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Last week, in this feature, I complained that, from all sides, I was being assailed by rain.
Reader, I am still being assailed by rain.
Will the endless deluge never end?
Clearly, it won't or it wouldn't be endless.
Therefore, I must, once again, take refuge within my domicile and, as water pours down my window panes, look to the internet for entertainment.
But what is that entertainment to be?
That, I do not know. For, it is the return of the feature in which the first person to comment below gets to choose the topic of the day.
Will it deal with past, present or future?
I cannot say.
Will it deal with matters material, vegetable or spiritual?
I cannot say.
Who can say?
You can say!
And you can do it right below!
Posts
26 comments:
A double question, really. And a slightly abstract one…
Hard outs or gradual fading aways?
Which comics (or movie franchises I guess) did you make a definite break with, and why?
And which ones just sort of trailed off and you discovered you weren’t bothered that you’d missed a few issues etc?
As ever, willing to step back if a more interest question arises!
*interesting
Betwixt the two. Byrne leaving the X-Men, I liked the first post-Byrne issue (Brent Anderson & Rubinstein). After that, I got Dr.Doom part 1, which had great pacing, but still seemed wrong. The New X-Men was modern, yet Doom was...old school Marvel. Or was it the art wasn't finished enough (?) Finally, I got a Caliban/Morlocks (?) X-Men, which was definitely sub-standard. That was my last X-Men, as a kid! Similarly, with the Avengers, after Jim Shooter left, I tried a few David Michelinie issues (the Absorbing Man was good, as was Taskmaster), but they (also the Grey Gargoyle issue & Sodium, & the chemical villains) were so far below the stellar quality of what went before, that I couldn't carry on!
As regards movies, I rarely have the attention (or bladder) span for long cinema movies. Ten or 15 years ago, I watched the first ones of a few Marvel movies, but not their sequels. So, I'm not qualified to comment. For me, the Bond movies - just as an example - say more about the age you were when you watched them, rather than their quality, in an objective sense. I cinema-watched the Brosnan ones (but they weren't terrific); then the first Craig one; but after that, on tv, I can't even match the right title to Craig's subsequent movies. It's just become tiresome!
Phillip
Thanks for the topic, Matthew.
I remember abandoning Lost halfway through the second season when it became obvious it wasn't going anywhere at all and that they were only pretending it was.
I've had a similar experience with James Bond as Phillip has. The Brosnan ones all blurred into one, for me, with only Tomorrow Never Dies distinguishing itself in my memory. I can't tell any of the Daniel Craig ones apart.
I bailed on LOST even earlier than you, Steve. I was so frustrated with the long, drawn-out build-up to the anti-climactic cliffhanger in the Season One finale that I decided I’d quit if the first episode of Season Two didn’t grab me — and it didn’t.
Comics-wise:
I dug the Paul Smith run on X-Men, only stuck around for the first couple of JR Jr issues before dropping the book.
b.t.
Comics- I was a dedicated Defenders reader, with arcs like the Badoon, Headmen and Scorpio I had a nice long streak on that title. I eventually faded away from them soon after Kraft stopped writing the book.
Film franchise- Pirates of the Caribbean. Loved the first 2, third movie was ok but "hard stopped" there haven't seen more than a few minutes of the last 2.
Nice topic Matthew, I don't think of these things often.
I've had both soft and hard fade outs. Amazing Spider-Man was always my number one; the cornerstone of my reading and collecting. I bought it faithfully for many years, through great runs and lame ones. But by the late 80's I started skippng issues, but actually kept buying sporadically all the way until about 8 years ago. The final nail for me was the constant reboots and renumbering; a soft fade became a hard one.
On the other hand, I'd loved Avengers for years up until Shooter and Michelinie left (about the same time as Phillip). Upon the Hank Pym / Egghead storyline it became a hard drop. Didn't miss it at all. However, years later I did a soft fade in; buying the occasional story (again, up until about 8 years ago).
My interest in Star Wars faded out. I was a massive fan of the original film and watched it at the cinema in 1978 but by the time 'The Empire Strikes Back' came out in 1980 I was only mildly interested and didn't go to see it. Ditto with 'Return Of The Jedi' but I did buy the novelisation - and I did eventually see both 'Empire' and 'Jedi' on TV years later. I had zero interest in 'The Phantom Menace' or any of the following films.
As for comics - I was a regular-ish reader of Marvel UK's Savage Sword Of Conan monthly until about early 1981 when I stopped buying the mag but I don't know why I stopped as I was still a Conan fan and continued buying the US Conan The Barbarian comic (though not regularly). Seeing the SSoC covers every month on '40 Years Ago' makes me wish I'd kept buying the mag!
In other news - Mick Jagger is 80 today! Neither of my parents lived to be 80 so it's a bit weird to think of Sir Mick still strutting about on stage at his advanced age.
