THE ARCHIE GAZES ALSO INTO YOU.
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In which Mike attempts to keep it short…
…and probably fails miserably at it.
I didn’t mean for my alleged “analysis” of your responses to be spread over a couple days’ worth of posts, but I went on too long about the crossover thing yesterday and, as I said, I was just too darn tired to move on to other topics. So, let me wrap up the crossover issue (er, so to speak) as briefly as I can.
Speaking from the perspective of a person who sells funnybooks for a living, I can see when event fatigue does begin set in. Customers are excited at first, but as time wears on, and more and more tie-ins to the event crop up, and more delays occur, frustration and irritation begins to set it. For the most part, that doesn’t stop our customers from continuing to follow the events (though there is some attrition), but in the long run that doesn’t do much for the goodwill of the fans towards the big superhero companies.
As a reader, I don’t mind the event books so much. As a DC guy, I was pretty excited about Infinite Crisis, for example, even though by the end of that run I think I noted on the site about how I’d never want to see an Omac ever again. And, while I liked some of the crossover books, I was glad to get back to the main storylines once the event was over.
Now commentor Andy G said something smart about a crossover’s impact on regular titles, stating that a writer with some measure of skill can easily work with/around the “shared universe” story elements forced in by editorial edict. Andy specifically mentions Grant Morrison’s dealings with this sort of thing on JLA, referring to the “Electric Superman” and other temporary character changes outside of the JLA book. I should note, however, that of the three issues during Morrison’s JLA run that were explicit full-issue event tie-ins, one, as Andy noted, tied into an event series Morrison himself was writing, and the other two — an awful “No Man’s Land” Batman tie-in and a crossover dealing with however they were trying to “fix” Hal Jordan that month — were foisted off onto other writers.
But Andy is still correct…writers can route around the damage, as it were, and either contain the crossover’s influence, or perhaps spin off something new from it entirely, all without impacting the reader’s enjoyment. And to be fair, I think a lot of superhero writers are able to manage it well enough…it’s a skill you kinda have to have if you work for Marvel or DC. For example, I didn’t much care about Marvel’s Civil War event, and although it crossed over with Thunderbolts, a title I did greatly enjoy, for a few issues, it didn’t really bother me so much. I never felt a need to have to go out and get the Civil War series in order to make sense of the Thunderbolts issues, as everything I needed, or wanted, to know was right there in the Thunderbolts comic itself.
So, let’s see…to wrap up, then: I’ve got no real beef with crossover events, though spacing them out a tad may be in the publishers’ best interests. Yes, customers may still be buying ’em all at the moment, but burn out is setting in. As Eddie says, my little survey is hardly a scientific poll, since the respondents are pre-selected from that portion of fandom that actively seeks out additional information and interaction regarding their funnybook hobby, and thus may be more inclined to contemplate their comic-buying and reading habits, as compared to the folks who just buy their books once a week, read ’em and forget about ’em ’til the next new comics day. But, as the old saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Other responses, in brief:
Less violence – Given we’re talking about superhero books here, for the most part, violence is inherent to the genre, and the increase in explicitness of the violence (more on-panel, and barely off-panel, dismemberments and shootings and whatnot) in a handful of titles could be a result of the “me too, me too” need to compete with movies, TV, video games, and so on. It’s an easy shorthand for “see, things are REAL serious in our super-adventures, here.” I have mixed feelings on the topic, myself. In some contexts, the violence levels are fine. In others, it’s gratuitous. As violence has always been. It’s more of a problem for me as a comic book seller, when it’s time to find a comic for a mom who wants “appropriate” reading for her kid, and insists on a superhero comic. “Well, here, this comic doesn’t have too many decapitations in it.”
More self-contained stories – I think companies are deathly afraid of letting any storylines wrap up cleanly, for fear of giving anyone jumping-off points for their readerships. It seems to me that, in the current marketplace, we don’t have a lot of readers looking for clean starting points for titles they can start reading. Instead, we have a lot of comic fans looking for reasons to dump the more marginal books they’re reading, and any kind of clean break can give them that opportunity. Plus, as the market continues its slow shift toward the trade paperback distribution model, the “written for the trade” series of six part stories probably isn’t going to go away anytime soon.
Word balloons on covers that actually describe the story inside – I’m all for it. Take a look at some Sgt. Rock covers to see how this type of cover can practically force a reader to pick a comic off the rack.
Follow-up to the Sunday questions, part one.
I don’t know why I say things like “[I’ll] provide some kind of analysis/commentary” on your responses to my Sunday questions regarding what you want/don’t want to see in your comic books. Throwing around the word “analysis” makes it sound like I’m going to come up with some kind of in-depth study or something.
