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Brandon Frye
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 November 2004
Posts: 1318
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| Posted: 06 March 2021 at 11:47am | IP Logged | 1
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QUOTE:
| Stop all of this naval gazing storytelling aimed at older readers (teens and adults) and return to making all ages layered stories that don't talk down to the readers. |
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I would love to see this but it's not likely to stop because there are too many fan-turned-pro's now who are writing the stories they would want to read as fans. In other words, not writing for the kids or the entry-level readers but rather themselves as well as selfish fans who demand the characters and storylines change to suit their own changing lives.
Hell, I'm guessing there are even a few middle-aged fans demanding a middle-aged Spider-Man because they want a Spider-Man they can identify with and to hell with kids these books were originally intended for.
QUOTE:
| Stop with the speculator and mainstream news media driven short term sales boosting stunts. |
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I'll admit I'm a bit out of the loop with the current state of the industry today but are speculators still a thing?
I know that speculators as a whole largely abandoned the industry in the 90's when it finally dawned on them that the hoards of comics they were buying and stashing away were too plentiful to ever be rare enough to yield a return on their 'investment.'
I also remember Marvel (under the Jemas/Quesada regime) intentionally under-printing some books and marketing them as 'rare collectibles' in a desperate attempt to lure back the speculators, but to no avail.
Are publishers still trying to entice speculators that fled the scene over 2 decades ago? If so, it's pretty pathetic and every bit as futile now as it was then IMHO.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4496
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| Posted: 06 March 2021 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | 2
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I wonder if there are any claims for who thought of The Yancy Street Gang? I'm thinking that seems like something Jack Kirby would've started.
Alan Moore: I followed his Swamp Thing and tried Watchmen, I understand others knew him earlier from Marvel Man/Miracleman. The thing is I have never once felt a desire to reread his work, and one viewing each of both The Watchmen cuts. It just doesn't seem to have the legs of perhaps simpler set-ups. He is adding a level of Philip K. Dick deconstruction to it that, while it can be spectacular and stretch imaginations, like doing a sequel of Blade Runner, it's just too bloody difficult! I definitely think the explicit stuff could be a very bad influence. I think people really into The Punisher or even Lobo are borderline scary to be around honestly never mind making you want to enter some specialist shop they may seem to live in. Could the extremes of violence have brought in a certain obsessive type along the lines of collectors but more into 'making history' in supposed 'adultness'? Just because it sells today doesn't mean it's healthy for business long term.
I read the sf and fantasy, and underground comics that came before Moore and Miller. It seemed like something much more significant and original to people who don't look much if at all outside their fave genres, and I can agree with Frank Miller up to a point that what made the '30s and '40s superheroes part of what they were was that there were no code or rules, Batman could kill someone with a gun... but did he ever stop to realize that you get on a treadmill of having to go further and further and not only eventually will you hit a wall in comic books with costumes and powers and so forth, you are not sustainable. Outright deconstructing and questioning of the very situation ala Moore is just a road to nowhere ultimately, commenting mainly upon itself, more of a one trick pony. I looked at Watchmen in 1986 and thought, well, now where can they go from there? Answer that and then the next question is and after that?
So, I think the so-called realism is always going to be so-called. Partly because comic books need to be visual to grab people to the experience of them (costumes and powers). Turn everything into American Splendour types and that also is navel gazing of less interest to a mass market.
What worked as a mass entertainment in comic book form longest was something lighter, fun, colorful, and imaginative to a greater or lesser degree.
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 06 March 2021 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | 3
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I wonder if the X-Men or Spider-Man books would become good again if they just printed one of each a month. All their ideas and storylines, good and bad, in just one title. That way they won't have to mercilessly pad their stories. And re-relaunch when they run out of ideas.
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Rodrigo castellanos
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Location: Uruguay
Posts: 1463
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| Posted: 06 March 2021 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | 4
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Stan wasn't talking about the STORIES. The moment a superhero steps onto the stage, the story ceases to be "realistic". But those early Marvel comics were set in a world that WAS realistic. No imaginary cities (after the false start of "Central City" in FF #1), recognizable fashions, cars, celebrities. Even (gasp) garbage in the streets. Yeah I totally get that JB, sorry if my phrasing was unclear. The grounding in reality was crucial to the Marvel revolution, along with "feet of clay". The illusion of "the world outside your window" that later Jim Shooter totally got wrong in the New Universe IMHO, by trying to apply it to the stories themselves and pretend they could actually be happening and you just didn't find out. The early Marvel Universe was certainly more realistic than Curt Swan's Metropolis but still a far cry from actually realistic. And how much further into "realism" can you go? I imagine there's a similar level of whiplash between reading Action Comics #1 and Fantastic Four #1 than between the latter and Watchmen #1. Where's the sweet spot? It comes down to which era hooked you into comics, I guess. I think people really into The Punisher or even Lobo are borderline scary to be around honestly never mind making you want to enter some specialist shop they may seem to live in. In my never ending quest of defending the bearded one, I'm pretty sure Moore loathes those kinds of characters. That he gets those and worse attributed to him or his "influence" is pretty unfair. I looked at Watchmen in 1986 and thought, well, now where can they go from there? Yeah, with the benefit of hindsight it looks more and more like a dead end. But Moore's throwing of the gauntlet was not trying to say "imitate me!" but "do something different, shake it up!", at least that's how I interpreted it and what he says in interviews. And I think that's necessary for the medium to evolve. And it wasn't until I read that Stan quote that it clicked to me how similar their approaches actually were, each for their time.
