CollectionDX Network
CollectionDX - Toy Reviews, Toy News, Japanese Toys and Action Figures

Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 250 - Trava Fist Planet Episode 1

Comments

2 comments posted
My Comic Book Years

Hearing about your experiences with comics Jeremy made me think of how I had came to know 'em. I suppose early on, it was being in Bill Knapp's and reading the wrinkled issues of the Gold Key kiddie comics they would have in the waiting section of the restaurant (not sure if you remember Bill Knapp's but they had great food and my mom would take me there on birthdays all the time). Comics were something that was easily accessible surely, and there was a drug store a few blocks from home I would always be sitting next to the magazine shelf where the comics were placed on the bottom row. Often I would simply give my mom a particular issue and she'd pay the 50 cents or so and I get that issue. I recall once getting to send away for comics in the mail from a cereal box promotion for the new Star Comics line-up (at the time I probably should've kept onto those first issues of Top Dog all that).

In the case of superhero comics, I hate to say I wasn't that interesting in them at the time, often opting for Disney and other humor-related types I could get. Marvel and DC just wasn't in my interest somehow, though my older brother would buy those I think. In the years that followed, I was either buying comics from store shelves or inheriting them from family members over the years (let alone yard sales and thrift shops). I got a modest collection though it takes up more than a few boxes now to store 'em.

The thing about where comics ended up these days reminds me so much of what a friend of mine said 6 years ago when he told on a podcast, "If you don't have a doctorate in the DC Universe, you can't enjoy a superhero comic." And it best explains the problems the industry faces when people continue to assume the readers already know about these characters in and out, leaving no room for those that want to start reading them from getting in. There was a time when a single issue of a DC comic could be circulated in the almost half million copies 40-50 years ago when these days just selling a few thousand copies is all they can hope for. It certainly doesn't help when the distribution of comics had been sidelined into the seedy, dusty shops I often go to that mostly deal in RPG gaming anyway and I always end up feeling like an outsider there. Certainly a far cry from a time when spinner racks at a supermarket was a viable way to sell these at least 20 years ago.

Chris@StudioToledo's picture
Posted by Chris@StudioToledo on 21 August, 2012 - 08:36
FLCL

Jeremy, maybe you have to read the new series of Wonder Woman, the ICONIC DC character.

I haven't seen Trava Fist Planet, but based on your review I would say that FLCL is superior, and it's much more enjoyable. You also had problems with female characters in this, and I would say that while FLCL doesn't exactly have great female characters, it doesn't have typical eye candy.

It's 6 episodes long, so for me I didn't feel like it was a slog to rewatch. After watching it a few times, I got more out of it.

Yotaru's picture
Posted by Yotaru on 23 August, 2012 - 12:37