Too much exclusive contracting, and not enough real talent
Published by Avi Green on Sunday, August 06, 2006 at 8:44 AM.
The following article from the Northwest Herald (from Chicago?) seems to have been written by someone writing comics, but there's nothing here to indicate who. Nevertheless, if there's something it does tell, it's that the Marvel and DC are needlessly duking it out with each other again.
Being into comics is about a lot more than just exclusive contracts. I recall how, until about the late 1970s, there was a foolish rule that you couldn't work at two different companies simultaneously. Now, it seems that we've got the opposite problem instead, with the editors trying to block the writers and artists from working at the rivals, at least for a certain amount of time. All they're doing now is furthering a weak joke into a really bad one.
Open trackback parties: 7 Deadly Sins, bRight and Early, The Right Nation, Stop the ACLU, Third World County.
With Marvel and DC trying to sign everyone to exclusive contracts, is that tough on the independents?Hmph. Just as I thought. Instead of looking for people with real feeling for the products, they just go signing exclusive contracts, most likely on the basis that these people in question are popular with a specific group of readers but not with the audience as a whole. That's one of the reasons why I distanced myself from a lot of Geoff Johns' work too - because whatever he knows about superhero history (and he's done a modicum to put even that in question), he's only been hired for popularity per se, not because he's got any real love and respect for the DCU. Otherwise, would he have laced his work of recent with so much cruelty tainting the edge, to say nothing short of joylessness?
Oddly enough, we find ourselves in a unique situation. Marvel and DC basically fire volleys at each other. They just don't want the other guy to have the top talent. We can still offer unique deals that Marvel and DC don't really have much of an interest in doing. We've had great success with that. We're just sitting back and going, "All right, you guys have your war, and we'll pick up the special projects."
Being into comics is about a lot more than just exclusive contracts. I recall how, until about the late 1970s, there was a foolish rule that you couldn't work at two different companies simultaneously. Now, it seems that we've got the opposite problem instead, with the editors trying to block the writers and artists from working at the rivals, at least for a certain amount of time. All they're doing now is furthering a weak joke into a really bad one.
Open trackback parties: 7 Deadly Sins, bRight and Early, The Right Nation, Stop the ACLU, Third World County.
