Here’s where we talk about collected editions: TPBs, hardcovers, omnibuses, Absolutes… anything with a spine!
The Trades Thread: volume two
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I’m not a big Geoff Johns fan but I am loving his JSA run from the late 90s/early 00s. I didn’t expect this but Sand is my favorite character so far. Mr. Terrific and Dr. Mid-Nite are also really cool. There’s just something I really like about legacy heroes and updates of lesser known Golden Age characters. I just finished the arc where Carter Hall returns and the JLA/JSA: Virtue & Vice one-shot. Good stuff.
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Yeah Goyer has co-written or co-plotted every issue so far. So about 30 issues. I’m reading the latest trade series that collects the whole thing under the title “JSA by Geoff Johns” but thankfully it includes the first 5 or 6 issues Goyer did with Robinson before Johns came aboard. Those are good ones and were probably the only issues featuring Jack Knight written by Robinson that I hadn’t read yet.
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The Ghost Fleet: The Whole Goddamned Thing TPB
I started this last night and finished it off this morning. It’s a quick read but not a great one.
For all the crazy action and tough-guy bullshit there’s just not that much story there. It holds its cards too close to its chest early on, and then when the reveals come later they’re a bit underwhelming.
I know it was shortened from 12 to eight issues which is part of that, but to be honest it probably should have been even shorter and tighter from the start, as there’s a lot of fat.
DWJ’s art is still good but you can tell it’s not something he’s as personally invested in as his own books.
Not recommended.
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This, on the other hand, was great.
It’s a comics adaptation by Antony Johnston and Felipe Massafera of an Alan Moore text piece on the history and nature of television that starts off as a strange parody of Coronation Street but becomes something quite different (and much darker) by the end.
After reading this you’ll never look at your TV the same way again.
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Just read this and thought it was stunningly good. A great sci-fi adventure story with a dark tone, a plot that keeps you guessing, and some of the best chapter-ending cliffhangers I’ve seen in a long while. I couldn’t help but read the whole thing in one sitting.
It’s one of those books where writer and artist feel like they’re just working as one, such great comics storytelling.
It’s got a nice 80s sci-fi adventure feel to it, but goes a little darker than you could with a human cast of kids.
Special mention to Steve Wands’ lettering too, which does some great subtle work in establishing the story’s various personalities. I wasn’t expecting TKO to top Sara but this is definitely up there.
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I honesty think Lemire is my MVP as a comics writer in the past couple of years. Loved his initial indie work like Essex County but his first big 2 work (mostly for DC under exclusive) was pretty underwhelming.
He loves to work with as many publishers as possible nowadays like it’s some kind of challenge but he got Gideon Falls to the top of my reading list, love Ascender and Black Hammer.
I haven’t read this but I will.
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In terms of consistency and output I think Lemire is up there with the best of them today. I haven’t read all his stuff by any means but everything I try is good to great, and he is so versatile in terms of working across genres and story styles.
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Oh so cynical 😆
Don’t care though. Narratively it makes a lot more sense in Vol 3.
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I agree, makes a lot more sense to bundle it with Incorporated really.
I really enjoyed the readthrough of omnibuses 1 and 2 all in one big chunk when I bought them, so I’m looking forward to completing the set.
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If you read Batman, Inc in singles there were a handful of pages each issue drawn by someone else. These weren’t flashbacks or anything like that. This was purely to get the book out on time.
Burnham redrew all of these pages for the Absolute edition a couple of years ago. About 20 in total. These are reprinted in the Omnibus too.
Btw, he also drew a couple of “previously in …” pages to summarise the events of the non- Morrison issues of Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul in the first Omnibus.
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I read this art process book by Bryan Hitch and really enjoyed it.
I’m a fan of his work anyway but I liked that this book doesn’t pretend to be a “here’s how you can draw like me!” kind of book but instead explores some of the nuts and bolts of drawing and why certain creative decisions and techniques are so effective.
It’s all laid out in simple, unfussy language with plenty of visual examples, and gave me a new appreciation for some of the elements of comics storytelling.
I also liked that it constantly returned to the idea that if something in comics artwork isn’t adding to the telling of the story, it doesn’t belong there. It seems like an obvious point but it’s easily forgotten. I’m sure we can all think of comics that are beautiful in their own right but fail to tell their story effectively.
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For £90, with a RRP of £165, it better be brilliant Dave. I like the story, it’s excellent work but not so much as to pay that much for it.
Edit – In other news, have bagged a copy of Extremity Volume 1.
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Yeah, didn’t think I’d see it that cheap again. Still a fair amount of money but more reasonable at that price.
There are some essays on Eisner in there too, by various comics luminaries (including Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons and Denny O’Neil) and comments from a lot more, so it’s more than just an art book.
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Fire Power v.1: Prelude
There’s a scene in this book where one character is explaining his backstory to another, and his listener says “This is a familiar story. Skip to the interesting parts.” And that’s kind of how I felt about the whole book.
It’s a sort of mashup of Iron Fist and Stick from Daredevil and every kung fu training sequence you’ve ever seen, stretched out to a full TPB which itself is only the “prelude” to the main series that its title suggests.
Having said that, Chris Samnee makes it all look great. His artwork is so fluid and well-balanced that the pages turn quickly, with clear storytelling and distinctive characters (even when the book becomes a sea of bald heads at one point).
And to give Kirkman his due, he adds in entertaining flourishes (particularly when it comes to clashes between the ancient world of the temple and the modern trinkets that creep in) and lively dialogue that stops it from becoming too much of a bore.
By the end, the story does get to the interesting parts, with a decent action climax and also an interesting setup for the main series by the book’s end.
But a full TPB of material is a lot to wade through to get there, and I might be a little more enthused if this had been a $5 extra-sized single issue with all the flab cut out, rather than a $10 TPB that takes a long time to tell a familiar story – even though it tells it well.
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I did warn you, Dave. For what it’s worth #1 and #2 move the story on quite a bit, with a new status quo that is quite promising.
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I just finished JSA by Geoff Johns vol 3. Good stuff, I especially liked the Roulette arc (I guess Johns figured DC needed their own Arcade and he was right!), but the trade department really messed up the order in which the extras should go in. Vol. 2 and 3 put Virtue & Vice and JSA: All-Stars in between issues 25 and 26 of the main series. Which means stuff like this happens:
– Mr. Terrific replaces Sand as chairman with no explanation
– Power Girl and Hourman join the team with no explanation
– Star-Spangled Kid renames herself Stargirl then is back to being called Star-Spangled Kid
– Mr. Bones tells Mr. Terrific a secret about his wife before we learn Bones even has a secret about her
And so forth. It’s annoying but I’m glad to be finally reading this series that I can’t complain too much.
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but the trade department really messed up
At DC? I’m shocked!
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Today’s reads:
The Complete Toppi – Volume 3 – South America
This is another top-notch presentation of another selection of Toppi’s work, this time covering three black and white short stories and two, full colour, longer ones.
Beyond that, there’s really not much to say – each is excellent, a masterclass in how to combine words and visuals.
Looking forward to the fourth volume due next month.
Cruel Summer OHC
Let’s address a minor controversy first – the lack of oversized art for an oversized page, in favour of using the larger white borders to ensure no gutter loss and easier focus on each page. I can see why it would annoy some, but I found it to be surprisingly effective at drawing the eye. There’s another trick used to immerse the reader in the story, which is not having numbered chapters so you can’t tell how close to the end you are, which amplifies that sudden, screeching halt quite a bit.
This feels like a major evolution of the Criminal series, one that Brubaker addresses in the afterword. That before, previous stories were smaller, less people, more focus. This one has far more people, it experiments by moving the perspective from chapter to chapter and adds in little nods to other stories that, if you know them, you recognise but if you don’t? The story works just fine regardless.
And that story addresses one of the big outstanding mysteries of the series – what did happen to Teeg Lawless? The result is a gigantic but very human mess.
It’s a superb piece of work.
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It’s a superb piece of work.
It really is. It isn’t overstating it to say that all of Criminal feels like it’s been building to this point, and bringing in such a diverse range of characters from previous stories made me immediately want to go back again and reread the entire thing from Coward onwards. Maybe I’ll do that once the third Deluxe comes out.
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Just a heads up that Snapshot by Diggle and Jock is currently free on Comixology.
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Atlas At War is finally available. Not sure if this link will work, but if not then just go to your on-line book retailer of choice and search for Atlas At War to read why this is indispensible:
Today is the day – ATLAS AT WAR! is officially published! 260 pages of digitally restored war stories as originally…
Posted by Allan Harvey on Rabu, 9 September 2020
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This lovely-looking hardcover arrived today. Looking forward to having another read through this to see how the story holds up in one volume. Spectacular art on this one.
