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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 12:16:35 GMT -5
I've considered Hawkeye, but I'm only mildly interested in the character. I like him in Avengers, but I've never been sold on him as a feature. Savage Hulk was great and a breath of fresh air. Of course, Alan Davis simply can't do anything wrong in my book and the Hulk is my favorite Marvel character. I like what I've sampled of Batman, but I wish DC would do an Adventures of Batman series and replace one of their other Bat-Titles; I'd like to see a mix of 70's Adams/Aparo Batman with the Timm/Dini version. They had a Legends of the Dark Knight book that was digital first like Adventures of Superman was, in fact it was what pioneered that format for DC, but sales on it were very low especially for a Batbook and they cancelled it. They also did the 6 issue Batman Black and White mini that did one off out of continuity Bat-tales by some amazing talent, and that did not sell well either. They are trying the format again with Wonder Woman though, with Sensation Comics....my guess it won't sell either because today's consumer has been indoctrinated to only buy books that matter.... -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 28, 2014 13:44:24 GMT -5
Thanks for the heads up on Legends of the Dark Knight. That's exactly what I'm looking for. It's ridiculous that these kinds of series aren't more popular with fans; they're almost always better and get better reviews.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 14:07:54 GMT -5
Thanks for the heads up on Legends of the Dark Knight. That's exactly what I'm looking for. It's ridiculous that these kinds of series aren't more popular with fans; they're almost always better and get better reviews. yes but for the modern reader-it's not "in continuity" so it doesn't count therefor it doesn't matter and there is no reason to read it. Quality story...psssh who wants to read that if it doesn't matter? It can't be any good unless it matters. If it were any good it would matter.... <sigh> -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 28, 2014 14:17:31 GMT -5
They've been brainwashed by the corporate event-machine. It's silly, because if you take it one more step, no continuity obsessed Marvel or DC fan would ever support any of the films or animated series -- they don't "count."
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 14:20:54 GMT -5
They've been brainwashed by the corporate event-machine. It's silly, because if you take it one more step, no continuity obsessed Marvel or DC fan would ever support any of the films or animated series -- they don't "count." Yes, but you could not sell tickets to those movies to comic readers and not sell the DVDs to comic readers and you would still be breaking box office records and making a nice sum of money. Comic readers are barely a drop in the bucket for the audience for those and if they lost them it just wouldn't matter really. Meanwhile they encourage those who do buy comics to buy the entire line rather than pick and choose what they like based on quality, and from sampling other publishers, so it's win/win for them..sort of, I don't know if you can call current comic sales a win in any situation. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 28, 2014 14:27:02 GMT -5
All I know is that I find something like Avengers and New Avengers impossible to read. How could you if you're a reader that's opposed to event tie-in's? The problem I see is that it's the editor's pitching the story ideas and driving the ship, when they should be little more than glorified proof readers. Actually, that's what Denny O'Neil and Archie Goodwin thought. Little wonder they were such great editors.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 14:42:20 GMT -5
All I know is that I find something like Avengers and New Avengers impossible to read. How could you if you're a reader that's opposed to event tie-in's? The problem I see is that it's the editor's pitching the story ideas and driving the ship, when they should be little more than glorified proof readers. Actually, that's what Denny O'Neil and Archie Goodwin thought. Little wonder they were such great editors. Eh, we're just back to the days of Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisenger where the editor assigns the story the writer will be doing each month. It's not new or even OMG I can't believe comics companies would do this..it was pretty much SOP for comics through the first half of industries history with the 70's being where that really changed and now its changing back. You think Shooter wasn't hands on at Marvel during his tenure? Editors are so much more than glorified proofreaders-they determine the direction of the book and hire the talent-if the talent doesn't do what they are hired for, the editor will replace them...that was true for Goodwin and O'Neill as well. Writers never ran the ship, they just thought they did. They only had as much free reign as the editors gave them, and now with companies operating under a corporate model, those reigns are being drawn tight once again. The only books that ever really had creative freedom were the dog sellers no one cared about, and once/if they became big sellers the freedom dissipated as the editors/publishers asserted control to maintain the success. The only big time editor who had a long history of just getting the talent and letting them have free reign was Karen Berger-and she was leveraged out once the corporate model became dominant (though there are rumblings of her creating/ahepherding a new graphic novel imprint with a NYC publisher or starting her own publishing house). That model is really the exception, not the rule in comics history as much as we romanticize it otherwise (at least for mainstream comics, indies.undergrounds a different story). -M |
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
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Post by ironchimp on Jun 28, 2014 14:53:22 GMT -5
It's just lunacy to employ a writer and then tell him what to write. Just write it yourself...
