Most Handsome Man in Comics?

I've been wanting to make a detailed post that borderlines on being an article about how awesome Matt Fraction's writing is. It would detail his early creator-owned work to the more recent epic CASANOVA and even his Marvel work and how he was able to really bring to life many lesser known or previously seen as unlikeable characters. All of this would lead to a sort of argument that Matt Fraction is a guy to really watch in comics - somebody that might be as important as Grant Morrison in ten years.

But somewhere along the line, I got lazy.

Yeah. Work does that to you.

So instead, I'm going to make a much easier argument. I'm going to say that Matt Fraction just might be the Most Handsome Man in Comics right now.

Don't believe me? Compare him to these ugly schmucks.

Jeez, Frank. I wouldn't look so smug if I was sporting your ugly mug.

And this might be the first time anyone has ever referred to Alan Moore as an "ugly schmuck." I'm just THAT edgy.

Marvel Apes

Just about anything bad you can say about the series MARVEL APES is totally valid.

But you can't deny that the covers have some pretty funny references.

(The original cover, CAPTAIN AMERICA #25, which featured the death of Captain America, is on the left, whereas the new, parody cover is on the right.

More Industry Speculation - Will Marvel Lose its Fire?

This is an addendum to the piece I wrote yesterday about Marvel. I was just thinking about it today and realized that there are a whole bunch of points I forgot to talk about in that already overly long article.

So here we go. More fun with industry speculation that will most likely be wrong anyways.

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The most obvious analogy I can give for the way Marvel is operating today, in terms of creative output, the working creators, and the working business model, is the way DC operated in the 80's.

Think about it. Back in the 80's DC had all the coolest creators: Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, John Byrne, Peter Milligan...

...who am I forgetting? There might be a few others. I can't remember all of them.

They were all revamping books left and right. Gaiman's SANDMAN, Moore's SWAMP THING, Miller's work on Batman, etc. etc. There were even newer original works by creators, like Miller's RONIN, and the most obvious, Moore's WATCHMEN. All were highly successful, highly critically acclaimed. Hell, even artsy fartsy guys like Scott McCloud hold Moore and Gaiman's work at DC to be some of the best work produced in the medium.

Slowly, however, the creators (with the exception of Grant Morrison) all left. Some goodbyes were like messy breakups and had a lot of mean words exchanged, while some just seemed to get better offers elsewhere and didn't look back. But if there was any one single unified grievance, it was this:

Creator rights.

No matter how much fun a writer is having with editorial leeway and the revamping of a character, no matter how much a creator is being paid to do corporate work - in the end, they never feel all that great about losing ownership of the characters and icons they create for the corporate books.

Fast forward 20 years to the present and we're in the same situation. Marvel has all the Eisner winning creators, they're doing revamps left and right, sales are good, smiles all around...

...but is it just me, or is there a ghost about to rear its ugly head? Somewhere along the line this issue of creator rights has to pop up. When I was talking to Daniel Way, he mentioned that editors keep pushing the writers to create new characters and none of the writers want to do it, because not only do the creations belong to the company, but even the content in the pitches belongs to Marvel.

Come to think of it, this would probably explain why Terry Moore is doing work for Marvel and not creating something new. I've said in the past it would be pretty awesome if he wrote something just like STRANGERS IN PARADISE but taking place in the Marvel U, but why the hell would he bother creating a book for Marvel when he could create a book for another company and retain full ownership?

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So here is my theory for all of this:

Some of the big name writers are out. I mentioned Kirkman, but I forgot to mention Brian K. Vaughan. He's done great work for the company, but now he's a huge name, has a lot of critical acclaim - he doesn't need the Marvel paycheck or the name boost. I am willing to bet he'll never be doing any work for Marvel again.

Then there's Warren Ellis. He seems pretty entrenched, doing a whole bunch of books for them. But do you think he'll honestly stick around if any of his Avatar books break the 30 or 40k mark in sales? Hell no.

It's only a matter of time before many other of these creators start to make decent sales on their creator owned books and take off. Think about it - the pay is better and most of the writers claim they have more fun doing it. It's a no brainer, huh?

My take on all of this is that in the coming few years, it's going to be hit then split for creators at Marvel. Once their creator owned books become hits, that's it - they're gone.

Again - I could be completely wrong about this.

(In fact, that's most likely the case)

Will Marvel Lose its Fire?

