Random Comic Related Things

Topic

[DavidM]

BBC Radio 6, 19:00 tonight (Friday 4th):

The legendary comic book writer shares two hours of his favourite music and chats to producer and writer Richard Norris about the important part it’s played in his life and work.

Expect tracks from Captain Beefheart, Joni Mitchell, X-Ray Spex, The Residents, Patti Smith and Sleaford Mods. Plus some of the music he’s made himself over the years.

See if you can guess who it is before you click the link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008yp0

Then Sunday at 13:00, is this one easier to guess?

The author of **** amongst much else, picks some of the music that’s shaped him. With tracks from Bowie, Dusty Springfield and Tori Amos.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00093q6

• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by DavidM.

Replies

Boomer says not to listen to Boomers.

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lorcan_nagle

Well I mean, I’ve been saying for a decade now that they should just cancel the whole monthly floppy business model, so I don’t disagree… but where he goes wrong is in thinking a floppy line for kids would be the way to go… NO!!!!… no more floppies, that’s a dumb out-dated shceme period.

I mean Conway is half right here, but he’s still stuck in the 50’s it seems… kids ain’t gonna go buy a monthly book in a walmart anymore… I mean I guess some would, but it’s such a reduced market it’s even dumb to think about it… specially with the prices they’re going for these days.

They need to use comicbooks as merch adverts, where kids are concerned, meaning: Put some “web comics” out for free, make them available in platforms that kids actually use these days, and make them available for free! All those kids’ CB lines they keep creating, just publish them for free on the internet, tag them under a marketing budget and there you go… you don’t need the best writers and artists when you’re talking about CB for kids anyways, plus when you remove the whole printing/distribution process out of the equation, it should be ok.

I bet they could set up an entire kids oriented FREE digital line with half of what they spend promoting the newest movie.

So, that’s for kids… then what about YA & older adults? Well, simple, go the GN/TPB route… and that’s where you keep your high prices, your printed books, and you top tier artists… Distribute them on book stores and places where adults would go to (and obviously make them available digitally too, but for a price like it is now).

At any rate, yes, the current model is dead… floppies are dumb, the direct market is dumb, and they just need to do things differently… But again, they won’t… at least until we’re all dead because they can still milk the shit out of us dumb old fanboys and they know it.

The big issue is that floppies are too expensive at $3.99 for 20 pages of story. That is too much for something aimed at kids which could be essentially disposable.

Todd wrote:

The big issue is that floppies are too expensive at $3.99 for 20 pages of story. That is too much for something aimed at kids which could be essentially disposable.

Presumably you could reduce prices if you went back to a more disposable format.  You don’t necessarily need glossy paper or high-quality colour separation, and you can always up the ad count to reduce costs.

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Presumably you could reduce prices if you went back to a more disposable format.

Like digital.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

I agree. Conway’s problem and solution is the same as we see from a lot of older comics fans. Just go back to the past.

In fact a lot of what he wants is already there but in different channels.

One of the reasons comics gravitated to the direct market was the news stand channel was shrinking and didn’t want them any more. That does have a knock on of containing the material to ardent fans and adult fans.

If you want to get the kids market though you need to go via digital and bookstore. Which Marvel and DC do to varying degrees. It has probably escaped him as it has many others who don’t see material that isn’t marketed at them.

His opening statement that comics publishing is in a dire place (at least pre-covid) is just incorrect, the revenue is the highest it has been in years but it has shifted dramatically to OGNs and collected editions.

 

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lorcan_nagle, Ben, Dave

I like Gerry, but he’s wrong on three counts, IMO:

1) His assumption that comics are targeted at the long-term reader is incorrect. I’m in that category and apart from the odd one here and there just to see what’s going on, I haven’t bought a new comic from the Big Two for nearly 10 years. And I know I’m not alone.

The current model of a new #1 every year, coupled with the endless interruption of ongoing stories by “events” finally killed my interest in the ongoing saga of the Marvel Universe (I was never a DC fan, but it most be even worse for those guys, with the constant reboots.) And besides, who really cares that Spider-man is fighting Doc Ock for the 600th time? Been there, done that.

So new comics aren’t really for me at all. But there does still seem to be a younger market for whom this stuff does matter. I belong to a few comic sub-Reddits and there’s still an active and enthusiastic fan-base who lap this stuff up every week. I’ve no idea how big that market is, but it’s there.

2) The idea that everything has to be new-reader-friendly is false. As a kid, a BIG part of the allure of comics was that there was this whole kind of alternate-universe history to discover – and I wanted to discover it! My access to comics was very limited, so I took great pleasure in being able to piece together events that took place in different titles – and those “see ish #112 for details!” footnotes just encouraged me to track down #112! The whole architecture of a comic universe is designed to engage the collector mentality. Which leads me to…

3) His idea sounds like just another reboot – and reboots solve NOTHING! If you’re going to foster a long-term commitment to comics, you have to have continuity. And rebooting your comics doesn’t get rid of that continuity, it just makes a NEW continuity. Which means 2, 3, however many years down the line, you just end up with the same problem you had before, i.e baggage. Look at the complete clusterfuck DC continuity is nowadays. Have the constant reboots helped streamline continuity or have they made it even more convoluted? I think we all know the answer to that…

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Martin Smith

Steve Sensible wrote:

His idea sounds like just another reboot – and reboots solve NOTHING! If you’re going to foster a long-term commitment to comics, you have to have continuity. And rebooting your comics doesn’t get rid of that continuity, it just makes a NEW continuity.

I don’t know. I kind of like the Black Label model where the characters are still recognisably themselves but everything takes place in its own pocket continuity so it doesn’t have to worry about lining up with anything else.

Steve Sensible wrote:

So new comics aren’t really for me at all. But there does still seem to be a younger market for whom this stuff does matter. I belong to a few comic sub-Reddits and there’s still an active and enthusiastic fan-base who lap this stuff up every week. I’ve no idea how big that market is, but it’s there.

When DC launched the Nu52 they did a lot of market research with Nielsen. The majority of their audience was in an 13-34 age category. It’s definitely not the case that the audience isn’t being renewed, although it showed they were starting as late teens or adults (the number under 16 was very small).