Just a regular-sized HC, but very nicely designed.
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So, Covid and trades six months on? My take:
- Marvel – tends to become available online with 2-3 weeks or month and a bit, varies.
- Image – Can be the fastest, some books become available online ahead of the comic shops.
- IDW – Variable, but tends to be 2-4 weeks later.
- Aftershock / Vault – Not bought enough to observe the pattern.
- DC – All bets are off. Anywhere between 1-6 months, if you don’t want to buy expensively, but wait long enough? The books do turn up.
- Dark Horse – Variable, the odd book just doesn’t seem to make it at all, the others? Can be 2-4 weeks later.
So, trades can still be got, bargains are out there, just with longer timetables than you might be used to.
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So, trades can still be got, bargains are out there, just with longer timetables than you might be used to.
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Fine, get your dad to write a cheque. A large one.
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The Wicked + The Divine
The last long-form read I did, well, it didn’t go too well. Was this better than Black Science? It isn’t the out-right failure that that story ended up as, yet I’m not entirely certain what to make of it, but there’s aspects and elements I like a great deal.
This could be considered the final, extensive statement by Hipster Gillen, a style that he used that irritated some with its ‘cooler than thou’ tendencies, but I can’t say it had that effect on me. There’s some very clever meditations on the nature of identity, perception and power in this tale. Gillen also makes some bold calls too – from the Fucking Tara single issue examination of social media; to the mutually destructive relationship of Morrigan and Baphomet, but one where, up until the end, Morrigan is the lead abuser of the two; to the unveiling of Dionysus’ asexuality, but not aromatic nature; to Laura’s arc, with its self-hatred and how she finds her way out of it; to Baal’s messiah complex; Cass’ trans identity and a vengeful parent – none of these are easy cards to play. All are areas of sensitive subject matter, but ones that the story explores well.
And then there’s McKelvie. There’s occasional other artists in here, support acts as it were, but, while their skills aren’t in question, it’s McKelvie that is the main draw and his art always elevates Gillen’s stories. Gillen’s worked with other artists, but there’s that indefinable something special about his work with McKelvie. This is probably the best example of it, but Young Avengers will give it some good competition.
Things that don’t work that well for me is the character of Cass. Gillen clearly loves the character, but she doesn’t work as well for me, probably because I’ve seen people a bit too much like her, with all the edge without any awareness. That I have to give Gillen credit for, Cass realising at the end exactly how she got manipulated when she had thought herself beyond being so.
There’s elements of Phonogram here too – all we have is what we have here, it’s all we get, so stop being such a bunch of shits, hmm? Like with that story’s concept of Retromancers, the idea of the old wishing to control and constrain the new is explored in all kinds of ways, with the general idea being that the flaw lies in trying to control it at all. You want to stay young? Go with the flow.
One idea that has come to the fore in the last year or so, it may have been there earlier, but I didn’t spot it, is that of authenticity with regard to personality. People tend to have versions of their personality – the one for at home, at work, with family, with partner, the authenticity idea challenges the idea that all of these have to be separate and distinct, which in turn challenges all those existing relationships and how they work. What would it mean to be more open in the workplace of your own nature? Could you trust people will respond in the right way? What if they did? What if you didn’t feel you have to misdirect people away from an aspect? What might you instead do with the time and energy you have from not doing that? And this may also be why I am indeterminate in my view of this story, there’s stuff here that really does talk to me; I know some of the reasons for not, but not all of them, not entirely.
One thing I do know is this really benefitted from being read as one single long story and not spread out over four years.
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Great review Ben.
I’ve tried Wicked + Divine a couple of times and it’s not for me, but I enjoyed reading your thoughts on it.
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Just reread Skreemer. It’s oppressively bleak but ingeniously designed and genuinely moving, Veto Skreemer and Charlie Finnegan are great characters. Skreemer, Enigma, Rogan Gosh, and X-Force/early X-Statix are some of the best comics ever made. As always, after I finish a Milligan book I feel a little sad he’s not talked about in the same breath as the likes of Moore, Miller, Gaiman, Morrison, and Ennis.