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 28, 2014 15:00:41 GMT -5
Of course editors are important, but it's hard to deny that most of the classic runs took place during times of lax editorial interference. Telling the creatives what the overall story is going to be is something an editor should never do. Is it any wonder why Marvel and DC are mostly creatively stagnant and have been since Shooter went insane with Secret Wars I & II?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 15:01:59 GMT -5
It's just lunacy to employ a writer and then tell him what to write. Just write it yourself... But there are entire industries that do just that-tech manual writers, ad copy writers, tv and movie screenplay writers, a lot of rpg manuals are done that way, videogame guidebooks, etc. etc. etc. Just because you have ideas doesn't mean you are a good writer...just like just because you can picture something in your head you have the ability to paint or draw it....the idea men are hiring the writer's skill set to execute their ideas...and ideas are worthless unless they are executed (I would say executed well, but we all know people buy lots of poorly executed ideas) -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 15:06:00 GMT -5
Of course editors are important, but it's hard to deny that most of the classic runs took place during times of lax editorial interference. Telling the creatives what the overall story is going to be is something an editor should never do. Is it any wonder why Marvel and DC are mostly creatively stagnant and have been since Shooter went insane with Secret Wars I & II? But if you have writers executing their own ideas, why do they want to bother executing them on someone else's characters they don't own....hence the growth of creator owned books that are not creatively stagnant during the same era? If you have the talent, vision, and drive to create on your own, you'r going to create your own characters and why do that when/share someone else will own them-own them yourself instead. The creative stagnation is because no one wants to give their best (ideas/characters/stories/etc.) to the corporate monster to exploit, they'd rather keep them and benefit themselves. -M edited to add-when you play with someone else's toys, you usually have to play by their rules.... |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 28, 2014 15:36:16 GMT -5
The editor's working at Marvel and DC are not "idea men." The ideas came from men like Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Chris Claremont, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, etc, and the editors since have done clever work moving around the pieced that those creators built while putting facile spins on things when they are in reality telling the same story over and over.
I do agree that creators tend to get lost and myopic and often need to be reigned in when playing in a shared universe, but that's quite a different thing from giving them story outlines to flesh out.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 15:55:18 GMT -5
The only editor in comics I like is Gary Groth
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
Posts: 456
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Post by ironchimp on Jun 28, 2014 16:21:57 GMT -5
It's just lunacy to employ a writer and then tell him what to write. Just write it yourself... But there are entire industries that do just that-tech manual writers, ad copy writers, tv and movie screenplay writers, a lot of rpg manuals are done that way, videogame guidebooks, etc. etc. etc. Just because you have ideas doesn't mean you are a good writer...just like just because you can picture something in your head you have the ability to paint or draw it....the idea men are hiring the writer's skill set to execute their ideas...and ideas are worthless unless they are executed (I would say executed well, but we all know people buy lots of poorly executed ideas) -M guidebooks and manuals are an entirely different ball game a true ideas man will also be able to write it in my book. if you can't write it, you can't plot it in a convincing way, you cannot create effective motivations for characters, you cannot create effective tension and drama - therefore your idea will be weak. we don't see this kind of behaviour in "literary" publishers so why shackle writers and artists in comics. |
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Post by Randle-El on Jun 28, 2014 17:11:36 GMT -5
All I know is that I find something like Avengers and New Avengers impossible to read. How could you if you're a reader that's opposed to event tie-in's? The problem I see is that it's the editor's pitching the story ideas and driving the ship, when they should be little more than glorified proof readers. Actually, that's what Denny O'Neil and Archie Goodwin thought. Little wonder they were such great editors. Eh, we're just back to the days of Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisenger where the editor assigns the story the writer will be doing each month. It's not new or even OMG I can't believe comics companies would do this..it was pretty much SOP for comics through the first half of industries history with the 70's being where that really changed and now its changing back. You think Shooter wasn't hands on at Marvel during his tenure? Editors are so much more than glorified proofreaders-they determine the direction of the book and hire the talent-if the talent doesn't do what they are hired for, the editor will replace them...that was true for Goodwin and O'Neill as well. Writers never ran the ship, they just thought they did. They only had as much free reign as the editors gave them, and now with companies operating under a corporate model, those reigns are being drawn tight once again. The only books that ever really had creative freedom were the dog sellers no one cared about, and once/if they became big sellers the freedom dissipated as the editors/publishers asserted control to maintain the success. The only big time editor who had a long history of just getting the talent and letting them have free reign was Karen Berger-and she was leveraged out once the corporate model became dominant (though there are rumblings of her creating/ahepherding a new graphic novel imprint with a NYC publisher or starting her own publishing house). That model is really the exception, not the rule in comics history as much as we romanticize it otherwise (at least for mainstream comics, indies.undergrounds a different story). -M I get the impression that, while what you're saying is probably true in many respects, there are certain writers that are guaranteed to sell a lot of books and so editorial seems to let them do pretty much what they want -- to the point where that writer's agenda dictates what other writers have to conform to. Scott Snyder seems to be that guy at DC comics currently. Grant Morrison also was another guy they seemed to give free reign to. The line does get blurry though with guys like Geoff Johns or Dan Didio -- they are not editorial staff, strictly speaking, but as non-freelance employees of DC who are responsible for the creative direction of the line, they seem to be more like editorial staff in the guise of creators. The architects at Marvel seem to be in a similar position, although I think they are definitely freelancers -- just ones with more power. |
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