The over 50s, which would be a chunk of those taken along from when the direct market started in the early 80s, were a very small proportion. So the narrative that all they did was maintain that exact same audience doesn’t stack up. Anecdotally here the guys in that category like Todd and Jerry don’t read big 2 comics any more, like you.

That was all on monthlies before any trades came out (but included digital issues).

Dave wrote:

I kind of like the Black Label model where the characters are still recognisably themselves but everything takes place in its own pocket continuity so it doesn’t have to worry about lining up with anything else.

But shouldn’t there be room for that in the main continuity? Like I said, I think continuity is a big draw for a lot of people – you’ve only got to look as the success of the MCU to see that – but it should just be a foundation for the universe and not something that every story relies on. Self-contained stories or arcs should be the norm, not the exception, with crossovers and events being much more sparse than they are. (That’s a problem that I think is beginning to plague the MCU, by the way, which is why new franchises like Shang-Chi and The Eternals will be a welcome palate-cleanser – if they ever come out!)

I have come to the conclusion that while I find the business decisions of the Big Two (reboots/new #1s, events, pricing, killing characters who come back a short time later, etc.) dubious, I realize that their product is simply not for me anymore. I have changed and want something more. While I have heard good things about various Big Two projects, they just don’t grab me. But that’s okay. It’s not about me. I have other books that I enjoy and make me happy.

I do think the thing that will save comics is a strong push into digital. Services like Marvel Unlimited Comics and DC Universe Infinite are what should be marketed to children and their parents. For a set fee, they have access to almost the entire history of comics for the companies. Each service, if they don’t already, should have special sections that are very prominent and geared toward new (and lapsed) readers that cover origins and key stories of characters and teams. Give new readers places to start.

And really, the price of new digital comics needs to be at least half of the print price. $3.99 for a digital comic is way too much. The digital version should never cost the same amount as print. Looking at Amazon, it is extremely rare that a digital version cost the same as the print. Besides, it will show up on the service in six months. I know this was to help the brick and mortar stores but I think you are appealing to two different audiences. I think it’s time to rip off that bandage and move on.

Todd wrote:

I know this was to help the brick and mortar stores but I think you are appealing to two different audiences. I think it’s time to rip off that bandage and move on.

There’s always a point where this would happen.

Jonathan Hickman gave an interesting view on it a few years back. He did the maths and realised that a $2.99 print comic can be sold at 99c and still make the same profit (retailer margin is usually 50% plus distributor and printer) and expected that. He understood though that for the moment that has to be pegged to keep retailers alive which made up the majority of the audience.

I think more and more though the subscription model makes most sense. To me it’s really the problem with news on the internet. I get linked to an interesting article in the New York Times or The Telegraph and I hit a paywall. I’m not subscribing to read that article. They like to compare it to print and maybe it’s a bit cheaper but that’s not taking into account how the internet works, you don’t have one news source each morning. Ask me to pay say $10 a month to get access to all the paywall news sites and I’ll probably do it.

 

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

[Dan]

garjones wrote:

Ask me to pay say $10 a month to get access to all the paywall news sites and I’ll probably do it.

That’s where apple news plus is at, save for not having most of the newspapers I want to read.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Dan.

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Andrew

garjones wrote:

I think more and more though the subscription model makes most sense.

For Marvel and DC, it really does seem like the best route. They have thousands of issues spanning decades with more old issues constantly being added. Then, you have new releases being added. If they really want to incentivize their services, develop service-exclusive series. They won’t be released as floppies or in collections. The only way to read them is by subscribing to the service. Since subscribers have to wait 6 months till the latest floppies are available, it creates a nice offset. If they even wanted to, they could add exclusive videos with creators and editors about books and projects and behind-the-scenes content.

But while an online service works well for Marvel and DC and their vast libraries, it becomes far more problematic for other companies that rely on creator-owned books and licensed materials. They may have company-owned books but probably not enough for a service. I wonder if in the near future, we will see smaller companies merging with/acquiring other companies to truly compete in the digital economy? I am not sure how independent creators would work in a way that is fair to all participants?

It won’t be anytime soon, but I can see physical copies of comics become even more niche than they are now at some point in the future.

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lorcan_nagle

Print copies of monthly comics I can see going, it’s too high a price for the item compared to other options.  But trades? I don’t see those vanishing.  People have said ‘print is dead’ for years but it refuses to die.

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lorcan_nagle, Dave

Ben wrote:

Print copies of monthly comics I can see going, it’s too high a price for the item compared to other options.  But trades? I don’t see those vanishing.  People have said ‘print is dead’ for years but it refuses to die.

I don’t see trades going either. They may simply be rebranded as graphic novels.

If the rumors with DC are true, they may be moving in this direction already.

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lorcan_nagle

Trades and GNs should be fine… and sold in bookstores. Retailers have had about a decade to prepare/adapt/plan for the inevitable future that is digital… if they haven’t, sucks for them…

Todd wrote:

I don’t see trades going either. They may simply be rebranded as graphic novels. If the rumors with DC are true, they may be moving in this direction already.

I think the natural conclusion will be episodes digitally, collections in print. It’ll take a few years too. The full move from mostly newsstand distribution to none at all actually took 35 years to complete.

I don’t think they’ll go full OGN like the European model, there are advantages to the episodic format around how they pay creators and test out material.

 

 

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lorcan_nagle

Also, I don’t think the US / UK markets have the consumer patience for the Euro model of a 48-64 page album coming out every 1-2 years.

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Dave, lorcan_nagle

Ben wrote:

Also, I don’t think the US / UK markets have the consumer patience for the Euro model of a 48-64 page album coming out every 1-2 years.

something something Ultimates

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Bruce, Todd

Ben wrote:

Euro model of a 48-64 page album coming out every 1-2 years.

do the math though, current model 22pages/month(or two) vs 48/year? who would switch?

I don’t know if there’s a comparison analysis of the market sales somewhere online.

You can do all kinds of things with numbers though – 2000AD’s 6-8 pages a week matches or exceeds US monthly at 24-32 accumulated pages.

They are all valid models.

2000ad can do that as they rotate the stories and creators. They stack up stories and print them a year after completion.

