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Topic: What is a "Long Run"? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 5:26am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I came upon a reference to myself that noted I was best known for my "long run" on UNCANNY X-MEN. Aside from the depressing aspect of someone considering work I did almost forty years ago to be my crowning achievement, I was immediately put to wondering just when my slightly more than three years on the book came to be considered a "long run"?
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Petter Myhr Ness
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 5:37am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Interesting. Wasn't it at the time people who felt you left "too soon"?

By today's standards, when creative teams seem to be changed frequently, three years would be considered a long run.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 5:42am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Several years back, in the days of snail mail, I received a letter thru Marvel from someone who was excoriating me for "never staying on books". This was during the time when that had become the go-to buzz phrase for attacking my work -- only this writer had gone to new extremes. She included FANTASTIC FOUR as an example of how I "never stay on books"!
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 5:59am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I'm probably very arbitrary on this, but with a lot of things, I'd say 6-9 years is a long run, whether that's working on a book, main eventing a wrestling organization - or managing a supermarket.

Like I said, I know that's very arbitrary. 
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 6:00am | IP Logged | 5 post reply


 QUOTE:
...I was immediately put to wondering just when my slightly more than three years on the book come to be considered a "long run"?

Perhaps for those who were at least kid-readers in the late 70s, with a child's unreal expansive perception of time, your X-MEN run truly felt long both at the time and then, with the force of nostalgia, ever more. For those not kid-readers, perhaps they got swept up in the X-MEN myth. Either way, I'd say that said myth probably took hold rather quickly after you exited the title, JB. I wasn't a comicbook reader for much longer after that point, hanging on for a few years into your FF run, but it seemed to me back then that Chris Claremont's obsession (I don't mean that to sound snarky, I think it's accurate) with all things Phoenix immediately and continually reinforced that your X-MEN run was something greatly to be missed, most especially for those who actually did miss it.
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 6:02am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

When I first saw the thread title, I thought "anything from 5km and up." :)

I definitely feel your run in the FF was a long run and  substantially longer than would be needed to label a run as long. By today's standards, your run on UXM would also be considered long. Certainly anything of 30+ issues is a good solid run, but not sure it's a long run in the grand scheme of things. Maybe on the lower threshold of what might be considered long.

To actually define it is, of course, somewhat arbitrary and subjective. I'd say I'd consider 40+ issues as long.

Amazing that someone would seek to cite the FF as a case of you not staying on a book!
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Larry Gil
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 6:54am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

50 issues
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 7:06am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Unfortunately for us wee folk, Lee and Kirby really set the bar high with their hundred issues of FANTASTIC FOUR. 100 issues has been an imaginary goal with virtually every series I've started, tho I was well aware that in most cases that was not going to happen.
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 7:21am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Unfortunately for us wee folk, Lee and Kirby really set the bar high with their hundred issues of FANTASTIC FOUR. 100 issues has been an imaginary goal with virtually every series I've started, tho I was well aware that in most cases that was not going to happen.

***

What you really needed to do was relocate to the UK for two years back in the 80s. The 80s EAGLE COMIC was weekly. You could have reached the 100 issues goal by getting a job with that comic - your goal would have taken a little less than two years to achieve. ;-)
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 7:24am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

What you really needed to do was relocate to the UK for two years back in the 80s. The 80s EAGLE COMIC was weekly. You could have reached the 100 issues goal by getting a job with that comic - your goal would have taken a little less than two years to achieve. ;-)

••

Reminds me of when I have said I would like to move to Italy, because it's so easy to be a millionaire there!

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Kevin Brown
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

5 years (if the title is bi-monthly) or 50 issues (if the title is monthly).
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Charles Valderrama
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Posted: 25 July 2017 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I'd say 2 years on a series is pretty long. Much as I've enjoyed JB's runs on titles, I appreciate that he jumped to other books and tackled other characters as well.

Heck, there were times when JB was on TWO books at the same "time".

Unheard of..!!!!

-C!
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