However, looking at your folks’ answers (and thank you for participating), a few general trends can be discerned. In short, folks want self-contained, fun comics, uninvolved in company-wide crossovers, free of explicit ‘n’ bloody violence, and containing imaginative writing and quality art. And they all want ponies, which I thought was kind of strange.
Above and beyond anything else, respondents tend to be suffering from crossover burnout. Not surprising, and completely understandable, since Marvel and DC have been front-loading their super-books with big mega-event shenanigans over the last couple of years, with each new crossover leading into the next crossover, and so on. Alas, I don’t need to tell you that crossovers aren’t going away anytime soon.. they’ve been selling enormously well, and they’re too good of marketing tools for the companies. Rarely does anything of permanent significance come out of them, but that’s hardly the point. Crossovers exist for the same reason superhero team books were created…it’s to get a fan of (for example) Green Lantern to buy another book that has Green Lantern in it (say, Justice League of America), and hopefully that fan will see the Flash in that comic and say, “Hey, that Flash guy is pretty cool…maybe I’ll try out his comic, too.”
However, fans also like to see their favorite heroes team up. Nothing wrong with that. We all want to see Red Tornado pair up with Ultraa to fight Crazy Quilt. Okay, maybe we all don’t want to see that particular team-up, but you get the idea. I don’t think that we all would object to the occasional big crossover hoo-har…but that’s the key word, there: “occasional.” As I said above, the last couple of years have been crossover/event heavy, with DC’s multiple Crises and attacking Amazons and One Year Laters, and Marvel with its Civil Wars and Initiatives and World War Hulks and now that whole Skrull thing we have to look forward to. As commenter Laurie says:
“Less crossovers & tie-ins to big events. Just let the books stand on their own for a few issues.”
“…I’m tired of books with good continuing stories being thrown off track by editorial fiats to join in the latest dumb crossover.”
That’s what happens when the emphasis increases on the “shared” part of “shared universe.” Books try to get some momentum, some traction on their own, then suddenly they’re part 15 of the “Secret Crisis Millennium” and everything’s on hold for a month or three. And then it’s time for a crossover with “War of Infinite Genesis,” followed by a tie-in to “Infinity Trinity,” and whatever story the writer is trying to write has to be pushed aside to accommodate what’s going on with the rest of the company. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but not much.
But, like I said, feeding readers from one “event” to the next with little or no break has been mostly successful, even with fan grumblings, so, alas, we’re stuck with this particular publishing strategy for now. Once the diminishing returns set in, as they must, it’ll be off to the next Big Comic Publishing Idea.
Anyway, I’m writing this very late Monday night/early Tuesday morning after a very long day, and if I don’t go to bed, I’m going to fall asleep with my face pressed against the monitor and drooling on my keyboard. I’ll continue my commentary (with maybe a word or two more about crossovers, and more about the other survey responses) in the morning or Tuesday evening. Thanks for your patience and for reading!
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Last Friday night, I went to go see the new Fantastic Four movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer, and…short review: what they gave us was pretty good, what they didn’t give us was pretty annoying.
Overall, it’s an improvement over the first film. I’m one of the few people on the planet who actually kinda sorta liked the first film, despite its flaws and missed opportunities. This film feels like it’s a little smoother, more action packed, more humor, more attachment to the characters (c’mon, the Thing is lovable in every medium), and doesn’t overstay its welcome, clocking in at a short 90 minutes. Maybe too short, which I’ll get to the spoiler section.
And, speaking of which, let me do my usual SPOILER WARNING, as I’m going to let loose with some FF movie secrets just after this next pic. When you see the second picture, the spoilers will be over. Okay, internet pals? Okay!
- Let’s get the biggie out of the way, first: as you may have gathered from my Saturday morning post, there just ain’t any Galactus in the picture. At one point in the film, you see a shadow that resembles his helmet cast across the face of a planet, and near the end you kinda sorta maybe possibly see a face in the giant Galact-o-cloud.
Now, if you’re gonna mention Galactus during the course of the film, and if Galactus is presented as the true, looming threat…to not have the heroes directly face off against Galactus at the end of the story seems like a bit of a cheat. Or, at the very least, disappointing. An extra ten minutes or so featuring the FF fighting Galactus would have pushed this flick from “not too bad” to “absolutely fantastic.” Er, so to speak.
And this isn’t just “Galactus should have appeared in the movie exactly as he appeared in the 1960s.” It’s just that having the heroes mope around on Earth while the film’s Special Guest Star Superhero takes care of the real threat doesn’t seem like a wise choice.
