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Read a comic book in public, today!


Jumbie

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I'm finally working up the nerve to finish volume one. 6 (or so) issues to go. Fuckin' finale is epic, too. Topping off the series with a Blood Bath sourcebook. My Hondonian based zombie drama volume two is in the works as well. Also, a Spider-Panch mini. Fuck, I gotta draw a bunch of shit. I need to be diagnosed with some terminal disease so that I can get serious and draw all this before I die.

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  • 1 year later...

Peter David, 7 years ago:

 

Steve the Spider-Man fan

 

I’m probably going to expand upon this in “But I Digress”, but…

 

I was at a playground yesterday with Caroline. There was a little boy there, seven years old, named Steven. He was talking to other kids about Spider-Man, and what a big Spider-Man fan he was. He was showing off his Spidey sneakers very proudly.

 

And I said to him, “Do you read Spider-Man comics?”

 

He looked at me oddly and said, “No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“I watch the movies,” he said. “And I play the video game. I beat Doc Ock,” he added proudly.

 

“Okay, but…Spider-Man’s a comic book character. Aren’t you at all interested in reading the comic?”

 

He shook his head. His ten year old brother said, “Why should he?”

 

I said, “Well, because you keep watching the movies, it’s the same story. What about new adventures, new stories about Spider-Man?”

 

The big brother shrugged and said, “He watches the cartoon.”

 

“I watch the cartoon,” Steve echoed. “And the movies. And play the game. I’m a Spider-Man fan!”

 

Spidey’s biggest fan…except for, y’know, the whole comic book thing. That he really doesn’t care about.

 

And why should he? How many have you, in the past five years, have seen a James Bond movie or played the video game? Now…how many of you have read a James Bond book? Seen a Sherlock Holmes film or a repeat of the Jeremy Brett TV series? As opposed to reading Conan Doyle or any of the many pastiches?

 

Comics used to be the only venue for following the adventures of iconic heroes, just as books were once the only means of keeping up with literary heroes. And now the heros’ popularity has outstripped any need for literature…or readers.

 

And you wonder why comics are hemorrhaging readers.

 

PAD

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