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Marcio Ferreira
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2008
Location: Brazil
Posts: 2518
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| Posted: 19 January 2010 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | 1
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The most rapid decline in sales began with the shift in contenttoward an older audience. This is right there in the Statement ofOwnership. Anyone with eyes and a pocket calculator can trace theeffect. Yet the steady shift to a predominance of fans-turned-prorunning the show has led not to a correction, but to a blind-eye,business-as-usual approach. AKA, business suicide.
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Maybe the Board of Directors and the Executives are just happy while the publishing business is on the "blue" and providing them with "hollywood material". And if the sales are so insignificant, they might tolerate it while it keeps like that.
Corporations can take very stupid decisions, for example when Daimler bought Chrysler, that is the mother of all stupid corporate decisions and yet, they did it and lost millions. We should not be surprised if things keep going for worse in the next 10, 15 years.
Of course I hope they take another direction.
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Marcio Ferreira
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2008
Location: Brazil
Posts: 2518
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| Posted: 19 January 2010 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | 2
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You don't need that to make things uniform or commercial. Is JB's work(past and present) not commercial (or able to be consistent withlicensing)? I get what you are saying re: the rest, I just don't seethe need to go the cartoon route.
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The cartoon route would make it easy to manage. That's all, from a corporate perspective, it is the best decision to make. And I believe that John Byrne's artwork could be a good inspiration for characters standardization.
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Victor Rodgers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 December 2004
Posts: 3508
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| Posted: 19 January 2010 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | 3
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And whoever saw Bruce Timm's Batman, knows that the "cartoonic appearance" of his Batman, did not meant bad histories.
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Problem here is no Marvel character has ever had a cartoon as good as any of the Bruce Timm DC animated series.
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Joel Tesch
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 May 2006
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| Posted: 19 January 2010 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | 4
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The cartoon route would make it easy to manage. That's all, from a corporate perspective, it is the best decision to make. And I believe that John Byrne's artwork could be a good inspiration for characters standardization. Again, I agree with your concept, but still don't see why the cartoon route. Why would cartoon versions be easier to manage? I don't think the look has to be completely homogenized to be uniform or "on model." Both Marvel and DC had on model licensing images, toys, paraphenalia in the 70s and 80s without having to go the cartoon route. While I love the Timm's Batman, I certainly wouldn't want to see that look over a Neal Adams or Jim Aparo Batman.
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Lars Sandmark
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 3144
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| Posted: 19 January 2010 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | 5
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Joe Zhang summed it up pretty good with that Wall St. analogy, wow.
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Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006
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| Posted: 19 January 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | 6
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I agree. Well observed, Joe!
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Marcio Ferreira
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2008
Location: Brazil
Posts: 2518
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| Posted: 20 January 2010 at 5:45am | IP Logged | 7
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Joel, I agree with you that Neal Adam's Batman (or Jim Aparo's) are far better looking than Bruce Timm's, but that's our taste.
I am not sure what the response would be for today's teenagers, and I believe that today's kids relate a lot more with Video Games and Cartoons. And Magás, kids love those things, and maybe, one of the reasons is that they are all and the same in all medias.
Therefore it seems to me (and I may be wrong in my perception) that having a standard image could mean drawn a line in the sand between past and future - I think a good way to do this could be a massive "end of the world" story, cancellation of all titles and reboot, with a massive media support and cartoons, video games, etc, all at the same time.
All that as a landmark for a transition to ageless characters, something that is not true at this moment.
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Marcio Ferreira
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2008
Location: Brazil
Posts: 2518
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| Posted: 20 January 2010 at 5:45am | IP Logged | 8
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Joe Zhang summed it up pretty good with that Wall St. analogy, wow.
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I second that.
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 20 January 2010 at 6:22am | IP Logged | 9
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Like they say, a broken watch is right at least once in the day.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 20 January 2010 at 7:27am | IP Logged | 10
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Like they say, a broken watch is right at least once in the day. •• Twice. Unless you happen to be using a 24 hour clock.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 20 January 2010 at 7:33am | IP Logged | 11
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In reading about "The Death of Gwen Stacy" I discovered that one of th reasons she was killed off was that her relationship with Peter would lead to marriage and age the the character. And that not what Spider-man is about.1) They got that a married Spider-Man would damage the concept. 2) They didn't get that as comic characters, Peter and Gwen could remain a young un-married couple forever. Is this where superhero comics went off course? •• A little before that. The death of Gwen was a result of a kind of thinking that found its way into superhero comics mostly thru the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW series by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. This was the one that really brought "relevance" to the fore. Relevance is what evolved into "grim and gritty". And relevance was a HUGE FAILURE. GL/GA was canceled, and books that followed its lead invariably saw their sales drop. Unfortunately, a lot of the Lit. Majors who were by then writing and editing comics thought RELEVANCE was way cool, and started shoveling it into everything. And, as an occasional change of pace, a story "torn from the headlines" is a good idea. But a steady diet, especially in a genre invented to be pure escapism, is a really, really BAD idea.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 20 January 2010 at 7:38am | IP Logged | 12
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"Which are "successes" only in the context of the diminished expectations that have become the industry standard."At risk of expressing "reverse Schadenfreude", Mark Millar is becoming a Hollywood success, and Bendis has his movies and shows coming up. They've validated the pillage and burn approach to superhero writing, which makes my heart sink. •• Comics are big in Hollywood right now. So naturally, Hollywood looks to those who have been "successful" in comics to come and be "successful" in Hollywood. The Studios are not going to pay attention to sales, and the general depressed state of the industry. They want to know only who is HOT. Even if "hot" in comics these days would be less than lukewarm anywhere else. This is not new. There's a whole generation who still think HOWARD THE DUCK was a hugely successful comicbook -- because THEY liked it, and they didn't bother to check the Statement of Ownership to see how it was selling. (Again, vastly better than most current books, but stinkeroo sales at the time.)
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