MY WEB COMIC – Black Terror Kid Business Card Comic
I’ve been meaning to create a unique business card for a while now. Specifically one with a comic in it.
I got the idea from Ryan Estrada. He made one. I liked the idea so much I decided I was going to do one myself.
The “cover” is the first side, the interior is the comic itself, the back of the card has the punchline and my info. I only posted the punchline since I didn’t think my info was necessary in this case.
This comic was done completely digital. I tried to replicate the hand drawn feel of previous Black Terror Kid comics I’d made. I hope I’ve succeeded.
I drew it digitally mainly to speed things up. It took me three days create this from start to finish, working, mostly, eight hours each day.
If you want to see more of these kinds of comics and would even like a print ready jpeg or psd file of this comic, best way to get it is to support me on Patreon.
Be my patron and you can get this artwork and request more of these comics. Believe me, I’d be happy to do more:
Both of these games are what I would call, creative survival sandbox games. You’re placed in a world you have a lot of options to create and mess around with your environment. But the world is very dangerous so you have to make sure you can survive in order to keep playing.
The creative stuff didn’t really appeal to me. I can do that just by drawing and making comics. But the survival stuff looked like fun. It gave the creative stuff a useful purpose.
I hadn’t realized that’s what these games were about until I watched a video of a guy learning to play and dramatically trying to survive playing Minecraft Pocket edition. It looked like fun so I decided to check it out myself.
This is how it went:
The game is VERY addictive. I had a similar “one more turn,” kind of experience that I only get from playing Sid Meier Civilization games. At the same time, it’s as chaotic and open ended as a Rogue like game. And you know how I feel about those.
I found I can’t play the game any day I need to get work done or it won’t get anything done.
Here’s the video that I watched that got me interested:
MY WEB COMIC – Took My Sons To See Avengers: Age of Ultron BUT…
My wife and I couldn’t find baby sitting to go see Avengers: Age of Ultron together. We decided instead to go separately and decided that it would be fun to take some of our kids with us.
I decided to take my oldest boys…
My wife went with my daughter and they both really liked the movie.
This is my last week of hiatus but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to be in the studio this week. I was asked to come in this Friday for a meeting. We’re going to be using a new program to do boards this season and the meeting is going to help us get up to speed on it. I’m curious to see what the program can do. So far we’ve been using Toon Boom’s Storyboard Pro. It’s a decent program, and it works for what it is, but we’ve had issues with the compatibility of the program and Toon Boom’s Pencil Check.
Not only that, but the board artists have been asked to do Quicktime movies of their boards in order to pitch their Acts in a easier way. This has lead to trying to find a program that does this even easier than Storyboard Pro. Even though, I think, Storyboard Pro does a pretty good job of doing this.
I’ll give you my two cents of what I think of the program next week. Especially since I’m going to be using one of the two program on my personal project.
BUSINESS/BOOKS
Just a bit of an update on the books I’ve been reading this week when it comes to money management and business:
INVESTING ONLINE FOR DUMMIES:
I haven’t read further than Chapter two, but I like it so far. Hand holds you into the investing thing and it’s very informative about what goes into the process.
LINCENSING ART 101 3rd edition:
Good little book that gives you an overview on the art licensing world and what to expect. I’m reading this so that I can see about taking advantage of any webcomic or cartoon I put on the web. I also want to see if there’s a way to make a little money on the side with random personal art.
CREATIVE, INC.: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO RUNNING A SUCCESFUL FREELANCE BUSINESS:
Got this on my Kindle App. I started reading this at the doctor’s office on Tuesday while I was in the waiting area. At first I thought I had made a mistake getting the book. After all, I’ve done the freelance thing. I LIVED it.
Well, turns out there’s more to it that I hadn’t done, that, if I had, I would have probably been more successful. It really should just take out the word “freelance” from the title. It’s a really good book on how to start a creative business. I didn’t run my freelance career like a business when I did it. I should have. I think know, if I ever work on my own again, I’ll do what this book advices. Very informative, even for people who are working on their own now. It might give you ideas for things you hadn’t thought to do. I recommend it.