Just today, I met Daniel Way, writer of WOLVERINE: ORIGINS and DEADPOOL for Marvel while he was doing a signing at The Laughing Ogre here in Columbus. Normally writers are pretty quiet at signings. A month ago when Jason Aaron was at the same store, he signed my books and answered a question or two of mine and that was about it. With Daniel Way, he just kept talking and talking - I got a good 25 or 30 minutes of chatter out of the guy. I'm just glad there weren't too many people waiting.

Among the things he talked about, what really piqued my interest was his discussion of a lot of the editorial and corporate practices at Marvel. One of the things he said that really worked to Marvel's advantage was their flexibility about scheduling. Apparently at DC, stories are plotted up to two years in advance and once they're plotted, they're set in stone. If anybody comes up with cool stuff they'd like to use in a story at a creative retreat or some kind of editorial meeting, well, um... too bad. No way to fit in. Way commented that at Marvel, things were fluid enough that they were willing to change the schedules in order to fit in cool ideas.

Which is the way to go, as far as I'm concerned. A policy like that has Quesada editorship (is editorship a word? I need an editor) written all over it. Joe Quesada is seriously the Bill Clinton of Marvel. He came in at a time when Marvel was in the dumps and had lots of innovative ideas for reforming the company; all of which tied back to a central thesis - "It's the storytelling, stupid!" So he put storytelling first, and voila: the books flourished, and even no-name titles with less popular characters like DAREDEVIL and CAPTAIN AMERICA topped the charts. Remember the 90's? Anything without Spider-Man or the X-Men simply didn't sell.

However, while the focus of the editors at Marvel is largely on creating cool stories, Way also mentioned that the corporate structure is in a very conservative swing. I didn't know much about how Marvel works as a business, but apparently the editors are totally swamped. The fact that the books continue to sell and be profitable doesn't make a difference - editors only continue to get more bogged down. Apparently assistant editors rotate through the company like crazy because the work is not only intensive but pays piss poorly - about 24,000 dollars a year, which doesn't seem bad until you consider that you have to live in New York for that job. Additionally, he mentioned that Marvel only hires a new editor for every three that leave.

He also commented that new ideas are becoming less and less of a prerogative for the company. He said it's no surprise that we're witnessing the third crossover in a row with popular heroes fighting popular heroes. They're not changing the established formulas, they're going with what they're confident will sell.

And with that, he smiled and said he'd kinda like to see it all come crashing down, just to see what happens.

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This led me to some thinking - will the prosperity that Marvel has been experiencing over the last 5 or 6 years level off or decline? Let's think about the factors:

1) What Way described was typical corporate cost-cutting. That's the nature of the beast - it's how it feeds itself and how it stays alive. But - corporate structures and artistic minds don't always go hand in hand. When a company is conservative, they become more efficient, but they considerably cut down their chances of having out of the blue, surprise hits. Marvel's ideas will get recycled, while other companies might capitalize off the pique value.

2) Creators are already leaving. Sure, their stints were fun, they loved working with Quesada, but few of the top level talent took the work as a permanent job, with some exceptions (I'm looking at you Bendis).

• Matt Fraction commented that his major motivation for doing corporate work was to pay the bills that his creator owned work couldn't. You can imagine that once his name becomes big enough that his creator owned work will do better, he probably won't be as interested in working at Marvel.
• I believe Mark Millar only has one more Marvel project scheduled. After ULTIMATE AVENGERS debuts and finishes, I think he's going to do creator-owned work exclusively. Hell, all of his creator-owned books sell like hotcakes. If any creator has a book that sells half as well as WANTED did, he or she would most likely be making more than any major Marvel title will.
• It's only a matter of time before other major, critically acclaimed creators jump ship. Ed Brubaker got his second Eisner in a row for Best Writer and sales for CRIMINAL continue to increase. It's only a matter of time before he gets offers to do whatever the hell he wants, and at that point, why work at Marvel?

3) Where can Marvel get new talent? Their previous strategy was siphoning big talent off of DC, who are now almost completely dry. They can fish in the indies, but if you look at Marvel's catalog, they still just don't have many books which offer fresh starts for newer talent.

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I could be completely wrong about this, but my bet is that FOUR YEARS from now, the company will be very different from it is today. The big name creators that are recognizable now will all be gone, Image Comics will have stolen a lot of their thunder, and crossover fatigue will have set in a lot of the comic buying audience.

Don't believe me? Let's meet here four years from now at 8 o'clock and discuss it. If I'm wrong, dessert's on me.

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POSTSCRIPT:

I forgot to mention this and I thought it was kind of neat. When I told Daniel that I loved his story about Tombstone in TANGLED WEB, he smiled and looked and sounded really flattered.