My mother genuinely thought he was called Mick Jaguar until I corrected her. Still makes me chuckle.
Generally, I'm a hard out person, Matthew, although I suppose to varying degrees. Like, there's a difference between, say, Kamandi without Kirby or a Chaykin-less American Flagg - neither of which I could see the point of at all - compared with Daredevil not by Frank Miller or Asterix without Rene Goscinny. Although I was out pretty quick with those too.
I don't mind some sequels, but I'm hard pressed to think of any movie series I've wanted to follow. Some Marvel flicks have been ok-ish maybe? But otherwise...
It amazes me how many people seem to use the term 'franchise' in relation to films without irony these days (not including you and your original question in that, Matthew - that 'I guess' covers you ;)
I seriously dislike the Bonds its been my misfortune to see.
-sean
Steve, the tv series I watched into two seasons before bailing was 'Breaking Bad', when it was on Freeview. Because of all the hype - not least the people I knew who told me I had to carry on past the first season to get into it - I stuck with it, thinking it had to get better.
But it didn't. Halfway into the second season it was obvious I was just never going to see what everyone else seemed to in it, and life is too short.
-sean
A hard out for me was Daredevil after ‘Born Again’ finished. I’d been following DD since the first Miller run, all through the lean years and the slow build-up of Mazucchelli’s development. Once it had peaked with BA it seemed pointless to carry on.
A slow fade was Simonson’s Thor. I loved the first year or so, but gradually I lost interest. When Walt isn’t drawing it himself, what’s the point? I don’t think I finished that run, maybe tuned out in 1985…?
2000AD was a weird, protracted one too. Followed it from Prog 1 - was so proud of that fact! - but my interest petered out from 1985 onwards. I was working in a newsagent and had it on order every week out of habit so they kept piling up until I left that job in 1990.
With films, I remember I kind of did a hard stop back in the early 2000s. I was considering going to see Men In Black 2 and found myself asking ‘why? Isn’t there something better to do with my time?’ Since then I can weigh up if I’ve got a genuine interest in something and if it looks good. As such my intuitions are generally pretty spot-on. I didn’t want to see Wonder Woman or Black Panther because they looked crap. But I watched both after the waves of positivity came washing over them (which I’m not knocking - positive role models and empowerment are not to be sniffed at). And they were crap films.
Sean - yeah; sorry. ‘Franchise’ is a horrible word. I first heard it used in relation to a film series in the Sight & Sound review of Alien Resurrection and it rankled then.
I have strict rules about TV shows: if you can’t grab me in a couple of episodes I’m out. Yellowjackets? Nope. Poker Face? Nope.
Sean:
I’d been hearing and reading rave reviews of BREAKING BAD for years, finally decided to give it a try. After one episode I thought it was just too bleak and depressing, never felt tempted to give it another chance.
b.t.
Great question involving much introspection! My answer is simply I had a range of enjoyment, like +\- 1 standard deviation from “ideal’,” that i buy a comic. How big that deviation is is unquantified. I mean I kept buying The Shadow after transitioning from Kaluta to Robbins or Marvel Premiere 30 with a Kirby cover and Heck interior. Idk… great question!
Now i must pay attention since me missus is driving the back roads and blind curves of the Mohawk River Valley and the Amish are “driving “ around in horse drawn wagons…
Yeah, even though I'm a hard out person I've still bought more than my fair share of terrible comics out of habit, Anon. Its because Marvel and DC get you when you're young.
Like the Jesuits! Give us the boy til he's seven and we'll make the man...
b.t., I don't have a problem with bleak, if there's a point to it - I really liked The Wire for instance, which wasn't exactly a laugh a minute - but with Breaking Bad I just couldn't believe a high school teacher could take on various gangsters and get ahead like that in the drug biz. It seemed like a vicarious wish fulfilment fantasy for resentful middle aged white guys.
-sean
Matthew, two episodes and out seems reasonable. Although some series take a little while to find their feet, so it's worth keeping an open mind about dipping in later imo. Take Star Trek: Deep Space 9 for instance. The first season was sooo boring - what I saw of it anyway - but after that it got pretty good.
What do we think about watching Dr Who? That seems a hard one for people - well, British men of a certain age - to let go of.
