Category: Columns

MICHAEL DAVIS: My Secret Origin

Editor’s Note: This originally appeared at www.michaeldavisworld.com on January 28, 2011. It is being reprinted here without permission. It’s been reformatted to meet ComicMix’s high editorial standards.

A long time ago in a galaxy, blah, blah, blah…

…Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz and I shared a studio next to some creators who are all legends now. It was the second silver age of comics and we were in the thick of it.

Howard Chaykin was doing American Flagg!, Walt Simonson was on Thor, Al Milgrom was doing Spider-Man. Jim Sherman was in the studio but I forgot what he was working on, I do remember it was bad ass.

The studio where all those superstar upstarts were was called Upstart Studio.

Duh.

Also at Upstart was Frank Miller who was doing Daredevil and about to do Ronin. I seldom saw Frank but when I did more often than not he would ask what I was working on and was just a great guy. I remember being a bit jealous when Bill and Frank started working on Elektra and for the life of me I can’t remember why.

All that said, how’s that for a line up?

Those guys (Denys included) sounds like a comic fan’s dream team even now. Speaking of my best friend Denys a few years forward in time from our studios days would see him nominated for an Eisner for best penciler… twice. People forget just how badass Denys Cowan is.

Our studio never got an official name although Bill liked to call it Bill and his little helpers… the bastard.

As far as what we were doing at Bill and his little helpers Studio, Bill was working on Elektra and The New Mutants; Denys was doing The Black Panther for Marvel, V (the comic adaption of the original TV series) and Vigilante for DC.

What was I doing? Nothing great in comics, that’s for sure.

I was working on children books, movie posters, etc. I had one comic book assignment for the Marvel magazine Epic. The assignment was given to me by the late great Archie Goodwin. I made an appointment with Archie hoping for a cover assignment I never dreamt he would give me an interior job.

I loved comics but I was trained as an editorial and mainstream illustrator. I never learned to do comics like, say, a Denys Cowan who can imagine and draw anything from his head. I need reference, I need to look at stuff, and I need dozens of layouts before I start a finished piece. Comics that are fully painted and tell a non-liner story at that time were rare. I was always jealous (still am) of guys that can do that make it up from nothing jazz.

Dwayne McDuffie recently commented on multitalented guys that can write and draw. Truth be told Dwayne, just as a writer, is light years away from where I will ever be as a visual storyteller. That, to me, is multitalented. When Christopher Priest was the editor on the Spider-Man book he once dissected a cover painting I did for him like he was a high school science teacher and I was the frog. He’s also a hell of a writer and just as good a musician. Reggie Hudlin glides between producing and directing movies and TV shows to writing some of the best comics I’ve ever read. Those guys are multitalented.

20 or so years ago, except for Heavy Metal and a few other outlets, painted comics were few and far between. The graphic novel as a fully painted editorial piece of art and content was not quite there yet. It was about to come into its own lead by people like my brother from another mother Bill Sienkiewicz. The work of Kent Williams, George Pratt and Dave McKean was just around the corner as well but not there yet.

Howard Chaykin saw over 20 years ago where comics were going and produced a few painted books before just about anyone did.

Like an asshole, I tried to do comics the way Denys, Walt, Howard and Frank did. I was too stupid to listen to Howard Chaykin when he told me, “Do what you do, the industry is changing and you can bring something new to it.’

Some of the best advice I’ve ever been given. It’s right up there with, put your hands on the wheel and answer in a civil tone of voice, “Yes officer, whatever you say officer.”

I wish I was joking about the cop advice, but I assure you I’m not.

I did not listen to Howard. Years later Mike Gold told me the same thing after I delivered a Wasteland story, which was not my finest hour. I didn’t think he would but Mike gave me another Wasteland story and said, “Do this like any other illustration assignment.” The story was about South Africa and I nailed that mother.

Of all the high profile regular illustrations gigs I was doing (Newsweek, NBC, etc.) the assignment I was the most excited about was Epic. It was a six-page story I was writing and drawing and taking forever to do because I wanted to do it like “regular” comics artists did. Could not do it then, can’t do it now.

Long story short, I will never forget those late night talks with Howard, Bill, Frank, Jim, Al and Denys. It was indeed the second silver age but for me it will always be my golden age.

Bill and his little helpers. Somehow that does not brother me anymore.

Yeah, I know this is pretty damn sappy.

That’s OK. Sap is the new black.

