Really fantastic news... not that comics are doomed, or that you have to break the Nextverse, but that we are getting MORE Next Men.

While not normally being the greedy sort, the more Next Men out is a a really good thing as I am enjoying the ride. Here's to a long and fruitful run.

So we get to read the end of Next Men, which we've waited over 15 years for, in the near future, and we still get a monthly dose of Next Men (of a sort) after that?  I think that's what is meant by having your cake and eating it too!

I know most companies wouldn't want to do this -- their business model
being fairly issue-number-centric -- but in the case of something like
Aftermath, could you just ask IDW not to number them?

Hell, if I were an EOC, I might install a no-number policy just to instill a
sense of deadline in my writers and artists.

••

Make it difficult for know-nothing EiCs to claim that fans don't "expect" the books to come out monthly, if the month they were supposed to ship was the only indicator of their publication order!

"Sure, it says JULY 2011 on the cover, but you didn't really EXPECT it in July of 2011, did you?"

••

And we must again ask the Eternal Question --- how far away was the Flash when the Mirror Master started talking??

2. JB wrote: Make it difficult for know-nothing EiCs to claim that fans
don't "expect" the books to come out monthly, if the month they were
supposed to ship was the only indicator of their publication order!

It occurred to me when I wrote it that Magazines can date their issues
because they never — never! — miss their shipping dates. In fact, I tried to
think of another entertainment medium that routinely ignores deadlines,
and I could think of none. There are movies that fall behind schedule, but
missing an announced release date is very rare, and getting behind
schedule has real, contractual consequences. And while TV shows build in
time off so they can produce new episodes for key ratings periods, it
takes a development of Charlie Sheen proportions for them to miss their
deadlines.

I can't help but think that it's the paltry sales of comics that keeps them
under the radar — if their parent companies saw them as anything other
than license holding companies (if, in short, they were expected to be
profit centers in and of themselves), there would surely be some kind of
reckoning.

Which brings up a question of perverse incentive: is it possible that it's in
the best interest of some people in comics to keep the business small and
insular? That sounds like a conspiracy, but I don't mean it that way. You
hear all the time from indie filmmakers that the key to staying
independent and doing what you want is to stay small and low budget. I
wonder if that ethos is at work at DC and Marvel. "As long as they make
money off the characters in movies, they don't really expect us to make
money, and they pretty much leave us alone."

I've often felt that what comics needs is a Steve Jobs type -- someone
who is obsessed with turning what had become a small, niche company
into something that matters to a lot of people again.

But as I look at comics -- specifically the big 2 -- I honestly don't see
that happening, because I don't think the people involved even want that
to happen.

If the worst thing that can befall an ailing industry is that the people
running it don't even know it's dying, well, ladies and gentlemen, I give
you comic books. The powers that be don't see a problem, because on a
day to day basis, they have fun jobs, so what's the problem? They get to
talk about comics and submit stories and art when they feel like it, and
they get to call themselves successful because they're getting paid off of
work other people are doing in other media. The powers that be at DC
congratulate themselves because Grant Morrison is the most successful
Batman writer since Frank Miller — but the truth is, neither Morrison nor
Miller are even in the ballpark. Not even in the parking lot of the ballpark.
In terms of doing anything with the character that more than a handful of
people know about, Chris Nolan is the most successful Batman writer
since Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren.

Comics is an industry that has produced so many iconic characters that
"comic book movie" is now a full fledged genre (the western of its time),
and yet the very medium that created those characters now doesn't even
matter.

I find it darkly funny that one of the biggest "hits" in comics recently
portrayed superheroes as zombies. I can't think of a more apt metaphor.
Comic book companies are the walking dead, kept alive by the mysterious
force of movie money. That money is going to go away, because
somewhere along the line, someone at Disney or Warners is going to say
"Why are we propping up this dead industry when we can keep the
licenses alive by selling trades of back issues. It's not like they're giving us
anything new."

We can talk all day about all-ages material and comics in grocery stores
and comics on iPads, but when it comes down to it, the people who make
comics won't do it because why bother — they're a success without it!
Didn't you see the commercial for Thor on the Super Bowl?

Sorry for the rant. But they're really fucking dumb.

*For the record, I like a good deal of Grant Morrison's writing. I'd love to
see what he could do if he were even remotely edited or supervised.

••

This is why I grouse endlessly about the lack of fidelity to the source material. Bryan Singer's "vision" of the X-Men IS the X-Men. Sam Raimi's "vision" of Spider-Man IS Spider-Man. Frank Miller's "vision" of the Spirit IS (Dog help us) the Spirit.

And Chris Nolan's "vision" of Batman's world -- which started out so well with BATMAN BEGINS, and ran off the rails so badly with THE DARK KNIGHT -- IS Batman.

Just as Adam West WAS Batman to legions of TV viewers. (And compared to what has come since, "Batman" was so faithful as to be practically reverent!)

Very excited by the green-lighted series.

I hope it will have a very long run.

**

Don't be sorry.  I thought your post was spot-on brilliant.  And yes, yes they are.