher to name successful trade-offs today for the simple fact that there's not that many creator driven runs that aren't either utter reboots or basically mini-series in disguise.

Ignoring money issues (which generally kill my comic buying in huge blocks of time, like a year or more at a time), and ignoring series which I absolutely will never buy and occasionally download issues of, I go strictly by trade. Usually I know if I'm gonna get into it by the first or second trade.

Problem with this approach is that it gets pretty daunting if you're behind in a long run. Also if you just drop things for a while, it's hard to get back to it (never did follow up on Ex Machina, Runaways, or Astonishing X-Men... and after about 10 years of collecting, I still have to buy the last 3 trades of Strangers in Paradise to finish off the series. And damn, four volumes of Akira!) and there's the constant temptation of newer series to get into.

Runaways was a good example of something where I just wasn't sure by that point if I wanted to keep going, even though I was 4 trades in... usually I know pretty quickly, but I got tired of it suddenly. Then again Marvel's shitty digest printing kept pissing me off, too. One volume of 100 Bullets was enough for me to write it off, though I've heard from some it got better later.

All I can say is, thank goodness for torrents and my local public library system. I still buy books once in a while, but can't afford to buy nearly as much as I used to.

Young Liars #2 comes out this week. Anyone getting it?

I might be the only one -- #1 wasn't nearly as bad as some y'all thought, and maybe I'm willing to give DL more wiggle-room than most (as a bonafide fan of Stray Bullets), but what the hey.

I think Spider-Man is the only character I give the benefit of the doubt (unless the writer / artist is on my DO NOT WANT list) -- in most other cases, I'm in step w/ what Garrett does (esp. regarding Peter Milligan, tho I'm really not feeling any of his superheroic work since X-Statix went down 15 years ago). Millar's the one guy that tends to flip-flop between my Yes and No lists, tho -- I'll give him a chance whenever he shits on a shingle, but he's disappointed me enough times that I don't / won't bite on crap like 1985, and I should really consider cutting bait on him.

Of course, given I buy way too many titles a month, I end up stockpiling some books for months on end that I don't get around to reading until maybe 10-12 issues later. If I was more organized (or had enough gumption / lower-body strength to getting organized), I would be in hog heaven (and could also catch up w/ DMZ).

As for baton-passing: this might be marinated in some pre-teen nostalgia, but the Stern-to-DeFalco handoff on Amazing Spider-Man was pretty swell.

I'm trying to think of any handoffs that involve Byrne, and I'm coming up blank -- then again, he was always the go-to guy when someone needed afixin', and whoever followed him was undoubtedly a downgrade (until JB himself became the downgrade).

I might still be harbouring ill-will towards Lapham over the Spectre fiasco.

In general, I think I give a lot of rope to new series or old series I'm still reading. I'm usually very slow to drop anything, and in fact, am still buying She-Hulk.

In the baton-passing dept., I'm none too enthuses about Scott Kollins on Brave & Bold, but am so hard up for enjoyable superhero fite and misteri (though Trinity and Final Crisis may fix that), that I'll still show up.

I just saw the Bru/Fraction off Iron Fist news -- this will really test my patient and forgiving nature.