That's one of the things I love about meeting newer, lesser-known creators - when you tell them you like their work, they sincerely sound flattered. Grant Morrison won't bat an eyelid if you mention that - not because he's a jerk (actually he's quite the opposite with fans), but just because he gets that all day from people.

Backwash: Newly Discovered Comics - THE COMPLEAT (sic) MOONSHADOW

No, the "compleat" isn't a typo. It's actually written in the title.

Why? For what effect was it intended? I have no idea. Just another bizarre and irrational bit from the mind of J.M. DeMatteis - who, as I understand from reading this work, has a mind that you can't begin to understand. All you can do is sit and enjoy the fanciful ride that his stream of consciousness takes you on.

I discovered this book just a little while ago when I was perusing through a copy of 500 Essential Graphic Novels while killing some time at Barnes & Noble. It was a neat little book that had at least 10 recommended graphic novels for just about every genre you could think of, from the obvious ones like superhero and crime to the less obvious, like war, romance, fantasy, and sports.

Yep - sports. There are some odd folks out there that like sports so much that they don't just want to write books about them. They want to make comics about them.

While flipping through the "fantasy" listing, I came upon some really obvious suggestions.

FABLES? Already read.

THE SANDMAN? Reading comics for years and not having read any of The Sandman is like going out in the rain and not getting wet.

BONE? I was beginning to think the listing wasn't going to throw me one.

But then I saw the listing for MOONSHADOW. I had never even heard of it. And judging from the description, it sounded like I should have. The review claimed that while Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN is the most popular fantasy comic in the industry, MOONSHADOW is truly the pinnacle of the form.

One can't hear a review like that and not have his curiosity piqued. I immediately added to my list of reserves at the local library. A few days later it popped up, I picked it up, and I set to work in reading the 450 page text heavy monster.

The first thing I noticed was how distinct the storytelling was. The comic featured a text-heavy prose narration. I'm not usually fond of a style like that - my philosophy is that the writer should usually back off from the pictures as much as possible; letting the still images breathe unoccluded by talky talky prose. But this book was certainly an exception. The narration exudes a unique charisma that is rare to find even in novels. It's almost as if Douglas Adams, author of the excellent Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, traded his irony and wit for sentimentalism and got ambitious about writing a meandering ongoing comics narrative after reading Alan Moore's The Ballad of Halo Jones.

Despite the talky-talkiness of the work, there was still a perfect synergy between DeMatteis's prose narration and Jon J. Muth's beautiful watercolor artwork. Some of the most powerful scenes in the book are actually where DeMatteis's narrator shuts up entirely, giving us a sequence of wordless panels that have the awkwardness and tension of a cocktail party going deathly silent.

As for the comparison to Gaiman's Sandman, MOONSHADOW touched me in a way that The Sandman had not. MOONSHADOW takes place in a world much like ours, except it seems to be populated by giant, omnipotent happy faces that zoom and zip around the galaxy, performing extraordinary feats that dont' seem to correlate with each other. The story is about a wide-eyed young boy,who was raised on one of these happy face's intergalactic zoo, heading out an intergalactic expedition, where he will experience adventure, love, hate, sex, death, as well as explorations of who God is. This sets quite a contrast to The Sandman's main character, Dream, who was dull, unadventurous, and stoic. Also, while the book feels like a work of classic fairytale fiction, the surrealistic elements and fantasy characters seem fully unique and non-referential.

The only criticism I can level on it is that the ending is rather disappointing, cutting off much of the momentum and symbolic exploration that was progressing through the story. I suspect what may have happened was that DeMatteis and Muth expected to keep going and tell the story in 20 issues or so, when all of a sudden they got a phone call from Marvel (despite the collection edition being published by Vertigo, it was Marvel that initially published the book in the mid 80's) saying the sales numbers weren't high enough to justify the series. I don't know if this was the case for sure, but that's the only justification I can hypothesize for why a creative team with such a coherent vision would prematurely end the book in such a blunderous fashion.

Your local library might have this. Check it out. While it's totally reasonable to be weary of paying 40 bucks for a book like this, there's no reason to pass up something like this for free.

Comics I Read This Week 4: 10/01/08

It's New Comics Day! And I'm doing a Comics I Read This Week! Am I actually updating on time?

No.

These are all comics I read last week, minus the new Mark Millar/Bryan Hitch FANTASTIC FOUR issue I wanted which was sold out the store. Booooo.

