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Comics where every issue is (or appears to be) exactly the same.

To get a flavour of this look at a Conan The Barbarian cover gallery at some point.

Or at Commando Picture Library for that matter.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

ALL COMICS EVER.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

WEll yeah but some more than others.

I guess the 'question' is - do you as a reader like this? (not you especially Huck, anybody)

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I abhor it as a concept, but it's fine in practice as long as the writing is good. See Human Target - in the current run it's basically been the same thing every issue, every arc. That is, Christopher Chance impersonates someone, learns about their life, kills some people, then has a few panels of introspection about identity and what he's doing with his life. The long-term character growth is there, but so slight it's almost negligible.

And that's fine, because it's a great frame to tell stories about lots of different kinds of people, and any massive changes in the setup would fuck that up (although it's bound to happen at some point).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, I wish there was a bit more of it. Especially in the Batman line. Because the kind of Batman story I like best is "hey, look, I'm Batman, out doing what I do on an ordinary night" but it seems like every freaking storyline is "THIS WILL CHANGE THINGS FOREVER!" or "AT LAST THE DEFINITIVE BLUE BEETLE STORY" or "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT PSYLOCKE FOUND UNDER THE BED!"
I think that a comic that sort of followed a Law & Order style formula would be cool.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, with Batman you've got 22 pages which should be more than anough to detail a STRANGE CRIME OF MYSTERY. Every issue should be a packed, self-contained "The Case Of The Missing Grave" or "Clayface's Masks Of Murder" kind of whodunnit/beat-em-up, but isntead it's all "VOLCANO part eight of sixteen" in which Robin must learn how to trust Azrael.

― Vic Fluro, Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:38 (twenty-one years ago)

And Batman's got so many titles that you'd think they could devote one of them to quotidian Bat-ventures. Detective was sort of like that in the 80s and I think Legends of the Dark Knight was originally intended to serve something similar to it.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe plotting a 22 page single story is a dying art.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a lost business plan, that's for sure. Yet, those kinds of stories lend themselves well to anthologies, so you could have a trade jam packed full of plot, unlike all those damn padded storylines written for trades.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 8 September 2004 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

My suspicion is that trades full of single issue stories don't/won't sell as well as trades with a single plot, for the same reason (whatever it is!) that short story anthologies don't sell as well as novels.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 9 September 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Was Legends of the Dark Knight basically intended for creators to be able to tell Bat-stories without having to worry about committing to a long arc or continuity? It's a great idea, as long as you have good people doing it of course. I've picked up Grant Morrison's early run, Mignola's issue (hi Leee) and a couple of others, but usually it looks oh so mediocre.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 9 September 2004 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Generally if you let someone do whatever they want, they'll do whatever they were doing before only with tits.

― Vic Fluro, Thursday, 9 September 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

The comics industry summarised in a single sentence.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 9 September 2004 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

They'd sell to me. But otherwise, you're OTM.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 9 September 2004 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I'd buy them as well. Someone less lazy than me could test this - look up, say, an Ennis Punisher trade that's all one-issuers and check out the sales compared with big story trades like 'Welcome Back Frank' or 'Army of One'.

I won't, though.

― Vic Fluro, Thursday, 9 September 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

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