I collect Dylan Dog comics. I really do. It started long time ago, when I was in my early 20s, I started buying this comic on regular basis, and collected it, issue by issue, book by book. It was really fun, horror series comics, usually coming out weekly or monthly, and I loved it. Yes, it was copying heavily from famous books and movies, some would say "not stealing, homage", but yes, there was a lot of "homage" from famous movies and novels, usually from 1970s, 1980s and later 1990s. Those were small, paperback books which were cheap and I could carry them anywhere with me. Episodes were mostly separate stories, which is a good thing because you are not forced to buy every single book and follow a story. there were some two-parts episodes but mostly, 1 story per book. And of course, I loved it!
Most stories had usual format: pretty girl comes to Dylan and asks for help about somethig supernatural. He feels in love with her, sometimes she does not love him back but he is so persistent (now people would say pushy and predatory) that she usually gives up and they have love affair. Sometimes, she is the vilain, or the killer, sometimes, she dies at the end, sometimes, it's like "happy end" but she disappears in the next episode. Some women characters appear more than once, likely because they left some effect on readers or writers, or both. Most don't. Problem with most female horoines, in my opinion, is that they are either highly unlikeable or just plain dull and boring. Some reaccuring Dylan's love interests are extremely annoying, like (again, just my opinion), Brie and Anna, who I just do not like. Some are quite interesting and have potential, but end up dead too fast, though reaccur afterwards multiple times, like Lillie, for example. Some are creepy, as Morgana, because she was apparently Dylan's mom, but also his... lover? And also... a zombie? But a lot of them just appear dumb, dull and completely non-engaging. Which is a minus from me.
During first decades of DD, episodes, while mostly "inspired", were truly fun, cases were fun, interesting, had nice pacing, nice horror, deccent gore, nice stories. In later episodes, it became apparent that writers lost ideas, so there were loads of really really awful and bad episodes or really forgettable, garbage episodes which I can't even recall. A lot of newest episodes I've read are complete, utter garabge, which was hard to even read. Some are over-sexualized crap with terrible presentations of women, some are dull and stupid, some tried to be "different" and to have some more meaningfull stories but ended up like boring, pretentions crap. Majorityof episodes were just forgettable and bland. There are a lot of episodes for which I genuinely don't remember what they are even about and even if I read them or not. At one point they tried completely different route for the story but gave up (smart decision) when readers complained that the detour is just stupid.
Dylan did not get much better either. While in earlier episodes, he was sharp and smart and funny, later he became some kind of SJW, so firm in his stubborn decision to stay always 100% morally right that sometimes, while reading comics I am like "Bro, how did you even stay alive this far?". I mean, in some cases, when your or someone else's life is in direct danger you have to pretend or just stay the damn quiet, not shout your super high moral beliefs while they beat the life out of you! It doesn't work for me. Especially from someone, like Dylan, who is far from being super moral in a lot of things (like his relationships) and who, more often than not, presumes victim role fro hilself. Dylan is not a hero, he is not even close to moral person, he is pushy and aggressive to women, while often plays a victim card, gets himself in dangers for no reason, plays morally superior constantly, and in many situations he is just stupid, so much, that you have to wonder how didn't die yet.
Dialogs are often issue in many episodes. It's obvious they didn't even try to make them less uninspired and mundane. There are a lot of stupid phrases no one ever really uses and stupid dialogs that make no sense and that are often quite unnatural. No one talsk like that. There are also a lot of sex scenes, some pretty decent, natural, some forced on readers, some just look like writers and artists have some kind of fetish and it just looks wrong. Artists are usually always different for different stories, so are writers. Some are better, some are so-so, some are terrible. Some obviously prefer certain type of aesthetic and certain story types, like some lean into darkness, other into comedy. With a lot of artists I have a problem that they can't draw different people if their life depended on it. Everyone looks the same, and it's really hard to tell them apart. This is most usual for female characters. For a lot of artist they all look the same! Maybe different hairstyle, different fashion, but switch that and you have the same person! It's like badly made Manga, you can't tell who is who.
On positive side, recently came out some really good episodes, I was impressed. Sure, there were some bad eggs, as usual, but some where leaning towards oldest, better stories, and were really fun to read. All in all, this is one quite decent comic series with memorable characters (the one has a problem with copyrights, but that's another issue), a lot of quite fun, gory, interesting episodes, questionable morals (but ok, what the hell, it's horror), and sometimes badly written dialogs, but I still like it and I still buy it. My collection is enormous now, some episodes I always like to read again, some are just frogotten. But it is kind of impressive pile, I must say.
Of course, this is Italian version of England and London, so we can't be sure how objective this is.
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