You all showed out in this month’s Mailbag Q&A, as I had a ton of questions from folks, and it resulted in a very fun and nearly 6,000 word column!!! With that in mind, let’s get straight into subscriber and patron questions, as there’s a ton to get through!

Why do you hate digital David, what did digital do to you? I wanted to add that this is said tongue in cheek. I am just curious what factors still tip the scales in a preference for physical comics for you. – Greg Peterson

There are three things that contribute to my deep, unrelenting, unstoppable hatred of digital comics, Greg. One is that I just really like physical things. Comics, books, even Blu Rays! I like an object that says this is mine, and the tactile experience it comes with. Two, when I read digital comics, I constantly forget they exist because I don’t have a formal comic shop like experience, so I almost exclusively binge read things digitally. There’s no regularity to the experience.

And the final thing is maybe a bit outside the box but an important factor nonetheless. I try to limit my screen time as much as possible, particularly before I go to sleep. And the vast majority of my comic reading happens then. Screens are said to impact your sleep, and so digital just does not combine well with my goal of sleeping well. You know what does? Ink and paper! On the rare occasion I’m on a screen a lot before bed — I don’t even allow my phone to be in my bedroom at night, as I charge it in my kitchen to remove the temptation — my sleep is bad. And when I read a novel or comics before sleep, it’s good. So, I know that this theory is correct.

But really, it just comes down to my hatred of digital, plain and simple. And as I told you when you asked this question, Greg, it knows what it did!

I am a relative newcomer to a paid SKTCHD subscription, but I am loving everything you are currently writing, David. My favorite articles lean towards revealing more about the state of David Harper, rather than that of the comic book industry. I am also digging the glimpse you give into the SKTCHD archives in each of your weekly newsletters. My question is this: What would you consider your top 10 archive stories about comics and you? – Julian Andrews

As I told Julian, this is a very tough question because there are a great many ways I can interpret it. Even with further guidance, I wasn’t sure I could answer it well, if only because I thought that I tried to avoid too much of an overlap between myself and my work. In my mind, it limits personal bias in my writing. Let me tell you, though: answering this question made me realize that I constantly inject myself into my work, which is clearly where it’s all born from. So, thank you Julian for helping me understand my own work better! I am very, very present in my work.

Anyways, here are ten articles from the SKTCHD archives that feel the most reflective of my take on comics. There are plenty more to choose from as well.

• “I Find it Fascinating to Have Your Work Live Somewhere New”: Maria Nguyen on the Station Eleven Graphic Novel — This might seem like a strange pick, but this came to be because a) I loved the TV show Station Eleven and b) I found it super interesting that an in-world graphic novel played a key role in its story, one that was actually created to some degree. So, I asked the person who made it — Maria Nguyen — to talk with me about it, and it was a fascinating chat that has proven to be I believe the most read thing I’ve ever done. I suspect that’s because literally no one else thought this might be interesting besides me (and it was)!
• “Pizza With All the X-Tras”: The Story Behind the X-Men x Pizza Hut Promotion, 30 Years Later — Similarly, this was a curiosity to me and was the type of thing that I’d write that wouldn’t get traction at other sites. I loved putting it together, and it is also one of my most read articles.
• 50 Reasons Why I Love Comics — This was about my relationship with comics to the absolute max, so it’s an obvious pick.
• Names as Symbols: On the Importance of Artist Signatures, and the Story Behind Some of Them — When I was interviewing someone for this piece, they initially told me they didn’t think the idea was interesting, then they couldn’t stop thinking about it, and then they were perplexed to the point they asked me, “How do you come up with stuff?!” I think that’s kind of my sweet spot! I like looking at things other folks don’t.
• The Power Rangers Artist Tree — This piece was born from the intersection of my love of sports and comics. I’m not the only person who loves both, but I think I blend the two more than most.
• Value Over Replacement Batman — I love sports, and I also love sports statistics. This article, which found me creating a statistic in VORB to rate the impact of different creators across the past 25 years of Batman comics, was proof of that. I loved it. It also generated one of the funniest responses from a creator on social media that I had ever seen, which I will not get into!
• The Immediacy Index — This analyzes of the urgency my entire read pile creates in me, as I ranked varying titles into tiers based on how quickly I read them after buying them. It was extremely me.
• When is Reading an Omnibus the Right Choice? — Another article that is surprisingly one of my most read pieces, this came from my distaste for omnibi as a format, as I rated the different ways you can read an omnibus even though the right answer is truly “just don’t read omnibi.”
• Comics, Seriously: Frank’s Very Bad Plan — This piece came from my love of Klaus Janson’s cover to 1987’s The Punisher #1, and how I love to contemplate what would actually happen if certain fantastical things happened. Like, what if The Punisher actually took the shot depicted on the cover? It was so fun.
• Emerald City Comic Con 2022: Which Creators Make Other Creators Ask, “How Are They So Good?!” — I rarely do video things, but this was part of a five questions series that I love doing and have loved doing going all the way back to my Multiversity Comics days. It was a lot of fun doing this one in particular, if only to learn about which creators excite their peers. Also, I’m thinking of doing a new video series??? So maybe more to come???