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The first 50 issues of Shade The Changing Man are as good as anything Vertigo published, though it did go downhill after that point. The first 2 series of Bad Company are excellent as well.
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They are but they are also pre X-Force work.
I still enjoy a lot of Milligan’s work, his Hellblazer run was a lot of fun and the return of Bad Company but I tend to agree none of it has been ‘great’ since that era. Then again I could say the same for Frank Miller if we’re talking since the early 2000s (and Gaiman if we’re including comics work only).
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I got myself the two Hedge Knight trades (is the third even available? I hope they make it at some point), comic adaptations of the short stories of the same name. Original by GRRM, they are A song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones prequels, sort of. The way these stories are told, they’re much, much better suited to the comic format than the other stories of the same universe.And I like them. The art is good, better than the other comic adaptations of the franchise. And the scripting is solid.
However, being the kind of comic book fan we all are, they make some errors that are just unforgivable. Just look as this filth:
That’s Aegon Targaryen. His eyes are supposed to be PURPLE!!! (And they are, on all the other pages.)
As entertaining as these two GN’s may be, this eye things solidifies my judgement: Unreadable trash.
Jokes aside, they’re pretty good.
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This just arrived – not the Absolute Edition once solicited, but a Deluxe OHC collecting the original Gotham by Gaslight (by Augustyn/ Mignola & Russell) along with its sequel, the Countdown tie in special, and the rather wonderful Convergence: Shazam mini by Doc Shaner.
It’s a great package, that jumps pretty high up my to read list. I’ve wanted to trade up the original prestige format special to an oversized hardcover edition for years now. This was my first exposure to Mignola’s artwork, and as the very first “Elseworld” it blew my mind back in the day. Great stuff.
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the Countdown tie in special
This initially made me think of Richard Whiteley and Carol Vorderman.
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I think the biggest problem is he never wrote anything great after X – Force, which is kinda heard breaking.
As Gar noted, this could apply to Miller and Gaiman as well. While I’m a fan of DKSA, I don’t think Miller’s produced anything great since then, and most people wouldn’t include it so we have to go back farther for a great work from him. Gaiman has had a few classics in comics and prose post-2000 (Coraline, Endless Nights, Overture) but they’re few and far between.
So Milligan’s in much the same boat as them, I think. Hellblazer is very strong work–Ennis and Delano’s runs are better but for my money Milligan’s is the most fun to read–and Human Target is a legitimate masterpiece. Sub-Mariner: The Depths is also a great book, one of the few genuinely scary comics I’ve read. And I like the times he’s returned to the X-Statix characters, especially in the Dead Girl mini.
I think part of the issue with Milligan is he can be very cynical. He likes to mine the worst aspects of his characters. Not necessarily in a cool or badass way, either–and not always to the benefit of the story. His characters can come across as self-serving, petulant, even whiney. I think that’s what did in Shade, the Changing Man, even before Bachalo left. When he brought Shade back in Hellblazer, I kind of got the sense he hates the character. This tendency makes significant portions of his work less enjoyable to read than Miller, Gaiman, Morrison, etc., although as a writer he’s on their level.
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While I’m a fan of DKSA, I don’t think Miller’s produced anything great since then, and most people wouldn’t include it so we have to go back farther for a great work from him.
I’m a huge Miller fan and he’ll always be in my shortlist of top creators, but I have to concede that you’re right. I still like spotting flashes of his artistic brilliance in stuff like Xerxes or the DK3 backups, but he hasn’t produced anything on the level of his early greats in almost two decades now. And that’s disappointing.
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Funnily enough I’m reading Superman: Year One at the moment. #2 is such a weird book, with the creepy incest angle. What the hell was Miller thinking there? I kind of liked the earlier navy bits, and Romita Jr’s artwork is cracking, but the second half of the book turns ugly pretty quickly. Kind of surprised.
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It’s quite a weird book that one.
I agree with Dave in that I enjoy stuff Miller puts out nowadays but he’s not put out anything ‘great’ in a couple of decades.
Similarly I still pick up and am happy to read current Milligan books but nothing reaches the heights of that 80s run up to X-Statix.
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Gaiman has had a few classics in comics and prose post-2000 (Coraline, Endless Nights, Overture) but they’re few and far between.
Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader was great.
I agree though, few and far between.
