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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 15 January 2014 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | 1
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Why not focus on creating an epic run on a given title, with easily accessible, entertaining stories that will attract readers because of the material, not an arbitrary thing as the issue number?
Sounds like you should be reading more creator-owned books.
There are still some writer-artist teams putting together long runs at Marvel and DC. Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca were on Iron Man for about 50 issues with no fill-ins, plus plenty of writers have had multi-year runs on books recently: Ed Brubaker on Captain America; Bendis then Brubaker then Diggle then Waid on Dareedvil is four writers over the course of 15 years, and each writer had one main artist for his run; Mike Carey was on X-Men for a good long time; Bendis has long runs on Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man, among other books; Dan Slott's written 100-something Spider-Man comics over the past seven years.
Artists tend to work arc-by-arc now, and it's not always up to them how they're going to get scheduled on a book. You could have every intention of drawing 200 straight issues of the Fantastic Four when you take that assignment, but your editor may have only scheduled you for every other arc. Or just one try-out arc. Or the flashback issues designed to be slipped into place when the regular artist falls behind. Or maybe you'd rather draw FF for one arc while you wait for an opportunity to draw Wolverine. Or you're doing a Marvel book just long enough to get the name recognition to do a creator-owned project. Maybe your page rate's too high, and the editor wants to bring costs down. Maybe you mouthed off about your editor at a convention. Maybe the editor wants to develop a new talent that isn't you.
There are as many reasons that we aren't getting 100 straight issues of Sal Buscema on Hulk as there are artists.
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Gregory Friedman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 April 2013
Posts: 249
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| Posted: 15 January 2014 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | 2
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Count me as anti-Renumbering.
Even as a new reader, I thought it was cool that I was reading issue 400 of that series or 300 of that series.
It made the property seem more venerable and connected to a past that I wanted to check out.
Besides, re-numbering is a lie. That is not the first issue of Captain America on the stands. So it's a lie if it has a number 1 on it.
I think the there are only three times renumbering to number 1 was ever justified:
1) JB's Superman #1 because that was a HARD reboot of the biggest comic character of all time and it got national attention.
And that really wasn't a renumbering. Superman was a new title and they changed the "old" Superman to AOS with the continued numbering. Continued numbering for Action Comics as well.
2) "Heroes Return" where it was a return to form for Marvel after the fiasco that was "Heroes Reborn" and its years of badly handling the Avengers franchise.
Regardless, renumbering shouldn't be some yearly thing or whenever a new writer/artist comes on board.
3) When a title has been cancelled for a while. But continuous monthlies that go back for decades shouldn't be renumbered.
Edited by Gregory Friedman on 15 January 2014 at 2:31pm
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12715
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| Posted: 15 January 2014 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | 3
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I'm not much of a fan of numbering at all, myself. "The Coming of Galactus" is an event -- not 48. As a kid, I felt ambivalent about comicbook covers talking up numbered milestones. Sure, anything about comics was exciting to me! But, eh, getting to 100 or 150 or whatever? And as long as they were forcing me to think of numbering, I'd also have in my head those comicbooks that did not start at #1, which occasionally distracted me from the marketing ploy.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2366
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| Posted: 15 January 2014 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | 4
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DETECTIVE COMICS #327THE FLASH #105 THE FLASH #123 GREEN LANTERN #76 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21-22 SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #239 (My favorite single issue comic) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #121-122 FANTASTIC FOUR #232 FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #17 DAREDEVIL #168 CAPTAIN AMERICA #109 X-MEN #94 X-MEN #137 AVENGERS #4 AVENGERS #181 (I just liked it!) MARVEL PREMIERE #15 (and many others) SHOWCASE #4 --these are all numbers I love. Numbers I remember. Important numbers. Historical numbers.
And if the present thinking persists, we'll never see their like again.
I read and buy a lot of new stuff--creator-owned stuff (I always look for Byrne first!), but also a good number from the Big Two. There are some books I enjoy quite a bit. But I do notice that my list of all-time favorite issues has not had a new addition to it from the Big Two for decades. (I loved Ed Brubaker's run on CAPTAIN AMERICA and I'm really looking forward to ALL-NEW X-MEN every month, but even those don't have any one issue that stands out for me.)
