Titans trashed by Judd Winick

The Titans Tower webmaster reviews the newest take on the Titans, where Winick continues to deliver some of the most dreadful storytelling of the modern age. For example, there's no real suspense. This following note here had me thinking:

I know some people liked how the JLA is rescuing the other Titans, but I think things like that make it seem all too easy. This is the Titans book, and it should be their mission. When you have the JLA and JSA backing you up, the main threat just seems less dire. It works better when you get a line like "The JLA and JSA are both on missions".

This should be a Titans case, where they are desperately trying to reach each member. Also, they should be recruiting rescued members to help in the Trigon battle. There's no plan or strategy here. There's no momentum to the plotting. There's no pacing. It's just the Titans standing around, panel after panel, spouting lame sit-com dialogue from the 90s.

I distinctly remember that at least two other stories from the past year did something like this too: in The Flash, when the Scarlet Speedster and his two kids are menaced by water siphoning aliens, the JLA comes in to help, instead of someone local trying to think of a way to turn the tables on the invaders. In Green Arrow and Black Canary, written by Winick himself, after Connor Hawke is shot, Ollie yells out for Superman, making it all too easy as well. And there's more examples too in various places, where the action is underwhelmed and the story resolved way too easily. That's another problem with recent superhero comics.

As for Judd Winick, one of the earliest examples of overrated writers whom the big two have been hiring lately, he will surely be responsible for destroying comics like these if they continue to keep him around. He should be shunned by the audience for the damage he's doing, and no one should waste their precious money on books written by him.

Home computer in repair shop for a few days

As luck would have it, my computer's hard drive crashed, and it'll need to go for repairs for a few days. Until it's ready again, I can use a computer I have at work, but I won't be able to update as well as I'd like to. The home computer should certainly be ready again by Monday.

Palo Alto High School's manga artist club

An article in the Paly Voice that talks about a manga club they've got at the Palo Alto High School for training in the art of manga drawing.

Pure Emperor's New Clothes thinking

A columnist for the Valley Morning Star writes a little about changes done in the history of comics, but towards the end, he brings up One More Day, and really flubs:

In a similar fashion, the “One More Day” storyline that turned Spider-Man into an unwed man and seemingly wiped Mary Jane from the Marvel Universe gives the folks at Marvel a chance for new stories.

I must admit that this change to Spider-Man’s character bothered me. But I keep reading, and the strong stories being produced may be a good move after all. Nonetheless, I still miss MJ, but am hopeful for the future.

I tend to describe that kind of leaning as Emperor's New Clothes thinking. He says he misses Mary Jane, yet he accepts the tasteless changes made, including the deal-with-the-devil in the guise of Mephisto, and continues to read Amazing Spider-Man anyway, regardless of how bankrupt One More Day was. All because "the show must go on". Predictably, there's nary a mention of even the not-so-subtle attacks on Mary Jane, like when during February in issue 549, Spidey slugged the would-be heroine named Jackpot after mistaking her for a mob enforcer, nor are there any other details given to explain more clearly why he thinks they've delivered "strong stories". A real sell-out.

The battle to rescue Spidey and Mary Jane's marriage won't be won with that kind of approach.

Trackposted to: Cao's Blog, Faultline USA, A Newt One, Third World County, The World According to Carl.

Crossovers are expensive

This whole Newsarama article here tells just how much it could cost to buy all the books related to this summer's crossovers (via The Beat). And even if it's just either the main miniseries or some of the connecting books, it's still very costly, and no way to draw in newcomers.

Eventually, no matter how they're structured and advertised, these crossovers are going to become far too costly and interfering with other storylines for people to handle. And that's why the time has come to retire them.

Article about samurai comic

An article in the McKinney Courier Gazette about an entry in the line called "Zuda Comics" called "Golden" about the journey of a samurai, and the writer who penned it.

Bruce Jones' weak Hulk run

One of the writers on Broken Frontier this week spoke about Bruce Jones taking up the writing on the low-selling Checkmate at DC, and brought up Jones' run on the Incredible Hulk a couple years ago, which was decidedly limp and overlong:

While many criticized his mostly Hulk-free stories for the title, fans responded to the game of cat-and-mouse and the twisty conspiracy tales he wove for the title. Sales on the series improved, and it became one of Marvel’s most talked about comics of that era.

