"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."

"Can't get a job" is untrue.  "Can't make a living at writing anything else" is probably pretty on the mark.

As someone who used to frequent Ellis' old Delphi place, let me tell you that disdain and disgust for super-heroes themselves and not just their dominance of the marketplace was overflowing at that place and most of it either came directly from Ellis or was egged on by him.  Now granted, that animosity was mixed together with anger over market dominance and work-for-hire, but negativity about super-heroes themselves was undeniable.

Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that Ellis does have some affection for the super-hero genre.  He's always struck me as having a bit of the  overly educated fanboy who bitches about the comics he can't stop himself from reading in him.

Mike

"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."

The criticism isn't about wanting to write comics.  It's about wanting to write other genres or about certain subject matters and then trying to graft that genre or subject matter onto classic super-heroes.

Then there's guys who clearly don't want to be writing comics because they don't write COMICS, they write screenplays for which they have artists create storyboards.

Mike

Nowhere does it say superheroes have to be only adolescent wish fulfillment, however.

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Not *only* but that is much of the root of the characters. Now instead of Batman being a superheroic Willy Wonka who introduces an orphaned boy to a world of fun, he's a borderline child abuser who is so strict and stern, it's a wonder the kid doesn't go nuts. In other words, Batman changed from being your kindly uncle to the worst teacher you ever had.

Every negative change that's occurred in superhero comics is a result, I would argue, of forgetting the core of superhero comics (the adolescent wish fulfillment). So the Hulk becomes a wisecrackin' Pretty Boy, Spider-Man gets married, and s on.

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And as any married person would know, the girl trouble doesn't necessarily stop when the guy gets the girl.

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As a kid, I was (and still am) a huge Police fan. I thought "King of Pain" and "Hole in My Life" were written about me. However, I recall the moment I learned that Sting was married with kids. Suddenly, he wasn't "me" -- he was an adult. And then it seemed odd that he was "whining" about his life. Yes, I realize that adults have problems but as a kid, the last thing you want to see are those problems (especially since you have no control over what happens in your own parents relationships).

Moving a character from "single" to "married" cuts down a lot of options. There are great things about being married-- I'm still (barely) a newlywed myself-- but as a kid, I would never have identified with the problems of married people; they were just too remote from my experience. (And yeah, I realize the absurdity of the situation, given a medium where we routinely visit other worlds, other races, etc. and face villains from Batroc to Galactus, but still... sometimes the mundane difficulties are the ones that are trickiest to evoke.)

In the sense that Superman and Spider-Man were created to *be* adolescent wish fulfillment, then that remains their primary raison d'etre. Shaping them into something else removes a chunk of what makes them resonate with readers-- they no longer have to worry about getting a date or liking two girls at once or how even to speak to the girl they have a crush on (yeah, a superhero who can lift a truck being powerless to talk to a pretty girl-- not a problem when you're married but dang interesting otherwise). Why take that away? Why remove the dilemma of "I have to go save the world... but have to stand up Girlfriend X to do it! How will I explain?"

When Girlfriend X is Wife X, she understands (usually) and forgives (usually)... so what's the dramatic conflict? The chance that enemies will find and use her as a hostage? How is that worse than the possibility of them grabbing Girlfriend X? If anything, Wife X is probably safer (with apologies to Sue Dibny), because creators may be more reluctant to bump off a wife than a girlfriend.

This is a long-winded answer, I know, but marriage in the two cases cited did not improve the books and might have cost them potential readers.

"If guys like Ellis, Morrison, Bendis are such writing geniuses, why haven't they found much success outside of comics?"

Well, those guys all clearly have talent and skill.  And of the three, Morrison strikes me as the one most likely to keep doing comics when he could do other things.

However, the reason why guys like Ellis and Bendis haven't been able to find a lot of success outside of comics is probably because it's so much tougher.  As rough as the comic industry is, the other visual mediums (TV and movies) have two big hurdles to overcome.

1. There's no equivalent in TV or moves to the indy comic creator putting together his own book and using it to sell himself to the big publishers.  If a creator can draw, he can do the entire book himself or with a handful of other people.  Doing an independent film or putting together a TV pilot is a far more involved and expensive proposition.

2.  There's very little in TV or movies to equate with the super-hero franchises.  If you shmooze the right people in comics, you can be handed a Fantastic Four or Spider-Man book to do and become a huge figure in the industry, even if you have zero experience writing comics.  Try and get a job writing for Law and Order or writing the next James Bond movie with zero experience in either TV or movies.

I think it's also likely that few comic creators have it in them to write an entire novel like JB and others.

All of which explains how people who really want to do something else end up doing comics.

Mike

"The comics market in the UK has collapsed to an even greater degree than in the US, no? And didn't it collapse earlier?"

Has anyone ever studied the UK comic industry and its problems?  It would be interesting to examine what effect outside economic forces had on the industry vs. attitudinal changes in creators and the audience.  In other words, did the storytelling styles embodied by Ellis, Moore and Morrison actually contribute to the decline of UK comics?  And has that style, while perhaps very appealing at first, had the same effect on US comics?

Mike