Do you have any “rules” for assembling your collection of Uncanny X-Men volume 1? i.e. you will only buy issues in person at shops you are visiting and are not constantly looking on eBay or sites like mycomicshop.com? Relatedly, what other runs/volumes do you think would make for a good collecting challenge/pursuit? – Jonathan Auerbach

I used to say I can only find them in the wild. That was a long-standing rule. But then I realized I didn’t care that much. So far, I’m mostly keeping it to in person, but if there’s a screaming deal for something that’d be hard to find in Alaska, I’ll buy it off eBay (that’s how I got X-Men #94) or Mile High Comics. I’m at a point where some of the issues are very hard to find, so extending beyond Alaska is necessary. And frankly, I don’t take a lot of trips outside of Alaska for comic reasons, and when they do, it’s for work related to what I do on SKTCHD and Off Panel.

The one rule I really have though, and some people will find this to be a cheat, is that I do not need to buy the reprint issues that ran from #67 to #93. That will result in an incomplete collection. I know this. But I don’t care. They’re reprints! I’m not so obsessive I need reprints as well.

As for what other runs/volumes would make for a good collecting challenge/pursuit, honestly, that’s a purely eye of the beholder thing. I don’t think I have any other titles in me that I have to get. There’s nothing else I feel that urge to get everything from. And beyond that, I prefer reading in collections, and with reading being my main goal, that’s the way I lean.

That said, I am trying to get Stilt-Man’s first appearance in as many languages and country-specific editions as possible. I have two in English and Portuguese (it’s an edition from Brazil), so it’s not a quickly building collection. But there will be more!

Right now, it’s fair to say we’re in a pretty conservative X-Men era in terms of new ideas or status quo. Obviously not in terms of quantity, of course. Quality of the current books aside, it’s very reasonable to say they’re not trying to be very interesting or inventive from an editorial-down view. It’s just the X-Men comics like you might remember them, or maybe you’ve heard of X-Men comics or seen a cartoon? They’re like that.  

We’ve seen this happen before — big eras of X-Men give way to very standard ones before looping back around. New X-Men led to Astonishing. Gillen Uncanny to Aaron Wolverine & The X-Men. Bendis X-Men -> Radio Static, Don’t Worry About the Inhumans -> X-Men Gold/Blue etc. The reverse is true too! Cool stuff coming after…traditional.

The question for you is, how long do you think this From the Ashes lasts? What do you see coming after this? Do you think they take a big swing, or do they hold the line until the X-Men show up in the movies? I’d appreciate just your thoughts on the era in general. – Joshua

My guess is that the commonality between all these runs is that they last as long as sales merit and/or as long as the creators want to work on them. I suspect Grant Morrison just didn’t have more story to tell in New X-Men, Whedon and Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men was completed (after a spell!), and the rest were probably somewhere on both sides of the spectrum. And as you noted, the From the Ashes era does not seem very creator driven, so I suspect it will last as long as the sales support its survival. With an array of (admittedly secondary) titles seemingly on the outs already, it’s possible it could be shorter than we might expect. My guess is two years.

And my wager on whatever comes next would be something that pushes in the other direction. From the Ashes is a response to Krakoa, so I’d guess that the next thing will respond to the strengths and weaknesses of this era. The X-Men aren’t the only cyclical thing in comics. DC and Marvel as a whole are, to be honest. We’ll see a rebound in the other direction soon enough.

That said, the potential impact of a Marvel Cinematic Universe adaptation of Marvel’s Merry Mutants cannot be discounted. If anything is going to prevent the next story from being bold and original, it’s going to be, I don’t know, Paul Mescal being cast as Cyclops or something. That timing is very difficult to guess on. My bet is it comes right after The Avengers: Secret Wars leads it into a new era. If that was the case, that would mean the current era will have to last about four years to make it there. I’m skeptical it will do that. So, here’s my wager: Two years of this era, two years of a big swing, and then back for a more classic yet movie-like feel afterwards.

As for my thoughts on the current era, I am reading zero titles in single issues with Mystique now complete. Take that how you will!