Regrettable Phases

[disneyweirdness]

What is something that you loved in comics that you were ashamed to discover was widely derided, mocked, or considered uncool?

For example, if you were a Liefeld fan and then you saw this floating around the Internet.

[junkflower]

I don't know how closely these adhere to the intended topic but:

- Neil Gaiman's Sandman: read and enjoyed this as a teen. It seemed to be an untouchable classic then, but now seems regarded as embarrassing theater kid dreck.

- Larry Hama's GI Joe: for some reason I collected a ton of the Marvel GI Joe books as a kid and teen. They're stashed at my parents' house now so I can't comment on how I'd feel about them now. At the time, prior to the remake-and-sequel-izatiom of everything it seemed pretty novel that Marvel had published Transformers and GI Joe comics not explicitly aimed at the youngest set. Seems really silly and passe now.

...other than that I was a big mainstream fan as a youth and had big runs of the then recent JLA and JSA comics. I loved the JSA especially, and the fannish history that'd come with updating some old hero nobody ever gave two shits about. All that stuff seems painfully embarrassing to me now.

I also read heaps and heaps of awful manga both in print and scans. Wouldn't even know where to start, there

[BubblesZine]

Not to derail the thread but, none really for me. Everything I read and liked brought me to where I am today and all the great comics I've found. I read Y: The Last Man at age at 18 and I have fond memories of staying up late and each cliffhanger leading me to read one more issue. I probably couldn't get into that comic these days.

Maybe I'd feel more strongly if I had a superhero phase.

Dave Sim being a clown makes me regret my Cerebus phase lol but that's complicated.

[Ian M]

The last few years I've come around on most stuff and learned to see some good in most work. I don't want to buy a new Liefeld book, but I bought a collection which had a few issues he did in his early Marvel years in it, and I was able to appreciate it for what it meant to me back then: excitement.

There's a lot of comics I left behind, but the last few years and especially the last two, I've been revisiting a lot of "uncool" comics and really like them. I bought a collection of Acts of Vengeance which was not better than indies I get, but was really pleasant to read. My tastes are way too weird to enjoy mainstream comics websites, but I get pretty tired of the hyperbole of some indie readers too. 

Some of it is just my personal life has gotten to the point where I read way more than I watch TV and I have time and money so my reading list has become genuinely diverse: indie/mainstream/"art"/American/Euro/manga. But I'm more embarrassed that I was ever embarrassed about reading something than that I read it. Life's too short to let others inform you of what you can enjoy!

[awfulquiet]

I maybe regret spending so much money indiscriminately as a Wednesday warrior for awhile. But don't really regret reading or being a fan of anything. If you enjoyed it at the time no reason to have any regrets.

Now, do I regret the Green Lantern tattoo I have? Yeah, kinda.

[junkflower]

This isn't a regrettable phase of mine necessarily but I was readin' Ines Estrada's book of short work recently when I came across the various stories about hipster anthropomorphic animals, complete with the whole jorts/pizza punk/vice magazine aesthetic. I cringed! Very mid-00s.

I guess Hanselmann is still carrying that vibe out to its logical conclusion but the contemporary "social" comics besides Hate tend to age terribly IMO. I see a lot of stuff on Insta these days that I imagine will seem similarly cringey in a few years (provided that climate change doesn't annihilate our entire culture or whatever)

[thetouchtonetuner]

I wouldn't describe myself as regretting spending so much time in college/high school buying new issues of superhero books, but I certainly regret the amount of space that they take up now, lol. Comics are such a niche/dorky thing to care a lot about already that I have sort of gotten over the shame associated with being uncool by the time I started going to SPX every year. I guess I cringe a little bit about how deeply I cared about stuff like Naruto and Bleach as a teen.

[wigshop]

I still love dorky old Sandman

[catznite]

Sept 16, 2021 14:32:34 GMT wigshop said:

I still love dorky old Sandman

meee too… but i don’t regret it! i read the sandman in community college and when i ran into a reference i didn’t understand, i’d look into it. honestly learned more this way than i did at school in that time. i love “dream of a thousand cats” sm

[temporary.screenname]

Only regrettable phase when reading a bunch of shitty ecchi manga when I was a teen. I can look back fondly at everything else (lots of battle manga and superhero comics), but not when it comes to those.

[bayls171]

idk the only phases I really regret are the ones where I felt I had to love (and/or hate) stuff because "thats what other people in comics like". As a result my "rob liefeld sucks" and "geoff johns is the best" phases (probably the same time period around 14yrs old) are probably my most regrettable. There's a lot of superhero comics I read and wouldn't enjoy now but I don't regret them, but there are a chunk I read just because I felt I "had to".

'Regrettable' might be a bit strong, but it is a bit annoying looking back and seeing myself not willing to explore a little because I was all "this is what people like"

[ely]

DC blackest night lmao

[zpalladino]

From the deepest delirium of 90's Image edge-core to the most reductive of shoen jumpers, I regret nothing

Except for getting swept up into a black hole and buying a copy of this for my partner only to have them buy me a copy as well. I regret this every time I see two copies on our bookshelf, Which we leave there as a warning to our future selves. Never again.

[castingsigils]

there's a lot of things i look back on and wonder why i spent so much time on them but i'd feel like i was trying to play johnny cool guy if i was to say i regret any of them. one phase or area of interest usually led to the next quite organically so i might not have found some of the stuff i enjoy now if it wasn't for my earlier tastes

[MilleniumDibber]

Liefeld's Inkstud interview was one of the best ever. No regrets!