On top of that, I’ve also been thinking about selling a few things on ebay. Mostly stuff we don’t use around the house, but I’m also think of putting up a drawing or two. Mostly to continue to make some side money in order to pay off as much debt as we could. I’ll think about this some more. In the meantime, I’ve got to research a bit on how it’s done.
ART
Page 9 is done! One HALF page left to go! So excited. I’m gonna get done soon! Hurry for sticking to it:
MY WEB COMIC
I’ve been taking advantage of my time off to work on my webcomic. It’s all outlined out. I just need to fix up a detail here and there and it should be ready to script out. I’m taking a much more streamlined approach to the writing than I did with my cartoon above. I just want to get it done as fast I as can.
That said, there’s quite a few characters and stuff to design. It’s what’s taking up most of the time. I’ve very excited about it though. For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
First week back on the show after having three weeks off. Hit the ground running from the get go. I had to be done with the first part of my assignment by Wednesday. It took me longer than I wanted it to.
It didn’t help that I came in on Monday a bit brain dead.
I managed to get done, and was handed Act 2. Big rewrite but the episode is REALLY good. I’m happy to be working on it.
Okay, so below are two page five. The first one is the version I drew first:
I didn’t end up using it because I realized that it didn’t read the way I wanted it to. I wanted the eye of the reader to read the punchline first and THEN see the bunnies. But the way it actually read, you saw the bunnies first and then you read the punchline. I didn’t like that so I chose to move the panel up.
I was much happier with the final version.
Below is the under drawing:
Oh, and in case you where wondering why I hand draw the word balloons in my comics…I do it because it’s a comic. The word balloons ARE part of the art and part of the composition of every panel. Seems wrong not to do it.
VIDEOS
My dad is a fan of Juan Esquivel. I find his music fun and I own one of his cds. My dad showed me the video below on Friday because he said he found someone online that likes Juan Esquivel WAY MORE than him. Who IS Juan Esquivel? I’m glad you asked because the video below answers that very question. WHY am I putting this video up on my blog though? Because I thought this was a fantastic example of how one guy’s charisma can make simply talking into the camera and telling someone about what he’s passionate about, darn entertaining.
WRITING
I would be lying if I said I’ve spent every moment I had a little time, on finish up the second draft of my treatment. I got a little sidetracked wanting to start on my next project and I ended up spending the weekend trying to solve the “A” Plot. I got it to the point good spot. I told myself I would dedicate the rest of my week on my Illustrated Film. So I have. I’m happy to say the revision is coming along nicely. Hopefully I’ll have it done by the end of the week. I’m adding adjusting and generally enjoying this part of the editing process.
Since I’ve made some big changes, I’m going to have to go back to my old designs and made the necessary adjustments. I’ll probably have to do that next week.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
No word on what’s going on with the show. This is my second week off the show. One week left to go. Seems like time is passing by fast.
MY WEB COMIC
Below is the rough of the page above:
This next page is the under drawing for the page that I inked. I increased the levels of the line work because it was drawn very lightly:
I forgot to put the under drawing of page 2 last week so I’m doing it here. I was half way through the inking process when I scanned this, so it’s not JUST the under drawing:
VIDEOS
I had heard a lot about this documentary but I had never seen it. I was made aware of it through the Man Vs. Art Facebook page. Raul Aguirre Jr. posted the link there. Now I’m posting it here as well. I recommend you take a look. It’s a documentary called IN SEARCH OF STEVE DITKO. It’s the fascinating story of mysterious comic artist Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-man. It’s very cool:
It’s about how Alex Toth, one of my favorite artists, learned. It’s something I myself have discovered from experience but I think it’s very good information to know if you don’t know about it.
Here’s the quote that ends the article. It’s great:
“It was great fun, to learn anew. You think you know enough, but you don’t. You must open up; let it in. …be receptive, admit what you don’t know, which few are willing to do. Start from square one. Again!” ~Alex Toth
WRITING
I was finally able to work out the new versions of Scene 6 and Scene 8. It was by far, one the more difficult things I had to do to date. The reason was because I had to really pin down how the magick would work in my “universe”. I knew it was blood magick, and I new it has to do with binding one’s self with a demon. I also came up with a way to make the blood rituals “practical”, but I STILL didn’t know what magick was actually going to be used against Rob.
