Tfw friends pull lists have gone from a solid foot tall stack per month to one or two issues in the last year

It really does come down to cost and event fatigue. Dawn of X is legitimately great, but still requires a big investment even if it's not technically an event. DC is just finishing up a big event and its plan for the future is..another giant line-wide event.

I guess they've just completely abandoned hope of ever bringing in new readers again and are focused on milking the increasingly small existing hardcore fan base.

> or which will be good.

And early quality indicates nothing. At literally any moment, the artist could be replaced with a much worse one, the writer could be swapped for someone else who decides to drop everything and go fishing for nostalgia instead, or an event could force its big throbbing erection into your favorite ongoing and ejaculate a bunch of shit you don't care about all over the story you were reading.

The vast majority of runs these days get ruined by one or more of the above.

Cliche though it may seem the 'wokeness' is what put off my social circle. Young diversity hires taking characters older than their grandparents and using them as soapboxes for myspace level social commentary they lack the intelligence or experience for themselves to understand. It all just feels like a very arrogant claiming of ownership combined with a harsh decline in quality because its personal propaganda first, written work second.

Why would you want to pay for "Snowflake and Safespace" when you aren't forced to? Life is finite and theres no point getting buttmad about this stuff. If thats the sort of stuff they want to put out thats their choice. I am no brand loyalty drone so if i dont enjoy it i stop paying for it and move on. Its that simple.

I think readers just fucking gave up.

"The based new shogun will save us from the wokeshit no one asked for", but then he fucking didn't. Characters people loved are still treated like shit.Pacing is still shit to get anywhere people want to see. X-Men in general is that orgy shitshow.

Dildio's out, but DC is still dragging their feet and if they really course-corrected from the 5G trainwreck, we have still to see properly if we're getting anything we wanted. Bendis has yet to fuck off.

IDW has Snake Eyes, but seems they're still doubling down on the stupid with most of their licenses, from what you see about TMNT and you hear from Transformers readers.

At least manga writers continuing the same old classics are like here's more of what you like, give us money". It's not complicated.

There is zero progression. I didn't really get into comics until 2010 with DC.

During that time I read a lot of ongoings as well as classic stories. I read all of post crisis Wonder woman and a ton of Batman stories.

It struck me after a while that these characters never grew. Their personalities are generic and change to suit the story of the author. After a while, I'd notice stories repeating themselves with slight variations. Characters would learn the same lessons if they learned anything at all. Side characters which built up the world would come and go and their relationships with the main characters usually didn't go anywhere.

Manga, for how many volumes a single story may have, at least have a feeling of progression.

I understand that comics companies want to keep that trademark Batman. But no one really cares that he's Bruce wayne. People care about Batman, regardless of who he is.

I went from reading for hours every Wednesday during my college classes and at work, to not reading anything at all. It just took too much time with very little payoff. I'll go back and read things from my back log... But it's not a #1 hobby for me like it used to be.

overall shit writing across almost all ongoing and mainstream series

This image is garbage
Don't ever post it again

'Western comics' does not just mean endless superhero comics from Marvel and DC. I buy shitloads of comics still; I just grew out of buying issue #fuckton of some superhero invented before I was born.

Superhero comics now only exist as IP mills for Disney and Warner Bros.

>now only exist as IP mills
>now

>why are people spending less money during a pandemic

Attached: 1308353660218.jpg (250x250, 10.36K)

90% of Western shit is pozzed

This is the laziest damage control the soilent gentry has. Every other, more expensive, hobby like videogames or tabletop wargaming has skyrocketed in profitability due to people being locked inside needing a distraction rather than going out spending money at resturants or bars. Yet somehow people parrot that comics are the only thing being negatively effected even though the sales disasters of marvel and dc began over two years ago.

Really fuzzles the mindgrapes.

COVID killed a lot of insensitive to drive to shop.

Most current comics are lame. And most future comics look lame (5G looks awful and Aaron is still on the Avengers).

This

>people being locked inside
Holy shit I wonder why comic books are failing after they threw in all their eggs into the direct market basket??? Truly inconceivable

>why is digital media doing so much better during a pandemic
Businesses and non-essential physical products are on the decline. You think LCS's are raking in even more cash this year? At least comics have digital to fall back on during this time and we've already seen DC really push for digital comics the past several months.

>digital media
Games Workshop RAISED prices and recorded record profits this year that made them richer than British Telecom. Physical sales have increased for everything but comics and mail order has existed for a long, long time.

The gigantic status quo is also a factor, none of the characters in capeshit comics are allowed to evolve or change in the long term.There is no point in being invested in a story when you know their won't be consequences and that no one dies forever

>this one thing did well so everything should do well
No user this is a pandemic and success varies drastically. You can't just look at one company and expect everyone to fair as well.

Right? a £90 per model plastic giant army selling out is such an easy sell, this is £3 Marvel comics! You can't expect the little guy like Marvel riding on unknowns like spiderman to compete at such extortionate costs comparable to a big mac!

For me the art got polarized. There are some of the best I've ever seen, and then there are sub-webcomic level artists getting work on mainline books.
Jim Shooter wouldn't have let most artists at the Big Two even in the lobby, much less in the Bullpen

Now you're just embarrassing yourself.

>another east vs west thread
Im coming t your home to kill you OP. See you tonight.

one of the worst images I've ever seen related to comics. Made by a walking dunning-kreuger graph of a casual faggot.

I dunno about him, but the current X-men storyline, Aaron's avengers and everything Metal related are just absolutely dreadful. I have no interest in the coming King of Black shit ether.
I'm getting a small fraction of what I used to get too.

>muh lore barrier
>oh is that the new Spider-Man game awesome! No I don't know who Mr. Negative is, but why would that imlact me enjoying the game?
Casual faggots just need to admit they don't want to read comics.