Wednesday Was Not New Comic Book Day This Week

Because of the post office versus Thanksgiving last week, new comics get pushed back to Thursday. But that's not the real topic of this post. This list is all about my top considerations when buying comics, aside from the wonderful way the new ones smell. The covers pictured here are neither the best examples of each point nor are they my favorite issues. They're just five of my most recent purchases, added for color. This list is in order of importance with the most important consideration on top.

1. Cover Art/Design - In case you couldn't tell from the picture, the words Manifest Destiny refer to the X-Men moving out west, specifically to San Francisco. Here we see a manga-looking Iceman sky surfing over the Golden Gate Bridge. I like it when comic book covers give some idea about the story inside. I normally don't read X-Men, but the new art style intrigued me. Design is even more important than technique on a cover. I don't show any examples here, but check my 9/24/08 post to see the design on Kabuki 9, the lighting on Identity Crisis 4, and the movement on Zoom Suit 1.

2. Interior Art - If a cover catches my attention but the art inside is no match, I'm done with it. Nothing else on this list even matters at that point. No cover is worth a few dollars. For me, good art means detail (my favorites are Neal Adams, Brian Bolland, and John Byrne), perhaps lots of crosshatching and blotchy inking. My biggest pet peeve with comics lately is unnatural coloring (some offenders are New Avengers and The Ultimates) with lots of purple shading. On manga, I avoid anything with pointy chins.

3. Inappropriate Material - They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but that doesn't apply to comics. Usually a comic cover tells you exactly what kind of content to expect inside. Now I love the Punisher, but I bought this Marvel Spotlight because it's just interviews with the creators behind the comic and the new movie, and it doesn't include the graphic violence and language which I can't bring myself to collect and bring into my home. Same goes for comics with nudity and even skimpy costumes.

4. Familiar/Favorite Character(s) - I'm ten times more likely to pick up a title starring Spider-Man, Batgirl, or Judge Dredd (can you guess the similarity that all these characters share?) than anything I'm unfamiliar with. I do buy new characters and series from time to time, but only after passing the three considerations above. If it's a choice between taking a chance or going with what I know, I guess I'm conservative in that regard. I'm a sucker for these guest stars and villains: Magneto, Hawkeye, Doctor Doom, Galactus, Havok, Polaris, Raven, the Riddler, the Huntress, and Johann, the Ectoplasmic Man.

5. Familiar/Favorite Creator(s) - I do follow certain artists and writers from series to series, but only after the above considerations are met. Last month the creator of Spawn returned to closely supervise his book and while new creative teams usually make for good jumping on points, such doesn't seem to be the case on this title. Other teams worth noting are Stan Lee/Jack Kirby, Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale, and Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely.

6. Setting/Theme - As a general rule, I avoid war stories (that goes for books and movies too), stories set in outer space, aliens that look like people, dinosaurs, excessive poetry, Nazis, and/or robots. Where genre fiction is concerned, I will read westerns, horror, mystery/thrillers, romance, near future hard science fiction, satire/spoofs, and superheroes (obviously). I prefer fantasy with magic in the modern world to swords and sandals settings. I don't like fiction about mental illness but I'll read about it in non-fiction. I don't like comics that reference a lot of popular culture or tie to current events but I do like alternate history fiction and dramatizations based on true stories. Go figure.

7. Collector's Mentality - I picked up this trade paperback collection of classic Brainiac stories because Superman is currently fighting him in his comics coming out right now. I like to go back and see what I missed as it relates to something in the present. All collectors do this, I think. That's why the value of old, forgotten comics goes up whenever their concepts are revisited. This comes into play when buying a new comic means a committing to back issues that are referenced in that new comic. I prefer others doing the work of collecting back issues in a trade paperback for me and if there's no such luxury, I can do without that new comic. If I know that a run of new comics will be collected in a trade later on, I'll wait. It's usually cheaper and I'm not that serious a collector. Although there is a thrill when you come across an issue featuring one of your favorite characters and it's on sale for a dollar.

8. Limited Series/Stand-Alone Stories - the greatest incentive to try a new book

9. Critical Acclaim/Popular Recommendations - Rarely do I go back to catch up on a series that I somehow missed that everyone else supposedly bought and loved, at least not until I get proof that it meets nearly all the above considerations. I didn't try the first Umbrella Academy series until it was already collected in trade paperback, and then mostly because of the book's cover, not the hype. But there is something to be said for hype, else I wouldn't know The Goon, Invincible, or Tom Strong.

10. Writing - This one doesn't matter before I read an unfamiliar writer, but if a story or dialogue is bad, it sure prevents me from ever buying any other comic they write after that. As a side note, I dislike handwritten fonts for narration or slanted text in word balloons. More picture, less words.