“This is the most fun I’ve ever had drawing a comic.” Fiona Staples, who apparently wants to hurt my feelings. Between that and her NORTH 40 editor believing her work on the upcoming TRICK 'R TREAT was "the first full-length comic Fiona had ever drawn", I'm starting to feel sorry for myself...
Oh wait, I already felt sorry for myself. Never mind, then.
So the "big news" out of the San Diego Comic Con this year seems to be the acquisition of a number of loose superhero properties by major North American mainstream publishers. Last year, DC announced the return of the Milestone characters and the acquisition of Archie Comics' Red Circle superheroes; this year, they announced that they've finally got The THUNDER Agents, which, along with the Justice Machine, is a group of characters I've long had an attachment to for no rational reason I've ever been able to articulate.
Dark Horse has got Jim Shooter working on some characters he's already given a booster shot to back when he helped build up Valiant Comics, Gold Key properties like Turok and Dr. Solar.
And Marvel managed to get loads of PR by strongly implying that Alan Moore's lost/Neil Gaiman's unfinished superhero masterpiece will finally be found/finished, while pointedly not saying anything of the sort. Over at The Beat, Heidi McDonald quotes one-time Eclipse Comics honcho Dean Mullaney saying point-blank that the Miracleman version of the character isn't what Marvel's managed to get hold of. All this talk of Marvelman being "the JD Salinger" of comics characters loses a lot of (if not all of) its weight if what's actually been acquired is a blatant fairly Captain Marvel rip-off, rather than Alan Moore's other major comics work deconstructing the superhero. If it's the latter, it's an exciting development for people who don't feel like shelling out hundreds of dollars for the now very difficult to get hold of story; if it's the former, it amounts to pointing out a molehill and pretending it's a mountain while leaving enough wiggle room to say, "Hey, I never actually said it was a mountain" when someone examines the thing a little more closely.
I completely fell for the hype myself, and sat there reading Newsarama's live updates of the Quesada panel, waiting for the Big Announcement, which I seriously believed would involve Harry Potter--something that might have carried a little weight in the wider mainstream and offered a potential infusion of new readers to a medium that could frankly use it. It was not to be, but as a comics fan, I was excited to learn that Marvelman would be returning, right up until I noticed what wasn't being said.
But hey--The THUNDER Agents are coming back! And Fiona Staples is having a lot of fun drawing NORTH 40. And I didn't spend a couple grand over the last five days for the privilege of sweating and getting frustrated in a distant city. So that's all good.
A
Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Fashion, f-fuhfufhfuhFashion
"In a few months, when they realize that girls are not rushing to buy Spider-Man lip gloss and Incredible Hulk tampons, expect Marvel to poutily insist that this is proof that women are not interested in comics." - Dark Horse Editor Rachel Edidin, smacking around the advertising geniuses who brought you the Spider-Girl Sassy Deluxe Adult Costume for their latest attempt to reach out to the ever-elusive (for superhero-centric comic companies) female demographic.
The post is full of quote-worthy lines, definitely worth a read. It starts off as really funny, venomous snark, but by the end it becomes apparent that there's nothing remotely schadenfreudian in it. She really wants to like Marvel's output; but the company (or some elements of the company) treating women like alien creatures makes it difficult.
She even offers some solid suggestions of how to attract female readers without coming across as offensively condescending. Maybe some of them will be taken to heart, but honestly? I'm not holding my breath. The superhero comic companies have their core audience and lack the resources and/or the will to produce anything that doesn't immediately get that core audience's support.
Actually, that last bit isn't fair. The companies do occasionally produce material that might have an appeal beyond their core audience. Where the resources and/or will fall short is in supporting such materials long enough for them to find an audience. I don't think Minx was a bad idea--more that it was an idea that couldn't (or at least wasn't) sustained long enough to build an audience acceptable to whichever set of accountants make the call on what gets supported and what gets the axe. All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder rakes in direct market sales with little to no effort. Why bother trying to create/build/grow an audience when you can just cannibalize the one that's already there and isn't going anywhere until they, well, die?
