And yeah, I'm definitely getting old, at age 57 now. I still think of the comics from the early/mid 1990's as "the new stuff".
I'm still waiting for those days to come back.
Yeah, call me a grumpy old man, but I think comics peaked in the 1970-1985 period, with another peak of material by Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and others in 1986. There was still good stuff coming out from 1986-1992, but an increasingly low ratio of quality. In 1990-1995, I was buying maybe 6 to 8 titles regularly. And then for me, there was nothing left, it just became too much work and money to buy and read the few new books coming out that might turn out to be good.
After that, in disgust I stopped buying new books altogether. With brief periods every couple years where I'd buy new books again, and consistently be disappointed. More than disappointed, pissed off that I had paid money for this garbage.
I kept saying it was a temporary phase, that it would pass and there would be a return to great storytelling again. But it's 25 years now, and the new books still piss me off. Dark, pretentious, and just nothing new, constantly re-inventing what was already done better in a previous and more creative period.
If it weren't for back issues, and for collected hardcovers and trades of material from a better and more fun era, I would have lost interest in comics a long time ago.
Once in a while there's a Mignola HELLBOY, or an Aragones GROO, or a Joe Kubert ABRAHAM STONE, or a Craig Russell ELRIC, or a Ladronn HIP FLASK, or a Bud Root CAVEWOMAN, but mostly 30 straight years of disappointment.
