Is Deadpool just Marvel's version of a joke?

Almost on que this morning Marvel delivered a history of Deadpool link on Facebook. Although I had no desire to read it, I did manage to scan a look through it a bit...

marvel.com/news/story/20802/follow_the_full_history_of_deadpool

I actually have to credit Liefeld for at least making his beginnings and early years on the character look like the most interesting part of the character's run and even then and now, I find that weak. But I've always had more desire to pick up a New Mutants #98 just because it's the 1st issue than any other book I've ever seen Deadpool in. I also think his 2nd appearance in X-Force #2 as the 2nd most desirable Deadpool book I ever seen.

Then you make the natural transition from those appearances to his own title. First in the mini-series and then with his own ongoing series. Okay, I had those. I didn't read them or even wanted to, but I had them. Looking at some of the surrounding pictures of covers from this era, it seems they started slipping silliness into his persona.

From there, they slip to part 3 of the bio and some later issues in the ongoing's run (I have none of these) and it looks like those issues can't decide if they want to be taken seriously or be seen as a joke.

By time you get to part 4, it's now apparent they went the joke route as now the covers are majority silly. There is one picture of Deadpool hitch-hiking in space. At this point, I would have been long gone, but admittedly I was never around.

By part 5 of the recap, we find Liefeld back in the picture, this time with a Cable Deadpool series. Again, even though Liefeld is out of proportion bodies in poster shots, I find his stuff more interesting looking that the garbage surrounding it because it looks like Liefeld wanted the character to be taken seriously and he drew his as such.

By part 6 Deadpool is getting released again with a new #1 and while that #1 issue looks serious, once again the surrounding issues go back to looking silly. We are now up to 2008.

Part 7 is about 60% of the covers looking serious and 40% silly. I'm not sure if they were trying to give serious another try. It's just a sampling of the covers and it's hard to tell.

But once we get to the end at part 8, it's back to being purely foolish looking stuff trying to look cool to 15 year old kids or 25 year old geeks. I know there is an oxymoron to all of that. My point is, I remember being 12 and X-Men was written for my age level but in a way that 30 year olds could appreciate it if they wanted to and introduced kids like I was to what the possibilities of good comics stories were.

Deadpool has been an endless joke of just looking silly and cute and hip, almost like for a Justin Bieber crowd. A Nicki Minaj (sp?) group of idiots. A LMFAO cast of books and creators. There isn't anything there but cheap bubblegum hijinx.

Why pick on Deadpool? I don't know, maybe because it's the easiest to see. The reality is, these same creators get hot on some level on a book like Deadpool which was never taken serious hardly from the beginning and now they have their hands on Spider-Man, X-Men, Capt America, Daredevil, Hulk, etc. And before you know it......Marvel is a piece of shit.

I remember cringing at Joe Quesada being EIC. But in some respects, I seen glimmers of what I used to know. He just messed up ever good book that was happening as it was happening. If I started liking something, there was some twist that made me curse comics and Joe Quesada for putting out this trash. But at least it had its moments.

With Axel Alonso, I haven't seen a damn thing that resembled anything I'd want to read. He looks like he has been put in charge to market comics to appeal to just marketing movies and other media to be streamed to them and forgetting comics altogether as nothing more but advertisements for his bigger picture. I haven't bought new comics in a long time now but Axel Alonso has surely put out nothing I would ever care for. And I don't think he ever will.

You and I both know this has been a long fall and whether or not Axel Alonso is to blame is beyond me, but I would put him as 1 of the people who made Marvel into a joke. And I'd put Joe Quesada into that group too.

I actually think those Image defectors from Marvel did more to screw up comics than any other group of comic creators in the history of comics. And I look back and I wonder why we ever gave them the power in the first place?

At the time, we got caught up on STYLES. And yet, looking back...most of them SUCKED!

I look at McFarlane now, who I used to think was good. I look at my Amazing Spider-Mans that I am now selling 1 at a time. And when I look at them, it's like....My God, except for a few decent dynamic looking shots, McFarlane really sucked at drawing!

We don't even have to mention Liefeld. The man couldn't draw but 1 way his entire career. Out of proportion characters, thousands of teeth, no feet. It's amazing. And yet, there are times I look at some of his stuff and I think in terms of popping at you, his had more pop than most. And it was that pop that made him sell. But in terms of talent....please. Comics was loaded with talent before these hooligans came along.

Sylvestri was....okay. Kind of reminded me of a wannabee modern day Buscema. The problem is, he lacked any creativity. Buscema was just a talent that could do ANYTHING. Sylvestri was stuck in his own style. He basically typecasted himself.

Jim Lee had obvious talent. The problem I always had with Jim Lee is he drew things too cluttered. It was here where good story-telling with art got overtaken with guns a blazing fireworks everywhere that wasn't never necessary. Half the time I looked at X-Men when he drew it, I couldn't really tell where the characters were, but there would be 3 or 4 splashy type drawings and a decent cover where people would go....My, that's good. Well those were. The problem is, it sucked for being a comic craft. I think Lee got better over the years and may be the best talent from that worthless bunch. His Batman and Superman stuff showed improvement. But who the hell made this man a leader of comics? Why? Cause he can draw? Same thing with McFarlane, Quesada, and Erik Larsen.

Larsen appeared more dynamic than McFarlane and probably more talented too. But Savage Dragon is a hack job. Larsen has made a living off of quick sketches. When he did Amazing Spider-Man, he drew with some tightness. Now he just scribbles his way through and issue. This isn't a craft? It's a mockery. And that guy is SUCH A DOUCHE when you read his comments on Twitter. He thinks he is the Savior of Comics. He thinks everyone who reads comics should lick his balls. The man is a scribbler with a shitty character. A green guy with a fin on his head. I can't tell you how many times someone has told me, it's so damn good. Larsen is just fun. No, Larsen just snowed all of comics into believing he's got talent when he does half assed work for $4 a pop.

Jim Valentino just flat out couldn't draw well to begin with. He reminds me of someone like myself or maybe even Mike (BigW), who may have enough talent to draw something, even a book. But it doesn't mean it needs to be printed. It became pretty apparent that guy was an amateur who was able to tag along with these dudes.

Who am I forgetting here? I don't know. All I know is, when they left Marvel and started Image, that is when the comic world started imploding. People want to blame the greediness of the Valiant speculation and the rise and fall of comics on them. I think it's when Image was able to produces millions of copies of crap comics, drawn by people with maybe at best, half the talent as their predecessors. And all anyone needed to do was actually read the damn Image comics to know they was crap.

And yet, we fell into it like sheep. Next thing you know Image is huge and Marvel and DC are floundering. Valiant buried themselves on their own merits. Then these cats all started having money. They oust Liefeld and it was a good move that McFarlane stopped drawing Spawn (perhaps the shittiest comic to ever reach issue numbers that high) and begin his McFarlane toys chain. He ends up buying baseballs for millions. Mark McGuire's steroid induced home run balls and then a couple of years later, Barry Bonds breaks the record with his own steroid induced home runs. I hope those balls are worth 1/10th what he paid.

Some how Quesada rose to power. How? I'll give Quesada SOME merit. A tiny bit. His stuff ain't half bad. But it ain't half good either. Throwing fancy ribbons all around stuff doesn't make it good. Quesada can do some nifty designs and throw a half assed character in front of it and it looks decent. But he doesn't know how to make comics that read like comics. Some of these guys need a bitch slapping by the masters. An ass whipping. A solitary confinement for years in a jail cell with comic drawing board pages until they learn the craft of making comics WITH CONTINUOUS STORIES!

Suddenly these young guns have all the high ranking offices of comics taken and are running the show and then what happens? Then we get every comic company copying each other and releasing a pose and giving us 5 different version of every issue and all 5 suck. A mini series. A cross over. The most worthless and crappy comics in the history of comics and readership falls by 90% over a 20 year span and all we do is let it continue and those 10% left keep praising them. Oh Jim Lee knows what's he's doing! Larsen knows what he's doing! McFarlane knows what he is doing!

And even when we got them dead to rights. They look so bad and are nothing but excuses.....like say Image United which I believe started coming out in 2009 and still isn't finished. We just swept it under the rug as they all pointed fingers at each other on why it wasn't finished. Man, I used to think back in the 40's - 70's, if you didn't meet your deadlines, your family was going to starve to death because you LOST your job! Those dudes would stay up all night and all day working on comics trying to get shit done. And now we go....Uh....well, We was waiting on McFarlane to draw his stuff but he's been busy being CEO at McFarlane toys. And issue 4 is done but someone needs to ink it? What? It's been 4 fucking years asswipes!!!! And still these fuckers are in charge of things and we just ignore their shortcomings.

The Valiant revamp can't capture the old glory. They are making comics that look like all the rest. Give us 4 variants. Spread the word through Greg and mob rush anyone on messageboards who has a bad thing to say. Valiant is the shit! No, Valiant is now rehashed shit. It's not original or good. It's mediocre and being mediocre today is being good.

And I guess, it just hits me when I see a title like Deadpool, running around as Baby Deadpool and seeing it advertised on my Facebook page and some idiots are commenting "Cool". Last night I seen a scribble of Wolverine as a cover. Just His head. It was a scribble. And they photoshopped 2 glowing dots to make them appear as eyes. Damn...that's all that is needed nowadays. Just make shit glow. Fucking Photoshop! Glowing dots of white hot colors now replace people who used to painstakingly paint pages by hand. Computer coloring has it's merits. It's progress. But no one knows how to make a comic look like a comic anymore. It just looks like you paid $4 to have your eyes burned out on every page. Lucky you!

If Jack was rolling in his grave about how comics shortchanged him out of dough, I would think just 1 of the founding fathers of comics would stand up and say these kids today done FUCKED IT UP! But no, Haven't heard 1 thing ONCE from ANY of them. Status Quo.

Stan still cheeses around acting like a doofus. Ditko still hides in his apartment. Byrne still pisses people off on message boards. Perez keeps doing his thing but keeps his mouth shut. Hey, he's still getting work. Shooter just keeps being irrelevant.

