The issues that you speak to here are ones that frustrate my creative partner and me to no end. There is a core audience for mainstream comics, such a Luis here, (Hello Louis), but for new people looking to get into the hobby it’s one barrier after another. It’s something we try to address with our own book, though I will say right up front I’d be happier ditching the floppies and going straight to TPB where you have enough pages to tell a self-contained story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Marvel does try to get new readership via it’s Adventure and Ultimate imprints. I think that in the main they are making a good effort in those areas. It’s enver their “A-List” writers, but since the stories aren’t tied to the continuity or the current “Event”, they tend to be much better books IMO.

If you’ve got an iPhone, iPad, PsP, or Droid-type devise you can check out a lot of these books for free. Like Atomic Robo! (and some Marvel stuff also . . .I guess.)

;D

New Avengers is (currently) actually a complimentary book to what’s happening in the Marvel series “Siege”. So it’s a small side story in the midst of a chaotic larger story. So I agree it’s not new reader accessible, but that’s because if it were, the story wouldn’t progress due to the continual retreading over points that have already been established.

If you really want a real jumping off point, you should look at Marvel’s “World Greatest Comics”. These are reprints of perfect jumping on points for new readers and are sold for only $1. Also, I think they’re giving away free digital copies of these comics as well in the Ipad app. So it’s all about knowing where to start, which the shop owners, if they’re good, should be able to point you in the right direction.

Don’t pick up random “New Avengers #107 Siege Tie-In” and expect everything to make sense.
It’s like you jumped into the show Lost, half way through season 6, watched one episode, then got upset because you didn’t get what was happening.

Marvel has checklists, of which books to read on the back page for their crossovers, they released a Free Marvel Chronology book to guide readers, new and old alike, through each of their major properties, they have the “Worlds Greatest Comics” which are jumping on points, and recap pages in front of almost every book. I honestly don’t know that else they can do to make it more accessible without alienating the hardcore target market. There has to be a balance.

Come back in about a month or so, where Marvel’s “Heroic Age” begins. Marvel is going to be renumbering a huge number of books, and they should all be new reader accessible, and the stories will be self-contained within their respective books. No more crossovers, (Thank God).

As far as DC goes… I can’t help ya.

I occasionally read trade paperbacks because our public library has a good stock of them. I found Captain America to be particularly entertaining as a trade paperback. I also enjoyed the new Iron Fist series that came out a few years ago.

I still stand by my thesis, though – comics are not particularly accessible to new readers.

I love the artwork. Realistic, cartoony, is irrelevant. Drawing well and consistent is hard. Why all the whining? If a guy draws realistic, admire it. The hero still looks cool. I’m one of does people that didn’t stop reading comics ever. I didn’t get out of it. I found something to read even in the 90s.

Next time you go to the comic shop, do yourself a favor and pick up a trade. You get a full story and you get what you pay for. You also get caught up with what’s going on, to some extent. Comics are fun reads. I love comics. They’ve evolved and changed and everyone want them NOT too. WHY? Every other type of art form changes too. Look at music for one example.

If you don’t like one storyline in one comic that doesn’t mean that every story line in every comic sucks. It means that one story didn’t grab you. That one writer isn’t very good or maybe he just had a bad arch. Go to the library and read as many trades as you can, find the one that speaks to you and collect those. Thinking your going to love a book by coming into it in the middle, isn’t going to help.

Comics have changed. So has media. Catch up on the comics you want to read by going to the hundreds of sites that give you synopsis of the hundreds of issues that you’ve missed and then continue from there. Where not living int he 80s anymore.

Comics now are better reads than they were when I was growing up.
Not only that but there is almost something for everyone. Kids, adult, women, men, boys, girls. Even in the mainstream comics. Stop hating because you’re truly missing out.

Yeah, floppies are super expensive and way too fancy. I never liked the shift from cheap newsprint to premium stuff even back in the 80s

The pacing for the most part IS way too slow, writing for graphic novels they tend to pad the stories with “empty carbs” so to speak.

Style wise… there are super realistic stuff, (reminicent of Neal Adams) but there’s lots of other indie stuff too.

Coloring does suck in general tho…

I find myself being very passionate about comics, and grateful that I can make stuff that I like, MY way. I also try to remember that my tastes are mine alone, and no one is obligated to share those tastes. That’s why I can get a GREAT issue of Capt America drawn by Trimpe and inked by Abel for 99c ! Who cares what the big guns are making, we’ve got our own game and it’s a Winner!(not money wise, but you can’t have everything!)