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Post by kirby101 on Jun 9, 2024 15:26:14 GMT -5
But most of those titles failed, so they were bad, just like Kirby's Fourth World must have been bad because it was cancelled. Not being cancelled is the only way to judge the quality of a comic book.
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 9, 2024 15:43:33 GMT -5
Eh?
Most of those titles were long-running, including anthology books such as the "House" horror pair, obviously the Batman books, Superboy/Legion, Adventure, Our Army at War, etc. Kirby's Fourth World is an outlier of DC's evolving and successful books.
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Post by tartanphantom on Jun 9, 2024 16:30:40 GMT -5
Eh? Most of those titles were long-running, including anthology books such as the "House" horror pair, obviously the Batman books, Superboy/Legion, Adventure, Our Army at War, etc. Kirby's Fourth World is an outlier of DC's evolving and successful books.
Unfortunately for kirby101, this is proof that sarcasm doesn't translate well to printed word. I think Ed was making his statement tongue-in-cheek. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 9, 2024 16:45:58 GMT -5
I believe Poe's Law has come into play here.
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 9, 2024 17:39:46 GMT -5
Eh? Most of those titles were long-running, including anthology books such as the "House" horror pair, obviously the Batman books, Superboy/Legion, Adventure, Our Army at War, etc. Kirby's Fourth World is an outlier of DC's evolving and successful books.
Unfortunately for kirby101 , this is proof that sarcasm doesn't translate well to printed word. I think Ed was making his statement tongue-in-cheek. I believed he could be fooling around, then he mentioned Kirby's book, and..well.... |
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Post by Batflunkie on Jun 9, 2024 18:14:40 GMT -5
...and more solid, excellent DC titles which were just as compelling as anything--with few exceptions--published by Bronze Age Marvel. Personally, I never found myself dealing in the publisher loyalty / attractiveness mentality, because the Bronze Age was the period of a industry highs of endless genres and publishers, to the point where stretching the comic book budget was the biggest problem. I've never been much of a company loyalist either (grew up with DC, read indie books and Howard in my teens, and then dived head first into Marvel and whatever else I could find to satiate my ravenous appetite for comics in my 20's) Just give me a good story and characters worth caring about, and you have my dollar |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 9, 2024 20:17:02 GMT -5
Unfortunately for kirby101 , this is proof that sarcasm doesn't translate well to printed word. I think Ed was making his statement tongue-in-cheek. I believed he could be fooling around, then he mentioned Kirby's book, and..well.... Because that is an oft criticism leveled at the Kirby books. Not good because they didn't sell. But there were many really good DC books cancelled. Just making the tongue in cheek remark that books that don't sell are obviously bad. Which, of course is ridiculous. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 9, 2024 20:45:13 GMT -5
I believed he could be fooling around, then he mentioned Kirby's book, and..well.... Because that is an oft criticism leveled at the Kirby books. Not good because they didn't sell. But there were many really good DC books cancelled. Just making the tongue in cheek remark that books that don't sell are obviously bad. Which, of course is ridiculous. There are books that I thought were great that got cancelled. The newsstand shenanigans were a thing. The Fourth world books were great to me, but there were politics going on in DC that muddied the waters. Did DC sign Kirby just to stick it to Marvel ? Maybe. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 9, 2024 20:59:22 GMT -5
Because that is an oft criticism leveled at the Kirby books. Not good because they didn't sell. But there were many really good DC books cancelled. Just making the tongue in cheek remark that books that don't sell are obviously bad. Which, of course is ridiculous. There are books that I thought were great that got cancelled. The newsstand shenanigans were a thing. The Fourth world books were great to me, but there were politics going on in DC that muddied the waters. Did DC sign Kirby just to stick it to Marvel ? Maybe. Partly, yes. They knew who the powerhouse of Marvel was. And sales on the books he did dropped when he left. (Though all comics started to hurt then) And I wonder, DC was use to some of their books outselling Marvels top books 2 to 1. Did DC have unrealistic expectations of the sales of his books. Did they think they would sell as well as the FF or more, because they were DC. In the backdrop of more new books entering the market as sales were falling, there was a lot more going on than just raw sales numbers. |
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Post by tartanphantom on Jun 9, 2024 21:50:12 GMT -5
...and more solid, excellent DC titles which were just as compelling as anything--with few exceptions--published by Bronze Age Marvel. Personally, I never found myself dealing in the publisher loyalty / attractiveness mentality, because the Bronze Age was the period of a industry highs of endless genres and publishers, to the point where stretching the comic book budget was the biggest problem. I've never been much of a company loyalist either (grew up with DC, read indie books and Howard in my teens, and then dived head first into Marvel and whatever else I could find to satiate my ravenous appetite for comics in my 20's) Just give me a good story and characters worth caring about, and you have my dollar This line of thinking explains in part why my Indy collection is substantially larger than my Marvel collection.
DC continued to hold my interest through the mid-late '80s and into the '90s, with the Vertigo titles, along with their mainline stuff like The Question, The Shadow Strikes, The Spectre, and Animal Man. So, I was still buying many DC titles throughout the period.
Marvel, on the other hand, had become wayyyy too "X-Centric" (pun intended) for my tastes. Outside of the tangential title, Excalibur, I never jumped on the mutant mania bandwagon. No hate toward X-men, it just never tripped my trigger.
Never gave up on Spider-Man, though, even through the rough spots.
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Post by commond on Jun 10, 2024 5:06:17 GMT -5
I wonder what would have happened if they'd brought Jack Kirby in on the main Superman books ala John Byrne, and he'd done the New Gods as a big Superman storyline. I know it was Jack's idea, but sticking him on Jimmy Olsen is hardly a coup and not exactly going to wow DC readers who have no idea who Kirby is.
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 10, 2024 6:47:50 GMT -5
Marvel, on the other hand, had become wayyyy too "X-Centric" (pun intended) for my tastes. Same here. I read the original X-Men and their 2nd run as X-Factor (up to a point), but the entire "mutants are the most important story" direction of too many marvel titles was groan-inducing. I backed away from the main title during the McFarlane period; no matter how interesting some arcs were at that time, his art was horrifying. After that, my Spider-Man interests were to be found in miniseries, TPBs. etc. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 10, 2024 7:56:53 GMT -5
Same with me. I really enjoyed the original Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne run, but as the Mutants took over Marvel by the 90s, I lost interest. They also lead to the Univers Crossovers, which ruined Marvel for me.
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Jun 10, 2024 8:12:00 GMT -5
Related to the takeover of a company by a single line, as a kid, I didn't like how DC's big 90s crossover events like Zero Hour and Final Night, had so little Batman and focused on other characters. As an adult, I actually appreciate it, despite Batman remaining one of my favorite characters. Nowadays it seems like Batman has to somehow be central to everything no matter what, just like how Spider-Man gets treated in most Marvel events.
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Post by tonebone on Jun 10, 2024 8:56:28 GMT -5
Same with me. I really enjoyed the original Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne run, but as the Mutants took over Marvel by the 90s, I lost interest. They also lead to the Univers Crossovers, which ruined Marvel for me. The X-Men were so much better when they were the underdogs, in their own little corner of the Marvel Universe. They got overexposed REALLY quickly. I worked in a printing shop for many summers, and I will always remember my boss telling me "You save the red ink for the one special thing on the business card you want them to notice. If you print it all in red, nothing is special." |
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