Readers Answer: Why Not Just Superheroes?
I was going to do a more detailed roundup/summary/analysis of readers'
responses in the
"Why
Just Superheroes" comment
thread but
Neilalien
beat me to it. (Plus, I don't want to steal
Ed
Cunard's thunder in case he decides to write a column about
this.) I will say that I wasn't trying to browbeat superhero fans
into diversifying their reading material. I was just wondering
why anyone would want to read only superhero comics. I'm trying
to think back on my own comic-buying habits and remember if there was a
time when I only read superheroes. I can't think of such a time,
but that doesn't mean that there wasn't such a period in my
comic-purchasing past. (I have a really poor memory, so I may be
forgetting my shameful superhero-only phase.) The closest I can
come up with is when I was little and my parents used to buy a lot of
my comics for me. But even then my parents would buy me
non-superhero comics such as
Turok or other Gold Key
comics and I would devour those along with any and all funny books.
I guess I don't understand the mindset of being interested in only one
genre in any medium. (Not saying it's wrong, just that -- as
someone external to that mindset -- I have trouble fully entertaining
the notion.) I enjoy film, but I don't limit myself to just
action movies. I enjoy prose, but I don't limit myself to
mysteries alone (or fiction alone, for that matter). Then again,
maybe "omnivorousness" across different media is rarer than
"specializing" in certain genres: As Jennifer de Guzman points
out, there probably are people who are only interested in reading
Danielle Steele romances or Dean Koontz thrillers. And obviously
everyone who saw
Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't waiting
in line to see
The Barbarian Invasions.
So, I don't have any answers, but I thank you for sharing your thoughts
with me. Maybe Ed can pull some better, deeper insights out of
your responses if he ends up doing a column on this topic. (
Hint,
hint, Ed.)