European albums almost always have superior artwork because of the time they allow the artists. They all make money generally in their markets. As a rugby fan I’ve seen a team win 3 European Cups in a row, signing the best players in the world and bankrolled by a BD publisher.

You can’t just instantly transplant a change of culture though. The US is not attuned to anthologies or albums. They could be in a decade’s time but that’s not what the market expects right now. If there is a shift in the near term it is already moving heavily to collected editions in bookstores (the Comichron analysis shows that), a shift to digital issues will largely be economic, it’s just so much cheaper and returns a greater percentage of profit. A $3.99 comic sold on Comixology will return around $2.80, a print copy will be around 90 cents.

 

 

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Todd, Ben

The Brubaker/Phillips team has slowly been shifting toward the OGN format with their recent Image books like PULP and the upcoming RECKLESS — in their case they can take the chance because they know they have a fanbase that is likely to buy whatever they create. There aren’t that many comics creators currently that can afford to write and/or draw a full-length graphic novel without the guarantee in advance that the book will sell a certain minimum number; and comics publishers aren’t ready to make the switch from freelance creators to paying writers and artists a weekly or monthly salary while they are working on their next project.

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Dave, Ben, Todd

njerry wrote:

The Brubaker/Phillips team has slowly been shifting toward the OGN format with their recent Image books like PULP and the upcoming RECKLESS — in their case they can take the chance because they know they have a fanbase that is likely to buy whatever they create. There aren’t that many comics creators currently that can afford to write and/or draw a full-length graphic novel without the guarantee in advance that the book will sell a certain minimum number; and comics publishers aren’t ready to make the switch from freelance creators to paying writers and artists a weekly or monthly salary while they are working on their next project.

They have said they will continue to do floppies but if prove successful, I could see them going full GN in the future.

Fantagraphics went OGN 15 years ago because they knew most of their audience wasn’t in the comics shops.

Creators like Scott McCloud, Bryan Talbot and David Mazzucchelli are all entirely with mainstream book publishers. 

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lorcan_nagle, Ben

It seems like a lot of comics creators are going the Kickstarter route to get advance funding for projects, but that option is very much outside the mainstream exposure needed to make your product successful at a reasonable cost. I would likely fund a Kickstarter project from Brubaker/Phillips, Mike Mignola, or a similar talent whose work I consistently buy, but not necessarily something by Kirkman or Lemire, whose outputs have included some great things but also some things that just aren’t my cup of tea.

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Todd, Dave

Kickstarter has some inherent limitations. The lack of economy of scale means shipping is expensive (especially if you live in another country to the creators). It’s also very time consuming, a lot of people comment on how much it is to pack and mail everything out, so doesn’t really work for a regular comic but more one-offs.

I think Scott Snyder’s one with his new imprint is a good hybrid, he’s raising money upfront with exclusives and other offers for big fans but the eventual comic will also be out from Image (and he’s being honest about that unlike some in the past).

I’m also curious about print on demand because that has the potential to solve the shipping problem. You could have multiple printers globally and they have the duties to mail them out to readers in each region.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

The latest Robservations Liefeld podcast is about the “Sabotage” crossover between McFarlane’s Spider-Man title and X-Force – Todd’s issue of this was recently ran through by the Cartoonist Kayfabe channel on YouTube (worth a look – it’s the issue mentioned as why Todd left Marvel, the straw that broke the camel’s back, where a panel of Juggernaut being stabbed in the eye was censored by editorial and he felt his, uh, creative vision being hampered. Rob here suggests otherwise, that months in advance Todd saw that specific issue (long before it was plotted, pencilled, or censored) as a swansong).

As ever there are interesting mentions of how royalities work and just how much money was being made by these guys (triple for Rob since he’d moved to plotting, and inking in addition to pencilling – $900k for one issue), but I didn’t know that the genesis of this crossover mini-event was Todd wanting to compete with the upcoming Jim Lee X-Men #1. Rob lies again about X-Force #1 selling 5 million without a cover gimmick (polybagged with variant trading cards is a gimmick).

What was also new was that a lot of the cover gimmicks (he says) came from the printing companies – they sent reps out to the publishers, including Image, with the new technologies available, leading to things like the heat-sensitive ink on the infamous Bloodstrike “Rub the blood” cover, different metallic inks, holo-foil, etc.

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Todd, DavidM

New Humble Bundle is Gillen/McKelvie, including all of WicDiv and Phonogram, the first two Die collections, the four issues of Ludocrats so far, and the extras from the WicDiv OHCs.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/kieron-gillen-and-jamie-mckelvie-showcase-books

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lorcan_nagle

paul f wrote:

the extras from the WicDiv OHCs.

Those are substantive extras.

Something I found out today, this was a double page spread for 2000ad from Simon Bisley, look how small it is. (That’s Jock’s hand for reference, he tweeted it). So much detail and it looks barely bigger than published.

 

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Andrew, Bruce, Will_C, DavidM, Todd

Original painted SLAINE spread by Simon Bisley… with hand for scale (!) @2000AD pic.twitter.com/9Jd1EtZNpK

— jock (@Jock4twenty) October 3, 2020

Amazing when you see how small this original is.

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Uncle Retrospective, Will_C

Ha, guess we both saw that tweet at the same time.

Simon Bisley did an X-Men Book with Ellis back in the day, right? Anyone member the title of that one?

I think the one your thinking of Simone Bianchi, he worked with Ellis on Astonishing X-Men after Whedon’s run.

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Ben, Todd, Dave

Yeah, that’s the one. Thanks!

Aka The One Where Cyclops Swears

garjones wrote:

Something I found out today, this was a double page spread for 2000ad from Simon Bisley, look how small it is. (That’s Jock’s hand for reference, he tweeted it). So much detail and it looks barely bigger than published.

 

Are we sure Jock just doesn’t have a massive hand?

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Todd, Vikram, lorcan_nagle

Deadline have got a bit of a scoop here – turns out Alan Moore isn’t that fond of the comics industry and superhero movies:

Alan Moore Gives Rare Interview: ‘Watchmen’ Creator Talks New Project ‘The Show’, How Superhero Movies Have “Blighted Culture” & Why He Wants Nothing To Do With Comics

 

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DavidM, garjones, Will_C, njerry, Bruce, Todd

Gee, I hope they follow that up with an article about how comics aren’t just for kids anymore!!