I think this is a bit glossed over, though it does tell why some weren't happy with it back then: Bruce Banner barely turned into the Hulk during Jones' run, if at all, or wasn't clearly seen in action as the green goliath. But there's also a thing or two this column isn't telling: for example, the story, with its conspiracy-laden plot, took more than 20-plus issues to complete, which may have been what really drew the flak. And, weirder still, it may have been out-of-continuity (Betty Banner turned up alive, but from what I can gather now, it appears that no, she's still dead). Which begs the question: if Marvel's contributors really want to do something that's not in regular continuity, why does it have to be in a series that usually IS in continuity? And how does being outside continuity justify such a protracted story either? Are they really that incapable of publishing an Elseworlds-style book?

While it may not have sold much more than 50,000 copies at the time, I'll have to admit that it was surprising that it sold as well as it did almost 5 years ago. But maybe there's a simple explanation why: people back then were taken in because they felt they had to keep reading to see the ending to Jones' story. But that only led to people getting ripped off.

Jones hasn't been having the same luck over at DC (neither his run on Nightwing nor the new Warlord series he wrote did well), and Broken Frontier is now wondering if, having been assigned to Checkmate, he'll just be wrapping it up. But I think it's for the best that it end. As something that was a spinoff in some ways from Identity/Infinite Crisis, I don't think it earned its right to be honestly. Nor in fact did the new Firestorm, Atom and Blue Beetle, two of which have been cancelled as well, and the third which may not be far behind. The way that these series were launched was on decidedly dishonest grounds, and a big problem with all of them was that they were all overshadowed by too much of an emphasis on "diversity" (or, as is called by others, multiculturalism), something that's becoming very overdone by now. So too was Kyle Rayner's introduction as Green Lantern back in 1994, now that I think of it. And judging from sales, it wouldn't surprise me if others thought so too.

ASM continues to drop in sales

Another month, another sales charting at ICV2, and it looks like, thanks to One More/Brand New Day, Amazing Spider-Man is still dropping in sales, below 80,000 this time.

On the other hand, I'm not happy to see that Secret Invasion has sold 250,000 copies, though I'll have to remember that data like this actually refers to the amount sold to retailers, not what the customers actually bought. I hope that the majority of buyers will reject the rest of Secret Invasion, since even that can't be rewarded if Marvel is to be sent a message about Quesada's manipulations.

Pistolfist: comic set during American Revolutionary War

A couple days ago, milblogger Blackfive was asked to review an indie comic series called Pistolfist, written by JS Earls, a writer who supports the US military, that takes place during the American Revolutionary War. While Blackfive himself isn't enough of an expert on comics to understand everything, he was able to turn to an Active Duty soldier who is, and who wrote a special take on it for him, and recommends it. As the Active Duty soldier says, it's got excellent writing and artwork, and maybe with any luck, both writer and artist will get work with some of the bigger companies. Pistolfist is to be officially released on the 4th of July.

Why even sending Bruce Wayne into MIA status could backfire

A writer at Broken Frontier looked at the whole plan of "Batman RIP" a few days ago, and like me, he too feels that it's a bad idea.

With the next Batman film scheduled to come out in a few weeks, I think that's partly why it could misfire, because if the audience were to try out the latest comics, they'd expect to see Bruce Wayne at work under the cowl. Aside from that, it appears to have what to do with Final Crisis, and if it does, then it's far from a natural development. And, as the columnist writes:

What does DC have to lose by killing Bats off? They could lose the respect of their target audience. All savvy comic fans know that the death of Bruce Wayne will not be final. Whether or not he becomes a New God or not, it will only be a matter of time before Bruce is wearing the pointy-eared cowl.

[...]

You also have to consider the “going to the well too many times” scenario. The death of Superman was a media blitz for DC over ten years ago. The death of Cap was another for Marvel in the last year. But eventually, audiences will get tired of companies killing off their characters for some cheap press and a sales boost. And if that happens, there won’t be cheap press or a sales boost anymore.

Even if it doesn't happen, it's still cheap and done to death by now. It's also become pointless. Again, let's remember what Identity Crisis did, and how they haven't even tried to move away from it, letting its pall hang embarrassingly over the DCU even till now. Despite their claims that they were going to "lighten" the DCU, they didn't really do that, as the killing of Bart Allen should tell. I'd say that already, they have lost the respect of a lot of their audience, or what's left of it, because of that.

Ohio State University's comic exhibition

An article from Ohio's KFMB CBS News on the Ohio State University's planned exhibition of the International Museum of Cartoon Art's huge collection. The museum was founded by Beetle Bailey's creator Mort Walker in 1973.

Will Elder, 1921-2008

Will Elder, one of the original cartoonists for MAD magazine when it first began in 1952, has passed away at age 86. That's a shame. I read some of the original satires he'd drawn for them in reprints, including Mickey Rodent and Super-Duperman, and they were great.

