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Post by bigw1966 on Feb 27, 2010 11:35:43 GMT -5
Apples and oranges are both just fruits.
There are just so many things in both of our posts that we are responding to that its hard to keep up.
Most of our disagreement came from your saying that Artists don't know business. Which to me is a very narrow view. You have clarified further, but I stick by the fact that Creative people are best suited for it. That is why Jim Lee is such a good choice.
Johns worked as Richard donners assistant and then he finally broke into comics, which is what he wanted to do.
He wrote JSA with David goyer for years and then completely took over the title. He also wrote probably the very best run on the Flash ever, and is now doing the same thing with Green Lantern. Seriously, GL is the best thing on the stands right now.
While overall sales of comics have been down, DC has actually seen an increase in overall sales of books.
On the digital front, Money can and will be made from digital comics. Hell they are selling the shit out of them for the iphone. There is one book that is averaging about 50,000 copies a month at a dollar a pop.
My Idea of digital from big companies is to have them tell side stories that tie into a bigger narrative, or tell tales of characters that are popular but not popular enough to carry a monthly book. Then have those stories only availible on the web through a very low price point subscription setup.
Marvels Motion comics get a paid subscription fee for a couple of months and then they release the oldest chapter for free to draw people in. It seems to be working. but, the only way to make it successful IMO is to have stories that can only be gotten from the web source.
Until they figure that out, it will be a tough road.
Keep it coming, your fun to talk with.
Shooter got screwed on Legion. I like the stories (Epics) he writes. But his attitude is what has done him in over the years.
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Post by defiant1 on Feb 27, 2010 19:19:01 GMT -5
Most of our disagreement came from your saying that Artists don't know business. Which to me is a very narrow view. You have clarified further, but I stick by the fact that Creative people are best suited for it. That is why Jim Lee is such a good choice. Johns worked as Richard donners assistant and then he finally broke into comics, which is what he wanted to do. He wrote JSA with David goyer for years and then completely took over the title. He also wrote probably the very best run on the Flash ever, and is now doing the same thing with Green Lantern. Seriously, GL is the best thing on the stands right now. While overall sales of comics have been down, DC has actually seen an increase in overall sales of books. Most artists that know business can run their own without working for DC or Marvel. I've had some creators tell me they make more money out of comics and they can't justify the pay cut to work in comics. Other like Neal Adams have moved on and have a successful business. It's hard to deny that Neal's presence doing comics work is a huge marketing win for both his company and the comics industry. It keeps his name on people's mind. For an artist to want to write for comics over a potentially far more lucrative career in Hollywood is a strange choice unless his career had hit roadblocks. To me it indicates he didn't have a career in Hollywood, but thought he could leverage something better in the comics industry. It looks like he has unless the management side pulls him away from what he likes to do. I guess my point is that theses guys can only do one thing at a time. If they are valuable creators, the time they spend managing and attending business meetings is time they are not in the trenches creating. Neal Adams may be a great manager of his company. As a fan, I lose because his output on published projects is significantly reduced. It'll be interesting to see if digital comics become more that a passing fad. I think people are more interested in what they get for free online. Johns may be the best thing going on as a writer to the fans that are left, but with sales down in the industry, it's just part of the ebb and flow of a hurting industry. With prices going up and selection choices diminishing, it gets easier for the fans that are left to quit cold turkey. I see a lot of posts from people that really like comics saying... "I was buying 20, then 10, next month 5." Comics will never go away as long as people can draw and photocopy, but it's on the path for jobs to be lost and output reduced on the printed side of things. Are these companies even doing market research anymore? It used to be that the life cycle of a new comics buyer was only 5 years. Do they even have numbers on how new fans are getting introduced to comics anymore? There is a whole business angle to comics that creators don't think about. I made a few points to Eric Larsen about Image's lack of cohesiveness and how I felt it helped erode the loyalty of readers and he didn't respond directly. He did come back a few months later with an Image United project. I can't help but feel that he might have agreed with my points in retrospect. df1 |
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Post by cyberstrike on Mar 14, 2010 10:28:14 GMT -5