- Speaking of the Galact-o-cloud, I have to admit it did look really menacing, particularly in the shots showing it about to encompass/devour the Earth.
- The Silver Surfer himself…now, look, I’ve mentioned before the improbability of the Surfer actually working as a character. It’s a guy, covered in silver, who flies on a surfboard. You’d think that’d be as goofy as all get out, but it (usually) works on paper, and it works out swimmingly on film. The initial chase sequence with the Surfer and the Human Torch is a blast, and the other (too few) sequences of the Surfer in action are quite nicely done.
- The relationships within the family work very well, which is important. The focus for the FF should always be “family” — this isn’t just a superteam of folks with oddball powers. They’re bound together by love and friendship, and this aspect of the FF translated well to film. In particular, the friendly-adverserial relationship between the Torch and the Thing, and Sue’s patience and acceptance of Reed’s inability to completely put aside science for romance.
- I think we still haven’t quite achieved the level of technology required to properly present a stretchy guy in live action. The bachelor party dance sequence, with Reed attempting to cut a rug with some rubbery moves, pretty much just screamed “CGI.” Okay, duh, it’s gotta be CGI, but it didn’t look convincing in the slightest. It looked okay during the Ferris wheel rescue sequence, and during the climactic Doom battle…but more on that in a moment.
- There’s product placement all over this flick, but for the most part it actually works in context (i.e. Johnny’s attempts at sponsorship). Even the “Dodge” logo on the Fantasticar amused more than offended.
- Okay, I know I said before we don’t need any more Stan Lee cameos…but the one in this film is almost directly out the original FF comics. How can I say no?
- Dr. Doom’s possession of the Surfer’s powers worked better than I expected as well. The visuals of Doom riding the board looked like they were taken right out of the similar event in the original comics. Even better, though, was the Torch’s acquisition of all the Four’s powers in order to battle the cosmically-powered Doom, turning him into, for all intents and purposes, the Super Skrull. If there’s one thing I never expected to see in a live action film, it’s a flaming rocky fist at the end of a stretched arm. (In real life…sure, I expect to see that all the time.)
“Hey, look, is that Galact…oh, no, it’s just a cloud. Never mind.”
And there you go. I liked it. So sue me.
Also, one of the attached trailers to this film was for the forthcoming live-action Underdog movie. And…um…it actually didn’t look half bad. (It just goes to show you that Peter Dinklage improves everything.) Not that I’m expecting to pay money to see it in a theatre…I’ll just rent it via Netflix so no one has to know I’m watching it, except me…and, I guess, the few thousand of you who just read that. (EDIT: Paul Di Filippo has got my back re: Underdog.)
Let me know what you thought of the film in the comments section here…and don’t forget to let your voice be known in my little survey from Sunday.
Hey, hey, hey.
- Don’t forget to let your opinion be known in response to my two questions from this morning.
- Via Neilalien, a retailer’s perspective on Marvel’s attempt to boost orders with info-free hype, as it relates to the promised “most important event of the year” in New Avengers #31. (You know, the event that was met with a resounding “…eh.”)
“Gee, Mike, why didn’t you depend on Marvel’s hype and online gossip to plan your orders?” “Wow, I have no idea.”
- Speaking of Marvel and gossip, I hear tell that there may be a real groaner of a storyline coming up involving Mephisto and the altering of certain major characters’ status quos. I don’t know if it’s just a self-contained storyline or a Real Permanent Change for All Time, but we’ll see if the gossip is close to the mark soon enough.
- Via Metafilter, quite possibly my favorite video game battle ever, courtesy the user-customizable M.U.G.E.N. fighting game…the Juggernaut versus Fat Albert:
In which Mike asks you questions in lieu of generating his own content…
…but so I’m not entirely lazy-posting, have a link: Swamp Thing vs Hellboy – pencils and finished drawing.
Anyway, just out of curiosity, please let me know your responses to these two questions:
1. What is the one thing you’d like to see more of in your comic books? (Aside from “pages,” wiseguy.)
2. What is the one thing you never want to see again in your comics? (Please don’t answer this one with creators’ names…instead of saying “covers by M—- T—-,” try “improbable anatomy being presented as ‘sexy,'” which is more or less the same thing.)
I’ll hopefully collect answers over the next couple of days and provide some kind of analysis/commentary on Tuesday. So don’t be shy…please, speak up, LET YOUR OPINION BE KNOWN.
Just in case you needed some Galactus this weekend…
…here you go:
from Fantastic Four #50 (May 1966 – as reprinted in Marvel Masterworks Vol. 25)
by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott
"LICK AND STICK THE MAJESTY."