In order to figure this out, I thought I should give each Sorcerer a “theme” or “skill” of magick they were best at. I just didn’t know what they were going to be. In order to get ideas flowing in my head, I decided to go to my bookshelf and take three Role Playing game books down. These were CONAN: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME, MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS RPG, and MAGE: THE ASCENSION.
The Conan book helped quite a bit. It’s basically a book of the Conan universe. The chapter on Sorcery in the Conan universe was very helpful since I’m basically taking that type of magick and having it play out a in a modern setting. What I got most from it was the idea that not all a Sorcerer’s magick is done on the spot, some of it is “prepackaged” and ready to use ahead of time, in the form on alchemical items that they carry around. That would help. Only I thought that in MY universe, these items had to be “activated” with a chant and some of the Sorcerer’s blood sprinkled on it. The book also gave me good examples of spells and themed magick that I might be able to use. For example, the “serpent” themed mind control magick in the book was perfect for my Lead Sorcerer. The section on magick poisons, also got me thinking as did the section on necromancy. Unfortunately it didn’t help much more beyond that. At least it gave me a flavor of what I was looking for.
The MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS book is a book like a catalog or buffet of superpowers which you can mix, match, and modify to your heart’s content in order to come up unique powers for a superhero character. I was looking through it so that I could better theme my Sorcerers’ powers. I was hoping to come across a power that would get me thinking. Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Somehow the powers where a tad too overpowered and if they weren’t, they were too subtle or generic for me to want to use any.
By this point, after thinking about it for a day or so, I knew I wanted the Other Male Sorcerer to have have Necrotic like powers. But I didn’t want him raising skeletons or anything like that. I wanted him to be more of a destroyer of life. When I opened my MAGE: THE ASCENSION book, I looked specifically into the section on Mages who could control Entropy. Though the description and the powers weren’t exactly what I had in mind, they did give me a jumping off point for my character’s magick.
As I looked at all these books, I would write down things I thought I wanted and began making a small list of key words. This is what I wrote down:
Summoning
Kothic Demon fire
Necromancy
Entropy (Focus?)
Beast Claws
Poisons
Hypnosis (Serpent)
Domination (Serpent)
Alchemy
Acid?
Knives
Wall of Blades
Dancing Blades
Flying Blades
The terms in bold I had circled, meaning I was definitely going to use them, while the other things I was trying to fit together and make something I liked with them.
I the end, this is what I concluded:
The Lead Sorcerer would have domination powers and would use mind control and hypnosis as his main form of Magick. He could also summon the giant serpent creature, but only if he sacrificed a live serpent and mingled his blood with it and chanted the correct incantation.
The Other Male Sorcerer would have power of entropy. He would throw “Entropy Orbs” which he activates with his blood and an incantation. These Orbs cause whatever they crash into to prematurely age thousands of years in an instant. He also has claws in his hands which can rot whatever they touch. He uses them in conjunction with an alchemical mist, which he hides in to reach his target. He can summon a Winged Ape by infusing some of his own blood into the ripped out heart of a gorilla and saying the correct incantation. The resulting Winged Ape would look a little zombie like.
The Female Sorcerer’s magick consists of her control over blades she throws. Due to the nature of these blade, they tend to disintegrate once used. Her main form of attack would be poison tipped blades which she controls by sprinkling them with her own blood and throwing them with an incantation. She can also control larger blade with she can send spinning or dancing, anyway she wishes, as long as he concentrates. They must first be sprinkled with her blood. She also has a blinding powder she uses, when she needs to buy time for her magick to get going. Just like The Other Male Sorcerer, she can also summon a Winged Ape by infusing some of her own blood into the ripped out heart of a gorilla and saying the correct incantation.The resulting Winged Ape is silver and has sharp metal claws.
