When did you stop reading comic regularly?

[Spider-Man]

Since there doesn't seem to be a lot of action on this board or people participating in talkbacks, its safe to assume that not a lot of people are reading comics. So the question is simple. When did you stop reading comics? Why?

 

[Yojimbo]

Around the time Mary Jane Parker was killed off in that airplane explosion. Late 90s/Early 00s. I think. Didn't like the direction Spider-Man was going overall at that time, as well as whatever else I was reading. Sonic, maybe. Too much canon/maybe got bored with it, I think. Right around when Robo-Robotnik arrived. I stopped reading comics cold turkey. Came back to comics in 2011, but only thing I read regularly right now is Ghostbusters. Course, I read some tie in material like the Young Justice and the recent Gods and Monsters mini. Mostly, now if I need to read something recent, I check out a trade for free at the local library.

 

[Zorak Masaki]

1994 for me. I got back into it in 2007 but even then i rarely pick up newer titles (though sometimes i will just to see whats going on), mainly picking random issues from flea markets and conventions. I'd pick up trades, but a lot of them are either too short for the price or too expensive (the most recent trades i got was Avengers vs X-Men after it got heavily discounted, and a couple of Adventure Time TPBs).

 

[Gatordragon]

I started reading comics in 2011 and stopped in 2013. One reason why is that I've lost interest in superheroes, especially from Marvel and DC. The other reason is that comics are just too dang expensive for their short content, which made reading non-superhero comics a pain on my wallet.

Nowadays I read webcomics because they have a wider variety of genres and art styles to choose from. Being free to read is also a huge plus.

 

[hobbyfan]

There've been two periods where I stopped.

The first was sometime in the 70s when I stopped buying them altogether. Parents thought they were a distraction from school studies, which really wasn't true. I was just a quick study.

Then, I got back into it prior to senior year in high school, and stuck with it until about 2008. I came back in 2011. Because the average book now runs as low as $3-$4 per issue these days, I am not going to buy too many books at a time. Doing mostly miniseries these days, and a few ongoings. One of the few ongoings I read, Batman '66, is ending in December, but will continue with the licensed crossovers (Man From UNCLE, TV Avengers (Steed & Peel), likely others to follow) as I see fit.

 

[Antiyonder]

I tend not to read the main comics in Marvel's 616 continuity or DC's main Earth. The main comics I do read (aside from maybe Sonic and Mega Man), I'm not sure are popular on the forum, but I was going to try soon to maybe stir up some discussion.

My main reads besides what I mentioned:
- Batman '66
- Futurama Comics
- Scooby Doo Team Up
- Simpsons Comics (Been on the fence for awhile on it, but since FXX's week long Simpsons marathon last year, I got in the mood to pick this up)
- Star Trek (IDW's ongoing comic which is part of the rebooted timeline)
- Star Wars Kanan (At least while Weisman is writing)

 

[wonderfly]

I stopped in early to mid 2009. It was a few months after the birth of my little girl. Didn't have the finances to continue.

I then started working for Marvel in late 2009 (I worked on the Marvel Index). Besides getting paid, I started getting a lot of comic books for free. Then it became a matter of "spending time working on comics instead of reading them" (specifically I was reviewing OLDER comics for the Marvel Index) and I found that prevented me from following NEW Marvel comic storylines.

Work for Marvel dried up in early 2012. All of a sudden, I found I was out of touch with current storylines. I still read comics on the Marvel Digital website (I've have membership to that since 2009) just at a much slower pace, and as I see fit.

The whole "keep on reading a monthly batch of new comics" and trips to local comic book shops became a thing of the past for me, though, back around 2009.

...

The good news is, I recently got rehired by Marvel! I'm going to be one of the writers for the Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe! (along with some other projects I can maybe talk about at a later date).

I still read "new" material on the Marvel Digital website...just at a much slower pace (reading various things published between 2002 and 2012...) The great (and not-so-great) thing about the Digital website is there's SOOO MUCH material to choose from on there...

 

[Yojimbo]

The good news is, I recently got rehired by Marvel! I'm going to be one of the writers for the Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe! (along with some other projects I can maybe talk about at a later date).

Wow, congrats! And I'm now incredibly jealous of you.

 

[wonderfly]

Oh yeah, just remembered: I might as well share the other time I quit comics.

I started reading comics full time around 1991/1992 (I was only a sporadic reader in the late 80's - but it was around 1991 that I became a diehard "gotta collect and read them all!") fan.

Anyway, I stopped reading comics for several months, maybe for a full year, back around late 1996 or early 1997. The reason? Marvel's "Heroes Reborn", the event which "killed off" several Marvel favorites, only to revamp them in an alternate universe (the stories were created and drawn by Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld...and they were lackluster).

That was also around the time of the collapse of 90's Indies comics (Image got revamped, Valiant comics died, Ultraverse died, Dark Horse had milked "Aliens" and "Predator" for too long, and Sin City was done (little did I know Frank Miller was about to create "300")...and I just wasn't a DC fan- James Robinson's "Starman" being the only marginal thing of interest during this period.

So yeah, I went cold turkey for a few months...only to get pulled back in when Marvel brought back the heroes in the "Heroes Return" event (Kurt Busiek writing the Avengers?!? SOLD!!)

EDIT: Also, I think that was right around when Marvel declared bankruptcy. I was fairly certain that Marvel Comics was about to dry up and stop printing comics. So I turned my attention towards other interests of the 90's...

