Has your reading matured?

I'd like to say it has.....but I know that I still read a lot of **** compared to some of the better works out there.

When I first started out in comics back in my teens...I had no clue about Watchmen, Preacher, V, etc. But then a few years back I started reading comics again thanks to Ultimates.

My interst grew from there. I went onto 616, DC, Image, Wildstorm, Vertigo, etc.


So it took a lot of money.....but I was able to go back and read Watchmen, Preacher, Kingdom Come, Promethea and other comics that have been classified as brilliant. To be quite honest---there should be a mandatory list of comics to read once you become a fan. And while I recognize their greatness......I still enjoy the trivial comics like X-23 and Supergirl.

So yes....my reading has matured....but I still like the crap every now and then. If nothing else---to remind me why the greats are considered great.
 
The way I see it is like this:

It's possible to be Valedictorian of your school with nothing but D-grades if everyone else flunks out of every class.

And there you are, with your D-grades, calling yourself Valedictorian. And you are - until someone with a C-grade shows up and you're ****ed.

A lot of time people will watch a TV show or read a series because there's nothing better in the same vein in the market. Smallville was the only superhero series out at the time, and it was about Superman. It's a **** show, but it's going to pull in an audience because there's no competition.

As you meet more people and talk more you find more and more titles, and you stop reading the wrose ones because better ones have arrived.

It's not a maturity in a sense of being smart/adult/discerning. It's just a maturity of being an audience to story. The more stories you're an audience too, the more your ability to find good and bad works matures.
 
Well... I wanted to say something, but to avoid being repetitive I'll just quote whichever one I think fits what I wanted to say the most...


Bass said:
It's not a maturity in a sense of being smart/adult/discerning. It's just a maturity of being an audience to story. The more stories you're an audience too, the more your ability to find good and bad works matures.
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Yeah, that's pretty much it.
 
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I think "matured" is the wrong word. My tastes have certainly changed, but when I've added books like Cable/Deadpool and Nextwave to my collection it's hard to say that I've become more mature. At the same time I do think the general quality of what I read has gone up. I started with only the UU, but now the only books I like in the UU are Ultimates 2 and UFF. I read a lot of 616 marvel after I promised myself I wouldn't (for fear of 40 years of continuity), I've bought a lot of 'classic' books (Watchmen, DKR, Kingdom Come, etc) and now I'm getting into Vertigo. So quality: up. Maturity: maybe not.
 
McCheese said:
I think "matured" is the wrong word. My tastes have certainly changed, but when I've added books like Cable/Deadpool and Nextwave to my collection it's hard to say that I've become more mature. At the same time I do think the general quality of what I read has gone up. I started with only the UU, but now the only books I like in the UU are Ultimates 2 and UFF. I read a lot of 616 marvel after I promised myself I wouldn't (for fear of 40 years of continuity), I've bought a lot of 'classic' books (Watchmen, DKR, Kingdom Come, etc) and now I'm getting into Vertigo. So quality: up. Maturity: maybe not.
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I don't think it is the wrong word so much as different context... I mean you can put down the wording but it is pretty much the same thing. And Bass is right, maybe what you are reading isn't more mature, but the fact that you're reading it rather than seven different titles with the same character shows you are maturing. Hell, he says it better and I guess I should just quote it again...
Bass said:
It's not a maturity in a sense of being smart/adult/discerning. It's just a maturity of being an audience to story. The more stories you're an audience too, the more your ability to find good and bad works matures.
Click to expand...
It is like this: You can buy comics because of the character or the guest-star or Wolverine (since the word "guest-star" doesn't do that justice) or you can buy comics for the story and skip over the ones you know are going to be ****.
 
If anything, I think my reading has "immatured". I mean, once I got to college, I discovered ElfQuest and the idea that indy comics had great stories and characters who had never even heard of spandex. And now I'm back to reading superhero stuff and graphic novels/comics pitched to kids. :D

Joking aside, I don't think it's a case of one's taste "maturing". There are novels dealing with some pretty serious subject matter written for kids: death, mental illness, alcoholism, abandonment, etc. The vocabulary might be simpler than an adult novel, and some of the subject matter might be toned down a little, but the books are still pretty heavy. You don't have to read the classics to find good character development or universal themes. Any decent writer will likely have them in his or her works.

Victor's idea of a "mandatory" list of comics to read once you're a fan is interesting and I see where he's coming from, but I would argue against it. It's like the idea that any book listed as "classic" should be mandatory reading. A lot of the classics are so hard to wade through or are so dated that being forced to read them would kill most people's interest in ever reading anything again. In the same vein, a number of comic titles that people rave about are ones that I have no interest in reading, sometimes because of the subject matter, sometimes because of the graphic depictions of the content.

If people are defining "matured" by whether or not a person reads "adult" or "Max" comics, then my reading will never mature, because there are plenty of titles I avoid for the same reason I don't go to R-rated movies: they tend to contain themes and descriptions I just plain don't want in my entertainment. It's the author's/director's right to do the story that way, but it's my right to find something else to read/watch.

