Topic: Funnybooks (Read 170025 times)

Büge · « **Reply #1700 on:** December 30, 2011, 12:13:06 PM »

Quote from: Envy on December 30, 2011, 02:35:22 AM

So I'm enjoying the new Death Stroke alot.

me too

Büge · « **Reply #1701 on:** January 03, 2012, 09:44:18 AM »

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/01/03/marvel-takes-back-marketshare-lead-from-dc-comics-december-2011/

Thad · « **Reply #1702 on:** January 12, 2012, 07:14:54 AM »

First DC 52 cancellations/new series announced:

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They are launching six new titles: Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Justice Society of America, World’s Finest, Ravagers and GI Combat.

Therefore, the six canceled titles are: OMAC, Mister Terrific, Static Shock, Men of War, Blackhawks and Hawk and Dove.

A little surprised by Static -- I'm cynical enough that I figured two of the three books starring black guys would be among the first to get canceled, but I would have guessed Mr. Terrific and Batwing. I would have expected Static to have more selling power because of the cartoon -- granted, the current Static Shock series isn't very good and I quit reading a couple issues in.

Interesting but not altogether surprising: they're not just cutting down the ethnic diversity in their books, they're cutting down the genre diversity too. Memo to DC: the reason people didn't buy Men of War may have had less to do with it being a war book than with it costing four dollars.

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China Miéville is going to be writing Dial H.

I am so there.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #1703 on:** January 12, 2012, 10:03:24 AM »

Isn't GI Combat a new war book though?

If Dial H is like early H.E.R.O., I'm in. If it's like late H.E.R.O., I'm out.

Thad · « **Reply #1704 on:** January 12, 2012, 11:28:27 AM »

Oh, right.

So two war books canceled and one started up.

TA · « **Reply #1705 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:41:09 PM »

Whoever wrote that quote should be shot. Even if you're one of the idiots that doesn't use the Oxford Comma, that's a situation where it's necessary.

Büge · « **Reply #1706 on:** January 13, 2012, 07:48:31 PM »

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/01/13/dc-comics-gets-logo-here/

and it's baaaaaaaaaaaaad

Büge · « **Reply #1707 on:** January 19, 2012, 08:42:14 PM »

Superheroes in different eras

Hee hee, that Booster

Thad · « **Reply #1708 on:** January 23, 2012, 07:15:09 AM »

On the one hand, this is BC's stock-in-trade gossip that could get a creator in trouble for talking out of turn.

On the other, it really IS a fascinating peek behind the curtain, so I'm going to link and quote it even if I have some reservations.

John Rozum, (ostensible) writer of the first four issues of Static Shock before he quit and the book got canceled:

Quote from: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/01/20/john-rozum-speaks-out-over-creative-editorial-differences-on-static-shock/

I went into Static Shock with a lot of high hopes. Among them was showing that Static wasn’t simply an A-list character, but one of the most powerful in the DCnU. I really wanted this series to be fun and exciting and to bring the same degree of creativity to it that I put into Xombi balanced with making Virgil’s personal life at least as engaging as his superhero life. I also saw Static Shock as an excellent gateway through which to pull the rest of the Milestone characters into the DCnU.

I quickly learned that none of these plans were going to see fruition. I wound up being shunted to the sidelines as the writer while Scott McDaniel’s “high concept” criminal syndicate made up of Power Rangers and a big monosyllabic thug took center stage and Harvey [Richards, editor]‘s ideas of the 2 Sharon’s and slicing off Static’s arm were implemented as desperate means of trying to draw attention to the book.

I tried my best to keep it from being a total turd, but as I said, I was completely sidelined. My main contributions were the Pale Man character, Guillotina, naming the school after Dwayne McDuffie, and including Hardware, along with random lines of dialogue. I decided it was unethical to stick with a title that a) I thought was garbage b) that people were buying because of my involvement, due to Xombi, when really I had nothing to do with it c) because I wasn’t being utilized on the title.

Frankly, Static deserved a lot better.

Sooo he wrote the bits that were good, and the bits that sucked were the result of artistic and editorial meddling. Yeah, that's kinda what I thought when I was reading it.

I haven't given Rozum's other work a look yet, but I hear Xombi was really good. One thing I definitely get out of that post is that he has a working understanding of what was good about Static Shock and what sucked.