Publisher is always applied to an individual. Paul Levitz and Stan Lee and Jeanette Khan among others have all held that title. That basically means they are the top Executives for the company. They are the final word. Didio who I know a little bit is not that bad. Additionally he has brought about a lot of good things for DC since he has been the COO. Hell, people complain about Quesada, but he has done a great job at Marvel. DiBio is the biggest fucking moron in comics today. He, along with Johns and Morrison, have basically destroyed the DCU and turned into a Silver Age fanboy retreat. DiBio has fired writers that DC sorely needs Chuck Dixion, Jim Shooter, Peter David, Greg Rucka, and Judd Winnik. I don't like the never-ending crossovers within crossovers. Replaced storytelling with poor PR stunts, like "killing" Bruce Wayne or trying to find someone to a sequal, prequels, and side-stories to Watchemen. Instead of trying to get new readers into comics he's gone after a shinking fanbase of older fans by playing to nostiagla. Johns is a hack without David Goyer. He turned a great 3-Dimensional complex character like Kyle Rayner in to a stupid drooling fanboy and has zero respect for continuty that he doesn't like. As turned the Green Lantern into a joke with the multi-colored Lantern corps. The fact that he was basically Richard Donner's assasint means he was probably fetching Donnor's coffee, checking his emails, and getting his dry cleaning. Smallville has jumped the shark, so his writing a few popular episodes were attempts to get the people who buy his books to watch a show that has outlived itself. He sold WS probably because he was in debt. He spent over 2 million dollars on a Gen 13 animated movie that has yet to be released and he got involved with Wizards of the Coast in a failed Collectable Card Game, plus he failed to linence his properties like Wild C.A.T.s with companies that either didn't get it, or they made lackluster products out of them (like the Wild C.A.T.s cartoon show, toys from Playmates, and videogame). My guess is that DCE will be bankrupt in less than 5 years. |
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Post by bigw1966 on Mar 14, 2010 10:46:28 GMT -5
Well cyberstrike, I have to say that I almost completely disagree with everything that you said. Especially about Geoff Johns. Considering that that -hack- as you described him managed to make DC # 1 in sales over Marvel for the first time in decades.
Morrison continues to write circles around just about everyone. The great thing is he doesn't hold the readers hand through his stories.
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Post by cyberstrike on Mar 18, 2010 14:38:18 GMT -5
Well cyberstrike, I have to say that I almost completely disagree with everything that you said. Especially about Geoff Johns. Considering that that -hack- as you described him managed to make DC # 1 in sales over Marvel for the first time in decades. Morrison continues to write circles around just about everyone. The great thing is he doesn't hold the readers hand through his stories. It's easy to be the best in world when the only left in the world. The reason Johns' books sells is because of nostalgia and because DiBio fired better writers. Johns' problem is that he a slave to continuity and can't write a single issue without the reader having read almost 1,000 issues to understand what the fuck is going on. David Goyer and Geoff Johns were a GREAT fucking team but without Goyer, all Geoff Johns is a bad Mark Waid wanna be. Mark Waid's Irredeemable and Joss Whedon's run on The Astonishing X-Men are a TRILLION times better than Johns' current out put. Grant Morrison's run JLA is the only great thing he ever wrote. If someone else without Morrison's reputation wrote over half of the shit he has written over the years, that same person would never work for DC or Marvel comics again. Too many people IMHO confuse stupid crap with being "smart" storytelling when it's just a bunch of crap and they all use that same excuse "he doesn't hold the reader's hand" or "you have to think" well here is something for you: I spent $10 on the DVD of I'm Not There, a film based on the life of Bob Dylan that is very experiential and is told in a very non-liner way and can be very confusing for the viewer. I bought it and never saw the movie before, but I knew by the cover what I was in for and really enjoyed it. And having read way too much of Morrison's shit over the years, it's not advent-guard it's shit. Pure 100% shit and it's not because he didn't want to hold the reader's hand, it's because he wrote a bunch of a stupid shitty ideas (most of which I doubt he even understands) and that some reviewer thought was a sign of "genius" when it's a really sign of a writer trying to write a book without a fucking clue. When I want smart and edgy material, I'll seek it out and buy it because I want to read or watch it, and I prefer my advent guard material by people who do know how to do it and do great. |
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Post by bigw1966 on Mar 27, 2010 10:59:43 GMT -5
Mark Waid is a slave to continuity. especially since he is a walking encyclopedia of continuity knowledge. I remember a few years ago I was at a dinner with him and the guy laid out the entire reasoning behind superman.
I do agree about Irredeemable though. But really all it is is a What if Superman got tired of peoples shit kind of story.
the good thing about continuity is that when you are telling soap opera stories about characters, you have to maintain that they had a life before that particular tale.
What Johns is doing with the Green Lantern books also ties into historical lore for the characters, but it is also an extremely exciting story that is just loaded with surprises.
Additionally, Johns love of the characters is what has meade him so popular among fans of the books. He understands the characters, he gets their motivations. He proved this for the second time on Smallville when he introduced the JSA. The first was when he brought the Legion of Superheroes into the Smallville canon just like the comics.
Now on to Morrison.
Here are just a couple of the Notable things he has written.
WE3- A three issue series about 3 escaped lab animals who are as it happens, weapons of mass destrucion. (coming soon to theaters) Excellent book and very worthy of the Eisner Award that it won.
The Invisibles- A cyberpunk story about a group who has the ability to alter reality when they find out it is all a lie. (This is the primary influence to The MATRIX films and caused Morrison to successfully sue the Wachowski bros.
NEW X-MEN- widely considered to be the best run by a single writer on the X-MEN books ever. (with the exception of the last part with Marc sylvestri art) Yes even better than Claremont Byrne
JLA-No other JLA series ever came close
Seven Soldiers of Victory (Eisner and Eagle Winner) 7 mini series that pull various points from DC History and all lead directly into Final Crisis. Which read as individual issues is admittedly confusing. But read as a trade is a very good and action packed read that brought back the Multiverse. In this story, there were Seven Unknown men of slaughter Swamp who were the Architects of reality. They all looked like Grant Morrison. It turned out there was an 8th guy who went rogue and brought back the Sheeda (silver age continuity) who brought about the Final Crisis Which was about the New Gods dying and being reborn into a fifth world.
52-(with Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Keith Giffen) 52 WEEKLY issues telling multiple stories that all tie together and rebuild the DC Universe.
Aside from plotting the entire series, he personally wrote all of the sequences that containd Animal Man, Starfire and that guy from RANN
ANIMAL MAN- A breakthrough narrative. He even had Animal Man break the fourth wall. Years before Deadpool did it. The way it worked, was that Morrison was uncredited in his first Animal man stories and appeared in the book as a character thereby becoming part of DC comics continuity. Then in the next issue, he and Animal Man spent the entire issue talking to each other about realism in comics and how it could be changed and this allowed Animal Man to resurresct his family from the dead.
Because of this, John Ostrander wrote him into an Issue of The suicide Squad where Morrison was a writer who along with other writers was protesting his takeover by other writers because he was no part of continuity. Then he used his magic Laptop (in the comic) to type dialogue for the characters which they began speaking in the following panels He then took part in an attack on Circe's forces where he killed enemies by writing of their deaths, only to be struck by a case of writers block that lead to his death in that issue.(pure genius)
DOOM PATROL- He made this a book worth reading
ALL STAR SUPERMAN (multiple Eisner, Harvey and Eagle Award winner) considered to be probably the very best Superman stories ever printed. and with good reason. He captured Superman like no other writer ever.
BATMAN and ROBIN- (current) Dick Grayson is Batman, Damian Wayne (Bruce and Talia Al-Gul's psychotic son is Robin. this book is fun, fresh and has excellent characterization going on. Well worth reading.
Now this is primarily his Superhero work. So I am not talking about The Filth, or any of those titles in the non costume canon.
Just based on the few things I have posted in this reply, I have to revert back to my original response to you.
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Post by G on Mar 27, 2010 17:48:14 GMT -5
Mark Waid is a slave to continuity. especially since he is a walking encyclopedia of continuity knowledge. I've never felt a need to be apologetic about liking continuity in comic books. It seems nowadays you have to apologize for liking comics that flow in a sequential format. Sure, there is a lot of back history in a lot of cases and no one wants the hassle of backtracking 400 issues to understand an entire story. But I never felt continuity comics did that. I never felt like when I was looking at a Fantastic Four #415, I needed to go out, try to find and then read Fantastic Four #118 to know what was going on. I never felt like comics did that. If a character had appeared in the past, yes...you may have seen it referenced in editor notes like.... <As seen in Fantastic Four #120 - Smiling Stan> But otherwise the stories stood on their own. You basically were walking into a point that they were at at that part of their lives. It was up to you to go back. If you wanted to, you could. If you didnt.....fine, just start reading from here. Nowadays, I see the opposite of that. I see story arcs and mini series, and while they may stand on their own, they have no regard to the history of the character. After awhile, it almost appears that timelines and events become distorted. Events took place before or after where people originally thought or there is no need to feel the story arc was significant at all in the first place. For me personally, it brings clutter and it lacks thinking far out. If this is your cup of tea, then I guess it is fine. If it is only a good story you're wanting, then you become more than satisfied. You're getting your fill. You read a story and it's done. You're satisfied. But me personally and this is only me personally, this takes part of the fun out of comics. I think cohesiveness has its place in comics. And the issue to issue drama over a long period of time adds a lot to the character appeal. If I'm being left with a bite size self contained nugget. All I'm looking at is one problem, a few fights and an outcome. In the end, I feel it's easier for the writers and it seems narrow in scope. If 15 writers write one comic arc about the same character, I have 15 stories to read but little to no interaction to the others. The others don't seem to matter. This is where I personally feel a little short changed. I'm personally a bit tired of giving creators an easy out. We've given them plenty of short cuts when it comes to art and now we have done the same with writing. In the end, we are short cutting ourselves out of a bigger story held together by cohesiveness. So therefore, I don't feel a need to apologize for liking what was giving me more then compared to less today. I'm not sorry to like continuity. I grew up with it and I'm more sorry it is slowly but surely being taken away by those who prefer bite sized nuggets. |
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Post by bigw1966 on Mar 29, 2010 11:47:57 GMT -5
Exactly my point also GW.
Johns and G. Morrison have vast respect for continuity and also for telling great stories.
Morrison tied in continuity all the way back to the silver age in his Final Crisis Story. Stuff that had originally been discarded back when the Original Crisis on Infinite Earths came out and also the stuff brought back during Infinite Crisis and 52
Johns popularity stems directly from his respect for history and all that he is doing now is broadening that continuity and also bringing back little forgotten gems within older stories to create a wider history for the character.
The whole "War of Light" idea goes all the way back to 1965. And he has taken a throwaway statement and turned it into the biggest comic story in years.
That is why the guy is so good.
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Post by cyberstrike on Apr 7, 2010 9:43:43 GMT -5
I read it, wasn't impressed by it. It has a stupid plot and a stupid concept. No wonder Hollywood will turn it into a movie.
So does Miracleman and John Byrne's Next Men since both has elements in The Matrix saga as well, maybe Marvel or Byrne should sue Morrison over The Invisibles.
Read Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's run on The Astonishing X-Men which is the GREATEST X-Men story ever! It's far better in ever regard and Whedon respects continuity but is not a slave it to it.
Agreed. JLA and Arkham Asylum are the only great books Morrison has ever written.
I'm going to be perfectly honest here: I hate Silver Age continuity. So again a waste of my time with confusing stories and since he didn't even finish the mini-series themselves off instead he waited years to Final Crisis to pay it off. Not good storytelling in my book.
I stopped reading DC because of shit like 52.
It's Pure "the silver age is better than current comics" crap to me.
I never like Doom Patrol if I want to read X-Men then I'll read X-Men not a bunch of knockoffs.
I read the first two issues and hated them. If Morrison couldn't grab my attention and make me care about Superman by the end of #2 then he's a bad writer in my book.
I don't like Batman and don't like Morrison so why should I waste my time on a book that has NOTHING that appeals to me?
The Filth, Marvel Boy, and Seaguy were 3 of the WORST comics that I ever had the misfortune of reading.
I stand by my original post and this one. I don't like Johns and I like Morrison even less.
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Post by defiant1 on Apr 7, 2010 23:51:14 GMT -5
Read Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's run on The Astonishing X-Men which is the GREATEST X-Men story ever! It's far better in ever regard and Whedon respects continuity but is not a slave it to it. For the most part I'm steering clear of this debate since I'm apathetic towards Johns, Morrison & all of DC. I will comment on what you say above since I have the first few issues of Astonishing X-Men. I was pleasantly surprised when I read them, but I did lose interest very quickly. The story was fine, but the amount of story per issue was not acceptable. For this reason alone, I cannot call it the greatest at anything but stealing my money for three months. I might like a slice of cake, but don't pinch off a little piece with a tweezer, feed it to me, and tell me how wonderful it is. Let me savor a whole bite at once or don't waste my time. I still prefer the Roy Thomas/ Neal Adams stuff from the 60's. Specifically, the Sentinels storyline. Didn't care for Sauron. df1 |
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