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DavidM, Dave, Todd

njerry wrote:

Gee, I hope they follow that up with an article about how comics aren’t just for kids anymore!!

And that superhero movies are going the way of the westerns.

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DavidM

Reading further into the interview, apparently he’s also not been outside Northampton for a while. Mind-blowing.

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DavidM, Todd

I think Moore lives a very selective life. He enjoys what he enjoys and avoids what doesn’t interest him.

Comic books and superheroes are just one of those things he doesn’t care for anymore and really doesn’t like discussing it. He has made his feelings on the subject known on numerous occasions. He’d rather talk about almost anything else but due to his legacy with the industry, it will always come up to some extent. It’s his blessing and his curse.

Todd wrote:

I think Moore lives a very selective life. He enjoys what he enjoys and avoids what doesn’t interest him.

Comic books and superheroes are just one of those things he doesn’t care for anymore and really doesn’t like discussing it. He has made his feelings on the subject known on numerous occasions. He’d rather talk about almost anything else but due to his legacy with the industry, it will always come up to some extent. It’s his blessing and his curse.

So what you’re saying is… With great power comes great responsibility?

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Todd

I think Moore leans into the grumpy-old-man act as a bit of a performance piece these days. It’s hard not to imagine him smiling as he berates superhero movies while at the same time admitting he hasn’t watched one since Batman ’89, or says superhero comics are for kids despite having made a lot of great superhero comics for adults. He’s just having fun in his usual cantankerous way.

I tend to smile along with these interviews rather than taking it all too seriously. How can you not, when this is the accompanying photo?

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Christian, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Dave wrote:

superhero comics are for kids despite having made a lot of great superhero comics for adults.

What are you talking about? Watchmen is good wholesome family entertainment:

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Todd, lorcan_nagle, Dave

JRCarter wrote:

Watchmen

Is Watchman that guy who’s friends with Superman and Captain Planet and all them? Heck, I haven’t seen it since I was a kid but I loved that shit!!!

Thanks for reminding me.

Best Rage-gards

/Some Guy, probably.

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lorcan_nagle

Moore is a huge hypocrite and I wish at least one of his interviewers would have the balls to call him on it… but yeah… old man syndrome I guess…

Jon wrote:

Moore is a huge hypocrite

Outrageous, he’s explained quite clearly in the past that the reason he can still be annoyed about people using his DC creations at the same as he uses an entire universe of pre-existing characters in LOEG is because he’s being really clever when he does it.

(I love Moore but the contradictions and moans are all part of the fun at this point. Clearly interviewers are still pursuing that angle years after his comics retirement because it makes for a good headline and people love to read his eloquently-worded roasts of the industry.)

Ha! I posted basically the same thing in two threads, sorry… that’s why I thought I had replied to the topic for sure… I already had =P

Jon wrote:

Moore is a huge hypocrite and I wish at least one of his interviewers would have the balls to call him on it… but yeah… old man syndrome I guess…

He’s not that huge. Just about an inch under me and he’s pretty skinny too.

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lorcan_nagle

It’s been said that the reason Moore’s so threatening to publishers is because he stands up for creator rights while also using his work to demonstrate the value of the public domain. There’s no hypocrisy in his stance.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle, Dave, garjones, Steve Sensible

I don’t know, I think you have to jump through a lot of hoops to square Moore’s moral objection to people using his Watchmen characters with his own use of hundreds (if not thousands) of characters created by other people – many of which aren’t in the public domain yet (and so are used in a just-about-non-infringing-way-if-you-squint) – in LOEG.

If it’s simply a question of the legality of using public-domain figures, well it’s the same law that dictates his Watchmen characters are owned by DC.

And if it’s not a legal issue but a purely moral one, and he’s advocating for the importance of characters being public-domain, then it doesn’t really jibe with his frustration over DC using characters without his permission in a way that he doesn’t agree with, and wanting to be able to own and control them himself.

I love Moore and a lot of what he stands for, but it’s undeniable that he sees all of these issues from his own personal perspective and justifies all of his own actions as being the right ones, despite some of it being a little contradictory.

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Andrew, Martin Smith, Vikram

Dave wrote:

I don’t know, I think you have to jump through a lot of hoops to square Moore’s moral objection to people using his Watchmen characters with his own use of hundreds (if not thousands) of characters created by other people – many of which aren’t in the public domain yet (and so are used in a just-about-non-infringing-way-if-you-squint) – in LOEG.

If it’s simply a question of the legality of using public-domain figures, well it’s the same law that dictates his Watchmen characters are owned by DC.

And if it’s not a legal issue but a purely moral one, and he’s advocating for the importance of characters being public-domain, then it doesn’t really jibe with his frustration over DC using characters without his permission in a way that he doesn’t agree with, and wanting to be able to own and control them himself.

I love Moore and a lot of what he stands for, but it’s undeniable that he sees all of these issues from his own personal perspective and justifies all of his own actions as being the right ones, despite some of it being a little contradictory.

The difference is that Moore using Jekyll and Hyde in LoEG doesn’t stop anyone else from using him elsewhere, and a barely disguised version of Emma Peel in Black Dossier likewise won’t stop me from doing a comic called The Revengers about Jack Saddle and Madame Crust fighting crime in a quirky manner. But only Warners/DC can use Watchmen or V or the non-LoEG ABC characters. And in the case of Watchmen and V, DC used the letter of the law in their contract to defy its spirit and prevent the rights from reverting to Moore and Gibbons/Lloyd. If Moore held the rights to V for Vendetta or Watchmen I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t complain if someone did a parody or unofficial sequel or whatever, which is what the modern-day LoEG stories are.

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Will_C, Martin Smith, Todd, Dave

lorcan_nagle wrote:

If Moore held the rights to V for Vendetta or Watchmen I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t complain if someone did a parody or unofficial sequel or whatever, which is what the modern-day LoEG stories are.

I think there are enough examples of Moore being damning about other people’s use of his ideas and influences to know that it’s not as simple as that (as I’m sure Grant Morrison would tell you).