EDIT: Now that BC's picked it up, Rozum's written more on his own blog:

Quote from: http://johnrozum.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-i-quit-static-shock.html

Initially, I had never intended to openly discuss the reasons why I chose to leave Static Shock. My reasons were my own, and I felt that after expressing them to the powers that be at DC Comics and after discussing them with Bob Harras that the situation was resolved amicably and that there was no reason to say anything further than acknowledging that I had indeed left the series. However, since the announcement that Static Shock would cease publication with issue #8 ( I was only involved with issues 1-4) there's been a lot of online chatter about why the series failed, and I've received a lot of angry email blaming me for wrecking the series, the character, and the opportunity for an African-American character to take center stage at one of the big publishing companies. I've had people announce that due to the low quality of comic that they would no longer buy anything that had my name on it. I've had an editor at a publisher other than DC say they weren't interested in having me write for them because they thought Static Shock was a poor comic book series.

[...]

To say I was disappointed with how things turned out is an understatement. From the first issue on, I was essentially benched by Harvey Richards and artist/writer Scott McDaniel. All of my ideas and suggestions were met with disdain, and Scott McDaniel lectured me on how my method for writing was wrong because it wasn't what the Robert McKee screenwriting book he read told him was the way to do things. The man who'd never written anything was suddenly more expert than me and the editor was agreeing with him. Scott had also never read a Static comic book, nor seen the cartoon series, yet was telling me that my dialogue didn't sound true to the character and would "fix it."

There was more concern about seeing that the title sold and didn't get cancelled than there was in telling good stories and having something coherent to bring readers in. This is what led Harvey to insist on the stuff with the two Sharon's and cutting off Static's arm. He had no answers for how to resolve these things, but thought it would keep reader's wowed enough to stick with the series. This, too, was frustrating. It was a lot of grasping at straws and trying to second guess what would keep it selling. It was decided that "bigger action" on every page of every issue was the key.

Presumably I don't need to point out the irony of a book selling poorly and being cancelled because all the editor and artist were interested in was making sure it sold well and didn't get cancelled.

Shit like this is just so weird to me. Do these guys not know who Spider-Man is? Gross as it is to boil Static down to "black Spider-Man", that's a phrase that marketing pinheads should at least understand. And I really can't believe that there's anyone working in superhero comics who hasn't read Spider-Man. Which, for fifty years, has been a book about Peter Parker more than Spider-Man.

Thad · « **Reply #1709 on:** January 23, 2012, 11:01:03 AM »

Bleeding Cool airs another recently-cancelled-comic's creator's dirty laundry: The Infinite, by Robert Kirkman and Rob Liefeld, has been cancelled, with Liefeld saying Kirkman's objection was that the inked pages didn't look Liefeldy enough. Really.

My uncle actually brought the first two issues of The Infinite to breakfast a couple weeks back and passed them around for pointing and laughing. (He said he picked them up for a "what not to do" project in the comics class he's teaching.)

Highlights included: the cover for Issue #2 is laid out with the characters actually COVERING the title so that YOU CANNOT READ THE TITLE OF THE BOOK YOU ARE LOOKING AT; there's a two-page spread that's just one guy talking, with the whole thing just showing different angles on his face with the same gritted-teeth expression; and one issue ends with a splash page that's just one character, except you can see the back of another character's head peeking out from the corner, strategically placed right over the guy's feet so that Liefeld does not have to draw feet.

Anyhow, Jon and I got to chatting about Liefeld, about how he had a recent "ignore the haters" blog post that I thought was a great thing to write but wouldn't it be nice if he could pay just a LITTLE attention to the haters who are actually offering constructive criticism on how to improve his style, which hasn't changed in 20 years?

And then we got to talking about the market and the point that, really, Liefeld DOES have a fanbase, and the people who are buying Rob Liefeld comics don't WANT him to draw any differently than he did 20 years ago. And how this is a great example of the biggest problem DC and Marvel are dealing with, which is that any attempt to appeal to a broader audience may instead just alienate their existing audience.

Well, it's almost like Liefeld was sitting in on that conversation, because:

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If I want to evolve my work, expand it, alter the way it looks, without limiting the amount of detail than that’s what I will do. I can’t have the terms of my art dictated to.

Go figure.

I love Kirkman but he's got his weaknesses. (The aforementioned page of just one guy monologuing, with the same facial expression over and over? Well, that expression was Liefeld's fault, but my first reaction on seeing it was, "You know, it's Robert Kirkman's fault that we're looking at two pages of just one dude talking." And now it would appear that maybe even the expression was Kirkman's fault, too.)

Zaratustra · « **Reply #1710 on:** January 23, 2012, 12:39:09 PM »

"any attempt to appeal to a broader audience may instead just alienate their existing audience."

That's called risk-taking. Risks are risky.

Thad · « **Reply #1711 on:** January 31, 2012, 08:12:26 PM »

...so okay. Deadpool #49.1 is titled Deadpool: The Musical and features a bunch of parody lyrics.