I'm listening to the New York indie rock quartet The Forms sing about making plans and other mundane subjects and making it sound so good.

First up!

1. IMMORTAL IRON FIST: ORSON RANDALL AND THE DEATH QUEEN OF CALIFORNIA
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli

I wish I could say this was awesome. Or at least as awesome as ORSON RANDALL AND THE GREEN MIST OF DEATH from Matt Fraction's run was.

The story's of a seedy noir sort and set in Hollywood in the 20's. Unfortunately, the plot is rather dull and predictable. None of this seems to really tie into the current Iron Fist story arc, either, which isn't really a problem in and of itself. It's just that if the story's boring, what's the point?

2. RUNAWAYS #2
Writer: Terry Moore
Artist: Humberto Ramos
I am SO surprised at how little I'm liking this book.

I figured it was a shoe-in. A great concept, great characters, and a great creator handling the scripting duties that most likely has an editorial carte blanche with the story.

But what do we get?

Some kind of confusing story about alien lineages. Does anybody REALLY care? I always thought people read the book because it was a well-written adventure story that featured kids that actually act like kids for a change.

I'm not sure about what every Runaways reader wants, but this one doesn't want big sci-fi or a Secret Invasion tie-in. I want what Terry Moore does best - writing engaging characters that feel like realy people.

3. DEADPOOL #2
Writer: Daniel Way
Artist: Paco Medina
This one was fun. Much more fun than the last one, at least. We're seeing what this book is really about:

Shenanigans!

There's still no "Dear Deadpool" at the end, but hey - as long as this book can make me laugh, I'm going to keep buying it.

4. SUPERMAN #680
Writer: James Robinson
Artist: Renato Guedes
Was this really written by the same James Robinson that did the acclaimed run on STARMAN?

Is there another James Robinson in comics?

Or by chance did he employ writers of the ghost variety on his critically acclaimed books?

The reason I'm asking is because man, did this book blow.

This is the closing issue of a 4 issue story arc that was almost entirely Superman and Atlas punching each other in the face. Through the first three issues, Atlas beats Superman to a pulp without Superman being able to do much in response at all. The question that lingered was how a pretty strong, but not EXTRAORDINARLY strong guy could so easily take on the big guy in blue.

So what was the reason revealed in this issue?

Atlas has magic.

Oh boy. I'm so glad I kept on reading.

There's also some lame shots of Krypto the Wonder Dog fighting Atlas while giving silly narration in the process like "BAD MAN, STOP BAD MAN".

Colossal multi-issue fights tend to be boring in superhero comics. Give us some plot. Give us some dialogue. Give us some character development. This was boring enough when the X-Men slugged it out for 5 or 6 issues in Messiah Complex. This ESPECIALLY doesn't work in a Superman comic.

Mr. Robinson, please consult Mr. Morrison on how to write a fun and engaging Superman comic. Thank you.

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Post-script:

Is it kind of bizarre that I mentioned in my Kirkman rant that most books I read are creator-owned, and these are entirely in the big-two? Yes, it is. In my defense, what I read in the floppies and what I read in the trades are two very different things. I'll post some reviews of collected creator-owned work pretty shortly.

Kirkman's Cruise to Save Comics

I realize this was a while ago, and most people have already read this, but I wanted to weigh in my opinions on Kirkman's controversial claims about creator-owned work in the industry. Not necessarily because he's wrong, but because his argument is very very scatter-brained and he misses the mark on some issues.

If you haven't seen his editorial, watch it here.

First, being the feisty guy I am, I'm going to pick his argument apart, piece by piece.

"If you give people the option of Spider-Man or your creator-owned book... they'll choose Spider-Man, that's something time-tested versus something new. New has to be the only option."

I'm not really sure about this. Walk into your average comic book store.

And when I say average, I mean AVERAGE. Not the hip trendy store downtown where all the employees are cute girls that like indie rock or the stores with couches and lounges in them and have every Top Shelf book on display.

I mean the ones that have giant statues of Spider-Man and don't even a trade paperback section yet.

In most of these stores, most people don't even follow the creative teams involved. They just buy books with their favorite characters in them. I highly doubt sales of Matt Fraction's CASANOVA would be at all affected by him dropping his Marvel duties on INVINCIBLE IRON MAN or UNCANNY X-MEN. Even if you wrote "From the writer of all your favorite Marvel books!" on the cover.