Once I had these details worked out, it was much easier to come up with the modification to Scene 6 and Scene 8. Scene 6 I finished first. I changed the focus of the fight so that it was more about destroying the hot dog than killing Rob. I’m not sure how well that will flow but I guess I’ll find out once I have the first visual pass of it done.
Scene 8 was much tougher. The hard part was coming up with the “super attack” the Sorcerers hit Rob with, by combining their powers together. I settled with some spinning blades keeping Rob in place while the Lead Sorcerer combines his mind power with the Other Male Sorcerer to try to disintegrate Rob. The rest is similar to what I had originally written, only with the new powers.
I’m a lot happier with this version.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Comments Off on Black Terror Kid #2 page 3 plus roughs and underdrawings. How Alex Toth learned. Steve Ditko documentary. Solving my last story problems.
I had a crazy last day of work last week. I spent the entire work day plus extra hours working on The Couch Gag I was assigned. Everyone had forgotten that Good Friday was going to be a holiday and I didn’t have the designs for the Couch Gag until Holy Thursday morning, about an hour before lunch. I started working on the Gag before I had the designs, hoping I would have them by the time I needed to clean up the characters. I had the rare opportunity of animating a lot of the Gag. In the end, I didn’t get to fully animate it, but I got all the keys and timing down the way it ought to be.
The Gag didn’t have a standard family run in. It had a slightly different version of the characters and I had to redo the run in. I ran it past the director and he gave me his notes on what he wanted. I redid the run in again, and he approved. At that point, it was already two o’clock. The problem was that the run in was only the first half of the Gag, the second half had an animated pull out and some action after that pull out. This gave me only two hours to finish something I really should have had at least two days to do.
It’s one of those mixed blessing. On the one hand, I got to do some fun animation. On the other hand, they gave me no time to do it, which kinda killed the fun a bit.
I got done by ten o’clock. I timed it and even made a mini movie out of it. I was very very tired at that point, but also very happy with how the Gag had turned out.
The irony came when I was about to turn the Gag in. Usually when we’re done with an assignment, we just upload the work onto the server. The problem was, that since I wasn’t officially working on the show after that day, I got logged off the server. They didn’t know I was still working. Everyone was gone by that point and I had no way of letting anyone know I had a problem. So I couldn’t turn in the Couch Gag.
I decided to go home and left a few messages informing production what had occurred. Monday, I was informed that they had retrieved the work and everything was fine.
What a way for me to end the season.
MY WEB COMIC
Below is the rough for the page above. Not much else to say really, except that I didn’t use a red pencil under drawing on this one. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask:
VIDEOS
Yet another great animated short from the Animation Workshop. Not exactly a topic I would picked for an spoof on superheroes, but I enjoyed it anyway:
WRITING
I decided to watch a few movies to see how the Magick was handled visually in them. I looked at, LORD OF THE RINGS, HELLBOY, and the DOCTOR STRANGE animated movie. I didn’t really like any of their solutions, BUT I did get an idea from the HELLBOY movie. It actually came from a line at the beginning where the narrator says something about how the Nazi’s where using technology and magic.
This got me thinking. I told my wife about the line and she pitched me the idea that the Sorcerers can be wearing machines that take out their blood so that they could do magick. THAT was the key I was looking for. That would make it both practical and visual. The Sorcerers use machines to do magick. GREAT! Now, the question was, what will the magick be? Could I still use the fireballs? I kinda don’t want to, because it’s a bit generic, so the hard part now is to come up with interesting attacks for them to pull off. At least I have unique visuals now. Perhaps I’ll have them do some sort of incantation and gestures when they do it too. That would help.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
This is my last week before I go into the second part of my hiatus, which will be three weeks long. We have Friday off so it looks like I’ll be going into my hiatus a day early.
I managed to finish all my board work by Monday. Tuesday, instead of laying out the Couch Gag as I was suppose to do, I was given layout work on Act 2. We do layout on a different program than the storyboards so it took me a bit to get used to working on the program again. Since we have Friday off, I really have to make sure I get everything done by the end of today.
VIDEOS
THE SAGA OF BIORN is a fantastic Bachelor film project from The Animation Workshop. It’s funny, fun, well animated, well acted, with incredible designs. I’m just amazed:
MY WEB COMIC
The finished page 1 of the new Black Terror Kid comic:
Last week, I put up a rough of page one. This week I thought I would show you the tools I use to make my comics:
Well, sometimes I tend to use a regular Color erase red pencil to do under drawing work and a mechanical pencil for clarifying. Other times, I just go straight in with the mechanical pencil (lead 0.7). For erasers I use a white rubber eraser and an ever so useful kneaded eraser (can’t live with one). I also use a green or a blue pencil when putting in my perceptive grid and a transparent ruler to do any straight lines during the penciling stage:
For inking, on the other hand, I use all kinds of fun stuff.
I don’t like using felt tip pens when I ink comics. I use them all the time otherwise, but not on my comics. I like to use dip pens, brushes and my non felt tip brush pen. So here are my tools:
By FAR my favorite tool is the Pentel refillable brush pen. I use it for EVERYTHING. Including field sketching. My comic was 90% inked with this pen. I LOVE IT!
If you’ve never heard of it, the pen has a synthetic brush on it and you unscrew the base to input an ink cartridge. It’s fantastic. I had to put in a new cartridge, half way though my inking. It was half full when I began.
The rest of my tools are a LOT more traditional. Quills, dip pens, brushes, and ink.
1. The ink is Pelikan black ink. It’s not as black as I would like but it’s better than the Higgins ink I was using before. Problem with the Pelikan is that it’s a bit pricey.
2. These are the nibs I use to letter with.
A. Hunt dome point. (which I forgot I had and didn’t use this time. I sure could have used it).
B. Speedball A-5 was used for all the letters in the balloons except for the bold lettering. It’s the smallest Speedball nib and the “A” series has a square tip. Speedball nibs are interesting because they really retain a lot of ink. It takes a long time for them to run out once dipped.
C. Speedball B-4 was used for all the bold text. The “B” series has a round tip.
3. Speedball B-3, I used to draw the border and the word balloons. The Speedball nibs are good when you want your line to stay the same width the whole time. No thick and thin effect. I didn’t use any rulers when inking my work so these came in handy.
4. Gillett #170 nib was used mostly for lettering slightly smaller letters, like the ones on the signs. I also used it when inking a scratchy sound effect in page 3. It unfortunately cut into the paper on a page and caused a smudge to happen when I erased the pencil lines two days later.
5. Not sure what the technical term for this one is, Gillett 291 perhaps? In any case, this tiny little crow quill was the first kind of ink pen I ever used. My parent gave me one when I was in Junior High. I rarely use it now but it DID come in REALLY handy when inking tiny little details. Like The Black Terror Kid’s skull and crossbones logo on his outfit.
6. An old beat up brush I’ve had for years. It’s tip is all crooked. Once upon a time, I used it to ink with, now I all I do with it is fill in big areas with black ink.
Hope you liked the small tour of my tools.
WRITING
Didn’t get much done on my “Illustrated Film” this week. I started revising the treatment but the Magick system I came up is different enough, that I have to really rework some of the fight scenes. Including the first attack upon Rob. He is no longer going be dodging fireballs. I made it so that the Sorcerers now use blood magick and sacrifice animals to make their magick work. It’s a bit less “practical” to do. I’m still working on it. I’ll keep you posted.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
The count down has begun the pressure is on to finish our show on time. It’s the first story reel of the season so we need to start this season off with a bang. Sheesh!
BLOG/COMIC BOOKS
I’ve heard a lot of complaints, online and off, about comics and how difficult they are to get into. I don’t see that at all. I’ve found the opposite is true. Before I begin to explain myself, I will first point you to two online sources that put fourth good arguments against my position. The one that started me thinking about this to begin with is this one:
You should first read these two articles. I think their arguments are very sound, but limited in what they put forth as the way to get into comics. I left a comment on Krishna‘s post but I don’t think I truly answered Krishna‘s concern. I mostly commented on everyone else’s comments to Krishna‘s argument. I recommend you read the comments as well.