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Rick Shepherd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 June 2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1095
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| Posted: 15 January 2014 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | 5
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Someone opined that the constant reboots, re-numberings and stunt events are basically a bad habit that came about due to the whole speculator fiasco (because the bone-headed 'logic' was that by artificially generating 'important' issues with lots of #1 issues or 'Big Events'/character deaths/etc., those would be the valuable ones to collect for the future). Everyone generally agrees that speculator-pandering was a bad idea, and yet the Big Two (and elsewhere, in fairness) still churn out variant covers, relaunches, crossover events, etc. as if they've learned nothing.
And yes, the faithful fanbase still turns up in droves and buys into the whole thing, which gives the impression (illusion) that it's a successful business strategy (if the meagre sales figures of the modern comicbook industry could ever be considered cause for celebration...). But as has been pointed out upthread, far from creating 'jumping-on points', all this does is make the books equally impenetrable for new readers as having a back-log of overly-convoluted canon to make sense of - because how can a casual reader keep track of what the hell's going on, when everything gets restarted and shuffled around every other year?
As for re-numbering with a change of creative teams and/or a brand new story arc/direction, that's the old 'singer, not the song' problem, isn't it? I've experienced this myself - you pick up a title because the writing/art style suit the character, and you like the feel of it. Then, twelve issues later, new creative team, new direction, and the book feels totally different - and that's not even counting the number of writers who would rather do their own schtick on a book than stick to established characterisation and tone.
Of course, all this is useless to moan about, since the bods in charge seem to have their heads up their collective asses about this sort of thing. Shades of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga's stewardship of STAR TREK - the shows under them were haemorrhaging viewers, even losing die-hard fans bit-by-bit, but would they ever break out of their comfortable rut, shake things up, and try to actually win over some NEW people to expand their audience? Would they hell! Same here - look at stalwart Captain Industry-Apologist Brevoort and his statements in the link above as proof-positive of that (all of which reads as code for 'stay the course'...).
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Thomas Moudry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5060
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| Posted: 16 January 2014 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | 6
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I bet we'll see the 1000th issues of Action and Detective Comics
acknowledged on their respective covers, but they won't go back to the
original numbering.
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Greg McPhee
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Joined: 25 August 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 5091
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| Posted: 16 January 2014 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | 7
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If this mentality had existed in the 1980's, The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans would have had to have had a new number 1 every month.
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 16 January 2014 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | 8
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"the shows under them were haemorrhaging viewers, even losing die-hard fans bit-by-bit, but would they ever break out of their comfortable rut, shake things up, and try to actually win over some NEW people to expand their audience?"
I'd go so far as to compare Marvel/DC and their fans to a pimp and a whore. The pimp knows exactly what emotional buttons to press to compel his whore to bring him money. But outside that relationship, he is completely and utterly impotent.
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Sam Houston
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 March 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1693
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | 9
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I just saw this on one of my FB posts regarding "Avengers Assemble" #25 being the series' final issue:
"[Warren] Ellis wants me to tell you he 'murdered it with special English curse magics,' but in truth the book fulfilled its mandate, so it’s done with issue 25," Kelly Sue DeConnick said via tumblr. "Thank you SO MUCH for all the support -- it's been a blast."
So, is this a clarification of the mindset of Marvel now, to create a series only run a limited time, but not identify the series as a "limited series"? Me thinks sales was the cause of the cancelation and the spin is above. Of course a new #1 "Avengers Assemble" will probably appear in a few months with a new creative team and a new story line.
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Lloyd White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 September 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 871
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | 10
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I generally am not fond of reboots.
To me, they tend to shatter the illusion that the hero as currently published is the "same" as the one I loved growing up. With no sense of history or nostalgia, however tenous, I simply have no interest in new versions that wipe out all that came before. Obviously Hero A in the 1960s isn't literally the same as Hero A in the 1980s and so on, but severing the illusion of continuity strikes me as more of a jumping off point than a reason for me to continue following a character.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2366
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| Posted: 17 January 2014 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | 11
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I think it's Christopher Nolan and Daniel Craig's fault. Rebooting Batman and James Bond in the movies worked well, so everybody thinks that they can/have to do that with anything they're working on.
But isn't this two separate topics? Rebooting and renumbering are not the same. They're both annoying, but they're different annoying.
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