"If that results in a mass exodus of creators leaving Marvel and DC, don't panic guys, I love their books as much as everyone else -- nobody wants to hurt them in the process. Look at it like an opportunity, that's the time for Marvel and DC to step up the plate and make their comics viable for a whole new generation. Less continuity, more accessible stories -- not made for kids, but appropriate for kids. Books that would appeal to everyone still reading comics, but would also appeal to the average 13 year old too. "

Would this really result in a creative resurgence at Marvel or DC? Let's look at some historical examples.

Let's roll back five years. Ed Brubaker was introducing new readers to Selina Kyle in his reboot of CATWOMAN and at the same time, along with Greg Rucka, was giving us a gritty detective drama very much akin to TV shows like NYPD Blue or Hill Street Blues on GOTHAM CENTRAL.

Mark Millar made a Superman fan out of me (and many others) in SUPERMAN: RED SON.

Brubaker, Millar, AND Warren Ellis were all doing incredibly provocative work at DC's child, Wildstorm.

Then they all left to do work at Marvel. And what happened to the DC Universe?

INFINITE CRISIS, COUNTDOWN, DEATH OF THE NEW GODS, and now FINAL CRISIS. Heavily continuity-driven books that were very unfriendly to new readers.

Let's go back even further, to the entrance into the 90's. Nearly every major name creator, from Jim Lee to Alan Moore, had all left the big two to do work at Image, Dark Horse, or other independent companies.

What happened to the books at the Big Two?

The Death of Superman happened, along with a billion other superhero deaths. And crossovers.

I think Kirkman is way wrong on this point. I think most of history has shown us the opposite - that when the good creators leave, quality and accessibility of the books goes way down.

In some ways he's correct, in that some of the books that really appealed to all ages were ones in which DC or Marvel were taking big chances on new talent. Bendis was a no-name indie guy when he was given ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, and now, everybody in the last 6 years swears it's what got them reading comics again.

But there's two points that need to be considered with that: 1) That all-ages accessibility is really a prerogative of the editors more than anything. DC editors don't seem to care much for that at the moment. 2) It usually takes several years for the company to get desperate enough to take chances with no-name talent.

"A comic industry where there are more original comics, so there's more new ideas, more creator-owned books by totally awesome guys that are selling a ton of books. Those books are mature and complex and appeal to our aging audience that I count myself among who are keeping this business alive. And we also have a revitalized Marvel and DC who are selling comics to a much wider audience than ever before. And that audience, as they age, may get turned on to some awesome creator-owned work eventually. So everyone is happy."

Kirkman envisions a kind of creative renaissance in comics due to an exodus. I think what's more likely to happen is that many of the creators would flop like fish out of water. Most comic readers don't take chances on buying new creator-owned books until at least a trade is put out, so many of them would suffer financially almost immediately. Most of them would just go back to working at the Big Two right away. Marvel and DC can hold their breath much longer than the creators can, and it would take a long time to erode the market to the point where buyers HAVE to buy creator-owned work in order to read something good.

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It seems like I'm being really negative about creators in this. I really don't want to appear that way at all. I love creator-owned work and actually prefer reading it much more to the usual monthly titles on Marvel or DC.

I will even agree on the point that most writers at Marvel and DC should be doing much more creator-owned work. I would love to see awesome writers like Matt Fraction, Grant Morrison, Jason Aaron, Brian Bendis, and Peter David have AT LEAST as much creator-owned work being published as corporate work.

And Kirkman pointed out one thing that's really critical and misrepresented - while most creator-owned work isn't profitable, it has the potential to be INCREDIBLY profitable, more lucrative than any high paying job at Marvel.

The biggest selling blockbuster comic at Marvel is usually a crossover issue, and that usually hits about 250,000 copies. The average #1 during a non-summer crossover month is around 110,000 copies. And even if you had a big seller like this, most of the profit goes to Marvel, the real owner of all of the characters.

But did you know that there are still comics that sell in the MILLIONS? They're not making it on the Diamond lists, but that doesn't mean they don't fly off of bookstore shelves. Comics like Jeff Smith's BONE, Chris Ware's JIMMY CORRIGAN, Marjane Satrapi's PERSEPOLIS, and Craig Thompson's BLANKETS are all huge worldwide sellers, with some of these selling multiple million copies.

So it's possible to sell ten times the copies of a hit Marvel comic, while at the same time, getting a much bigger profit share. Ever since launching the Millarworld comics, Mark Millar has probably been driving Ferraris.

Do the math. All the wealthiest in the industry own their own creations. So while Kirkman may be wrong about EVERY creator, he's right in that there are a few more that would be able to launch a book that critics adore and at the same time puts a Ferrari in the garage.