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Funnily enough I’m reading Superman: Year One at the moment. #2 is such a weird book, with the creepy incest angle. What the hell was Miller thinking there? I kind of liked the earlier navy bits, and Romita Jr’s artwork is cracking, but the second half of the book turns ugly pretty quickly. Kind of surprised.
Yeah I reread that in HC recently and found it a very weird book in general. Issue #1 is pretty good, a nice Smallville origin story with an interesting twist at the end. Then issue #2 starts promisingly but goes off the deep end with the weird take on the Silver Age atlantis stuff. And then #3 is all over the place, trying to wrap up all the earlier threads while also trying to tick off all the important origin stuff and also shoehorn in a BvS angle. And the ending feels like there could be a whole issue to go!
It feels like Miller had no plan and was making the whole thing up as he went along based on whatever whims occured to him. It’s not terrible, but very disjointed and odd.
Luckily JRjr’s art is really nice.
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A couple of recent reads:
Jacked TPB
I mainly know Eric Kripke for his association with The Boys TV series (although as the cover of this book notes, he’s the creator of Supernatural too) but this book from five years ago completely passed me by at the time, and I only checked it out on recommendation.
It’s a fun mix of superpowers and midlife-crisis neuroses (in what often feels like a very autobiographical/confessional vein), with an average joe gaining superhero abilities through a dodgy unauthorised drug and stumbling through criminal gangster plots and a deteriorating family life as he tries to make sense of it all.
The tone feels very early-2000s Ennis or Millar in places, with a tendency to be crude and try to shock as often as possible, but it’s funny enough that it gets away with it and by the end there’s a surprising amount of heart on show.
Plus the art is fairly decent, with John Higgins on interiors and some great Glenn Fabry covers.
Not fantastic, but still fun.
Blade Runner 2019, v.2: Off-World TPB
This is a series that I buy and enjoy in monthly singles, but which I think reads a lot better in collected form.
The second arc pushes the key players from book one into the future by several years and places them in a very different context that builds out the wider world of Blade Runner while still being very much focused on the characters.
Andres Guinaldo’s art is a really nice combination of being clean and clear while also being satisfyingly detailed, and there’s a lot conveyed here through fairly subtle facial expressions and body language.
While the collection does that thing I usually don’t like of removing the covers and running the issues together, in this case it works, as this really does feel like one single continuous story that doesn’t need to be broken down into chapters.
All the covers and variants are collected at the back, and there are also some decent script-to-art process pages and a lovely obituary/tribute to Syd Mead.
Definitely start with book one first (or you’ll be lost here) but this is worth picking up.
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The Old Guard: Volume 2: Force Multiplied
Knowing this is now planned out as a trilogy encouraged me to pick this up. It’s true that this isn’t Rucka’s best but even good Rucka is still very good compared to everyone else.
Where this volume surprises is in Rucka’s attempts to deconstruct the “strong female character” stereotype. Where male characters may have more freedom to get away from being the alpha arsehole stereotype, it seems female characters are heading straight for it. So, here, Rucka takes a scalpel to the entire set-up and exposes the cracks for all to see. What does immortality, even immortality with an unknown expiry date, practically mean if not doing a whole host of very bad things, but which were culturally permissible then and far less so now? For that is Andy’s past, her real past. The one she hasn’t talked about. Ever.
The final pages are particularly effective. If Nathan Drake was ever seriously handled, he might well do a version of Andi’s final monologue here – as, like Andy, he’s killed hundreds. The idea that that is a bill that has to come due isn’t that new, but the way Rucka applies did feel different.
Going to be interesting to see how this concludes in the final volume.
Punisher: Soviet
This is a truly excellent story of old soldiers seeking vengeance – and it is indeed one hell of a vengeance. Where other stories might veer off or stop short of following through to the end, this one stubbornly keeps on going to its very bloody finale.
Like most of Ennis’ best work, this is a story and examination of war, its impact on people and the consequences that stem from it.
Burrows art is excellent in depicting a dense, packed story.
The one flaw? The way Marvel have presented it is unworthy of it, a slim, cheap, flimsy paperback – hopefully, maybe packaged with others into an OHC, it will later get the quality presentation it deserves.
Edit: Another one:
Extremity Volumes 1-2
This was a strange one. While I could see what Johnson was going for, it just didn’t quite work for me.
I think the problem is that for all the idea of breaking a cycle of violence is a good one, it is so weighted towards the bad that it’s hard to buy any attempt can be successful, even at the end.