With Moore it often seems to end up coming down to it being fine when he does it but not when other people do it – him using copyrighted characters from the Peter Pan books in Lost Girls (despite objections from Great Ormond Street Hospital) while at the same time complaining about DC exploiting his Watchmen characters against his wishes is a good example.

He’s a smart enough person to usually be able to construct good arguments as to why this is all defensible, and in most cases I do fall on his side (especially over the Watchmen rights, which seems to be a pretty clear case of DC subverting the original intent of the contract by keeping it in print).

But I think that saying all of his arguments are beyond reproach is just uncritically falling in behind him just because he’s Alan Moore.

Also, while it was decades ago now, I think it’s fair to note that Moore built much of his early career by taking characters that other people had created and reinventing them in an interesting and innovative way (stuff like Marvelman/Miracleman, Swamp Thing and even Watchmen falls into this category – back when it was going to be about the Charlton characters – and obviously he had his big hits on Superman and Batman too), so I do understand people raising eyebrows when he voices his irritation with people doing the same with his own characters and concepts.

Dave wrote:

I think there are enough examples of Moore being damning about other people’s use of his ideas and influences to know that it’s not as simple as that (as I’m sure Grant Morrison would tell you).

Are there? I know he bemoans people taking the wrong message from Watchmen and he regrets ushering in the Dark and Gritty era of comics, but that’s more a case of him saying people shouldn’t be derivative rather than people should build on his ideas or examine them.

Dave wrote:

With Moore it often seems to end up coming down to it being fine when he does it but not when other people do it – him using copyrighted characters from the Peter Pan books in Lost Girls (despite objections from Great Ormond Street Hospital) while at the same time complaining about DC exploiting his Watchmen characters against his wishes is a good example.

The problem is that the latter is not a counter-argument against the former. GOSH are basically in the same position as DC in that they are looking to control the copyright on specific characters. Moore’s use of Peter Pan characters is in-line with his complaints about DC because he’s putting the primacy of artistic rights over corporate control of art.

Dave wrote:

But I think that saying all of his arguments are beyond reproach is just uncritically falling in behind him just because he’s Alan Moore.

I’m not falling in behind him because he’s Alan Moore, I’m agreeing with him because he’s right.

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Dave

lorcan_nagle wrote:

The problem is that the latter is not a counter-argument against the former. GOSH are basically in the same position as DC in that they are looking to control the copyright on specific characters. Moore’s use of Peter Pan characters is in-line with his complaints about DC because he’s putting the primacy of artistic rights over corporate control of art.

But Moore wants the rights to Watchmen so he can control the characters and stop anyone else from making continuations he doesn’t approve of. That’s him seeking to assert ownership rights over the work to stop anyone making their own art based on it, in the same way as GOSH and Peter Pan/Lost Girls – only one is an organisation and one is a private person.

Which I think is something that Moore deploys very often in his arguments – the idea of him being a lone individual versus a big faceless corporation – but which can sometimes be a bit of a red herring, I think.

Because it’s difficult to both be in favour of ownership and rights to art so that he can use them to stop Watchmen spinoffs (and works based on his other creations that he doesn’t own) at the same time as being against GOSH being able to use them to stop Peter Pan being used by Moore in a pornographic context.

But making it about individuals and corporations casts him as the more sympathetic underdog every time.

Like I say, I’m largely behind Moore on the vast majority of what he says, but I’m willing to acknowledge that there’s a certain amount of him playing both sides of the argument when it suits him.

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Vikram

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Are there? I know he bemoans people taking the wrong message from Watchmen and he regrets ushering in the Dark and Gritty era of comics, but that’s more a case of him saying people shouldn’t be derivative rather than people should build on his ideas or examine them.

Yeah, he regularly complains about whatever the latest example is of companies mining his past work (I remember him moaning at one point about the Geoff Johns Green Lantern stuff that had roots in some of his short stories.)

[Steve Sensible]

Dave wrote:

But Moore wants the rights to Watchmen so he can control the characters and stop anyone else from making continuations he doesn’t approve of.

I think he wants to own the rights to something he created. It’s that simple. He signed an agreement to that effect, which DC have used every underhand way under the sun to circumvent.

This is the misconception people have about Moore – that he wants to control the rights so that he can be the one to make money from his work, when in fact it’s just the principal of the thing. Principles are a concept that’s completely alien to companies like DC, and indeed an awful lot of people.

Yeah, he regularly complains about whatever the latest example is of companies mining his past work (I remember him moaning at one point about the Geoff Johns Green Lantern stuff that had roots in some of his short stories.)

I don’t think that has anything to do with copyright – he just finds it sad that people are still milking his ideas from 20, 30, 40 years ago rather than coming up with something new.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Steve Sensible.

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Will_C, Dave

Steve Sensible wrote:

I think he wants to own the rights to something he created. It’s that simple. He signed an agreement to that effect, which DC have used every underhand way under the sun to circumvent. This is the misconception people have about Moore – that he wants to control the rights so that he can be the one to make money from his work, when in fact it’s just the principal of the thing. Principles are a concept that’s completely alien to companies like DC, and indeed an awful lot of people.

Yeah, he’s clearly very principled and to be honest I’m behind him on Watchmen. Regardless of the aspects that are derivative from the Charlton characters, it’s clearly something DC effectively cheated him out of, thanks to a legal loophole, and it doesn’t feel morally right for them to own it outright.

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garjones

V For Vendetta even moreso (as it fell under the same terms), a work created independently of DC entirely.

It’s pretty clear in retrospect to see what Moore, Gibbons and Lloyd asked for and thought they were signing was a standard book deal. The absolute norm in that field is an author signs a book deal, the rights to publish said books remain with that publisher until it falls out of print. However the rights to the concepts and characters remain with the author.

They all should have had lawyers look it over but it’s clear the principle of what they were promised was broken, no less by the fact that Paul Levitz as publisher tried to honour it as much as he could while in the position.

While a big fan and hugely sympathetic to why Moore is pissed off with the industry I also think sometimes his arguments fall into double standards territory. I also think though that many comics fans fail to understand his level of principle on these issues, long before he was famous he refused to work for Marvel US (bar 3 pages in a charity book) because of their treatment of Jack Kirby and his stolen artwork. (He also cheekily wrote about it in a Marvel UK publication which clearly nobody in the New York office was reading apart from Chris Claremont – you can find a grey area in his argument there too that he worked for a subsidiary company but I suppose that at least proves they were editorially independent).

