But The Boys, Garth Ennis' effing The Boys sold 39,000 copies and is on the Top 100 list for Diamond's Sales report for September.
...
A comic featuring an awesome supporting cast, witty humor, and a likeable superhero has been cancelled because no one was buying the book (around 12,000 sales).
And yet The Boys, a dumbass book filled with foul language, uberviolence, unlikeable characters, and superheroes acting like complete nimrods and jerks is still breaking the Top 100 sales.
(Important, but NSFW question Behind the cut!)
Can someone please explain to me why someone would prefer this:
To this?:
...wow, Blue Beetle *is* awesome.
ReplyDeleteBut you know those kids. Always wanting their violence and their porn and their 'maturity'.
Nevermind that being mature would imply not being so immature about it.
Indeed. -_-
ReplyDelete*Sigh* Oh, well, hopefully these last few issues will be good.
Im sorry im a big fan of all the stuff you do here man, but even though i havent read blue beetle so i cant personally know if id like it or not i really like the boys and i dont agree with whats being said about it here
ReplyDeleteHmm... While I did enjoy The Boys for its controversial concept, that's one thing, it's a whole other thing to have a unnessessary full shot image of two adult persons humping each other. It would be better that they would have a a scene AFTER that shot. But personally, that image alone is the reason why the comic sold more than The Beetle I think.
ReplyDeleteAnd even tough I never read Blue Beetle since I live in Sweden and it's hard to get most comics imported, I was pulled in the very nice artwork and the fact that two of the greatest superheroes gets yelled at by a woman, and that's purely awesome by itself. I'm gonna go and buy the albums. Could you name me the Blue Beetle albums I should start with?
While the first two set up the characters and situations, it's really volume 3 that starts things off strong, with John Rogers as the primary writer. So I'd go from there, unless you want to get the FULL story.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I had actually been thinking of checking out The Boys. My only past experience with Ennis was from Preacher which I actually liked a lot. Not because of the sex, and the violence (at least not entirely) but because I genuinely liked the main characters; Jesse, Tulip, The Saint of Killers, even Cassidy at some points. Plus I'm an atheist and any time God gets killed I'm happy. However, the picture you posted does give me pause, and what you've said about the characters being unlikable. I'll probably still give it a shot though (gotta form opinions for yourself and all that jazz). Well, that and I find the concept interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe Blue Beetle page you posted gives me pause too. The jokes just seem kinda corny. But, you can't judge a comic based on one page, and I'd still look into it considering the praise you're giving it. However, there's some other stuff I wanna check out first. I've been thinking of looking into Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets, Hellblazer, and Black Summer
Ugh, the art in that first one is atrocious. Why do people like that 'style'?
ReplyDeleteI consider the big draw of the image above is "look I gots an airbrush!" but it's not even that anymore it's just some jackanape with gimpshop whereas Blue Beetle with Jamie (sigh).
ReplyDeleteReading it, the damn comic made me at times cry, laugh and sigh out loud reading a comic book. And they did this as well as any indie while walking the tightrope of a HUGE company's continuity. My only hope is that since Jamie is in a new Batman cartoon and in Teen Titans that they change their mind... I'm going off to my sighing corner now.
I recently had a chance to sit and read the first TPB of the Boys so I thought I'd post my thoughts. I didn't like it at all. The characters are unlikable, the art style is nothing special, the humor was crude and unfunny,and the storyline just felt juvenile. It felt like the comic was just trying to shock me into liking it instead of crafting an interesting story with characters I genuinely liked. Overall the whole thing just felt really weak.
ReplyDeleteThe really tragic thing is, Garth Ennis *can* be a good writer. Preacher, Hitman, Punisher - okay, some story arcs in his run on Marvel Knights Punisher made me want to punch a wall down, but Garth Ennis can make a weel-crafted story.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it just seems like all he's really wanted to do was make titles like The Boys and Crossed. It's quite sad, really.
i looked for some old issues in the store i ususally go to and couldnt find one. but i saw the boys and it looks like it was colored in on photoshop, the rushed way that makes it look twice as bad as if they just did it normally
ReplyDeleteWhat issue is that sequence (the Blue Beetle one) from?
ReplyDeleteIunno. I think both of these are good in their own ways. I dont know much of the Blue Beetle other than your retrospect so Il be playing Devils Advocate for The Boys
ReplyDeleteI liked the idea of the comic. A group of guys and a chick whos job was to stop corrupt heroes. "Who protects the weak from those who protect the weak?" basically. But laced with Ennis's brand of humour. And I got exactly what I was expecting combined with brutal mockery of superhero and celebrity conventions.
But it isnt all dark and sick. It is shown that not all the heroes are bad (albeit with the good ones being susceptible to manipulation at the hands of the corrupt heroes, kind of like real life social circles.) and in the end, the good-natured scottish straight man of the team decides to be the better man by refusing to use the device that will kill all heroes, stopping the sociopathic leader of his own group and getting the girl he loves dearest.
Its the moments of levity that make the series enjoyable. Be it the black humour, the fact that even the ultraviolent members of The Boys have someone they hold dearest and that most of the corrupt get what they deserve in the end, even if "what they deserve" means "Torn apart by US army machine guns"