« Home | G. Willow Wilson kept up her apologia » | The withering of newspaper strips » | Graeme McMillan sugarcoats the Omega Men remake » | Do they care that there's still censorship madness... » | Comics Beat/Alliance villify Frank Cho » | Shonen Jump holding a contest that mangakas from a... » | Slott attacks Trump » | Mother Jones' tasteless take on "diversity" » | He's way behind » | Did Marvel really need Star Wars to save themselve... » 

Thursday, December 31, 2015 

Paul Levitz may know some history, but not common sense

At the end of this column on Arcamax, talking about history items and such, they bring up a new book about Will Eisner that's written by Paul Levitz, and says:
This book doesn't have the Kidd touch, but it has something better: It was written by Paul Levitz, the president and publisher of DC Comics for much of my adult life. Levitz knows his bones, especially when it comes to comics history [...]
He may know a thing or two about history, but he sure doesn't know much about modern marketing, recalling that he was a prominent executive by the 1990s, and did nothing on his part to ensure DC and other such publishers would have wider recognizability and availability, instead allowing comicdom at the time to exclude themselves largely to the specialty stores, and it took a while until they made a return, and by then prices were rocketing much higher, and pamphlets selling much lower. Nor did he do anything on his part to respect the works of past writers, recalling all the Green Lantern botch jobs of the times. Worse, he even stood by silently as Dan DiDio and his own clique manufactured Identity Crisis, and collaborated with the Kuwaiti propagandist who concocted "The 99", and that only made clear Levitz lost his moral compass.

On which note, as if it couldn't get any more tasteless, I discovered that Brad Meltzer wrote the introduction to Levitz's biography of Eisner. Needless to say, all that does is lower my respect for Levitz even more, and confirms where he stands on the notorious 2004 miniseries. Hence, Levitz is another of many writers whose work I now find myself forced to separate from the writer and take with a grain of salt.

As I've said at least once before, there was a time when Levitz had talent, as with the Legion of Super-Heroes. But he's long done his darndest to make it difficult to appreciate that, and it's very sad.

Labels: , , , , , ,

About me

  • I'm Avi Green
  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
My profile

Archives

Links

  • avigreen2002@yahoo.com
  • Fansites I Created

  • Hawkfan
  • The Greatest Thing on Earth!
  • The Outer Observatory
  • Earth's Mightiest Heroines
  • The Co-Stars Primer
  • Realtime Website Traffic

    Comic book websites (open menu)

    Comic book weblogs (open menu)

    Writers and Artists (open menu)

    Video commentators (open menu)

    Miscellanous links (open menu)

  • W3 Counter stats
  • Bio Link page
  • blog directory Bloggeries Blog Directory View My Stats Blog Directory & Search engine eXTReMe Tracker Locations of visitors to this page  
    Flag Counter Free Hit Counters
    Free Web Counter

    This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

    make money online blogger templates

Older Posts Newer Posts

The Four Color Media Monitor is powered by Blogspot and Gecko & Fly.
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.
Join the Google Adsense program and learn how to make money online.