 

[Angilasman]

I read more comics now than I ever have before, but it's an eclectic bunch. Some new stuff, some vintage reprints, some foreign, some domestic, some corporate, most creator-owned.

The thing is that comics is a medium, incredibly wide and diverse. If you only read one kind of comic of course you'll get burned out.

 

[AdamYJ]

I stopped reading regular superhero comics rather recently. I found that it just was too hard to keep up with it all and that I wasn't interested enough in their recent stories to want to.

I do still pick up retro stuff from time to time. And I still read manga, specifically Food Wars. I'm also hoping to pick up the new Storyteller mini from Archaia/Boom when it starts in December.

 

[Antiyonder]

The thing is that comics is a medium, incredibly wide and diverse. If you only read one kind of comic of course you'll get burned out.

This, plus quitting comics one deems bad alone isn't going to send the message to Marvel or DC to change things. That's only the beginning. Part of the package deal is to support comics that give you what the big two doesn't.

Futurama and Simpsons gives out plenty of done in one issue comedy. Heck the former, along with Scooby Doo Team Up are bimonthly, thus a good place to sample things as you're basically just paying for six issues a year.

Or in the case of IDW Star Trek, the comic does a good job at telling more serious stories without falling into the grimdark/uber violence trap.

 

[Stu]

When Marvel announced that they were revamping the universe with Secret wars. All New, All Different for the sake of it did little for me. I saw that they were turning Spider-Man from an Everyman superhero to gadget wielding globetrotter and they seem to be doing away with 5 years of an utterly brilliant Daredevil run about battling his own darkness and depression to make a dark and depressing Daredevil book again.

I am getting bored of the constant edit oral revamps so a new #1 can be released and decided my time and money would be better spent elsewhere.

I also think, visually, these all new costumes, to a person, look terrible when compared to the traditional/classic looks. What have they done to Spidey, Daredevil and Iron Man's beautiful designs?

 

[Ed Liu]

I am still reading comics regularly, though I strayed out of the main Marvel/DC orbit some time ago and haven't felt too compelled to look back. I've hit up a few titles here and there (Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel, the new Ms. Marvel, Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye...and nothing off the top of my head from DC, which probably says something), but it's more along the lines of following creators rather than characters or companies.

I'm still reading Dark Horse's Conan, and at this point it's probably the longest run I've had on a single comic (through its various title changes) since I was a teenager collecting Uncanny X-Men. Also digging Gail Simone's run on Red Sonja, and experimenting with other stuff. I like that other players are getting into the Eurocomics game and ecstatic that Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese comics are finally getting the American reprint/translation that they deserve via IDW. But I've also grabbed the new reprint of Barbarella from Humanoids (where Kelly Sue DeConnick's name comes up again) since it seems to have a hold on a lot of imaginations even without taking the (in)famous Jane Fonda movie into account.

There also seem to be a lot more classic reprints coming out, and now that Marvel's done right by Jack Kirby I'll feel better about getting more classic stuff from them by the King (having exhausted the reprints DC did of Fourth World and the Demon and all that other cool stuff). Am following Classic Comics' reprints of the Mary Perkins: On Stage newspaper strip (which I think peaked a few volumes back but which remains a deeply addictive read every time I get a new volume, and which also remains a marvel of comic-style storytelling under the constraints of a daily newspaper strip), and looking forward to their oversize reprint of all Leonard Starr's Kelly Green comics.

However, with time spent with the family, on the News, and on assorted other stuff, I just don't have the time I used to for babbling about stuff I like as much. I think the same is true of a lot of people. And the reality is that I don't think many other people are reading the same things as me any more, which means I feel like I'm mostly talking to an empty room. On the flip side, I think that's actually a good thing because it means comics is broad enough that lots of people can "read comics" without reading the same thing, just like people can "read books" without all reading the same thing.

 

[Miyamoto Musashi]

After the end of Amazing Spider-Man 700, I decided it's a good point to consider Spider-Man dead, and his title officially over.

I wanted a reason to stop collecting newer comics, makes it easier to go back to what I already have, to read them again.

they seem to be doing away with 5 years of an utterly brilliant Daredevil run about battling his own darkness and depression to make a dark and depressing Daredevil book again.

When a movie/TV show is popular, Marvel want to keep their character title tone more inline with that.
I'm not shocked they chose to regress Mark Waid's efforts, and won't doubt seeing DD get his own One More Day in the near future.

 

[dadadada]

I stop reading until last month, bucause I live in Nanjing, China, and I have already read some comic books of DC but it's hard to find more here,and I don't like to raed Marvel's though I love MCU movies.

 

[Angilasman]

I like that other players are getting into the Eurocomics game and ecstatic that Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese comics are finally getting the American reprint/translation that they deserve via IDW. But I've also grabbed the new reprint of Barbarella from Humanoids (where Kelly Sue DeConnick's name comes up again) since it seems to have a hold on a lot of imaginations even without taking the (in)famous Jane Fonda movie into account.

Man, Corto Maltese is like my newest favorite comic! I've been dipping into European comics in the past few years. Besides Corto, I'd say Asterix and Blacksad are my favorites.

 

[Tumblenerd]

I must have been 12 or so. Ever since, I only occasionally re-read the comics I read as a kid, but mainly to study them. I'm not a big comics fan. My brother read tons of Marvel stuff in the 1990s, but I never got into it.