We come back, I think, to my old analogy of the Ferrari being used as a pickup truck. We may be able to point to the sleek design and superb engineering of the Ferrari, but in the end it makes a crappy pickup. Is the comicbook industry being well served by those who want to turn pickups into Ferraris, or would it -- and the fans -- be better served if we had more people who simply wanted to make really good pickups?

Is a current issue of, say, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN a better comic book than one produced by Lee and Ditko?

Gee, according to a lot of crazy people on the Internet (and elsewhere), yes.

(shudders)

Well, I certainly think so. The "star system" that took off in the 80s has had a mostly-negative effect on the industry, since publishers and editors unwisely surrendered their power to artists (and some writers). The attraction of star power can't save titles-- Jim Lee was arguably as popular as ever when his DIVINE RIGHT series fizzled, and J. Scott Campbell hasn't had a success since the earliest issues of DANGER GIRL (which he gave up even trying to produce early on)-- but publisher and (I suspect, much more importantly) retailers are loathe to give up on "brand names" that they find comfortable and familiar. I don't think I overstate the power of retailers here-- when the commodity is a boutique item, those who order said item have great power over what is on the shelves and available. Can't buy what you don't see, in too many cases.

So many of the industry's problems seem to be intertwined and feeding each other; like a nest of serpents, it's hard to reach in and grab hold of just one. I would love to see more outlets for comic books-- my local CVS drug store doesn't carry any, though Borders and B&N both have spinner racks-- but how do we wean the industry off the stranglehold of the DSM? How do we persuade artists and writers that they are employees and not Hollywood heavyweights in the making?

I think most of us at one time or another are guilty of feeding into the mentality of 'growing roses' with newer books.  Of couse wizard really harps on 'talent' comings and goings more than anyone, so if you read or read wizard you may have been influenced at one time to buy into it. 

The pickup truck/Ferrari comparison is a great metaphor for the state of the industry.  In terms of Ditko as a artist, does he compare to Bryan Hitch or Jim Lee or even JB?  Maybe, but probably not.  But as a story teller with Stan Lee, those issues hold up on their own today.  Marvel Tales was ongoing when I first started reading comics and they were reprinting Spider-man 26 or so when i began collecting.  Those stories were new to me and I loved them, way more than I loved the current issues of any book I was reading.  Even today, the older books hold my attention more because they were and are good stories.

But alas, flash is better than substance.  That is the message we send out everyday as a society, so of course, the flash is going to catch everyone's attention.  It is very easy to get every website to carry a free plug that Spider-man is unmasking because that is 'snazzy' and attention grabbing, but there is little substance left over from such gimmicks.

• Asked about the lateness of Ultimates v2, Quesada joked that he's just going to fire Millar and Hitch; then familiarly adding that when you look at Hitch's art, you can see why it takes as along as it dos, and said that he knows the level of creativity takes a lot out of Mark Millar, so it will "hit when it hits."  

• Asked about the lateness of ULTIMATES v2, the latest in a long line of EICs joked: It will get here when it gets here! Purdy art takes a long time.