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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 26, 2022 18:06:49 GMT -5
I've always assumed that the theatrical re-releases of Star Wars in 1978 and 1979 kept some of that popularity going (again, no knock on Goodwin/Infantino). It was wave after wave of merch during that time as well, the action figure line kept expanding, trading cards, heck, my collection of Burger King glasses. You could have grabbed a stack of free Smokey Bear fire safety pamphlets and put Star Wars logo stickers on them and made some coin during that time. The title was popular due to content. Remember, merchandising and other ancillary material did not automatically share customers. Someone who was interested in a SW comic may not have bought toys/games, etc. (especially if they were an older reader). I knew fans like that, just as I knew kids who played with SW toys, but never had an interest in SW as a comic (or any comic, for that matter). Moreover, the release of TESB and ROTJ did not send Marvel's Star Wars comic back to the top of Marvel's sales chart to compete with their top superhero titles, as the book had with The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk from '77 - '79. Even as SW as a film series and pop culture subject grew (with more SW exposure than anything seen for the 1st film), the comic never reached the height of the Infantino/Goodwin period again. Well, there is still a merchandising element to the sales during the span between Star Wars and Empire, as issues were sold in bagged sets, in toy departments, in department stores and other retail outlets. The initial sales were massive, in part, because you could get the first three issues in a Whitman bagged set, at K-Mart, helping feed the hunger for Star Wars merch, as well as the interest of people like me, who hadn't been able to see the film yet (movies were a rare treat, until I was old enough to earn my own money and transport myself the 20+ miles to the nearest theater). Star Wars was sold in bagged sets through a chunk of the Goodwin/Infantino run, at least through issue 18 (via Whtiman; Marvel had their own Multi-Mag sets, too and I am pretty certain I got 29-31 in a bagged set). Similar inclusion of the first issue of Secret Wars, with the toy launch, helped boost its sales (and was allegedly part of the reason Jim Shooter took over the writing of the comic, when it was going to be assigned elsewhere). That's not to say they were the main reason sales were better then, just that they are a factor that isn't present, post-Empire. It helps that Archie had more freedom, initially to do whatever he liked, within reason; but, as a script was being developed for Empire, he was given more no-go areas. Post-Empire, they were really handicapped, having to resort to flashbacks to depict Han and also come up with a reason why it was taking so long to get to Han. That was the equivalent of writing with one hand tied behind your back. I blame that more for the post-Empire decline in the Star Wars comics than anything else. Of course "decline" also depends on your point of view, as the later stuff has its diehard fans, too.
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Post by commond on Mar 26, 2022 19:01:46 GMT -5
I know JRJR doesn't feel like he came into his own until he was allowed to do full pencils on Daredevil, but I always liked his work on X-Men. If I have any issue with it, it has more to do with the restrictions that Shooter placed on page layouts.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Mar 27, 2022 6:18:25 GMT -5
Ive never been a Romita Sr or Jr fan. But on the restart of Thor I started to appreciate their style.
On topic, anything Starlin does art on he doesn’t write. Im a fanboy but Ive always felt his writing was his strong suit and should stick to that. The one exception would be the few scattered issues/covers he did for Dr Strange.
With Starlin’s own stories his art seems apprope. But even then i would still like someone else. Ron Lim for instance, in my opinion, is a great pairing with Starlin’s usual space operas.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2022 6:31:58 GMT -5
I know JRJR doesn't feel like he came into his own until he was allowed to do full pencils on Daredevil, but I always liked his work on X-Men. If I have any issue with it, it has more to do with the restrictions that Shooter placed on page layouts. Romita Jr has given me some pause for thought. I was late to the party for some reason on the classic Cockrum/Byrne/Austin runs (even though I was reading tons of other contemporary titles at the time), and JRJR issues were my gateway to X-Men (though going back quickly after that to what I missed before and catching up). I never had any problem with his art at the time. And then later on, I started to dislike his art (like how he somehow forgot how to draw noses along the way). That association made me go back for awhile and start to somewhat dislike his earlier work (like I could "see" some of those flaws now). But now I think at least for old X-Men, it's probably landed a bit at "wrong artist, right memory", those issues still need to look the way they do in my mind.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2022 6:33:06 GMT -5
Ive never been a Romita Sr or Jr fan. But on the restart of Thor I started to appreciate their style. On topic, anything Starlin does art on he doesn’t write. Im a fanboy but Ive always felt his writing was his strong suit and should stick to that. The one exception would be the few scattered issues/covers he did for Dr Strange. With Starlin’s own stories his art seems apprope. But even then i would still like someone else. Ron Lim for instance, in my opinion, is a great pairing with Starlin’s usual space operas. On Starlin, I've never thought about this consciously before, but I think I completely agree on all points (including your example of Ron Lim!)
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 27, 2022 11:14:20 GMT -5
I never had any problem with his art at the time. And then later on, I started to dislike his art (like how he somehow forgot how to draw noses along the way). That association made me go back for awhile and start to somewhat dislike his earlier work (like I could "see" some of those flaws now). But now I think at least for old X-Men, it's probably landed a bit at "wrong artist, right memory", those issues still need to look the way they do in my mind. Check out his work on The Amazing Spider-Man #210 - 217, 223 - 227, or 238-239. Its not every issue he illustrated for the title, but he was moving in the direction of his father's brilliance at that time (1980-83).