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

MINDY NEWELL: American Reinvention

Today, as I write this, is September 11, 2011.

Ten years.

The World Trade Center. The Pentagon. Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I’m watching the memorial services.

Tom Brokaw, David Gregory on NBC and MSNBC. Anderson Cooper and Candy Crowley on CNN. President Obama with Michelle and President George W. Bush with Laura. Mayor Bloomberg. Rudy Giuliani. Vice President Biden.

Breaking news: a truck bomb has killed at least 50 American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The ticker on CNN now reads: Global Terror Evolves. Al Qaeda under attack but keeps changing as Peter Bergen says: “Ten years out, terrorism remains, but is very different.”

Yesterday I read the “debut” issue of Action Comics #1. The one with Superman in a t-shirt, jeans, and Timberland boots.

It’s a different look for him.

He’s different.

The story opens as Superman breaks into a corporate (corporate = evil) meeting and manhandles the CEO (CEO = malevolence). The police (hired mercenaries?) rush in. They order Superman to put down the CEO. His answer, in the last panel on page three: “Just as soon as he makes a full confession. To someone who still believes the law works for the same for rich and poor alike…”

I turn the page.

Two-page spread, splash panel. Superman is standing on the edge of the roof, holding the CEO up with one hand, threatening to drop him. His eyes are burning, glowing red. He’s firing up his heat vision, eyes burning and glowing red. The CEO is screaming for someone to save him. The cops have their weaponry aimed at him. It’s a stand off. And Superman finishes his thought:

“…because that ain’t Superman!!!!”

It sure ain’t.

I could write a thesis on how American culture has changed since the last ten years. But better men and women, better writers and thinkers have done that already, so I won’t.

But I will say that I believe there is a disease that is rampant in this country. It’s a highly contagious disease that causes its victims to change facts. In America its sufferers believe that the United States and its government has always “played fair.” That the original colonists never slaughtered the native culture they found here or that 100 years later the U.S. Cavalry didn’t lace blankets with smallpox to kill the “Indians” of the Great Plains. That those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. That slavery itself was a fair and equitable system in which master and slave worked for the common good. That President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a scion of one of the wealthiest families in America, was a socialist. That Eisenhower was a tool of the communists. That the Civil Rights Act was propagated and staunchly defended by Southern Republicans and fought with tooth-and-nail by the Democrats. That the World Trade Center was brought down by controlled demolition explosions and that a missile hit the Pentagon was launched by “elements” inside the Bush administration. That Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. That Obama isn’t an American.

This is the culture of America today, September 11, 2011. It’s a suspicious and cynical culture that would rather dream nostalgic dreams of a past that wasn’t than to work together to shape those dreams into reality.

But is it so different from the culture that shaped two kids from Cleveland in 1932, two kids who believed in “the American Dream” of truth and justice for all, and created an avenging crusader a “superman” who beat up mobsters and wife beaters, profiteers and lynch mobs? That culture supposedly welcomed immigrants, and then barred them from communities and colleges and jobs. It was a culture that restricted voting and allowed segregation. The Superman created in 1932 and who debuted to the world in 1938 was a result of the suppressed anger of two Jewish boys who saw the inequities and untruths in the American reality, but still believed in the American dream.

Ronald Reagan, for all his faults, was right when he spoke of America as that “great shining city on a hill.” America, the idea of America, is still, will always be, in my not-so-humble opinion, the quest, the Arthurian legend, come to life.

My question is, and my worry is, how can the kids reading Grant Morrison’s 2011 version of Superman still believe in that quest, those ideals, that American dream that the hero has always represented when he clearly states, That Ain’t Superman?

Ten years later.

No.

It’s not.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

JOHN OSTRANDER: Superman – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

This is an amazing Superman. Not totally invulnerable, can only leap mover tall buildings and not fly, defying authority, fighting criminals and corrupt politicians, on the side of the little guy – really amazing stories. What? Grant Morrison’s Superman? No, I’m not talking about that. I haven’t read his new version although I’m sure it’ll be good; Morrison wrote All-Star Superman, one of my favorite run of Superman stories.

No, I’m talking about the original run of Superman stories, by the creators – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. I read them in one of the DC Archive books and I was floored when I read them. This was not the Superman I grew up on; he was actually a lot more interesting.