There are some quite neat techniques here, smart use of double pages, but on the whole? It’s nowhere near Murder Falcon.
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Going back to Frank Miller, I recently picked up the deluxe edition of DKR: The Golden Child.
I wasn’t sure whether to spring for the HC, but I’m glad I did as this is a really nice package overall, and the art looks great at the larger page size.
It’s a slightly wacky story involving Darkseid and the Joker taking advantage of society slipping into misrule, but it feels even more relevant now than when it was first published last year.
It’s hard to see the chaos and societal unrest and mass protests and bad-faith subversion of democracy and not feel that it was somewhat prescient. These panels in particular hit harder in 2020.
It’s not subtle, but it’s still some of Miller’s best writing in a long time, and his operatic style works well with the exaggerated, bold art.
This HC also has a wonderful extras section at the back with loads of stuff on how the book came together, the creative process, the art style and loads of other art bits and pieces. The kind of value that definitely makes an edition like this worth the double-dip.
This is just some of it.
There’s no-one quite like Grampa.
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It’s kind of funny that we both disagree in different directions, you liked Extremity more than I did, while not finding Ghost Fleet as good, but the clear, consensus looks to be that Murder Falcon is brilliant.
Other reads:
Dark Ark OHC1
Finally got hold of the OHC for the first series and this is a rather nifty little horro book that riffs on bible mythology and the flood to spin its own version of it.
One of the reasons it works is that Bunn never blunts the edge off his monsters, monsters they be and monstrous they are. The other reason is Doe’s art, which is bold and colourful.
Be interesting to see where the next series takes this story.
Largo Winch Albums 15-18
This quartet story, breaking with the usual diptych structure, saw Van Hamme transfer over the reins of writing to Giacometti, while Francq did the art for all of them.
Since it is his own swansong, Van Hamme weaves in a good few nods to past stories before exiting with the second album. Giacometti’s conclusion, with the remaining two albums, works well and brings it to an effective end.
This series has also tried to fuse a modern day adventure story with questions of what an ethical capitalism would look like and how it would be responded to. This quartet is no exception. Too idealistic? Perhaps, but a bit of idealism is always needed.
Will they continue the series beyond this? No idea.
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Somehow your post got marked as spam there Ben. I’ve unspammed it.
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Outer Darkness
First, go in knowing that while Layman and Chan intended these 12 issues as a first season set, Skybound disagreed and axed the series. Yep, sounds kind of weird, an Image-linked company acting the same way as the corporate master Image was all about getting away fro.
Next, knowing that? Yeah, it works. But as what? As a demonic mick-take of Star Trek. A schism-stricken, disunited crew intent on killing each other? Check. Space is full of demonic horrors thus exorcists? Those too. A side order of frequent necromancy? Well, why not? And the ship’s warp engine is a vengeful, imprisoned god that has to be fed regularly? You’re still reading after the last few sentences and are somehow surprised? Yeah, demented fun sums this up well and it is well executed.
Cliffhanger? Yeah, there is one, due to Skybound but you can live with it.
Outer Darkness / Chew
This has to be one of the best compact meta-stories I’ve read. It is a gloriously bonkers tale and it features all the characters from Chew, combines them with Outer Darkness, in a satire on the holodeck concept. It also has…. Poyo.
It is a huge amount of fun. Does it work without having read the Outer Darkness series? There’s benefits to reading that, but if you’ve only read Chew, it works fine as a bonkers after story. It’s also the published final issues of the former axed series too.
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First, go in knowing that while Layman and Chan intended these 12 issues as a first season set, Skybound disagreed and axed the series. Yep, sounds kind of weird, an Image-linked company acting the same way as the corporate master Image was all about getting away fro.
On the one hand, sales are sales and I assume if they cancelled it it was losing money. It’s more a practical truth than an evil scheme.
On the other hand it always sit awkwardly when Image board members use their imprints for work for hire. Layman was saying that there’s no hope for continuation at another publisher because he doesn’t own it, the man who presented his ‘creator-owned manifesto’ does.
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he doesn’t own it, the man who presented his ‘creator-owned manifesto’ does.
Another Image partner turning out to be a hypocrite on creator rights? I’m shocked!