Okay, now that you’ve read those articles, I’ll put forth my thoughts on the topic. Before I begin though, I will first tell you what I’m not going to be writing about. I’m not going to argue whether or not the modern superhero genre is catering to a younger audience nor will I write about whether cartoony comic artwork is better than more photo realistic comic art.
I will use the superhero genre of comics for most of my examples, mainly because they are by far the most complex type of comic to get into and it’s the genre that more quickly comes to mind when we think of modern comics.
What I mean by “mainstream” comics in this article is this: Marvel and DC comics, and to a far lesser extent Dark Horse, Image and Top Cow. I also include, in my definition, all English translated Manga. This might be surprising but most younger readers are more familiar with Manga than with Marvel and DC books. I will also use the word “floppy” to describe what most of us know as a regular flimsy comic, as apposed to a much sturdier trade paperback comic (a.k.a. “graphic novel”).
Okay, so, the topic that concerns us here is how easy is it to get into reading comics. I propose to you, that it’s easier than it’s ever been to get into comics. Comics and information about comics are everywhere. The internet has a ton of free legal comics at your fingertips. Cartoons and movies are great introductory ways to get you intrigued and curious about reading comics. Newstands may be dying off but comics are thriving as trade paperback books in all major books chains. Libraries carry comics now and there are even Encyclopedias that explain some superhero comic book universes. There really is, no real reason, why someone who wants to get into comics can’t get into them. If you think it’s too much work, trust me, it’s worth the effort.
As I was growing up in El Salvador (I lived there till I was 6 years old) my grandmother had a bookshelf of comics in her house for us and we used to look through them and read them. Surprisingly enough, this is not what got me into comics. What got me into comics was, years later, when our family had moved to California. Sometime when I was around 11 or 12, I picked up a copy of Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham #15 at the local Circle K convenience store. It cost 75 cents. The same book now would probably cost $4.00 and I would have probably gotten it at Barnes and Nobles or Borders.
I wasn’t interested in “serious” comics at the time. I just wanted the funny cartoony stuff. Eventually, the book was canceled (I guess I was the only person that bought it) and the Spider-Ham stories where relegated to the back of Marvel Tales featuring Spider-Man. I bought those for the Spider-Ham stories but eventually, got bored one day and read the “serious” Spider-Man story which I fell in love with. This lead to my love of the “serious” comics.
I learned real quick that I had no idea what the heck was going on in any of the “serious” comics. In fact the only reason I knew who anyone was in a Spider-Man comic was because the Spider-Ham comic had spoofed them. I read the comics anyway. I thought I’d eventually understand what was going on. This worked some what. In those days the only way to find out what had gone before in a superhero book was really limited. You either bought back issues or read the “old issue index” comics that gave you a synopsis of the years of comics that had come before. If you were lucky you collected the comics that had does indexes.
Okay so what’s my point? Why the personal history? Well, on the one hand I see the point that a floppy comic now a days being $4.00 is a barrier to entry. I may not have bought my first comic if it was $4.00. But lets say I got a comic somehow. If it was a cartoony superhero comic like, Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam, it would have a good long story for a good value and it would have appealed to me where I was at, taste wise. I would have come back for more. Okay, lets say I wanted to get into a “serious” superhero comic, lets say, Spider-Man. Somehow I got hold of one and read it. Exactly the same thing that happened to me the first time would happen, I would read it, be intrigued and not know who anyone was, but I’d probably come back for more to find out.
You would probably argue,
“See you’re assuming you would read a floppy and get into a comic but comics are $4.00 so how would you even get the chance to read them at all?” Well, I’d read them for free at the Marvel website or download it for free from DC KidsWB. The Marvel website even has books that help you catch up with what’s currently going on.