- So it’s finally happened…I’ve scripted an installment of Benjamin Birdie and Kevin Church’s webstrip The Rack. It is, sadly, based on a true story. Guess which character is me.
- Speaking of Kevin, I’d mentioned to him via the e-mail (yes, sometimes we talk in secret via e-mail…and we’re saying things about YOU) that I was, at that moment, in the process of deciding some order numbers on a variant cover for the impending Thor #1. What kind of variant, do you ask? Why, a “zombie variant” (painted by Marvel Zombies cover artist Art Suydam) of course.
Kevin immediately posted the order info on his site, because it is both terrible and beautiful. You can read it in full there, but to summarize: for every 10 “zombie Thor” covers I order, one of those covers will be a “non-zombie” Thor painting by Suydam. It’s a variant for your variant. And now we have the descriptor “non-zombie” in our comic book parlance.
Now, I’ll admit, I’m mostly amused by Suydam’s zombie covers, which are all parodies of classic (or, at least, recognizable) Marvel covers of the past. Most are funny (the birds kill me, every time), though this one is a tad on the tacky side, and I swear I don’t get why anyone in his right mind would want this Marvel Zombies-inspired statue.
But, really, haven’t we hit our zombie saturation point by now? The current iteration of the zombie fad is way past its shelf life, and most folks have moved on. Not Marvel, though…there’s no good idea they can’t strip mine into oblivion. Then again, customers are still buying them, though diminishing returns are beginning to set in a bit.
However, I will give the Marvel Zombies thing one more pass if we can get a zombified version of this cover. I mean, it’s halfway there already.
- For all that…yes, I ordered some of the Thor zombie variant for the store. Yes, I know I’m part of the problem. Hey, we were the first store in the world to carry the original, self-published Love and Rockets comic…surely that buys us some slack for occasionally giving in to Marvel’s marketing.
- Pal JP brings you SUPER TATTOOS. Not just any SUPER TATTOOS, but the greatest Superman tattoos you will ever see in your wasted, misbegotten lives. LICK AND STICK THE MAJESTY.
- A special thanks to reader John, who proves himself goodhearted and saintly by sending me the one thing that, ’til now, the Vast Mikester Comic Archives lacked…
…a Swamp Thing comic autographed by Swampy co-creator Len Wein:
It’s…it’s beautiful.
- “HITLER SKETCH!”
Sent to me by pal Dorian.
"My gamble on his baby’s emotions came through like a champ!"
Wednesday morning, at the shop before we opened, waiting for the UPS shipment of new comics, I listened to the Negativland album Dispepsi. Twice.
Now that’s how you start your New Comics Day.
How not to start it…arguing with someone via the e-mail over the allegedly high cost of my shipping a book to Germany. One, the book is big ‘n’ heavy, and two, I’m in the U.S., and you’re IN GERMANY…how cheap did you think it was going to be? Plus, at this point the only way I could ship it any more cheaply is to do away with any packaging whatsoever and just slap a mailing label right on the book itself.
Dear Marvel:
RE: World War Hulk #1…so far, so good. Almost lost me by introducing the Sentry, a character I couldn’t care less about, into the series right away, but if all he’s there for is to give the Hulk someone else to punch, I suppose I can live with it. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Sentry’s actually going to play some major role in the story’s resolution, which will be unfortunate, but What Can You Do?
However, the promise of the series (Hulk returns to Earth to kick the ass of everyone who’s done him wrong) has played out just dandy so far, with the Hulk laying a beatdown on the one “hero” who probably deserves it the most. It’s a good, solid, simple premise (and if folks hadn’t read “Planet Hulk,” the brief exposition provided nicely gets everyone up to speed), which I have a hard time imagining that even you, Marvel, could screw up.
Not saying you won’t screw it up, of course, but hopefully it won’t go off the rails until after we all get some quality Hulk funnybook action.
Yes, this all entirely lowbrow. But sometimes, no matter how sophisticated an “illustrated graphic storytelling” fan you may be, sometimes you just gotta read a comic about the Hulk smashing.
And that’s okay.
Just try not to screw it up, for at least a little while.
Love, Mike
Just a few random panels from Avengers #105 (Nov 1972) by Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Jim Mooney:
Some heroic determination from Iron Man, back when he was a hero:
The best defeat of a villain ever:
And Thor pasting some bad guy in the puss, which is always quality:
"It is a shame, in a way, that I shall have to destroy you, Superman!"
You know what I wish we could have had more of in the funnybooks?
Superman versus Dr. Doom, that’s what:
