George Perez goes exclusive with Boom Studios
Perez is yet another veteran who's all but left the big two to work more with independent companies, and in this CBR interview, he added his voice to those explaining what's wrong with Marvel and DC today:
So there's one guy who's an artist, who's now joining various writers in an exodus from the big two because he can no longer find the creative freedom he needs there. I suppose it's fair to say that sooner or later, this domino effect will have an impact on Marvel and DC, and either they'll change their editorial approach and management, or, Disney and Time Warner will close them down, or better still, they'll sell the publishing arms to people who care more about the potential in those properties. I seriously hope it'll one day be the latter.
CBR News: Generally speaking, I feel like moving towards more original work has been a theme for a lot of creators of late. What, for you, was the deciding factor in making this shift, and what kinds of comics are you most interested in making now that you're not going to be working on the corporate superhero side of things for the foreseeable future?He's probably summed up what's gone wrong with them best of all. I think what he means by corporate is that they've even gone miles out of their way to dispose of authentic character drama. Why else would Marvel and DC marginalize Mary Jane Watson and Lois Lane, among many other supporting casts? Perez, of course, had his share of writing credits as much as artwork, with New Teen Titans and Wonder Woman being standout examples, and DC threw away much of what he'd worked so hard to make sparkle years before.
George Perez: Well, while I have enjoyed considerable professional and personal success with both Marvel and DC, it was becoming all too evident that many of the books being produced by both companies seem to be getting more and more corporate driven. Many of the characters I grew up with were turning into strangers whose adventures were determined by factors that had less and less to do with what made a good comic story and more to do with how these properties can be exploited for other purposes. There's nothing wrong with that, I guess, but not something that I felt was particularly satisfying for me as a storyteller.
So there's one guy who's an artist, who's now joining various writers in an exodus from the big two because he can no longer find the creative freedom he needs there. I suppose it's fair to say that sooner or later, this domino effect will have an impact on Marvel and DC, and either they'll change their editorial approach and management, or, Disney and Time Warner will close them down, or better still, they'll sell the publishing arms to people who care more about the potential in those properties. I seriously hope it'll one day be the latter.
Labels: bad editors, dc comics, good artists, indie publishers, marvel comics
I think that like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, not to mention the plethora of golden age comicbook characters, the vast chumbucket of comics today will leave very little in its wake.
Silver Age nostalgia doesn't explain why children gravitate towards the 1960s / early 1970s versions of the characters rather than the near-pornographic mess of the latest comics. Disney and Warner comics have both gone into a deathspiral of decadence, and history says that it is irreversible.
Better by far that other fresh hands take over the comicbooks. Or, that new heroes arise from indie publishers, by which I do NOT mean Boom, Dynamite, Dark Horse or any of the other trademark mills. There's stuff out there waiting to explode.
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2:25 PM