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  • I'm a character based fan. I may have favorite writers or artists that I follow for a time, but I always eventually return to the same characters and the same titles. However, I'm a character based fan who is willing to drop a favorite title when it isn't being well written (or even when it isn't being written the way I want- which is isn't always the same thing) and have done so with all of my favorites at one point or another. And I'm a character based fan who isn't afraid of change, of new costumes and new teammates and new headquarters and so on.
  • Actually, I'm going to correct myself. I'm more of a team-based fan than a character based-fan. Though I may collect solo titles from time to time (such as Captain America and Green Lantern right now), those are usually a lot more creator-dependent (in this case, Ed Brubaker and Geoff Johns). But with a team book, I'm much more likely to stick it out through a variety of creators, line-up changes and so on.
  • Oscillating. And without a safety switch.
  • I'm definitely writer-based: that's the first thing I look at on a new title. I've got favorite artists, too, but I'd never buy anything on the artist's work alone. But the nature of the project also matters. I'd call myself a Grant Morrison fan, but I don't read any of his in-continuity superhero work, because I lost patience with superhero continuity years ago.
  • First off, I didn't enjoy the editorial. There are enough people outside the hobby that put down comicbook readers. We don't need this person who supposedly likes comicbooks to put all readers down, too.

    That being said, I can't even place myself in a single fan category. Am I character/team based? Well, I used to be. I learned long ago, though, to drop a title if the creative team goes in a direction that I don't like. So, am I creator based? Well...not really. Writers that I once thought I would follow to any title are writing things that I don't read for a variety of reasons. I'm missing Dan Slott and Mark Waid on Amazing Spider-Man because of my (admittedly stubborn) refusal to buy post-"One More Day" Spider-Man titles. I'm missing Mark Waid on Irredeemable because I read the first issue and bloody well HATED it. I've tried Peter David's current X-Factor series and several points and just don't like it--ditto with Fallen Angel. It is incredibly rare for me to buy a title based on the artist. I guess you'd have to say that I am a story-based reader. It's that magical combination of character/team, writer, artists that make a story that I want to read.

    So y'know what? I am just looking for good, high-quality stories! And unlike what Esther Inglis-Arkell seems to presume, I don't give a dingo's kidney about artsy-fartsy comics. I want good, high quality superhero stories. I don't need to feel guilt about my pleasures because, damn it, they are MY pleasures. She wrote: "These people are either liars, or are the stunted, gnarled, embittered kind of jerks who will tell you that they only listen to classical music and NPR." As Colonel Potter would say: "Mule fritters!" So she doesn't choose her comics the same way that I do. That's fine. It doesn't really give her the right* to be a jerk about it, though.

    *The First Amendment does that.
  • I do read lots of artsy-fartsy comics, and mostly don't care about superhero stories. But I agree with you about that part of the article. I'm sure she's trying to be provocative; I just thought that point was so obviously stupid that it wasn't worth responding to at all.
  • I'm a Previews-fan. I read Previews, and if it looks interesting to me I buy it. I can read who the creative team is, and if it is someone I dig, great. If not then I might skip it.
  • I'm probably more writer-based than anything else. Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Slott, David. I'd like to think that I'll get around to reading most of their work sooner or later. Any project they worked on would merit attention from me (although I don't always buy into a series when it's first running.)

    Buying the recent Detective Comics was unusual for me as I bought it about 85% for the art and 15% for the connections to 52 and Grant Morrison's work. I would have lived without it if not for the art. But then I got into JHWIII on account of Promethea and the Black Glove.

    Apart from obviously stunning artists like JHWIII, I really rate artists that present the writers work with a minimum of 'interference'. This is a supremely difficult quality for an artist to develop, but they tend to be very under-rated. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of Steve Dillon, John McCrea (both Irish collaborators of the very writerly Garth Ennis, as it happens) and Carlos Esquerra. With those guys you get very clear capable storytelling that is in service to the writer's message. Which is all a bit of a side-track, but just to show that I'm a writer-first kind of fan.

    All comics fans probably go through the character-based phase along the way, but as the original wirter points out, that way lies heartbreak and madness. Look at what my poor old avatar ,the Vision was put through in the interim between Perez' two goes at him!
  • Character-fan. If a writer does something dumb with one of my favorites ("Ted Grant would never say that..."), I just have to wait until someone else writes it.
  • Yes.
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