There are more ways now than any other time, to get into comics and find out who the mainstream characters are. For starters, there are animated cartoons that do a phenomenal job of introducing people to the mainstream characters. I know because, it was through these cartoons that I got introduced to the characters of the DC Universe. Now, I love to read those comics. I’ve also gotten exposed to a lot of great Manga from watching their movies and anime, like the Lone Wolf and Cub manga and the Akira manga to name a few. My wife learned and became familiar with the X-Men and the JLA from watching their cartoons so when she reads those books, she knows who everyone is. The same goes with my Sister-in-law. She loves reading DC comics because she watched the Cartoon Network Justice League cartoon. My kids know who the Justice League, The Teen Titans, Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Legion of Superheroes, and Astroboy are from watching my DVDs of those cartoons. During her nap time, my daughter flips through kids comics of some of those characters before she goes to sleep (they’re all totally trashed, and very well “read”. She’s only three). My kids even ask me to read them comics.
My brother and sister-in-law bought the Marvel Encyclopedia and the DC Encyclopedia in order to get caught up on who’s who in both Universes. If you don’t have the money to spend for one of those, go to a website like Comic Vine. They have up to the minute explanation on what’s going on. Something I wish I had been able to do when I first started collecting superhero comics. The superhero comics I read as a kid in the 80s needed that as much as the current superhero comics do.
If you don’t want to deal with the big history of most superhero comics. Most Manga doesn’t have that problem (some do though) and there is also DC’s Vertigo line. Many of those don’t have as much history to catch up on, if any.
Not only that, but you can’t really argue that current superhero genre comics are too complicated, too adult or too , whatever you’re prejudice, and that older comics are better. Mainly because those very superhero comics are now collected in omnibus editions. Some of these collections can be found used for as low as $4.00! So if you want to read “better” superhero comics, then nothing is stopping you from reading those and literally starting from the beginning. If you want to make sure that the comics you let your kids read are “kid friendly” why not buy them or encourage them to buy and read those collections. They still hold up and there’s plenty of them; and when it comes to manga, there are plenty of kid friendly comics there too. Astroboy anyone?
If you want a complete comic story (old or new, adult friendly or kid friendly), you can pick up a trade paperback. There are many of these which are good introductions to a hero or universe. You can find all these and more at you’re local book store (here in the U.S.) or even *GASP!* at the library. Something unheard of in the 80s when I started reading comics. I would have LOVED to have that opportunity. I went to the library all the time as a kid.
Okay, having said all that, I want to argue that the price of floppies is too much for the value you get. $4.00 seems too much. Yet, a Magic the Gathering Booster pack, (same target audience) is about $4.00 for fifteen cards. A Yu-Gi-Oh! booster pack is $5.00 for nine cards. A Playstation 2 game averages $35.00 (double the price of most trade paperbacks). Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games are about $60.00. The target audience of today’s comics are pretty used to forking over a lot for a little. I don’t like it at all but the price seems about average. Whether you get $4.00 worth of entertainment out it, that depends on the comic you buy and how it’s written. This is especially true for floppies since many (but not all) of them can be read in about 15 minutes.
Still, in the end, I don’t think floppies are as important as they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, they still have a valuable role to play, but they aren’t theonlyway in anymore. In fact, I will go so far as to say, floppies are not the way to get into most American superhero comics. Floppies are mostly written for comic geeks, trade paperbacks are for everyone else. Times have changed.
“But wait,” you say. “Encyclopedias? Looking up characters on the net? Watching cartoons and movies? That’s an awful lot of work. I want everything spoon fed to me”. Sorry, I can’t help you. Reading comics is a hobby. Every hobby has a bit of a learning curve. In knitting you have to first learn to knit. In putting together model kits, you have to first learn the best supplies to use and the best methods of assembling. In wargaming, you learn the rules and then learn tactics and strategies. The same goes for board gaming. If you golf, you learn and practice your technique. If you’d never played a video game before, how steep would the learning curve be to play a game like Halo 3? Most people that play video games spend hours looking up games and reviews to see what games are coming out that they’ll like to play next, as if researching for a school report. That’s a lot of work. Most hobbies require some level of work on your part. Work that you enjoy doing because it’s fun, enjoyable work and you find the reward from the hobby worth the effort. Comics are worth the effort.
After looking at everything that is available, I don’t think that mainstream comics are difficult to get into at all. It’s easier than it was when I started. I only had superhero comics to choose from. There’s more variety out there than there ever was. If you want to get into them and you’re finding it difficult, you must be working pretty hard to not succeed.