Earlier this week, I stumbled upon an interesting thread on the Newsarama message boards asking the following question: Which is the more important factor in your comic book purchasing decisions, the character or the creator? As all Newsarama threads do, it quickly degraded into a chest-pounding, battle of semantics. Yet it's still a very thought provoking question. And it's one I'd like to ask of myself.
To give fair warning, this column isn't going to draw any revolutionary conclusions on the subject or contain any inspiring anecdotes. It's just a little bit about my perspective on reading comic books, which hopefully the four of you who visit this blog will find interesting.
I started reading comic books in the early-90s, just as comic book gluttony was peaking. Back then, there was no internet, and I didn't seek out comic book shops. Hell, it's possible I wasn't even sophisticated enough to know they existed. I bought all of my comics at the grocery store and the monthly comic book conventions at the local mall.
Because I had no exposure to the industry beyond the comics themselves, I was pretty ignorant of the names in the bylines of the books I was enjoying. The only two names I was familiar with were Todd McFarlane and Frank Miller. And to be honest I doubt I could have recognized their work outside of Spawn or The Dark Knight Returns.
But I knew the characters. I was intimately familiar with Batman and the Bat-verse. I knew Superman, the Justice League, Spider-Man, Wolverine and the X-men. I recognized Spawn, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, and Swamp Thing. And as a young man in his teens, I definitely recognized Witchblade for her... assets.
Fast forward nearly two decades, and with near infinite access to material and information on the internet, and years of exposure to the industry, I can recognize which artist drew what, and which writer wrote what. In fact, I get quite the kick out of browsing my old issues of Batman and Detective Comics, and seeing names like Chuck Dixon and Greg Rucka. I'm guessing that's a common maturation process for a lot of readers my age.
So what do my current reading habits say about me? Well, as you can see from my pull list to the right, I'm a total Bat-whore. Always have been, always will be. In fact, the only Bat-titles I don't purchase are Batman Confidential and Superman/Batman.
While I will always buy Batman and Dectective Comics due to the last shred of completism I haven't been able to purge from my body, I buy the rest of the Bat books because I enjoy the characters and stories, not because any particular creator is associated with them.
The same goes for the rest of my pull list. I've picked up Booster Gold from issue one, because I think the character, and time travel, kicks butt, not because Geoff Johns was the first writer. Same with Atomic Robo; I had no clue who the creators were when I picked it up, but the character and stories looked cool.
With that said, creators also play a role in my reading habits. Several writers will always get my attention – Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns, Joss Whedon – as will a couple of artists – Jim Lee and the late Michael Turner. However, while I'll give them the benefit of the doubt at first, I'm by no means a kool-aid drinker.
For example, I won't be picking of Geoff Johns' new Flash series for the simple reason I just don't care about Flash. Yet, I'm almost positive I'll buy Grant Morrison's Multiversity project when it hits the shelves because of its potential awesomeness, and Jim Lee's ridiculously awesome pencils sucker me into All-Star Batman & Robin even though I know it's not good for me. Damn you, Jim Lee.
So in the end, I guess it comes down to the characters for me. While there are certainly writers and artists I tend to enjoy more than others, and will always be on the look-out for their next projects, I always default to the characters. After all, an entertaining Batman story is an entertaining Batman story regardless of the creative team behind it.
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