And yet I get to see yet another comic advertisement looking like this...



Yep, that's an actual cover. Yet another staredown saying NOTHING about what to expect inside.

Doesn't ANY of this EVER bother the comic creators of the past who actually had talent and told continuous stories month after month and got their shit out on time? Apparently it just bothers me.

Why does everything have to look like it is from a movie? Why does everything look like it supposed to be a spread or advertisement in some magazine? Comics is shit. Plain and simple. Shit. This ain't the craft of comics. It's the residents in the asylum run a muck. It's a couple of holier than thou fucks who got lucky, ran off on the companies that made them, made a shitty company and made everyone believe it was good and got themselves in charge of things and ran the damn thing right into the ground.

Back in the old days I used to think if you did shit wrong, they'd rip it up or put it in the trash and say, this sucks....do it again. Better.

Now, as Liefeld so eloquently stated on Twitter about a year ago. The editor works for me.

Well put Liefeld. Well put.

As I sell my comics 1 by 1, I get sad when I sell all my good ones and I get happy when I sell all my pieces of shit I got suckered into for all these years. Even if it is just 99 cents. It feels like a payback for buying shit. It's worth it. It makes me happy. Bye bye, shit comics!

I don't know who to blame EXACTLY. But I do know the current environment is just nothing but shills passing off as comic creators. And they are pretty much the same sucky bunch who brought down my hobby 20 years ago.

Thanks for sucking Comics! You ruined a great thing.

It always appears that I only write to you since you have been my only responder in quite some time now. But I just put it out there anyway like there is some pretend audience and hope for the best. I'm glad you agree with my sentiments on the state of comic books. I'm always a bit upset that my thoughts don't bring more than a "I agree" but I'd rather say how I feel than to make up stuff for the sake of getting you to disagree and post.

I do think you made a fine point though as it does feel like comics has hired the janitors and concession stand operators at the Movie Theaters to run their business. And I think it has had tragic results. The problem I always have is with the people who just eat it up like sheep or don't make a bigger voice to stop what is happening. Also the creators themselves who stand pat like everything is alright in the comics world. I would have to feel like at least 1 or 2 have a problem with the way things have gone, but none of them have had the balls to say anything against the companies. They probably feel like they'll be blacklisted or something. I don't know. I just think it's weak and we as fans are weak.

I still think if someone ran a comic company old school and gave the people a taste of how it used to be with the technology we now have but used it correctly instead of whoring it out to us, I think it would lift the comic world and put it on its ear. I almost feel like people are dying for a better comic industry but as long as there is no competition for a better way, we aren't going to get one.

It's like where I live we have a rock station that has been around for 40 years. Right now, they are about the only station for decent rock, but since they are the only choice, they suck. Occasionally over the last 10-20 years there has been other stations who tried to compete with them and often they did it a lot better. Well, as soon as that started happening, the 40 year rock station would up its game and compete right back. They obviously had the library and the backing to pull it off. But often, the competitor found the seas too hard to keep going and would eventually fold. Once that happened, the 40 year rock station would slack off again and suck because they no longer have competition for their market. Comics is much the same way. Everyone doing things the same way because its the only way it appears to work. If a newcomer came around and did it right, I think it would up everybody's game. Instead all the newcomers do it the same way themselves.

It's disgusting.

There are more and more creators speaking out against the publishers. The publishers are becoming almost hostile. I think IDW is doing some things right. They are still not it, but they are doing some things right. I can look at your tracking info and see you simply aren't getting visitors. You need to enter your various IP addresses (home & mobile) to to the tracking to filter out looking at your own visits. That way you'll see more of what people are searching for and clicking to get here.

Posting your eBay scans would rank you higher on Google image searches, but you need to name the files so that Google can decipher what they are. I try to use the number and a the full title name. Such as 124_Incredible_Hulk.jpg . The web page will be parsed and pick up the words incredible hulk and the number 124. Underscores will be parsed as a space... essentially ignored. Image searches are crippled without text associated to them. Play around with searching for specific images and you'll see that Google often has to rely on other text in a web page to pick the images they show. If the text is unrelated, then the images are unrelated and they have lousy results getting fed to their visitors. On the other hand, if Google does get good clicks on your images because it could parse the right words from your file names, your images will get more clicks. Google will start bumping your scans (and messageboard threads) higher in their results. My EC scans were pulling in a lot of traffic from Google image searches. Quite often I'll have dozens of my scans popping up if you type "EC" along with a title. GCD on the other hand has very lousy results on Google. Their images have random file names and most of the pages are dynamically generated vs. static. You have to be interested in that kind of stuff.

I got a laugh the other day. Someone on the CGC forum had posted a scan of a comic they liked. It was my scan of my comic. I'm reading about this guy liking my actual comic. I got a chuckle out of that. Obviously, he grabbed the scan link from Google. Traffic on any web site is not random. To get your pages to place higher, you have to skew the odds. Just talking about comics isn't going to make a difference. You have to have a search engine friendly content.

df1