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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134288
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | 1
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...ACTION went weekly after JB was off the book.•• Technically, that was WHY I left the book. DC bumped the title to weekly status, and there was no way I could handle that extra load.
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Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3712
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | 2
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JB wrote:
| We were entitled to [keep track] ourselves, tho, and submit appropriate vouchers. |
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JFC. Were they sitting in a high-backed leather chair and stroking a Persian cat when they proposed that? That couldn't be more... let's say dastardly of a policy if it were deliberately designed to be such.
Also, it's not like Marvel was a nickel-and-dime organization at that point; while I'm sure Cadence had their own antiquated and insular practices, they were still a huge corporate conglomerate. They just knew they had an advantage and saw no need to change.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 31543
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | 3
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...ACTION went weekly after JB was off the book.
••
Technically, that was WHY I left the book. DC bumped the title to weekly
status, and there was no way I could handle that extra load.
*****
Ah. Never knew that. Did they give you any indication as to why the
change? Since you were still in it at the time, should I assume it wasn’t yet
meant to be the anthology book it became?
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Brian Rhodes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3364
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | 4
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Rushed! There’s that word again. And with it comes the absurd notion that it is possible to look at any piece of art and tell how long it took to produce.Some artists draw fast, some slowly. But the actual amount of time the pencil is touching the paper can rarely be judged by the resulting image. Zeck didn't ink his own pencils for Secret Wars, so, whether his art was actually rushed or just looked that way, wouldn't it have fallen on his inker(s) to, well, de-rush-ify it? Already impossible to know if a single artist rushed their work, never mind when there are multiple artists on a page.
Edited by Brian Rhodes on 28 September 2023 at 5:26pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134288
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | 5
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Making ACTION weekly was yet another stunt designed to dig deeper into the wallets of the fans.
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Jason K Fulton
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Joined: 23 September 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 770
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | 6
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I know you're a fast artist, but is there any point in your career where you could have physically produced a book a week, JB? And if so, would that have been sustainable?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | 7
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For about the first 2/3rds of my career I was producing 3 pages a day, so 15 pages a week. Which falls short even when the editorial content was only 17 pages.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 16136
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | 8
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A whole book a week is just insane. Maybe Kirby could have done it, I don't know. 15 pages a week is almost superhuman.
I think you are considered fast these days if you can reliably do anything more than a book a month.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4635
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| Posted: 28 September 2023 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | 9
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Where weekly comics are more common you have someone turning in two or maybe three pages a week for a European comic (later collected up into an album or volume number), and in Japan the artist runs a studio with various assistants usually one that does all backgrounds, vehicles, plant life and stuff (a bit like that Gerhardt guy was on Cerebus)... and even then they are doing eight maybe twelve pages in Shonen Jump or Margaret weekly. Reiji Matsumoto was an assistant to Osamu Tezuka before he went on to head his own Harlock and Yamato features, you can actually see some Tezuka Phoenix comics with really Matsumoto looking aspects!
I was afraid to start collecting those Weekly Actions so I have #600, then a gap, and #643 onward. :^) Maybe I'll even get to them someday, it just feels like an all-in or skip it entirely proposition more than even that Marvel Comics Presents series. I liked the earlier thick dollar format Adventure Comics of the late '70s with a bunch of different features, but there are still World's Finests I'd need to get before starting on Action Weekly.
I wonder if it was Mike Zeck or perhaps the inker and/or letterer I read as saying how there were so many last moment changes or 'corrections' working on Secret Wars? I didn't think of it affecting the quality readers saw, just that it was not pleasant for the people working on that comic under Shooter.
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 28 September 2023 at 6:38pm
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Brian Miller
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Joined: 28 July 2004
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Posts: 31543
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| Posted: 29 September 2023 at 11:19am | IP Logged | 10
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Was it ever a consideration that you’d have involvement with the third title
instead of Wolfman or Ordway or both?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 29 September 2023 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | 11
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I did.
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Brian Miller
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| Posted: 29 September 2023 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | 12
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Sorry. I meant from the outset. Like you writing all three titles instead of
Marv coming on.
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