Did I mention that my 13-year old niece read the copy of collected DRAMACON I gave her for her birthday three times in the first day she had it? Or the trembling, almost crying stream of tween girls lined up to meet Svetlana Chmakova at the Calgary Expo a few months ago? Seriously, for this small collection of readers, talking with Svetlana was akin to a music fan talking to John Lennon. I wouldn't have been surprised if one or more of them actually screamed when Svet said hi to them. This seems pertinent, somehow...
***
On a barely related note, who thought this was a good idea? I give it two months before we get a headline involving Batman and Road Rage.
A
The post is full of quote-worthy lines, definitely worth a read. It starts off as really funny, venomous snark, but by the end it becomes apparent that there's nothing remotely schadenfreudian in it. She really wants to like Marvel's output; but the company (or some elements of the company) treating women like alien creatures makes it difficult.
She even offers some solid suggestions of how to attract female readers without coming across as offensively condescending. Maybe some of them will be taken to heart, but honestly? I'm not holding my breath. The superhero comic companies have their core audience and lack the resources and/or the will to produce anything that doesn't immediately get that core audience's support.
Actually, that last bit isn't fair. The companies do occasionally produce material that might have an appeal beyond their core audience. Where the resources and/or will fall short is in supporting such materials long enough for them to find an audience. I don't think Minx was a bad idea--more that it was an idea that couldn't (or at least wasn't) sustained long enough to build an audience acceptable to whichever set of accountants make the call on what gets supported and what gets the axe. All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder rakes in direct market sales with little to no effort. Why bother trying to create/build/grow an audience when you can just cannibalize the one that's already there and isn't going anywhere until they, well, die?
Did I mention that my 13-year old niece read the copy of collected DRAMACON I gave her for her birthday three times in the first day she had it? Or the trembling, almost crying stream of tween girls lined up to meet Svetlana Chmakova at the Calgary Expo a few months ago? Seriously, for this small collection of readers, talking with Svetlana was akin to a music fan talking to John Lennon. I wouldn't have been surprised if one or more of them actually screamed when Svet said hi to them. This seems pertinent, somehow...
***
On a barely related note, who thought this was a good idea? I give it two months before we get a headline involving Batman and Road Rage.
A
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I should really do a blog update.
But I'm not gonna. This last couple of weeks have left me drained and fragile. I am a delicate, five hundred and seventy pound flower.
***
OK, maybe a quick note on a comic thing...
"Only one resurrection ever impressed anyone."
So said Happy Harbor's Jay Bardyla, in response to the revelation that the Major Announcement Marvel'd promised regarding the mysterious miniseries REBORN was that it would feature the return of Steve Rogers.
I'm sure the story will be good. Brubaker's the guy who "killed" Captain America, and he's the guy who's bringing him back, and I'm assuming he's not having his arm twisted too hard to do so Brubaker brought Bucky back and made it work; Captain America's been easily the most consistent quality read produced by either of the Big Two for ages now. The writer obviously has a strong vision for the story he wants to tell and the art teams, aided by some skillful (if subdued) colouring, have provided a pretty much seamless story on the visual end of things. It's reasonable to expect more of the same with Reborn, and that's not a bad thing at all in this case.
Personally, I think Marvel would be better served by preserving their first really successful legacy superhero story rather than restoring the 70-year old status quo, but that's me--I don't have an upcoming movie to promote. And I'm kind of scratching my head as to how they ever thought bringing back a character killed a couple years ago would make any kind of major media splash. But never mind that.
The biggest problem with the return of Steve Rogers, I mean, the one massive issue, the elephant in the room that I'm sure keeps Joe Quesada awake at night is that, when push comes to shove, I prefer the Fantastic Four to Captain America. There are all sorts of reasons for that--my not being American is certainly a factor--but I don't really feel like going into them. Suffice it to say that, after Doctor Strange, my next favourite Marvel property is the FF.
So I was actually quite happy a year or three ago when the new creative team of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch was announced for the title. Not because I'm a huge fan of the creative team, but because I figured having the guys who did the first two Ultimates series was a surefire way to raise the profile of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. I haven't really looked at the sales numbers, but I gather from skimming Paul O'Brien's comments at Publisher Weekly's The Beat that, for whatever reason, they haven't been as awesome as one might have expected/hoped.
