What made you drop a book?

What has caused you to drop an ongoing book? Was it the plot? Art? Change in schedule? Just a general lost of interest?
Personally I dropped Superman after Bendis came onboard and dropped Batman during the Tyrant King arc.

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I love your Profile picture! New Super-man’s costume is so good! If I had to say, I drop titles due to loss of interest. Mostly this happens when time between titles becomes too long or I have a different series I want to try out. For example, I dropped Bendis’s Action Comics for Superman because I wanted to read about Superboy’s return over the underground mafia!

I dropped titles when I read more than DC because I wanted to increase the amount of titles I was reading in trades or trim down my pull list just for the sake of it.

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Basic rule of thumb: if I can’t remember how the last issue ended, the writer has probably lost me and the book gets dropped.

Over the years, I’ve also left many titles because of a change in creative teams (though I usually give them a chance), though that decision is usually based more on the writer than the artist.

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The Punisher had War Machines armor and used it to rip a soldier in half. Closed the book and deleted rest of series off Marvel Unlimited

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I typically drop a comic for one of two reasons:

  1. Boredom. Sometimes a book starts off interesting but then begins to feel like the writer just started mailing it in. If I feel like I’m wasting my time, I’m done.

  2. Politics. I read comics to get away from all that real life crap. I don’t need a writer who probably has less life experience than I do trying to preach to me. And that goes for both sides of the aisle. I’m an equal opportunity political dissident. Entertain me, but as the song goes, “Papa don’t preach”

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BTW, I am really picky about art. But I check that out before I buy and avoid books with art I know I will hate. It bugs me enough to ruin the story so I avoid and don’t have to drop because of it.

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@lonelyLobo I’ve picked up books though like Captain America: Sam Wilson because of the political stance.

@Nathan

To each his/her own. There’s nothing wrong with it. It just isn’t my thing. I’ve got more to read than time as it is now so I stick to things that I know I will enjoy.

Plus there are books with a mild look at things and then there is the in-your-face junk. Mild with a great story might keep my interest. In-your-face won’t get a whiff from me.

:wink:

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Bad writing will make me drop one quick. I can over look the are as everyone have there own style but a book been Wrote or treated badly I will stop reading quick. The best example is the New 52 Green Arrow as that book was garbage. It’s like who they had on the first 17 issues had no…pardon me… No FUCKING clue about Green Arrow!!! Two part stories…one part stories. No structure what so ever as well as making Ollie more like Hawkeye from Marvel as I’m sure cuz of the movies. That’s not My Oliver Queen by a long shot. I consider my self one of the biggest Green Arrow fans out there and have him trying to be in the Justine League and doing deals with Steve Trevor was so sad. Ollie never felt like her belonged in the Justice League even though they came to him…He fight Corruption and corporate fat cats who profit from the poor and needy. Always fighting for the little guy while been a tree hugger. Don’t get me wrong “Outsider Wars” was good but other than that in the New 52 GA. It was Garbage and made me sad just to pick up an issue.

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I dropped Spider-Gwen a few issues after the new writer came on board. I was really looking forward to it, but ultimately I felt like the characters weren’t acting in a way that made sense. I fully plan on checking it out again though once the TPB is out and I can see all the issues in succession.
I also dropped Tom King’s Batman for…Well, a lot of reasons really. I didn’t like his first three storylines, but I decided to check it out again for The War of Jokes and Riddles. It still wasn’t my thing, but then I heard Batman was marring Catwoman, which is my OTP. That of course didn’t happen, and I’ve ultimately decided maybe this just isn’t the run for me LOL :joy:

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Interesting question. Not sure I’m totally aware of the reasons sometimes.

Outside of DC, I dropped X-men Red because too little seemed to be happening per issue, I still didn’t know some basic things about newer characters despite being like 8 issues in, and the price per issue was steep.

In DC, I wanted to drop Batman because of the bait-and-switch with the Catwoman wedding, except the next arc was actually compelling. But I only read the (digital) trade paperbacks, so maybe when Tom King’s run is done, I’ll stop? I sort of migrated to his Heroes In Crisis series.

I have an on-off relationship to some Scott Snyder titles (All-Star Batman, Justice League stuff) because he’s always adding a new conspiracy plot retconned into the character’s past, and all this dark multiverse nonsense is becoming unwieldy.

In general massive drops in art quality, a new writer, or a sense of redundancy will make me leave. I’m less eager to read Nightwing and Red Hood since they both decided to do massive character swings/redesigns with their respective heroes. “Ric” Grayson? Oy. It seems like stupidly “gritty” reboots are another aspect of the 90s that’s becoming popular again.

