Gerry Conway resurfaces
Plenty of people familiar with the Bronze Age will no doubt remember who Conway was back then - he was one of a couple of writers who began their career when just in their teens - there were plenty of teenagers who went to work at a young age around that time - and made a name for himself with many notable characters and series before moving on to television producing in the mid-90s. Now, he's been interviewed on Newsarama, and reading the close, I really wish he would come back to comics, if he's still got something decent to offer!
Which brings me to a good point about comics today: in this age of ultra-commercialized marketing, that's one of the things that's been keeping out a lot of the "human interest" stories that worked so well during the late 60s-early 70s and the 80s as a whole. Even the whole licensing spread's to blame for that too, as I've realized. Ditto when the publishers let their political viewpoints leak over into what they're publishing uncontrollably.
That's something that's got to be overcome for comics to work out well again, as they hopefully will someday. Ditto if writers with the talents that Gerry Conway's had in his time are allowed to write something really worthwhile.
NRAMA: If you could return to comics, would you?Conway, if you can, please, do come back, and if there's any screwups you did when you were still in comics, rest assured that all is forgiven. The marvelous Tombstone arc he wrote in Spectacular Spider-Man in 1988 was probably what led in part to his being a producer/script editor on TV, because he certainly did have a talent for suspense and courtroom drama. And it's something that could lend itself well to comics today, if the editors will allow him.
GC: That’s something I’m asked in almost every interview, and I always say, Oh, I don’t know…it’d have to be the right project, and the right company, and it’d have to be something I was enthusiastic about. I don’t know if I could, to be honest. The kind of comics that are done these days, I don’t know if they’re the kind of thing that my writing would be compatible with.
Which brings me to a good point about comics today: in this age of ultra-commercialized marketing, that's one of the things that's been keeping out a lot of the "human interest" stories that worked so well during the late 60s-early 70s and the 80s as a whole. Even the whole licensing spread's to blame for that too, as I've realized. Ditto when the publishers let their political viewpoints leak over into what they're publishing uncontrollably.
That's something that's got to be overcome for comics to work out well again, as they hopefully will someday. Ditto if writers with the talents that Gerry Conway's had in his time are allowed to write something really worthwhile.
Labels: good writers