Which will happen from time to time. It may be that the FF is a concept whose time is past, that the people who aren't reading it are disinclined to do so for pretty much the same reasons I like the concept. What struck me as odd, though, was this comment from Joe Quesada:
"You try to use (Bryan Hitch) for the biggest projects possible. We try to do that with our very best talents. So when Ed had the idea of "Reborn" and we knew it was going to be a big deal and wanted to get the most out of it, we wanted to use ... Hitch. So it was literally that simple. You want to bring your A-Team for your A-Story and have them bring their A-Game."
Which is well and good for Reborn, but when that statement is made in response to a question that at least in part was made regarding pulling Hitch off the end of Millar's Fantastic Four run...well, maybe it's just me, but couldn't that be read to imply that The Fantastic Four, the book that started the Marvel Age of Comics, either isn't considered a priority for the company, or that Millar and Hitch are delivering less than their best work on the project?
I dunno. Just struck me as weird comment coming from the Editor in Chief.
A
***
OK, maybe a quick note on a comic thing...
"Only one resurrection ever impressed anyone."
So said Happy Harbor's Jay Bardyla, in response to the revelation that the Major Announcement Marvel'd promised regarding the mysterious miniseries REBORN was that it would feature the return of Steve Rogers.
I'm sure the story will be good. Brubaker's the guy who "killed" Captain America, and he's the guy who's bringing him back, and I'm assuming he's not having his arm twisted too hard to do so Brubaker brought Bucky back and made it work; Captain America's been easily the most consistent quality read produced by either of the Big Two for ages now. The writer obviously has a strong vision for the story he wants to tell and the art teams, aided by some skillful (if subdued) colouring, have provided a pretty much seamless story on the visual end of things. It's reasonable to expect more of the same with Reborn, and that's not a bad thing at all in this case.
Personally, I think Marvel would be better served by preserving their first really successful legacy superhero story rather than restoring the 70-year old status quo, but that's me--I don't have an upcoming movie to promote. And I'm kind of scratching my head as to how they ever thought bringing back a character killed a couple years ago would make any kind of major media splash. But never mind that.
The biggest problem with the return of Steve Rogers, I mean, the one massive issue, the elephant in the room that I'm sure keeps Joe Quesada awake at night is that, when push comes to shove, I prefer the Fantastic Four to Captain America. There are all sorts of reasons for that--my not being American is certainly a factor--but I don't really feel like going into them. Suffice it to say that, after Doctor Strange, my next favourite Marvel property is the FF.
So I was actually quite happy a year or three ago when the new creative team of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch was announced for the title. Not because I'm a huge fan of the creative team, but because I figured having the guys who did the first two Ultimates series was a surefire way to raise the profile of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. I haven't really looked at the sales numbers, but I gather from skimming Paul O'Brien's comments at Publisher Weekly's The Beat that, for whatever reason, they haven't been as awesome as one might have expected/hoped.
Which will happen from time to time. It may be that the FF is a concept whose time is past, that the people who aren't reading it are disinclined to do so for pretty much the same reasons I like the concept. What struck me as odd, though, was this comment from Joe Quesada:
"You try to use (Bryan Hitch) for the biggest projects possible. We try to do that with our very best talents. So when Ed had the idea of "Reborn" and we knew it was going to be a big deal and wanted to get the most out of it, we wanted to use ... Hitch. So it was literally that simple. You want to bring your A-Team for your A-Story and have them bring their A-Game."
Which is well and good for Reborn, but when that statement is made in response to a question that at least in part was made regarding pulling Hitch off the end of Millar's Fantastic Four run...well, maybe it's just me, but couldn't that be read to imply that The Fantastic Four, the book that started the Marvel Age of Comics, either isn't considered a priority for the company, or that Millar and Hitch are delivering less than their best work on the project?
I dunno. Just struck me as weird comment coming from the Editor in Chief.
A
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