I know that my interests have changed over the years, that what I find entertaining has shifted to different topics and sometimes genres. Do I still read superhero stuff? Sure. I also read it as a kid. I may see things in the stories or characters I wouldn't have noticed as a kid, but I still read some of it. I also read indies, prose novels, poetry, and lot of other things, some intended for kids, and some not. I think at a certain point, one hits a plateau -- you can enjoy a variety of different genres and levels of literature, and not worry about whether it's outside your "maturity level" or not. If the story's good and the characters written well, that's the important thing.

Of course, there will always be different definitions of what's "good", but that's a whole 'nother topic.
 
I just buy comics that I like. I guess that 'maturity' has never bothered me. I manage to read comics on both ends of the spectrum. A lot of you are saying that you only read UU comics when you came to the site. That's really not true for me; I've been reading 616 and DC since I was really young. To be fair though, there was like a year when I thought that UU was OMG TEH BEST THING EVAH!!!11 But...not so much anymore...on one hand I want to buy only Vertigo and Wildstorm, but I also loves me some good 'ol fashioned superheroes.
 
Bass said:
A lot of time people will watch a TV show or read a series because there's nothing better in the same vein in the market. Smallville was the only superhero series out at the time, and it was about Superman. It's a **** show, but it's going to pull in an audience because there's no competition.

As you meet more people and talk more you find more and more titles, and you stop reading the wrose ones because better ones have arrived.

It's not a maturity in a sense of being smart/adult/discerning. It's just a maturity of being an audience to story. The more stories you're an audience too, the more your ability to find good and bad works matures.
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Damn, you're good.

And here I was on some nonsense about limited plurality.

But yeah, sometimes the less works you know about, the less you know yourself as an audience. The more works you know about, the better your ability to find yourself as an audience.
 
I brign up the case of south park where the kids teach officer brady to read. And he reads this reccommended book but never wants to read again because the book was absolutely horrible. I would say whatever floats your boat and pick a really good title that follows along the lines of what you enjoy reading. Black sun Rising was one of my faves in high school.
 
Pandrio said:
I don't think it is the wrong word so much as different context... I mean you can put down the wording but it is pretty much the same thing. And Bass is right, maybe what you are reading isn't more mature, but the fact that you're reading it rather than seven different titles with the same character shows you are maturing. Hell, he says it better and I guess I should just quote it again...
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I wasn't trying to put down the wording, just mentioning that some of the books I read can be pretty puerile. I don't think any part of my post contradicts Bass' post, but just in case lets read it again.
Bass said:
It's not a maturity in a sense of being smart/adult/discerning. It's just a maturity of being an audience to story. The more stories you're an audience too, the more your ability to find good and bad works matures.
Click to expand...
Pandrio said:
It is like this: You can buy comics because of the character or the guest-star or Wolverine (since the word "guest-star" doesn't do that justice) or you can buy comics for the story and skip over the ones you know are going to be ****.
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I agree completely and like I said I think the quality of the books I read have gone up. Therefore I think I've matured as a reader even if the books I read haven't, which I thought I already implied in the previous post.
 
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McCheese said:
I wasn't trying to put down the wording, just mentioning that some of the books I read can be pretty puerile. [...] I think I've matured as a reader even if the books I read haven't, which I thought I already implied in the previous post.
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Exactly.

I don't see how enjoying material that is completely 'puerile' is somehow mutually exclusive of being a 'mature' reader.

Also as Bass and I have been saying, part of it has to do with figuring out yourself as an audience. It's about knowing what you want on a level beyond the surface of yourself.
 
Well, I started off reading USM, Usagi Yojimbo, and random digests and TPBs that were lying around the house (original Dark Phoenix saga, Kingdom Come, DC comics (especially Legion comics) from the 60's or 70's).

Right now, I most faithfully read Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Runaways, Amazing Spider-Girl, Crossing Midnight, Y: The Last Man, Fallen Angel, Fables, the new Legion of Superheroes, and a handful of other titles. I tolerate USM out of nostalgia... if it were a new title, I don't think I'd keep reading it. That's kind of sad.

I'd say I fit Bass' scenario... I used to read a small amount of comics, then expanded, and read maybe the top 20% of what I find.
 
McCheese said:
I wasn't trying to put down the wording, just mentioning that some of the books I read can be pretty puerile. I don't think any part of my post contradicts Bass' post, but just in case lets read it again.


I agree completely and like I said I think the quality of the books I read have gone up. Therefore I think I've matured as a reader even if the books I read haven't, which I thought I already implied in the previous post.
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Sorry?:?
McCheese said:
I think "matured" is the wrong word.
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I thought you meant that that was the wrong word to use to describe it. I guess not. I apologize for the misinterpretation.
 
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Ultimate Houde said:
Read Are you there God, it's me Magaret, changed my freaking life.
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It almost made me want to change my sex and become Margaret. It was fascinating!

That's more than what I can do
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Thats ok, you're a scientist, not an author or an English teacher...you only have to know how to read and spell "flammable chemicals" and "do not mix with synthetic X or concussive explosion will result".
 
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