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Todd, Dave

And I’ve always loved Moore for that principled approach to his work. He could have complained about the movie adaptations of his work and still continued to take the cheques, but he didn’t, he said he wanted nothing to do with it and gave all the cash to his artists.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

But Moore wants the rights to Watchmen so he can control the characters and stop anyone else from making continuations he doesn’t approve of.

Anyone, or DC, the publisher that has repeatedly fucked him over? I’m not gonna lie, I have no problem with him sticking it to DC on general principle. I mean, if I were Moore and regained control of Watchmen I’d never reissue it or license it out again to spite every last human on Earth. Not that it’d do much, I suspect there are more copies of Watchmen in circulation than 50 Shades of Grey.

Dave wrote:

in the same way as GOSH and Peter Pan/Lost Girls – only one is an organisation and one is a private person.

Now,I haven’t read Lost Girls but I assume the fact that it has been published means it didn’t actually violate GOSH’s copyright any more than Mister Majestic or Hyperion violated DC’s copyright on Superman, so at worst it’s the same as his knock-offs of modern fictional characters in latter-day LoEG, and well, waves vaguely at the entire history of comics

Dave wrote:

Yeah, he regularly complains about whatever the latest example is of companies mining his past work (I remember him moaning at one point about the Geoff Johns Green Lantern stuff that had roots in some of his short stories.)

Creator complains that people mining his work and making shit with it isn’t unique to Moore.

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Todd, Will_C

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Now,I haven’t read Lost Girls but I assume the fact that it has been published means it didn’t actually violate GOSH’s copyright any more than Mister Majestic or Hyperion violated DC’s copyright on Superman, so at worst it’s the same as his knock-offs of modern fictional characters in latter-day LoEG, and well, waves vaguely at the entire history of comics

If I remember right it was a slightly complicated situation where the UK rights were different to the rest of the world, so it could be sold everywhere except the UK until the rights expired (and until then all the copies in the UK were grey-market imports).

Dave wrote:

If I remember right it was a slightly complicated situation where the UK rights were different to the rest of the world, so it could be sold everywhere except the UK until the rights expired (and until then all the copies in the UK were grey-market imports).

Yes.

The Peter Pan/GOSH situation is very outside the norm. Because Barrie pledged the royalties to the hospital in his will, which was a very nice move, they have passed laws within the UK to continually extend the copyright beyond what is normal in law, it should have become public domain in 1987 but Jim Callaghan put forward a bill to extend which has been renewed since at least once. One part of it expired in 2007 so they delayed the Knockabout release until then.

I believe now it only applies to stage performances but some publishers also voluntarily give a percentage of sales to Great Ormond Street.

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Todd

There’s a similar scenario with A A Milne and Winnie the Pooh. He pledged 10% of any money it makes to the Royal Literary Society in Britain.

My mother is a writer, the kind that is highly regarded but makes no money, writing poetry and academic stuff. They called her out of the blue saying they’d awarded her £3000 a year in a pension for life and offered her a post in Swansea University for 5 years paying £28 an hour to sit in an office 2 days a week and be available to students if they wanted any advice. If nobody came that was fine.

They are essentially flush with cash from Disney selling Pooh cartoons, lunch boxes and pyjamas, which all kicked off after Milne died so he probably didn’t know how generous he was being.

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DavidM, Todd, Will_C

Beoynd those copyright issues and his principles on creators’ right, I’m honestly more bothered by his constant shitting on comicbooks, I mean, let’s be real, without CBs he’s nothing, and no one really care about his non-CB work, but more than that he usually mocks people for having a cult mentality in terms of CBs, when he himself enjoys (and lives off of) a cult of personality from those same fans, which is why anyone still calls him for an interview…

I mean, the guy is full of contradictions at every single level and he just comes off as a stereotypical angry jaded old man. Plus it doesn’t help that any good point he might make with his criticisms kind of falls appart as soon as he starts talking about magic… hard to take mr. Wizard seriously…

Respect for his past work, all of that stands on its own shoulders, but yeah… old man Alan Moore should give it a rest.

Jon wrote:

Beoynd those copyright issues and his principles on creators’ right, I’m honestly more bothered by his constant shitting on comicbooks,

He shits on the industry and its direction, which is different. There are plenty of examples where he praises individual comics and creators. This is probably the most recent:

What current comic series are you reading? And who are your favorite writer/s in today’s comic industry?

Garth Ennis’s always-powerful War Stories along with anything else that the man happens to put out; Si Spurrier’s excellent and reinvigorated Crossed + 100 and his forthcoming Cry Havoc from Image; Kieron Gillen’s spectacular Mercury Heat, Phonogram, The Wicked + The Divine and, whenever he gets his lazy arse into gear, the next run of the exemplary Über; and, as mentioned earlier, the incredible Brian Vaughn’s concept-crammed Saga.

 

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Christian, Todd, Dave, Will_C, lorcan_nagle

It’s also worth nothing that Kieron Gillen used thinly disguised Watchmen analogues in Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt to nary a peep from Moore.

It’s like Lorcan said upthread: Moore’s issue is with DC deceiving him to claim sole ownership over his work, not with the idea of artists building off of his work as he built off the work of other artists. The public domain is important because it strikes a balance between creators’ livelihoods and the fact that art belongs to all of us, and that an important function of art is for the artist to examine the stories that have shaped them and their society.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd, Dan, Dave

That’s a point – is Uber now confirmed to be dead?

Ben wrote:

That’s a point – is Uber now confirmed to be dead?

The bigger question: Is Avatar dead?

Will_C wrote:

It’s also worth nothing that Kieron Gillen used thinly disguised Watchmen analogues in Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt to nary a peep from Moore.

It’s like Lorcan said upthread: Moore’s issue is with DC deceiving him to claim sole ownership over his work, not with the idea of artists building off of his work as he built off the work of other artists. The public domain is important because it strikes a balance between creators’ livelihoods and the fact that art belongs to all of us, and that an important function of art is for the artist to examine the stories that have shaped them and their society.

Even for Affable Al it’d be a bit rich to complain about that seeing as Ozymandias was Peter Cannon originally.