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 3239
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 6:59am | IP Logged | 5
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In my opinion, the problems with Marvel can be summed up with the X-Men. The #1 comic for much of the 80's and skyrocketed in the 90's with a cartoon and toys. What do you do? Do you try the cover band approach, where people like Joss Whedon try to write the book like Chris Claremont? Do you blow it up and completely change what came before like Grant Morrison did? As radical as Morrison's run could be argued, do you do what Jonathan Hickman has done and create something totally unrecognizable as long as it's "smart"? I've found none of those worked for me, not even when they let Claremont return.
I think that's why Elsewhen is so good. JB doing the X-Men without the baggage of so much that happened in the last few decades. Baggage that is compounded by having multiple X-books published multiple times a month.
Edited by Shawn Kane on 08 March 2021 at 5:40am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 7:46am | IP Logged | 6
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One of the lies offered in support of canceling HIDDEN YEARS was that there were “too many X-Men books”. Once XHY was axed, they set about solving this “problem”—by launching FIVE new X-titles.
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Charles Valderrama
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4721
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 10:24am | IP Logged | 7
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Lost a lot of respect for Marvel EIC when I read THAT logic.... and they've been making similar decisions ever since! No wonder why I stopped buying after awhile,
-C!
Edited by Charles Valderrama on 07 March 2021 at 10:25am
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 10:46am | IP Logged | 8
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Once again, Jim Shooter's ego was bigger than the advantage of having a successfully selling comic on the stands. The Living Planet sure must have had some issues to have to have an inferiority/superiority complex like that.
What successful comics would he cancel today to salve his tortured personality? Maybe he really DID feel he was in the 30th century, where money wasn't quite so important.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | 9
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Once again, Jim Shooter's ego was bigger than the advantage of having a successfully selling comic on the stands. The Living Planet sure must have had some issues to have to have an inferiority/superiority complex like that.••• Are you referring to the cancellation of XHY? If so, your timetable is off.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4496
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | 10
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A business that doesn't operate like a business is a hobby. A book that makes money stays; if a book loses money but you have some actual reasons to feel that can change, it too can stay.
I have seen firsthand various businesses not being run like businesses, and it's very hard to understand... it's often someone thinking they are creative that maybe really isn't very creative, or else they are just in the wrong position? A successful person knows something of their blind spots and weaknesses and how to hire or find partners to compensate, but chiefly a manager and editor is about hiring and coordinating, not overseeing to much of a degree... because that means you hired badly right there! If new fan-pro, or dropped-in-from-elsewhere creator, wants to do something that sounds radical or even wrong to your main assets you say no because you are guardian of their future sustainability. However, if proven sales older pro wants to you might let them know what happens if they blow it and then leave them to what they want to do. Perhaps Franklin Richards exisitng or the death of Gwen and the Green Goblin were in fact blowing it?
There were good and even great qualities about Jim Shooter as an editor-in-chief I think (as a reader/fan), there were also some major downsides. I still feel an editor should be more hands-off of another writer, but I can respect stepping in too when the Phoenix has just casually offed a planet. I didn't know any of that behind-the-scenes stuff about that until a year or two afterwards. On the basis of being a solid story that seemed to be the call, and you do need someone in charge overall once in awhile. It sounds like for awhile he oversaw the Valiant line to good sales as well. I think Dick Giordano would've been more enjoyable to work with, don't know enough about Paul Levitz or Tom DeFalco, but from the outside they seemed to be doing many things right.
Your business as a publisher is to sell entertainment, and to stay in business to keep doing that. The job of an editor is to get it to the printers and make sure the quality is there to keep sales happening. Having a favorite character or any of that, making or shaping comic book history, outside of hiring, is not required of either job. There was a point where copies sold started not equaling actual readers that people really should've been aware of. I think this was the fatal flaw leading to where things are now. It used to be 1 copy sold might mean 2 or even 3 readers for that copy, later it's where 1 copy sold literally can have 0 readers; ruh roh Raggy! Hint: if people don't start reading comics as little kids they are unlikely to develop the habit later in life. A base of imaginative and quality comic books for little kids is the best defense against the business and format disappearing.
In terms of a writer I liked Jim Shooter's Legion runs, all three of them that I know of, many solid stories and a decent balance of soap elements for the cast. I think the great Korvac 'saga' was a load of rubbish though, and Secret Wars x2 an even lamer retread of it. Maybe they are even where decompression began?
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 07 March 2021 at 1:55pm
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: Canada
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | 11
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Also if nobody is reading them guess who is going to want to pay for a flawless mint encapsulated comic no matter how 'rare' or historic? Eventually sweet nobody. And yet that seems to be a lot of what there is of the business of comic books; a collectable. Quality writing doesn't factor into things if people aren't reading, just a bit of visual flash and something supposedly 'historic' happening or a rare variant cover... slip slide and...
If people want 'graphic novels' or deluxe hard cover complete collections to read, then that's where you go regardless of if I personally think some of it is pretentious or overblown. If 'real' people sitting in an average rented apartment being droll or sarcastic sells I'm happy for it. I may think we should have more new all-ages or little kids comics, but I don't know that they'd ever reach actual readers outside the kids of collectors. I watched Meet Misty and California Girls by Trina Robbins both struggle to find an audience in the mid-'80s, and that's when there were thousands of spinner-racks still in drug stores and corner shops. Magazines generally have been in decline in North America for a few decades now.
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
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| Posted: 07 March 2021 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | 12
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@JB: Slightly OT, but I went through a binge of X-Men/The Uncanny X-Men last summer, reading the first two omnibuses (omnibi?) of the former, then XHY, then the three omnibuses (omnibi? What IS the correct term!?) of the latter.
I filled in a lot of blanks in my X-Men reading, but what really stands out for me was appreciating just how convincing XHY was in its premise of telling hitherto untold tales, neatly following on from the X-Men, and nicely foreshadowing the Uncanny X-Men.
Excellent work, sir! And I wish we'd had more of it.
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