I heard that editor Jordan D White actually played all the songs on ukelele and uploaded it, so I was waiting to read the comic until I could sit down at my computer and listen along. But now the track is down (I suspect some Marvel lawyer stupidity). Don't suppose anyone knows where I can get it?

Büge · « **Reply #1712 on:** January 31, 2012, 08:39:49 PM »

I'd say Megaupload, but, well...

Büge · « **Reply #1713 on:** January 31, 2012, 09:16:27 PM »

Al Rio hanged himself.

:(

Thad · « **Reply #1714 on:** February 02, 2012, 11:24:37 AM »

Walter Simonson's got a new project coming from DC: The Judas Coin. KC Carlson read some early pages and has some non-spoilery thoughts:

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I won’t go into details here, because I think the book will be more powerful as a surprise. What’s already known is that The Judas Coin consists of six chapters, each set in a different place in the DC timeline, starring a diverse selection of DC historical characters, some of whom haven’t been seen in decades. One chapter even provides some closure to an unfinished DC series from the 1970s. I won’t mention who all the characters are, but you can obviously figure out some of them from the recently released cover, shown here.

What hasn’t been announced (and maybe DC’s marketing folks aren’t even aware of this — or don’t think it’s important) is that Walter is using a different style of artwork for each different chapter/character. In some instances, he’s drawing in the style of the artist who originally drew the character, while for others, he applied a style of drawing that he admired and wanted to attempt. If nothing else, this makes The Judas Coin a fascinating artistic tour de force for Simonson and his legion of fans. The story is great, also. I still don’t know all the details, but I have been present a couple of times when Walter was discussing plot points with friends and other creators — all of whom reacted with some version of “That’s brilliant!” — including me.

Looking forward to it.

Büge · « **Reply #1715 on:** February 04, 2012, 09:51:31 AM »

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/Thorverine/news/?a=53400

So there's a hypothesis floating around that they're going to set up a black Nick Fury in the main Marvel Universe. You know, to pull in people who saw the Avengers movie. If this is so, my question is why they would go to such lengths to make this happen and disrupt the Marvel U, instead of just making comics based on the movie?

Mothra · « **Reply #1716 on:** February 04, 2012, 10:26:33 AM »

They probably don't want to alienate the Marvel U audience, while at the same time bringing newcomers from the movie into the core, ongoing Marvel series.

Also: Was thinking of picking up some of the post-Agent X Taskmaster stuff. Anyone know if he's even a quarter as charming without Simone?

Thad · « **Reply #1717 on:** February 06, 2012, 08:48:58 AM »

Evanier: Aragones has hurt his back ("You apparently get this condition if you sit at a drawing board sixteen hours a day for 50+ years drawing silly pictures") and some of his books, including Groo vs. Conan, are going to be late (at Evanier's insistence, not Aragones's).

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When you see #1, you’ll find at least one thing particularly amusing. As in Sergio Destroys DC, Sergio Massacres Marvel, Sergio Stomps Star Wars and other like series we’ve done, the Señor and I are characters in the tawdry drama…and in the first issue we did some time ago, Sergio winds up in the hospital, unable to work. I am well aware that Life often imitates Art but I worry when it imitates Groo.

[...]

P.S., Added ten minutes later: I’ve already received three e-mails from folks asking me to forward Get Well messages to my partner. I’m sure he’d appreciate them but let’s hold off for a little while. I’ll post an address later where you can send such things.

Sorry to hear it and hoping for a speedy recovery. Aragones is a treasure and Funnies is one of my favorite comics right now.

Thad · « **Reply #1718 on:** February 07, 2012, 12:45:26 PM »

James Sturm's been talking to Steve Bissette, and now he's talking boycott too.

There's an online petition. I think online petitions are dumb.

However, if more creators speak up, I could see this snowballing, getting MSM attention, and mmmmmaybe putting enough pressure on Disney to convince them to make some sort of token gesture to the Kirby heirs. As I noted in the copyright thread, Neal Adams has made some rumblings, and he's the guy who organized the bad press around the Superman movie that eventually led to Siegel and Shuster getting credits and stipends.

Thad · « **Reply #1719 on:** February 08, 2012, 03:09:50 PM »

...why do I read comments sections?

...why do I read the ComicsAlliance comments section?

...why do I read comments sections on articles about how Jack Kirby got screwed by Marvel?

...why did I read the comments section of a ComicsAlliance article about how Jack Kirby got screwed by Marvel?

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Author Topic: Funnybooks (Read 170025 times)