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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 31 January 2014 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | 1
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Fans-turned-pros in comics or TV (DOCTOR WHO is a recent example) have a tendency to resort to "archaeology" -- to dig up and examine stories and elements from the past. There's also a desire to 'fix' things from past stories rather than just ignoring them.
"Pros" bring back Captain America and the Sub-Mariner because there are characters with great story potential. "Fans" keep mentioning BATMAN YEAR ONE and THE KILLING JOKE.
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Conrad Teves
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 2230
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| Posted: 31 January 2014 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | 2
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Archaeology! That leads to a slavish attention to "canonicity" and "established events" as true, like this really happened somewhere.Whenever, for instance, the current President or someone else famous makes an appearance in book X, , they'll take it as absolute proof this story took place then rather than now. That means these characters must be such and such age old. The introduction of what I can only call a bureaucratic mindset leads to ever more trouble from a story-telling standpoint. The first thing lost in a story with such pedantry is the point of the story.
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Sam Karns
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7624
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| Posted: 31 January 2014 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | 3
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Are Fans turning Pro more gullible in ripping off professional writer/ artist's work? Mr. Byrne had to be tight lipped on expressing potential ideas here.
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Jozef Brandt
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Joined: 03 March 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 2669
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| Posted: 31 January 2014 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | 4
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I think the difference is the fans turned pro these days (speaking generally) cannot leave the fanwank behind and keep things professional. They don't care about the big picture anymore and turn their books into short-term thrills that would have appealed to them when they were fans.
In the early days of USENET there were a bunch of fanfic newsgroups and I remember how the two biggest aspects of these stories was that the characters would cuss and they would be overly sexualized. How many comics these days are filled with both of those? A lot.
One example that leaps to mind are the grown twin children of Gwen Stacy showing up in Spiderman and their father is Norman Osborn. Er...thanks J Michael Straczynski.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2364
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 4:07am | IP Logged | 5
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Is it possible that we are talking about the "photocopy of a photocopy" effect? The fans of the old pros (for instance, Roy Thomas growing up on Bill Everett and taking over for Stan Lee) became pretty good pros themselves, but the fans of the fans ended up turning out junk?
If so--oh my gosh! That means that the next generation (fans of fans of fans) will turn out the worst garbage ever!!! (A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy!!)
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Jack Michaels
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 June 2013
Posts: 422
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 5:40am | IP Logged | 6
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QUOTE:
| They don't care about the big picture anymore and turn their books into short-term thrills that would have appealed to them when they were fans. |
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From what I'm reading about DC these days, that's not the case.
They're having a bunch of short-term shocks being foisted upon them by management, who are starting to make them sign non-disclosure agreements to keep them from pointing the finger at management for things they most certainly don't want to do.
I used to read Green Lantern back in the 90s and Gerald Jones had a major fannish streak, but this was largely centered around rebuilding Hal Jordon and the Corps. Then along comes management who want to repeat the success of the Death of Superman and force him into a short-term event.
And he ended up getting kicked off the title when his idea wasn't deemed big and dramatic enough, so they hired a guy who would follow orders and we get Hal killing off everyone.
That's not fan logic. That's short-term management logic.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133318
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 7:28am | IP Logged | 7
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Is it possible that we are talking about the "photocopy of a photocopy" effect? The fans of the old pros (for instance, Roy Thomas growing up on Bill Everett and taking over for Stan Lee) became pretty good pros themselves, but the fans of the fans ended up turning out junk?If so--oh my gosh! That means that the next generation (fans of fans of fans) will turn out the worst garbage ever!!! (A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy!!) •• The real cause, I think, is that the Old Pros are effectively GONE. Retired or dead. When I came into the business (myself in the middle of the first "generation" of fans-turned-pro) there were still people working whose careers dated back to the "Golden Age." One of my earliest experiences at Marvel was being called into Stan Lee's office for a lesson in How to Do It, with John Romita Sr. kibbitzing! Today, even MY generation has been largely shunted to the side, and the companies are being run by people who grew up on the stuff produced by my generation AND those who came after. So, it's less a "copy of a copy of a copy" than it is a case of being further and further from the "source," and thus paying less and less attention to the Ancient Wisdom.
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William Roberge
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Joined: 05 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 11306
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 7:34am | IP Logged | 8
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What is the quote?"The first story you would do as a fan should be the last one you do as a pro"
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Joe Zhang
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 8:12am | IP Logged | 9
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I think the problem with today's stories is that they are written exclusively for fans. There's an analogous problem with the role-playing game industry, where a lot of dense, esoteric gaming material is produced mostly to impress life-long gamers. As a consequence, what was a (somewhat) simple, fun game genre for young adults has become something very few of them can get into.
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Robbie Parry
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | 10
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As a kid, I often wrote fan fiction based on the 70s Hulk series. One piece saw Jack McGee discover Banner's secret and then join up with him, McGee and the Hulk going on the road.
It was a FANTASTIC idea for my own little "fan fiction world". If it had been adopted onto the TV show (if, say, I was older and had become a producer), it would have sucked big-time.
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Gene Best
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Joined: 24 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4598
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | 11
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I always feel like I'm at The Kids' Table when this conversation comes around.
I've honestly always struggled with totally understanding the Len Wein quote. I can see how fan stories could suck - certainly anything I came up with during my legendary MEGO-Action-Figure Period back in the early 70's would be crap - but isn't a bad story just a bad story? And a good one a good one? Isn't it that simple?
(Not trying to be contrarian, here - just trying to understand. I feel like I'm missing some distinction around "fans turned pro" and what that connotes.)
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Eric Ladd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 4505
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| Posted: 01 February 2014 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | 12
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In addition to the quality of the work and type of product being produced I would say a lack of professionalism in the workplace has also been slipping. Each workplace has its own set of factors that define professional behavior for the people claiming to be pro. I think the "fan turned pro" statement becomes derogatory when someone doesn't exhibit those pro behaviors like meeting deadlines.
I'm sure there are some great fans turned pro that work or worked in comic books, but the ones putting out shoddy work or effort seem to own the "fan turned pro" statement.
*** edited my double word use. ;)
Edited by Eric Ladd on 01 February 2014 at 5:11pm
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Topic Closed)
