Marvel boss says diversity's killing sales

[Brian Peacock]

Gyms have been and gone these days. Only nerds and depressed millennials go there these days.

What's the Dutch take on exercise?

[Svartalf]

Walking in clogs and cycling

[tattuchu]

Land rights for gay whales!

[Scot Dutchy]

Walking in clogs and cycling

Part of it.

Taking part in sport has always been very traditional here. Football still for the working class is very popular and hockey more for the middle classes. Summer has few sports with cycling (road racing) as the major one. Holidays tend to take up most of summer time.

[pErvinalia]

Walking in clogs and cycling

[tattuchu]

I stopped buying comics years ago for two reasons. First, the industry imploded, taking with it all the alternative comics I loved. Only the superhero comics remained and the quality of those at the time was quite poor. Also, I'd long since outgrown mainstream superhero comics. The second reason I stopped buying the few remaining comics I liked was that the cover price had risen to a prohibitive degree -- there just wasn't enough bang for the buck. And the third reason I stopped buying comics is because I discovered video games.

Okay, that was three reasons, then.

[Brian Peacock]

I devoured Spiderman in the late 70s. Was a real fan. I started to feel manipulated after about the third cinematic retelling of the Spiderman story. For my mind, the best, most true-to-the-book version was the late 80s animated Spiderman.

[tattuchu]

I devoured Spiderman in the late 70s. Was a real fan. I started to feel manipulated after about the third cinematic retelling of the Spiderman story. For my mind, the best, most true-to-the-book version was the late 80s animated Spiderman.

While I couldn't see myself buying a superhero comicbook now, I do love the movies (and TV shows). The FX are finally good enough to do them right.

I've never seen the animated show you mention. I've liked all the Spider-Man movies to varying degrees but never felt they got the character just right. Not until the Avengers movie, however, with Tom Holland as Spider-Man. I think they really nailed it on the noggin this time. It was the first time I got really very excited about the movie-version character.

When I say very excited, I of course don't mean sexually.

Aw, who am I kidding? Of course I mean sexually.

[pErvinalia]

I've never been into comic books. I guess when I was really young I enjoyed them for a short time. I just don't get the attraction for those above the age of about 10.

[Brian Peacock]

I just don't get the attraction for those above the age of about 10.

It's the classic hero archetype. The lone figure set against the world, born or borne out of mysterious or unusual circumstances, isolated from family or society by their difference, undertaking a quest to understand their place in the world by overcoming a nemesis or adversary--sometime of their own creation--wielding a special weapon or power, overshadowed by an authority figure to whom they must prove their worth or earn their redemption - sometimes only achievable by sacrificing themselves. These movies are basically the Hercules or Jesus myth, with lasers and shit.

[pErvinalia]

I'm talking about comics, not the movies.

[tattuchu]

I've never been into comic books. I guess when I was really young I enjoyed them for a short time. I just don't get the attraction for those above the age of about 10.

Some of them used to be very well-written and drawn. But, yeah, at a certain point you outgrow them. The superherostuff, I mean. But there was so much more to comics than that. There used to be a very robust "alternative" scene which, I suppose, grew out of the "underground" comics of the late 60s and early 70s -- think R. Crumb.

The alternative/independent/non-mainstream publishers put out lots of stuff that appealed to a more mature audience. If you've ever seen the films Ghost World (with a young Scarlett Johansson, along with Steve Buscemi in one of his best roles) or Art School Confidential, these are based on Dan Clowes' stories published in his alternative comic Eightball. And then there was the film American Splendor, based on Harvey Pekar's comic of the same name.

Even the mainstream publishers got in on the action, developing their own lines of slightly-more-mature titles.

But then it all went to shit.

[pErvinalia]

It's not the content so much, but more the method of storytelling. Using exaggerated drawings in place of words. Really, I should have like them more, as I wasn't into reading words that much when I was young.

[Hermit]

One of the first superhero comics that came to my hand was of superman. He was saving a damsel who was pushed off the top of a skyscaper by a supervillain. Superman dived after her and stopped her from hitting the pavement when she was just a couple of metres off the ground. I thought? WTF? Brought from terminal velocity to zero in an instant? Why did superman even bother? In real life his arms would have acted like a giant breadloaf slicer.

Needless to say I never got the hang of any Marvel comics for the same reason. Nothing made much sense even after allowing for the existence of superheroes and their abilities for the sake of the stories. The last comics I got into were the Zap comics. Somehow they made suspension of disbelief easy.

[laklak]

Zap, Insect Fear, Despair, Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Coochy Cootie, god I loved those comix. Used to have a raft of them, I've no idea what happened to them. Lost them somewhere, on some move from someplace to another place. Like the man said, I used to move around a bit.