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So, I tend to wait for trades rather than read issues as they come out (cheaper that way), so I haven’t really dropped anything between issues, but of the four Rebirth books I started reading, I actually dropped three of them, all after the fourth volume (not counting crossovers like Night of the Monster Men and The Button).

I dropped Batman after The War of Jokes and Riddles because Tom King’s writing is full of more holes than Swiss cheese, and is all very generically edgy without much regard for the actual characters. So, to categorize it as a more “generic” reason, I’ll call this frustration with the storytelling. Got out largely before the wedding fiasco hit, so there’s a plus.

I dropped Justice League after some story arc where they were in a place doing a thing. Or something. Maybe? I literally cannot tell you a single thing that happened in Justice League Rebirth. Chalk this up to extreme boredom. It’s made me very wary to check out the current series.

Nightwing was nowhere near as frustrating as Batman or as boring as Justice League… but it was sometimes kinda frustrating, sometimes kinda boring, and rarely especially exciting. Also, it had Damian Wayne in it. A lot. That would’ve been reason enough right there. Seems like I got out just in time to avoid this “Ric Grayson” trainwreck, too.

I did not drop Detective Comics. Detective Comics was good, and while it wasn’t quite as good as Tynion’s work, I still enjoyed the last volume they put out. I’ve heard good things about Tomasi’s work on it, but no trade yet, so I haven’t read it myself.

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Greasy fingers

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Thanks for the insight guys. I’m debating whether or not to drop Doomsday Clock because it’s taking way too long to come out at this point, but I love Gary Frank’s art and Geoff Johns has not metaphorically pooped the bed for me yet.

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Sometimes I am low in cash so I drop the least interesting book

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@benlibodi

What I have done with Doomsday Clock is just stop reading it for now. I have too much invested in it to drop it and too many issues to wait and buy the trade as much will be doubled up. So I still buy my issues every time one is published (digitally) and will start back from the beginning when I have all 12 in hand.

It works for me but YMMV.

reads RDB’s post That’s gold Jerry! Gold!

Regarding other points of discussion, I can understand the desire to stop reading a title because of delays. You don’t like the wait and you figure you’ll catch up in trade. I did that a few times myself when I was into Marvel.

The downside (as I’m sure all are aware of) is you’re compounding the issue of waiting if/when you do that. If there’s a delay in the single issues, then the eventual trade gets delayed that much more. I’d say it’s better to just stick with the singles, especially if you’ve already got a decent amount of a particular story/series and it’s a high priority read for you when that title does release a new issue.

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I sometimes drop it when they kill an important character, or get rid of a great relationship, or give somebody amnesia. I also don’t like having a lot of reboots. I stopped reading Spider-man after One More Day, and just picked it up again when he got back with Mary Jane. It’s kind of frustrating when they break people up because they don’t know how to write somebody in a relationship. I stopped Superman and Action Comics because they got rid of Lois and Jon which was the best part of Rebirth. I also dropped Nightwing because I was looking forward to the Batgirl arc, but then they shot him and gave him the same boring amnesia plot which has happened to every character already. Also, I don’t like stuff that’s too depressing which is why I dropped Batman. I liked his relationship, but then Tom King just started destroying everything that had happened in the first 50 issues.

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May as well start off with New52 stuff, since I was giving it a shot.

Superman - I realized I missed an issue and didn’t care. Didn’t even make it to double-digits.
Legion Lost - Gave this a fair shot, and have liked some of Fabien Nicieza’s previous work, but I just didn’t care about the characters.
Action - After Morrison’s run, I gave the next writer two issues, and he didn’t really wow me.
Wonder Woman - Pretty sure I stopped after Azzarello’s run finished.
Aquaman - It just got dull.
Batgirl - Simone’s run was okay, but kind of meh. The “big reveal” that Babs’ psycho brother was alive was about as surprising as dirt on a mudflap.
Justice League - Annoyance. I didn’t get the feeling like these characters liked each other AT ALL. Batman referred to Supes as his friend in one issue and I’m sitting here like, “really?” Not Johns’ best work.
Batman & Detective Comics - Dropped these after that unholy mess that was Batman & Robin Eternal screwed up Cassandra Cain (among other characters, if you include Batman Eternal), and they decided to put the guy mostly credited for the story on 'Tec. Great idea, get the guy with a tertiary understanding of fan-favorite characters on a book heavily featuring them, despite the fact his story resolution and character development skills are bad and he can, at best, parrot dialogue from before the big dumb retcon of 2011.

Other than that, I remember dropping Amazing Spider-Man because post-OMD Spidey was not entertaining at all.

Common theme here, folks: sweeping editorial mandates are freakin’ stupid. Mostly because the people giving them out are freakin’ stupid.

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