Frank Miller's exclusive blog on Spike.Com

Frank Miller wrote an exclusive contribution for the blog at Spike.Com where he talks about the recent NY ComiCon and his work on the Spirit movie.

NYT's Board blog on Jack Kirby

Brent Staples at the New York Times' Board blog writes about Jack Kirby, noting that he's never really gotten much credit for the heroes he helped introduce when they were adapted to the silver screen, including Iron Man. Staples gets it slightly inaccurate though about Kirby being the co-creator of Tony Stark - it was actually Don Heck who drew the premiere issue of Tales of Suspense #39, where Iron Man debuted in 1963, although Kirby is credited as the cover artist for the issue, and did draw some of the stories (and plenty of the covers) that followed afterwards.

H/T: Soccerdad.

DC heroes to reveal their political positions?

I think this upcoming miniseries called DCU Decisions is a bad idea, especially considering that the 2 people writing it are Judd Winick and Bill Willingham, the former whose writing is overly liberal and who penned the wretched Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, and the latter who's known, or should be known, for how he beat up on Stephanie Brown in Batman: War Games. And that the overseer of the miniseries is none other than Dan DiDio, who tells in the following paragraph:

DD: Because of the process and the discussion that’s taking place in the world right now, and more importantly, it may be divisive, but it’s also defining. This is just another step for us to define who our characters are. This is something that we’ve been doing ever since Identity Crisis. With that, we examined people’s personal beliefs on what it took to be a hero and how much they were willing to sacrifice for it. In regards to the heroes of the DC Universe, I’ve always said that our heroes are proactive. They go out and they try to do good. Where the differences come from with the heroes is based in what is their idea of the greater good? Again, in examining what people’s political beliefs are, you also start to understand what they believe the greater good to be, and it helps define our characters further. Therefore I think it’s a good thing for us to bring this examination to our stories and to our characters so we can further hone and differentiate who our characters are and who our different heroes are.

What's dishonest here is that they don't mention here how Dr. Light's assault on Sue Dibny was obscured, or how the heroes' punishing him was put in a negative light. Come to think of it, I wonder if they've ever mentioned it since that monstrosity was published 4 years ago. But it's the mention of Identity Crisis that suggests something could be wrong with this. And with two writers, Winick and Willingham, whose works at DC are equally pretentious, I don't think this would work out well.

Straczynski takes up writing the Brave and the Bold

Oh well, I guess it was to be expected that Straczynski would take to working with DC Comics. Now, he's taking up the writing for the new Brave and the Bold anthology.

I'll pass.

Wash. Post provides Joe Quesada with platform

Oh dear. The Washington Post, pesty newspaper that they've been for years now, is providing Joe Quesada with a platform when really, he's not worth their time in interviewing. He certainly doesn't get very far with the following Q&A in this transcript of his talk with readers:

Ithaca, N.Y.: Given their box office success, comic book films are clearly mainstream "acceptable." However, comic books themselves are still stigmatized as being for "nerds" or "geeks." As a Marvel editor, does that frustrate you? Or are Marvel's pockets deep enough that those kinds of stigmatizations are unimportant?

Joe Quesada: While I think that was very true several years ago, that stigma has quickly changed and continues to do so as more and more people are reading comics.

Yep, more and more people are reading comics, aren't they? Just look at the sales numbers and see how figures are probably even less than a quarter million these days. And Quesada doesn't get much better with this Q&A either:

Alexandria, Va.: Spider-Man One More Day! A lot of people talk negative about One More Day and Brand New Day but I like to look at the positive! I get to save about $10 a month now I can either pocket or spend on other comics!

Seriously, I still don't see what you were thinking...

Joe Quesada: Sorry you feel that way.

That said, Brand New Day is selling like gangbusters, you're missing out on some great Spidey stories.

What i don't understands is that nothing has changed in Spider-Man outside of the fact that he isn't married anymore (MJ isn't dead) and that there is so much more soap opera and drama in his life.

More like a bust, if to use the slang for failure - last time I looked, it was selling well below 100,000 copies. In fact, during the time JMS was writing it, I can't say it sold particularly big either (something like 80,000 at best, which isn't much by today's standards).

And the soap opera and drama? Seeing how a lot of it seems to be editorially mandated and contains possible attacks on Mary Jane, I can't say that it's particularly believable or plausible.

It wouldn't surprise me if, with the way Quesada's insulting people's intellects and trying his hardest to mislead the readers, that the stigma of being dubbed as nerds continued to prevail. And all this just shows how the Wash. Post is still quite a crummy newspaper with too few positives and far too many negatives.