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Kirkman goes way back. On The Walking Dead he retained all the copyright for himself with a lawsuit settled out of court from Tony Moore. As far as I can see everything from Skybound is creator owned but that creator is Robert Kirkman alone. I appreciate he’s probably paying decent page rates etc but even DC would give partial ownership or return rights on later Vertigo stuff.
To his credit Millar has always done the 50/50 split and it hasn’t exactly stopped him making a shitload of cash.
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As far as I can see everything from Skybound is creator owned but that creator is Robert Kirkman alone. I appreciate he’s probably paying decent page rates etc but even DC would give partial ownership or return rights on later Vertigo stuff.
As far as I can see (ie looking quickly at Image’s own website for the series), Kirkman’s not even credited on Outer Darkness for anything, which you’d think he would be if it was, say, his concept which he hired Layman and Chan to make. In fact, looking at #1 (because the website’s per issue details don’t even credit letterers and colourists, which is a whole other problem) Layman and Chan are specifically credited as co-creators.
So, yeah, it does make a mockery of Kirkman’s whole “leave the Big 2 and own your work with Image” thing and make him an utter hypocrite. What a shithead.
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As far as I can see (ie looking quickly at Image’s own website for the series), Kirkman’s not even credited on Outer Darkness for anything, which you’d think he would be if it was, say, his concept which he hired Layman and Chan to make. In fact, looking at #1 (because the website’s per issue details don’t even credit letterers and colourists, which is a whole other problem) Layman and Chan are specifically credited as co-creators.
I bought the free first issue on Comixology to look at the copyright info, and it’s all owned by Skybound, LLC rather than the creators:
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Creator rights!
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I think that’s being generous. There is an element of unavoidability in using some work for hire in something that runs a decent length, you can’t keep sharing the rights with everyone who works on a long running property. 0.01% to each variant cover artist etc.
The difference with Kirkman is he began with an hour long rant against it, actually getting quite heated with Bendis in a back and forth. Also as I check back to an article from 2010 his mission statement with Skybound was to ‘foster creator-owned projects under his watchful eye’. He’s instead launching projects under his ownership where the concepts are not his, which has not been the case for Millar or even the early Image guys. Even if they farmed them out to studios I’m pretty sure things like Brigade, Sam and Twitch and Team Seven were their concepts.
Yes everyone, especially a veteran like Layman, knows what they are getting into (as I said I’m sure the page rates are fine) but if you proclaim a strong set of beliefs and then seemingly do nothing to support them it’s a significant level of hypocrisy.
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I get the jeers at Kirkman given his past statements
Which is entirely where the issue lies for me.
I’m not suggesting he’s doing anything fraudulent. He is doing specifically what he said his imprint wouldn’t.
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Yeah and I don’t want to pretend there’s no problem here, if Skybound is sliding towards outright ownership as opposed to a Vertigo-style model then that is noteworthy and it is ironic that Kirkman is at the heart of this.
I guess I just get tired of these reductive approaches to creators’ rights discussions where any model that isn’t 100% creator ownership is automatically deemed evil. It’s more complicated than that.
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Kirkman is not highly regarded at my LCS.
Surprising retailers with the first issue of Die! Die! Die! with no advance solicitation or warning and news hits the internet before they know what’s going on, it’s a limited supply composed of variant covers. They have to learn about it on the fly while people are calling and coming in about it. All because Kirkman wants to bring back “surprise” to comics.
Then there’s the “Surprise! This is the last issue of The Walking Dead!”. Again, retailers are caught unawares because they’re short-stocked and now having to deal with irate customers who want a copy but can’t get one. If they had known, they could have ordered accordingly.
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If they had known, they could have ordered accordingly.
Could Kirkman have taken the chance, over-printed and sent double the order (or x 1.5, x 1.75) and made the extras returnable?
I’m pretty sure he could have (shipping bill a sticking point?).Something like that would’ve been so much easier to swallow, and made him look better.
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I’m aware we’re derailing the trades thread with this (I’d talk about what I’m reading at the moment, but I’m deep in a re-read of all of Usagi Yojimbo and there’s only so many times I can gush about how great it is).
Robert Kirkman is the Chairman of Skybound Entertainment. Robert, an advocate for creator rights, co-founded Skybound alongside his longtime business and producing partner David Alpert in an effort to ensure creators are able to maintain their intellectual property rights and creative control.
And that’s why Robert Kirkman and David Alpert co-founded Skybound Entertainment, a studio that enables creators to maintain control of their properties across all platforms.
