How Do You Promote What You Don't Read

I very much have this question in mind of late.  It is something that is causing me to feel like I come off as a "Comicbook Elite" when I talk with someone about Marvel's movies.  I walked completely away from all current Marvel titles around 2007 because of the "One More Day" story in Spider-Man's books.  I thought for a long time that Marvel was going away from character driven stories to a more here is a story and let us make a character we want fit the story way of making comics.  I suffered through Civil War and then watched Spidey betray all Aunt May and Uncle Ben taught him.  I held on to one title, Nova.  That ended as the crossover event driven model began to dominate and Nova was sucked into that as well.  So I stopped reading any current Marvel.

In fact I remember reading and even listening to Joe Quesada say at HeroesCon that if I (readers) didn't like the current stories that there were plenty of back issues we could read.  I took his suggestion.  I now read plenty of DC and have my smaller press companies, but my loyalty to Marvel was broken.  The few people who know me online can attest that this was a big break for me.  Still, it brings me to my current situation.  When people know you are a comicbook collector and love comics they want to discuss the current mainstream stuff with you.  I am having problems saying no I have not seen Wolverine and not becoming Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons in qualifying why I have not seen a movie.

Even though I dislike what and where Marvel is going I do not want their films to tank as Wolverine has in terms of the market for his film compared to the first in his franchise.  I want it to help lead people to the real stories.  If people like that type of story and they start buying books it is good for the industry in my opinion.  So how do I support the industry and not support Marvel?  It is difficult.  The shear size of the behemoth that is Marvel dominates the comicbook pop culture landscape.  So I feel bad when I seem wishy washy on support to really non-comicbook fans who are trying to connect.

There is no real answer.  I just have to try and not dampen the person's interest while relaying that I am not currently reading a bunch of current Marvel.  Be polite and just steer the conversation to what they liked.  That works well.  You do not sound arrogant and along the way you can put little nuggets into the conversation by letting them know which is a long time character and which is a new for the movie character.

As for skipping Flashback Friday, well, nothing jumped out as a book to put up last Friday.  I also had given you posts during the week.  I thought letting the Greg Rucka book stay up a bit longer was better.  I hope to have Mutant Monday up today.  The pic I found and used reminded me of something I did in college.  It was the Wall O' Marvel.  I stuck Marvel trading cards on my wall and had what looked like a giant poster.  It was cool and a nice time consuming project when I was bored.

BDS