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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 5:14am | IP Logged | 1
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Okay, you know what? Nevermind. Jumping back in.
Ellis currently writes Fell, Desolation Jones, Jack Cross, Blackgas, and just finished Down. None of those are superhero books. So saying, "And, apparently, he can't get a job writing anything else." is more than disingenuous, it's just flatly untrue.
And quoting from his "Come In Alone" column (12/29/2000)
""But we still need to clear away the
majority of the 80 to 90% of all monthly comics publications that are
in the superhero genre. Otherwise we'll never see what we've really
got. I've said before that the superhero's cultural and economic
dominance of the medium is the same as walking into a bookstore and
seeing nothing but novels about nurses as far as the eye can see. I
don't doubt that there are excellent nurse novels in there...
Those would be the man's own words.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14911
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 5:45am | IP Logged | 2
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"I don't doubt that there are excellent nurse novels in there..."
Those would be the man's own words.
---
How does that not read as disdain?
Although I agree with you that say he hates superheroes is an
oversimplification. It seems he is interested in the concept of a superhero,
but dislikes the conventions of mainstream superhero comics. Which is
pretty much the same thing as hating superheroes to most superhero fans,
I'd imagine.
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Joe Mayer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 January 2005
Posts: 1397
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 6:14am | IP Logged | 3
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How does that not read as disdain?
*****
I'd read the statement again. To me it is a simple statement that says the comics medium has HUGE potential that could take advantage of so much more, but only one genre is taking advantage of it. And it is a pretty accurate statement to say that 90% of what is out there is that one genre. Even when it tries to breakout into another genre with a horror book, we still have something that is mainly superhero. (See recent Marvel Zombies)
If a man looks at a forest and says that it is 90% trees, does that mean he hates trees?
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Pedro Bouça
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 1465
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 6:53am | IP Logged | 4
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Joe wrote:
| I'd read the statement again. To me it is a simple statement that says
the comics medium has HUGE potential that could take advantage of so
much more, but only one genre is taking advantage of it. |
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That statement would only apply to the United States Direct Market. By
now, even US newsstands are dominated by Archie and US bookstores by
manga!
And if Ellis was so cool, why did he have to go to the US to be
published while most of the other british writers were more than able
to build their carrers on UK itself? And he got famous doing super-hero
books, of all things!
Joe wrote:
| And it is a
pretty accurate statement to say that 90% of what is out there is that
one genre. Even when it tries to breakout into another genre with a
horror book, we still have something that is mainly superhero. (See
recent Marvel Zombies) |
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Yeah, Marvel Zombies. Created by the guy who did... Walking Dead, a
"straight" zombie series without a whiff of super-heroes. That he has
been doing for years now, with lots of sucess (it's the ONLY Image
series that sells enough on the bookstores to make it on the Bookscan
list!).
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134687
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 7:29am | IP Logged | 5
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Although I agree with you that say he hates superheroes is an oversimplification. It seems he is interested in the concept of a superhero, but dislikes the conventions of mainstream superhero comics. Which is pretty much the same thing as hating superheroes to most superhero fans, I'd imagine. **** What many people seem to fail to grasp is that the superhero genre is, almost by definition, very narrow. Westerns can be done as dark, adult stories, or comedies, or funny animals. Ditto detective stories. Ditto sci-fi. But the superhero genre walks a razor's edge, and if that path is strayed from, something is lost. Thus, while it is possible to do "deep" stories, "light" stories, even flat out "funny" stories using superheroes, there are certain basic elements of the concept that cannot be messed with -- chief among these that the heroes are, well, heroes. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko gave us heroes with feet of flay, but they never forgot that they were heroes. That they were doing what they were doing for the right reasons. Sometimes, as with Spider-Man, a hard lesson has to be learned in order to get to that point, but once there, there is nothing to be gained by "revealing" that the "hero" really has his own agenda, and what he does is to serve his own ends.
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 8:17am | IP Logged | 6
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That's true. Not every comic with a guy in a cape is a superhero comic. I'd say the actions and motivations of the character have more to do with defining something as a superhero comic than anything else. I think the problem people run into is that so many think of comics as a purely visual medium (to the extent that I've heard people express surprise that someone actually "writes" them) that many try to define superheroes by the visuals.
And if you're going to write Spider-Man as anything other than heroic, you probably shouldn't be writing Spider-Man. Even Frank Miller seemed to step over this line in The Dark Knight Returns, not with his portrayal of Batman, but with how he wrote Superman. That's why I don't have a problem with Watchmen, but I might have if they'd actually used the Charlton characters who were created as heroes.
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 8:27am | IP Logged | 7
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"And, apparently, he can't get a job writing anything else."
That's something never understood. If guys like Ellis, Morrison, Bendis
are such writing geniuses, why haven't they found much success outside
of comics?
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 8:31am | IP Logged | 8
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I thought the usual complaint was writer's writing comics when they really want to be writing something else. Never heard of someone being criticized for actually wanting to write comics.
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7562
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 8:41am | IP Logged | 9
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To me, the marriages in Superman and Spider-Man put these characters on the wrong track. If it were possible to hit the Reset button, as JB suggested upthread, and revert to the status quo of 1972 (to pick one year) in both cases-- I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Clark Kent and Peter Parker (back when) had problems everyone could relate to. Boys know how hard it is to like a girl who doesn't know you exist, and a lot of us knew what it was like NOT to be the popular kid, the jock, etc. If superheroes are adolescent wish fulfillment, what wish is being fulfilled by showing guys who are happily married to hot, successful women?
Sheesh. Turn back the odometer already-- these characters racked up too many miles by going around the marriage track.
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Valerie Finnigan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 March 2006
Posts: 838
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 10:43am | IP Logged | 10
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Nowhere does it say superheroes have to be only adolescent wish fulfillment, however.
And as any married person would know, the girl trouble doesn't necessarily stop when the guy gets the girl.
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Patrick Drury
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 December 2005
Posts: 695
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 11
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Three things:
1. I'm all for getting rid of Spider-Man's marriage. Hooray! Now get rid of Superman's!
2. The need some people have to lump every creator they don't like into one big strawman and take shots at it, is tiresome and really hurts the speaker's credibillity.
3. Mig, DC doesn't own CNN. And just because they have Warner Brothers backing their publishing endeavours, doesn't mean they have full use of the rest of WB's resources in whatever manner they'd like. I'm sure DC would love to pepper CNN and any other WB channels with newsbits about their books, but I'm relatively sure it doesn't work that way.
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Jim Bracjey
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 August 2005
Posts: 224
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| Posted: 01 May 2006 at 11:18am | IP Logged | 12
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At Newsarama, people are now clamoring for Spider-Man to have a kid.
I can't help it....that sickens me.
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