“It’s kind of ridiculous that you can create a TV show without having an ownership stake in it,” he said.
But not a comic apparently.
And that’s why we didn’t call the company some derivative of “Kirkman” or “Walking Dead.” We took what we learned from our experience and realized we can do it faster and better for the next creator. We realized we could empower ourselves — and other creatives.
Typically, creators give up much if not all of the creative — and financial — control over their intellectual properties when they sign with a studio. So Robert Kirkman and David Alpert co-founded Skybound, a studio that enables creators to maintain control of their properties across all platforms.
Skybound owning outright the IP of the comics they publish is completely antithetical to their own stated philosophy. How is the studio “enabling creators to maintain control of their properties across all platforms” when you’ve got creators like Layman saying their comic’s been cancelled and they can’t move it to a different publisher because they don’t own it.
The Inc.Com two part interview is really illuminating actually because you can see the difference between the reasonable inference of Kirkman and Alpert’s pitch – “hey kids, come work with us and you’ll get to own and control your own work across all media!” – as even the interviewer takes it and the weasely wordings they actually use, like “creator-friendly policies”.
And hey, if you want to be a studio that owns other people’s work, but nicely, that’s fine, go do that. But don’t do it inside Image after spending 12 years or so crowing about the importance of creator-owned works. Because it makes it seem like you weren’t desperate for other comics creators to come up with their own ideas for their own success, but so that you could own them instead of Marvel or DC.
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Just had a quick browse and it looks like the TKO books have finally hit Amazon UK at reasonable prices (eg. Sentient and Sara TPBs at £14 each) – what else from them is worth picking up?
Good to see their stuff becoming more widely available through these channels – presumably this is the fruit of the distribution deal with Ingram/PGW earlier this year.
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Thanks Dave, just nabbed both via BD’s Amazon shop for under/over £12 each.
Thanks to Martin, nabbed the Usagi trade of Bunraku for just under £9 from BooksEtc.
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If they had known, they could have ordered accordingly.
Could Kirkman have taken the chance, over-printed and sent double the order (or x 1.5, x 1.75) and made the extras returnable?
I’m pretty sure he could have (shipping bill a sticking point?).Something like that would’ve been so much easier to swallow, and made him look better.
He probably could have but the extra postage for Die! Die! Die! was not expected or appreciated. With that book, I think he did it strictly for the hype. I don’t believe it would have sold better than most Image titles if he had released it normally. I’m not sure if that push helped it sustain sales or not.
Honestly with TWD final issue, he really should have announced it way ahead of time. He probably would have gotten fantastic sales on the run up to the end and stores would have better prepared.
Not that he needs the money or fame, but I do wonder if The Walking Dead is Kirkman’s creative peak? I am not that plugged in to the comics industry news like I used to be but I don’t remember hearing much about Die! Die! Die! or Oblivion Song or some of his other books.
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I appreciate Kirkman’s desire and effort to return the element of surprise to comics fandom. It is unfortunate that his efforts are not necessarily in the best interests of comics retailers, but it’s true that the element of surprise and revelations in reading a particular issue of a book is tempered by the fact that we can read solicitations three months ahead of time that tend to spoil the current month’s issue.
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Right, back to the important stuff – deals.
Dealer Alert
Usagi Yojimbo – Bunraku & Other Stories – BooksEtc – £8.98
X-Men: Grand Design Omnibus – BooksEtc – £45.03
Black Hammer Library Edition Volume 2 – BooksEtc – £23.80
Witchfinder Volume 6 – BooksEtc – £10.82
Copies of Joker: Killer Smile are turning up now, but the price is still a bit high, want it to get to the £15-16 mark before buying.
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So the new Usagi material from IDW is worth it then? Odds of a hardback deluxe or OHC perhaps?
I haven’t got that far yet. I’m just finishing off rereading UY Saga v2. I’m still hoping Dark Horse will put out another including the last two digests they printed (and maybe throw in the TMNT/Usagi cross-over to bulk it out and let me ditch that pointless trade they did for it that is mainly material already in the Sagas). I’m holding off on the IDW run until I’ve finished the DH one.
I appreciate Kirkman’s desire and effort to return the element of surprise to comics fandom.
I’m not sure “surprise, this is the last ever issue of this series!” is the kind of thing anyone wants to see in comics though.
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