Marvel movies like Iron Man are succeeding, but comics publishing is declining

While it's great to see that the Iron Man movie has been pretty successful, taking in more than $100 million in the past week since it opened, Marvel's comics sales, by contrast, don't seem to be doing well, if this Yahoo business article is any indication (via The Beat):

Marvel’s Publishing Segment net sales declined by $1.0 million or 4% to $26.5 million in Q1 2008 principally due to the timing of major publishing initiatives. Q1 2008 net sales reflected a decline in comic book sales within the direct channel and lower advertising and custom sales, offset in part by continued strong growth in the Mass Market channel. The year-over-year decline in direct channel sales principally reflects strong sales of high profile titles Civil War and The Death of Captain America in the year ago period, versus no comparable specialty titles in Q1 2008. Operating income in the Publishing segment declined by 14% on a year-over-year basis to $9.9 million in Q1 2008 with an operating margin of approximately 37% compared to approximately 42% in the prior-year-period. Based on its planned slate of publishing initiatives, including the release of the Secret Invasion series in late Q2 2008, Marvel expects its Publishing segment to return to traditional margins for the full year 2008.

As great as it is to see that Iron Man has made an auspicuous debut on the silver screen, it's depressing, but understandable, that Marvel's core comics are not doing well, and are unlikely to be helped by the movie's success. I think the article may have gotten it right in part, more so than the writers might've thought, about why Marvel's own books are declining: because they're still burying themselves in too many crossovers, and other pointless storylines, making it impossible for newcomers to be encouraged to try any of their new books. By now, they're not even trying to cash in on the success of any movie they make, if Secret Invasion will be any indication. And that's a shame.

Twentieth Comic Book Carnival

Welcome to the May 8, 2008 edition of the comic book carnival. Wow, we've gotten this far! Here's the latest entries for this month.

Aric Mitchell presents Passion of the Robocop: Christian Imagery and Corporate Greed in Sci-Fi's Greatest Film posted at A WRITER'S BLOG, saying, "In this article, blogger Aric Mitchell explores a modern retelling of the Crucifixion in Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP. (Originally published in column "Special Edition" for Scryptic Studios.)"

Garm presents New Frontier and other bed-time stories for the New Left posted at Garm Howling.

GLS presents His first love, Carol Ferris posted at Green Lantern Spotlight.

Yumemizu presents Manga recommendation posted at Fountain of Dreams.

Dinosaurs and Robots presents Dinosaurs and Robots: Hey Kids Comics! Xenozoic Tales No. 5, February 1988 posted at Dinosaurs and Robots.

Peta Jinnath Andersen presents Fairy Tale Comics? posted at peta's journal, saying, "A brief overview of some of the fairy tale comics available, in print and on the web."

Tali presents Pinups in Space - One Small Step for Cheesecake, One Giant Leap for Erotic Fantasy posted at Tali, saying, "Sexy astronauts, alluring aliens, and sassy space warriors are a mainstay in pinup culture. Taking erotic fantasy out of this world."

Steven Lowis presents Why Iron Man's Box Office Success Won't Sell More Comic Books For Marvel posted at Joo-See.com, saying, "In-depth article on Marvel Comics and the various forthcoming Marvel movies (including Iron Man 2). Also attempts to explain why kids aren't reading comics..."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
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DC Universe #0: a book that's more like an ad brochure

A writer at Broken Frontier who may be a store manager says that the "special" called DC Universe #0 is a ripoff because it's more like a whole advertisement than a real story. And:

This also happened on Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) week. What this means to me is that DC really just wants our money. It could have easily been a FCBD book. It should have been. Marvel gave us a Hulk & Iron Man magazine that had a FCBD ad on the back including comic book shop locator service. This was free to the public. Our shops strategically placed these at theaters showing Iron Man this weekend. The idea is that we will see those moviegoers on Saturday. It will give us a chance to make a sale, but also introduce them to the wonderful world of comics for free. It would be awesome if I could do that with DC’s big event book, but instead it has a price tag. Sorry, folks, but I run a business and while I would love to give this book away, FCBD is already a big expenditure... in the end I need to recoup some of that cost and fifty cents for this book helps.

And judging from a few other arguments across the blogosphere, such as this one and this one, I think people are finding DC's latest misstep a major disappointment, including the store managers themselves. Trying to lure people in through a book that doesn't have a coherent story like this is not the way to go, and scores only a big zero.

Mark Millar is hopefully beginning to lose influence

On The Beat's sales analysis for Marvel in March, the analyst can't seem to understand why Fantastic Four isn't doing well under Mark Millar:

Well, I don’t understand this at all. I had Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s FANTASTIC FOUR pegged as a much bigger deal, but here we are down at 67K. For comparison, that’s slightly down from last June, which was an Initiative issue by Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier.

