Fuzzy Experiment

Fuzzy Birds

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In an attempt to enhance my joy of reading comics, I'm going to conduct a year long experiment. A couple months back, when my internet server was down, I found myself reading Ultimates 2 #7 without any idea what would happen within. And it was one of the best reads I've had, because each page was a surprise.

Basically, I've realised that reading spoilers, reviews, speculation threads and even solicitations have ruined the unexpected surprise that used to come with comics. OK, spoilers and reviews are obvious, and easy to avoid, but another problem lies in speculation threads. With a hundred people each giving their own speculation as to what happens in the next issue, one of them is bound to hit close to the mark, and many of them are going to guess something that I myself would never think of, again, ruining the surprise when it eventually comes.

So, what I propose to do, is for the whole of 2006, to allow myself to be completely at the mercy of each comic. I will not read any spoilers, commenting only on an issue after I've read it and I will avoid speculation threads. The only thing I will allow myself to look at is the solicitation pages, and then, I think I'll only look at the order list to avoid reading even the merest hint of what the story is about i.e 'someone dies this issue', 'the traitor is revealed' etc etc, which only serve to inform me of upcoming plot points.

Anyway, does anyone care? Unlikely.

Will I have the will power to succeed? Unlikely.

Will I even try? Unlikely.
 
Good luck. Since I've been on this site I had

Hawkeye's Death
Thor's Defeat
Shaw's Deal
The Zombie F4 line in the 1st issue of crossover
The Beginning Of U2 #8
The Last Page of Infinite Crisis #1
The Last Line in House Of M #7

all ruined before I even got the comic. I still havn't got the last 3. It wasn't even in the damn spoilers thread. The zombie F4 line was in the greatest comic lines ever thread. the shaw Thing was in What's Shaw's Deal. no spoilers marked on that one. but this shouldn't be a problem since I'm getting my comics online starting in dec.
 
I tried this for trades. It's a bloody long wait.
 
Fuzzy Birds said:
In an attempt to enhance my joy of reading comics, I'm going to conduct a year long experiment. A couple months back, when my internet server was down, I found myself reading Ultimates 2 #7 without any idea what would happen within. And it was one of the best reads I've had, because each page was a surprise.

Basically, I've realised that reading spoilers, reviews, speculation threads and even solicitations have ruined the unexpected surprise that used to come with comics. OK, spoilers and reviews are obvious, and easy to avoid, but another problem lies in speculation threads. With a hundred people each giving their own speculation as to what happens in the next issue, one of them is bound to hit close to the mark, and many of them are going to guess something that I myself would never think of, again, ruining the surprise when it eventually comes.

So, what I propose to do, is for the whole of 2006, to allow myself to be completely at the mercy of each comic. I will not read any spoilers, commenting only on an issue after I've read it and I will avoid speculation threads. The only thing I will allow myself to look at is the solicitation pages, and then, I think I'll only look at the order list to avoid reading even the merest hint of what the story is about i.e 'someone dies this issue', 'the traitor is revealed' etc etc, which only serve to inform me of upcoming plot points.

Anyway, does anyone care? Unlikely.

Will I have the will power to succeed? Unlikely.

Will I even try? Unlikely.

Two things; first with the condescending "you're wrong" speech.

If a story rocks, you'll love it even if you know how it ends (hence why we can experience the same story multiple times). For example, I was told by a friend how Terminator 3 ended and I felt that it sucked ***. I also knew how And Justice For All ended and it sounded good. So I went to my local Blockbusters and they had a "rent a new title, get an old one" thing going, so I got T3 (new) and And Justice For All (old). I watched 'em. T3 sucked. AJFA was great.

The moral? If it's good, it shouldn't matter how much or how little you know going in.

Now, the "you're right" speech.

I'm a beek g33k. But I knew SO little about Lord of the Rings that I didn't even know the One Ring made the bearer invisible. So, I'm watching the Fellowship in the cinemas and I see Sauron, the One Ring come off, Isildur is somehow betrayed (it's not shown - except in the stupid extended edition) and then we get the party scene where Bilbo gives his speech and I'm on the edge of my seat because I have NO IDEA what's going on. Now, I also saw a film with a bunch of friends on video called Almost Famous. It sucked *** because even though I'm not a fan of the genre, I saw every scene coming. It got to a point where I was (to myself, I didn't want to spoil the film for the others watching) I would say what the next scene would be and what would happen and I was right so often, I was genuinely surprised when I was wrong. This is because the film was a big, fat cliche.

The moral? If you don't know what's coming, it's really really exciting - but only if the story is good.

So the uber-moral is - it's only worth not knowing about the story if its good. But how does one know a story is good without knowing about it? Ah. The paradox is here.

But let's forget all that.

I came to this site after The Ultimates 2 #3 "The Trial of the Hulk". Why? The last page read "Next: The Secret Origin of Thor" and so excited was I, that I ran onto the net looking for Thor's origin and theories to it. Previews, what-have-you. I stumbled upon here, and of course, I am now the reason this site exists.

Prior to this site, I already knew much of what was coming because I would read Wizard.

Anyhoo, I've tried this whole "read without prior knowledge" lark and failed because, guess what? I don't know when the next issue is coming out, and neither does my lcs. So I go online to find out and just when I thought I was out - they pull me back in.

So I suppose the real moral of the story is: Huh.
 
Bass said:
So I suppose the real moral of the story is: Huh.
Wha..huh?!?

God's speed fuzzy doubt it'll work though.
 
Last edited:
Bass said:
I stumbled upon here, and of course, I am now the reason this site exists.

But....but that's a paradox.

In other words: Huh?

Good luck with your experiment, Fuzz. I do the same thing...except for the speculative stuff, which doesn't bother me because no one is ever right, and most of the theories are bad. :D
 

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