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2022 11:24:19 GMT -5
I never had any problem with his art at the time. And then later on, I started to dislike his art (like how he somehow forgot how to draw noses along the way). That association made me go back for awhile and start to somewhat dislike his earlier work (like I could "see" some of those flaws now). But now I think at least for old X-Men, it's probably landed a bit at "wrong artist, right memory", those issues still need to look the way they do in my mind. Check out his work on The Amazing Spider-Man #210 - 217, 223 - 227, or 238-239. Its not every issue he illustrated for the title, but he was moving in the direction of his father's brilliance at that time (1980-83). Oh yeah, I grew up reading all those, I was a faithful ASM monthly reader during that time and for years before and after. I liked Pollard better, but I agree, he was better back then.
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 27, 2022 13:17:11 GMT -5
Well, there is still a merchandising element to the sales during the span between Star Wars and Empire, as issues were sold in bagged sets, in toy departments, in department stores and other retail outlets. The initial sales were massive, in part, because you could get the first three issues in a Whitman bagged set, at K-Mart, helping feed the hunger for Star Wars merch, as well as the interest of people like me I remember the bagged Whitman issues, and they certainly sold well, but in terms of sales of the monthlies, according to the Star Wars sales article / chart from Comichron's John Jay Miller: So, even after the Whitman sales were no longer a factor, the title still sold so well Miiler theorizes that Star Wars was the second best selling Marvel title. No matter the delivery system, if the content was not grabbing readers, there's no reason to believe Star Wars would have lasted for years to come, especially when one considers the generally poor, short lifespan of TV and movie-based monthly comics in the 70s and 80s: Emergency! (Charlton, 4 issues) Welcome Back, Kotter (DC, 10 issues) The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones (Marvel, 34 issues) The A-Team (Marvel, 3 issues) Space: 1999 (Charlton, 4 issues) Logan's Run (Marvel, 7 issues / great movie adaptation, but its follow-up left much to be desired) Isis (DC, 8 issues) Battlestar Galactica (Marvel, 23 issues) The Bionic Woman (Charlton, 5 issues) The Six Million Dollar Man (Charlton, 9 issues) ...and that's just scratching the surface. Star Wars was a unique property that required something special that would pull in readers to a four-color comic after seeing the spectacle that was that 1st movie on the big screen. It was much to live up to, but the Infantino/Goodwin team met the challenge, which, as noted above, so many movie/TV adaptations failed to do. ...along with disregarding the fact Luke lost his Lightsaber in TESB's duel, yet he had one not long after the films' adaptation, which made what Marvel's adaptation of ROTJ (and the movie, of course) played as a surprise--Luke having a new Lightsaber--irrelevant, since he already had a replacement.
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Post by tonebone on Mar 30, 2022 10:57:25 GMT -5
Jim Aparo's work on the original Batman: A Death in the Family. I've always felt his Joker, in particular, is too exaggerated and weird looking: And yet, I suspect most folks who chime in to this thread will invoke the power of nostalgia, and I guess I'll be the first to do so. Death in the Family was the first superhero comic I ever read and understood as a child, and it's since become a very personal favorite to me, even in spite of its many flaws. I've probably read it twenty times and own it in five languages. You can skip much of the massively decompressed story and still get the same impact, but I absolutely couldn't imagine a frame of it without Aparo's pencils at this point. His faces are the definitive Batman franchise faces for me, and I've even come to accept his exaggerated Joker chin as almost perverted, reflecting the perverted soul who could do what he ends up doing to Jason Todd. I have always suspected Aparo (an incredible artist) was told to closely follow the DC Style Guide by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez... Garcia Lopez' Joker was pretty much influenced by Neal Adams' version... both of which I really found to be too distorted and "not real" looking. 13thdimension.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Batman25120005.jpgI have always found Aparo's earlier depictions of the Joker more palatable...
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Post by MDG on Mar 30, 2022 12:13:24 GMT -5
Jim Aparo's work on the original Batman: A Death in the Family. I've always felt his Joker, in particular, is too exaggerated and weird looking: ... I have always suspected Aparo (an incredible artist) was told to closely follow the DC Style Guide by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez... I felt Marshall Rogers was being careful not to go overboard with the pointy chin and keep the Joker's skull within believable limits (it helped that he'd show the Joker's gums to keep the big grin) :
Somewhere I've got this Batman notepaper set--the needle chin was definitely "on-model" as fgar as DC was concerned
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Post by james on Apr 9, 2022 21:44:18 GMT -5
To me JRJR was always an artist that needed a really strong inker. Layton on Iron man and Mooney on Amazing.come to mind. One thing I never understood on a lot of his later work ( X-men, Punisher, Thor,) he always had, what looked to me as scratch marks on the male characters’ faces. Really turned me off from his art. But maybe that was a Dan Green addition
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