Got told I was reading comics wrong by a guy at a con in Portland

I was at a small convention in Portland last spring. I had a stack of 90s X-Men issues I was flipping through. Some guy in a Deadpool hoodie walks up and says "You're reading them too fast, you're missing all the background details." I brushed it off at first but then I tried slowing down on a random issue of Astonishing X-Men. Started noticing stuff like the art in the corners, how word balloons were placed, even the letters page. It's small but it changed how I go through any comic now. Has anyone else had a random stranger's comment stick with them like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

jesse_fisher29d ago

I used to breeze through comics at thrift stores without actually looking at them. Then a guy at a Half Price Books told me I was treating them like magazines instead of art. It hit different because he was right. Now I spend a full minute on each page, especially the weird panel layouts in stuff like Sandman or Planetary.

skyler4326d ago

Sat down and read an article about how comics were originally made for slower reading back in the day because the artists put all this hidden stuff in the backgrounds. Like in old X-Men issues, John Byrne would hide in-jokes or tiny characters in crowd scenes that you'd totally miss if you flipped past too fast. It made me go back and look at a bunch of my old Frank Miller Daredevil books... crazy how much detail is in the shadows and building shapes. I started going panel by panel on every page now. Really changes the whole experience.