-sean
Getting back to Matthew’s original question:
I watched every single Marvel movie (and enjoyed most of them, to varying degrees) up to a certain point. When the pandemic hit, I stopped going to see movies in the theatre, and since I don’t get Disney Plus, I haven’t seen any of the more recent ones — BLACK WIDOW, SHANG-CHI, ETERNALS, WAKANDA FOREVER, the latest Dr. Strange and Ant-man movies, and the last two Spider-Man movies. I could rent them on Amazon Prime, i suppose, but so far I haven’t bothered. Maybe one of these days…
James Bond: I was a huge fan of the series growing up, got tired of the movies early in the Moore era, dug the two Dalton movies, didn’t much care for the Brosnans, liked CASINO ROYALE a lot but didn’t enjoy any of the follow-up films. I did still pay to see each and every one of them, though. After all the years of disappointment, I still consider myself a fan of the character, and will probably check out the next installment, whenever they get around to making it. But I’m keeping my expectations low.
Star Wars: loved the first two movies, thought RETURN OF THE JEDI was predictable and underwhelming, and haven’t really been excited by the franchise since.
Comics: in 1974 / 75, I was buying pretty much every Marvel comic I could get my hands on. By the early 80s I was only buying a few selected titles, depending on the creative team. Being something of an ‘Art Snob’, i tended to follow artists more than writers. As I mentioned earlier, once Paul Smith left UNCANNY X-MEN, I quickly lost interest in that book, and actually never did go back to reading it on a regular basis.
b.t.
Breaking Bad picked up with season three (although I enjoyed the first two, anyway) and became compulsive viewing. As did Better Call Saul. But, I can understand why those first two seasons may put people off. I do think both were better episodically, rather than binged a season at a time. I watched Breaking Bad (and BCS) when initially broadcast, from season 2 onwards, which I think helped.
I hard dropped most individual comics title by title, but comics, generally, petered out over time. By the mid 90's I was mainly reading Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly titles, and a lot of these just stopped coming out (Peep Show, ACME etc). The exception which proves the rule being Cerebus, which I continued buying to the very end (the much heralded #300) but hadn't really read from about #200 to #285ish. I did like the last story arc.
Regarding 2000AD, I bought the first 30 or so, weekly, and then stopped. I then continually started, stopped and restarted, for a few dozen issues at a time, right through to progs in the mid 650's I definitely made to to the end of book three of Zenith, but not book four.
I find most of my friends have stuck with Doctor Who throughout the years, but knowing its was sh#te.
DW
DW -
Much the same here with Marvel movies.
Rarely went to see any at the cinema, but kept up with renting them up until the big Infinity War event.
But after that only a sporadic interest: might catch up with a couple when I do a month of Disney+ in October, but might not.
I keep watching most - though not all - Star Wars stuff even though I only really like the first movie (Empire was OK but seriously - the bits with Yoda and his tedious cod philosophy are a drag, and they seem to go on forever).
I have enjoyed chunks and aspects of subsequent films but I don’t class myself as a fan. I still find myself watching them though, so I guess that’s not even a slow fade, is it?
I also did the hard out when Romita Jr took over Xmen, because it was specifically Smith that attracted me to the title.
Sorry - that was for DW.
Ha! That’s a good point about the wish-fulfilment thing in Breaking Bad. Though in subsequent seasons it is balanced out a bit by pointing out how toxic Walt is to everyone around him, and he does lose everything by the end.
Like most folk my interest in Marvel, DC etc comics fizzled out around my late teens (in my case that would have been when I was 18 in 1978) as other interests took hold. But I continued to pick up some titles like Conan, Daredevil , JLA, Legion , Swamp Thing etc.for a few years after that. As some new creators came into their prime like Keith Goffen, Frank Miller, Kevin Maguire etc I picked up their titles, but very few of them . I did like and read titles like Love and Rockets , Drawn and Quarterly, Hate, Neat Stuff, some Corben and "found" Vaughn Bode, but by the mid 1980s for me, the magic had sadly long gone and my comic buying was down to picking up back issues from my youth with the very occasional Marvel\DC comic. I stopped reading UK weekly comics by at the usual age Beano, Dandy by 10, Lion, Buster Valiant by 11 or 12 years old. I read 2000AD at times it was never a it fan. But I continued to pick up the Mighty World of Marvel for years purely out of habit
I was never a big Dr Who fan and never really gepot the attraction of 're character. Things like Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds that I loved as a kid I left behind at that age. I've never been a big fan of following fan type TV shows like The Flash, Titans or never ending serials like Game of Thrones etc. But I still enjoy those Bruce Timm DC animation shows, even at my age
I love the Marvel films ( less so the DC output) but dont watch many at the cinema now, but I di look forward to renting them.
Superhero films and tv shows never appealed to me that much - except the original Batman - so I didn't really have anything to leave behind there. Completely agree with Matthew about Wonder Woman and Black Panther, and I actually wanted to like those two.
Funnily enough, the MCU flick I did like was the one plenty of enthusiasts complained about, Captain Marvel.
-sean
Sad to hear about the passing of Sinead O'Connor.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=418jmrVNbUg
-sean
And she died on Mick Jagger's 80th birthday - what a strange coincidence!
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