Issue #554 picks up re-orders of 5,457, but overall, this seems a very disappointing performance for such a high-profile creative team.

Oh now now, the answer is much simpler than that. Millar was after all the leading writer of the worthless Civil War crossover, and not only is Spider-Man's Brand New Day likely having a domino effect on the FF, but people must be disillusioned with Millar as well. I'm glad if they are. He wrote some of the most over-the-top of Marvel's output in the past several years, and now, I figure it's starting to backfire. It's about time.

Well, it was bound to happen

The New York Daily News reveals what DC must doubtless have intended as something to garuntee sales for Final Crisis, and is certainly making headlines now in some parts of the blogosphere:

For a superhero who can run faster than the speed of light, it sure took him long enough to return.

DC Comics is reviving Barry Allen - aka The Flash - the popular superhero killed off by the publisher 23 years ago, the Daily News has learned.

You know, Crisis on Infinite Earths was far from perfect, but in fairness, when Barry died, he did do so heroically, and so, it's not like it was that pointless. And considering that there are characters who died through worse circumstances than he did, it actually seems insulting that he should be able to come back while they don't. For example, what about Jenny-Lynn Hayden, aka Jade, Yolanda Montez, the female Wildcat, Beth Chapel, the female Dr. Mid-Nite, and Hector and Lyta Hall, all former Infinity Inc. stars? Almost all the Infinitors have been wiped out, doing far less than Barry did when he first died, and they're ignored? I don't think that's fair. And again, lest we forget Elongated Man and Sue Dibny, and also Blue Beetle! Being featured as ghosts and even in a past timeline is no excuse.

What else does it say here:

Unlike other comic book deaths - even Superman went up, up and away for just a year - The Flash was so good at dying that his demise became part of comic book lore.

Many fans had come to like the character better dead than alive after he was disintegrated saving the universe.

"That's the point of comics - they don't have to die, because they're fictional creations," said Grant Morrison, one of the writers behind the comeback.

"We can do anything with them, and we can make them come back and make them defy death," Morrison said. "And that's why people read comics, to get away from the way life works, which is quite cruel and unheroic and ends in death."

Just look at that: completely obscuring how DC killed off and villified quite a few decent characters in the past few years, and in ways that featured quite a bit of cruelty to boot. I can only hope he's implying that he - and most importantly - the editors, are now willing to fix the damage done, but so far, there's no clear signs.

What else is told here:

Not so fast, said comic historian Alan Kistler. "Barry's had this heroic sacrifice, which is the coolest thing you can do for a superhero," insisted Kistler - unaware that DC Comics will announce the Flash's resurrection today in the last panel of its "DC Universe #0."

"If you brought Barry back, the question is can you do anything to top it?"

Excellent points. Barry's death was handled well, serving as a motivation for Wally West to fill his shoes. An interesting question: if Barry comes back, will he be the same age as he was in 1985, or will he be middle-aged, like Iris West Allen is today?

There's also another problem lingering around, one that may have all but been obscured: in Identity Crisis, he was one of the heroes made to look bad when he took part in the mindwiping of Dr. Light. Putting aside the out-of-character depiction of Dr. Light for a moment, have they considered that the vile crime Dr. Light committed was much worse than the heroes' reaction to the crime, and that Barry and company are far from guilty? (At the same time, have they considered the embarrassment of depicting Dr. Light as a rapist, and that it could discourage new readers from trying out stories with him?)

But with that told, let's get back to this resurrection now: this does seem like a cynical ploy to gain money by using Barry Allen as their big draw, even if his resurrection doesn't last long. They know that their bag of tricks is running thin, and people are losing faith in them because of how they've pointlessly and uncreatively killed off minor characters, so apparently, this is what they're hoping will serve as their latest short-term money scheme to cover for an otherwise uncreatively handled past few years. And if they can't do the other victims of their pointless deaths and villifications as much of a favor as they're doing Barry now, then I can't see what's the point in this.

And that's why I think the best response to this would be to resist temptation.

Occasional Superheroine also says:

I find it interesting that the direct market is depending on the spoilers not to be spoiled in order to maximize sales, yet the company putting out the comic is purposely working with the major media to spoil the story on the morning of the book coming out. Just a thought.

When Stephanie Brown was revealed to be alive and well in March, yes, that was more or less kept hidden beneath a bushel until the last moment. I think if they had announced that Spoiler would return, sales for Robin would've been considerably better than they were. A point could be made that they're less interested in giving attention to minor characters that could boost recognition in the wider public, or at least trying to, than in using better-known names for the sake of publicity stunts like this one.