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Dave, Will_C, DavidM

From January this year:

To put it bluntly: I can no sooner choose to publish issue 18 of Uber Invasion than I could issue 21 of my Uncanny X-men run.

It’s WFH. I do not own it. I cannot make any decision like this about it.

If it was in my power, I would have found a way to publish it. It’s only 4 issues left. I hate leaving things unfinished. Hell, even if I didn’t, I’d likely have done it just to stop having random “What about Uber?” questions turn up in my social media presence.

Conversations are ongoing (if slow) with Avatar about what’s happening, as they have a lot of ducks to get in a line, but any question about Uber’s publishing can only really be answered by them and – as I have said many times before – as soon as I have any actual news, I’d share it with you.

I understand your frustration, and I wish I could say something else more solid, but I’ve got nothing more solid to say.

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Bruce, Todd, Dave, njerry, Ben, lorcan_nagle

This is a great story from Brian Cronin’s regular Comic Book Legends Revealed column. Gil Kane was once hired to draw a story viciously mocking… Gil Kane.

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Bruce, njerry, Todd, Dave

Good, short and sweet read. Thanks Steve!

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Steve Sensible

The story will sadden, sicken, and anger you.

The Last Days of Stan Lee: A heartbreaking tragedy about the (alleged) abuse of the Marvel Comics creator by those who swear they loved him

Todd wrote:

The story will sadden, sicken, and anger you.

The Last Days of Stan Lee: A heartbreaking tragedy about the (alleged) abuse of the Marvel Comics creator by those who swear they loved him

“Though I followed his career for decades and interviewed him at length on several occasions, I was shocked (and still am) to learn he’d never held the rights to his stories. Marvel owned everything and always would. Another surprise: Lee couldn’t draw. ”

And they say investigative journalism is dead.

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Will_C, Uncle Retrospective, Bruce, njerry, DavidM, Martin Smith, garjones

[Dan]

“In August 2009, The Walt Disney Company bought Marvel for $4 billion. Stan did not see a huge financial gain from this sale, but Disney did agree to continue paying him a lifetime annual salary of $1 million”

He may have not had hie due, but I can’t shed too many tears about an annual salary of a million dollars.

“He also owned a home in the same neighborhood, which he bought for $4.4 million several years ago, after selling another one in the same neighborhood for $2.8 million. The legendary writer also had a valuable art collection, including original works from himself, as well as Salvador Dali, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso.”

 

He did okay, right?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Dan.

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Uncle Retrospective

I am saddened to find he had works by Roy Lichtenstein.

Stan Lee admiring a man best known for stealing from comic book artists. Who woulda thunk it?

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Uncle Retrospective, Andrew, Dave

Dan wrote:

He may have not had hie due, but I can’t shed too many tears about an annual salary of a million dollars.

There is a middle ground sometimes with some of these stories. The comic industry offering no rights, pensions, healthcare etc left a lot of people really in bad shape.

There are some like Lee that don’t get to own their stuff and get the real worth but also made a decent chunk out of it. Siegel and Shuster in the first 9 years of Superman were paid $400,000 which adjusted for inflation is over $6m. They also partially won some of the various lawsuits to get one off payments and stipends from DC.

John Byrne had to testify in court in the Ghost Rider rights trial that Marvel has paid him over $10m in salary and royalties in his time there. Chris Claremont I believe because of the huge amount of IP he created gets a guaranteed book at Marvel so gets paid even if they don’t release one (which is why you see occasional minis and one-offs appear from him).

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Dave

Dan wrote:

He may have not had hie due, but I can’t shed too many tears about an annual salary of a million dollars.

Someone can make that much and still be exploited. But yeah, he’s not begging on the streets.

[Dan]

I’ve been spending a pre-lockdown-isolation holiday reading some classic comic collections – Powers hardback Vol 1 was far rougher around the edges than I expected, but once i started it was hard to put it down and get some sleep. Gotta finish it tonight.

I also started re-reading Starman for the first time in a long time. And wow, both solid memories of when I was buying it and reading it in 1994-ish and surprise plus delight about how good it was from the get-go.

It knew what it was, right away, more about cool shirts, collecting and cutting deals than having a fight for no reason. But also about family and linages – which is where the conflicts arose. Concepts such as Times Past and Talking with David where there within 8 issues, giving artists a break and having a confident rhythm and form that is sorely needed in more comics.

It also contrasts Myst and the Shade and what happens to old villans driven to hate, or able to see past it. I don’t know yet if that is a theme that also cuts through – I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.

All that said, why am I posting?
Robinsons’ writing and structure was spot on, but I own little else he’s writen, if anything.
Was he a one series wonder – all his great ideas into one amazing book?

Or was there another series, just as good, that he wrote?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Dan.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Dan.

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Andrew, DavidM

The Shade maxiseries is well worth a look but that tends to be it.

On Starman Robinson had a major booster in the form of Archie Goodwin as his editor.

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Dan

Robinson’s a funny one. His work in the 1990’s was so very enjoyable. Starman still ranks as one of my absolute favourite series. Cable, WildC.A.T.s, Firearm, his multiple Legends of the Dark Knight, and the wonderful Leave It To Chance were all great too.

Then Goodwin passes away, and it’s like the life goes out of him. By his own admission Starman only made it to the end because of David Goyer coming on board and helping him out. There’s a brief flourish of the old Robinson at the end of the run, and early JSA, but then he leaves comics behind for a decade or thereabouts.

[at this point, it should be pointed out that Pete Tomasi was the editor on Starman (and JSA) at the end; his contribution to both shouldn’t be overlooked]

When James eventually returned, he just wasn’t the same writer. It’s like he’s consciously and deliberately trying to avoid writing in the manner he did beforehand. Unfortunately, the writer he has become isn’t as entertaining nor as skilful as the writer he was.

He still can write like that though. That’s the annoying thing. His Shade run was like a pseudo- sequel to Starman. Parts of his Superman run (the Mon El bits in particular), bits of Hawkman, etc. But, for the most part, since his return he has been Geoff Johns- lite.

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DavidM, Ben

Dan wrote:

was there another series, just as good, that he wrote?

Well, it’s not a series, but originally a 4 – issue Prestige Format mini-series.
I absolutely loved. It’s been a while, but I’ve enjoyed every re-read

JSA: The Golden Age

Some of the greatest heroes of the 1940s, including the original Green Lantern, Atom, Hawkman and Starman, among others, return in this epic tale. The story follows their postwar adventures as they battle evil in a world they fear may no longer need them. And as their importance wanes, a new hero, Dynaman, rallies the nation behind a fascist agenda…

Comics greats James Robinson (STARMAN) and Paul Smith (The Uncanny X-Men, Nexus) turn history on its head in this celebrated Elseworlds tale featuring the Justice Society of America, collecting THE GOLDEN AGE #1-4.

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DavidM, Vikram

Vikram wrote:

When James eventually returned, he just wasn’t the same writer. It’s like he’s consciously and deliberately trying to avoid writing in the manner he did beforehand. Unfortunately, the writer he has become isn’t as entertaining nor as skilful as the writer he was.

Did you read his Airboy series? It’s essentially an autobiographical piece about how his writing career floundered.

It’s not all this angsty, a lot of it is quite silly and funny. It’s reminiscent of Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Adaptation’ in that one of the best things he’s put out is actually about his struggles with writing.

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Andrew, DavidM, lorcan_nagle

I liked Airboy. It was fun. The meta- commentary was interesting, especially that bit about how he could have been great but messed it up. The afterwords he wrote in the hardcover Starman Omnibuses was a similarly honest assessment of his successes and failures.

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Dan

Is James Robinson the one that used to put the emphasis on really odd words, making his stuff really hard to read?

Steve Sensible wrote:

Is James Robinson the one that used to put the emphasis on really odd words, making his stuff really hard to read?

That could be 80% of comics writers.

Dan wrote:

Or was there another series, just as good, that he wrote?

I liked his Earth 2 series from the New 52 era. I believe that Robinson was the first to write Alan Scott(Green Lantern) as gay in the Earth 2 series. The JSA is recreated on Earth 2 under his pen. Flash, The Kendra Hawkgirl, Dr Fate, and others were all given new origins by Robinson. The cherry on top of this Earth 2 series is it was drawn by Nicola Scott.

Vikram wrote:

the wonderful Leave It To Chance

When I think of Robinson’s best work, this is always #1.

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Vikram

I was talking to the owner and his manager as my LCS today. They said comic book distribution in the US it completely fucked up. DC leaving Diamond and doing their own thing along with Coronavirus has messed things up royally.

Customer service at Diamond and DC are horrible. It takes hours or days to get a resolution to an issue, if it’s resolved at all. They’re trying to mess with discounts stores have had for years. Reorders for DC books are taking months, instead of the few weeks it used with Diamond.

They said their DC sales are on a steady decline. The only DC books people seem to want are rare variant covers. And on that subject, in order to get a super rare variant for Three Jokers, they would to have had to order over 900 copies of the series as getting it is based on orders. Basically, only the chain stores and Mile High got it.

DC is instituting minimum orders which may hit small stores hard.

My store has really been focusing their energy on indie books and small publishers with great success. (Marvel sales are sliding, too.) They said a lot of the small publishers and creators are working hard and offering incentives to get stores to carry their books.

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DavidM, Ben, lorcan_nagle

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Uncle Retrospective, garjones, Todd, Dan, lorcan_nagle

THIS IS A STOLEN ART ALERT, From John Buscema's daughter, Dianne Buscema-Gerogianis.

“I am reaching out to you all as 45 pieces of Dad's original artwork was stolen from our family this morning.

(cont). pic.twitter.com/qLsGFjzlf2

— Walter Simonson (@WalterSimonson) November 5, 2020

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

[Will_C]

So Grant Morrison has come out as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. I’m both surprised and not surprised considering the content of their work. Congrats to them, their work (especially Invisibles, Doom Patrol, & The Filth) has hugely shaped my worldview and I’m immensely grateful to them and happy they have found the language to best describe themselves. Also worth mentioning Morrison is 60 so it’s never too late for anyone to come out.

https://www.cbr.com/the-green-lantern-grant-morrison-non-binary/

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Will_C.

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Christian, DavidM, Uncle Retrospective, Todd, Dan, lorcan_nagle

In Morrison’s case it feels like the modern terminology being applied to something that has always been quite out in the open, so doesn’t feel like ‘coming out’ so much as putting a label on it.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, Will_C, lorcan_nagle

I always took that stuff (Morrison mentioning cross-dressing in the interviews, mainly) as more of a Iggy Pop, Bowie thing so it came as a bit of a surprise to me, although looking back it was fairly out in the open as you say.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Next C2E2 and ECCC postponed until end of 2021

The organizers of New York Comic Con begin to lay out plans for 2021’s C2E2 and ECCC

The first two major North American comic conventions of 2021, Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) and Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), have been postponed until the end of 2021.

Seattle’s next ECCC is now set for December 2-5, 2021, moving off the previously scheduled March 4 – 7 date of the same year. It is planned to return to the Washington State Convention Center, where it’s been held since 2008. The last ECCC was attended by an estimated 98,000 people.

C2E2 will return to Chicago’s McCormick Place the following week on December 10 – 12, 2021. C2E2 2020, with an estimated 95,000 attendees, was the last major comic convention before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reedpop originally planned for C2E2 2021 to take place March 26 – 28.

In the wake of these schedule changes, Reedpop has announced a third Metaverse event – an online version of a convention, which it has organized twice already in 2020. The next Metaverse is planned for spring 2021.

“If we have learned anything from our experiences this year, it’s how resilient our fans, creators, exhibitors, and sponsors are. We’ve come together to support and uplift one another, adapting to our new normal to create meaningful experiences that capture the community and excitement felt at any one of our shows,” says Reedpop president Lance Fensterman. “Now, we’re ready to look forward to 2021 and gearing up to bring you the best slate of comic con events possible, both in the real and virtual world.”

Currently, ECCC and C2E2 are the only physical conventions announced for 2021 by Reedpop. Its other annual conventions – including most notably New York Comic Con – have not announced 2021 dates.

Wait, has Morrison asked to be called “they/them”? ‘Cause that CBR article reads… well, like a CBR article… =/