In one story, he gets a bad guy to talk by throwing him off the roof of a building, catching him, and then throwing him off again. He keeps doing this as he worries about whether or not he might have butterfingers. In another story, there’s a series of slums that are public housing and the buildings are in terrible shape. Supes’ solution? He pisses off the authorities to the point where they try to bomb him. He’s running in and out of the slum buildings that wind up flattened so that the authorities have no choice but to build new ones. And he’s laughing while he does it. The man’s a maniac – a Supermaniac.

In another story, an innocent man is about to be executed. Supes gets proof he’s innocent and goes to the governor. It’s almost midnight and the governor is in his pajamas and robe. There’s a storm and the phone lines go out. No way they can contact the prison in time. Supes grabs the governor and hurtles through the night, running and leaping at high speed to get the governor there in time to pardon the guy.

In another, Superman deals with a wife-beater and gives the jackass a taste of his own medicine.

Is the art a little primitive by today’s standards? Perhaps. Are the stories a little simple by today’s standards? Maybe – but they move like a speeding bullet. Superman at the start was very much a character of his time, born in the Depression, where the public’s confidence in their political institutions were low, where crime seemed rampant, and the little guy/gal seemed to have no-one on his/her side. Superman wasn’t bound by the courts or the law; he was an outlaw for justice.

Sound like today? Oh yeah. A Superman that hearkens back to his roots might be just what we need. I don’t know if that’s what Grant Morrison is doing but, from interviews he’s given and fro9m what I read in articles, it sounds to me as if he read those old stories, too, and has gleaned from them a basic, more primal Superman. Yesterday’s Man of Tomorrow written for today? I could get into that.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

MARC ALAN FISHMAN: Variant Variety Ain’t the Spice of Life

When my mother asked me why I was buying up all the comics I could, I made an attempt to satisfy her underlying problem. “I’m not wasting my money, Mom, these comics are worth money!” She bought that. Years later, she asked me when I was going to sell them and enjoy the tidy profit. Wouldn’t you know it? All those copies of Night Man and Mantra weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. And my Walgreens copy of Cyberforce: Bloodstryke? Nary a nickel would be given to me by any one aside from maybe Marc Silvestri. Had I been smart enough, I would have picked up the holo-foil variant cover, and nabbed me a dime.

You see kiddos, when I got into comics, the ‘Variant’ cover ruled the land. In the go-go-nineties, when people suddenly thought comic books were highly coveted collectables, the publishers followed suit by releasing a veritable tidal wave of ‘comicas con variantas.’ Short supply equaled high demand, and before you know it… even your next-door neighbor (who can’t tell Batman from Man-Bat) is collecting comic books. Me personally? I couldn’t care less. Have a seat. Get comfy. Let me pull out my jar of poetry wax. It’s time to polish up the Rant-O-Tron 5000.

Collectables by and large bother me. The idea that you would purchase a toy, a poster, a print, or a talking rubber fish all with the notion that it’d eventually mint you a tidy profit seems ludicrous to me. Toys are meant to be played with. Art is meant to be displayed. And those talking rubber fish? They’re meant to be in RVs in the south.

The same goes for comic books. Maybe I’m alone in this sentiment (and I hope in fact that I’m not) but comic books are meant to be read. Comic books as collectables just irks me a bit. Scratch that. Comic book collectors who don’t enjoy the medium for anything other than the potential profit? They irk me.

Unlike commemorative plates, baseball cards, or Hollywood memorabilia, comic books are made with the intent to entertain. Writers sat at typewriters concocting amazing fantasies for their fictitious creations. Artists slaved over their drawing boards meticulously adding nuance, detail, and action to the written word. And a literal team of other players had their hands in the pot… from the letterers, colorists, inkers, designers, and editors who spent their work week fretting over deadlines to eventually put their book on a store shelf… and you don’t even take the time to read it? Next time do me a favor, buy a limited edition Billy Bass.

But Marc, you protest, what about those smart people who minted thousands upon thousands for their rare Action Comics #1, or Detective Comics #27? What about them, indeed. Neither were a “Holo-Foil Sketch Blank Autographed Variant.” And 75 years from now, if you think your copy of the “B” cover of Justice League 2011 will be worth thousands of dollars more than the standard “A” cover… well, you are welcome to dance on my grave if it’s true.

Suffice to say, I’ve never bought a comic strictly for the purpose of profiting. And for those who do, while I don’t deny you the right to spend your money however you see fit: I scoff at you on principle alone.

For the publishers who produce them, it must seem like a brilliant idea. In John Ostrander’s piece a few weeks back, we learned that the comic book market is such that the publishers don’t sell to the consumers. They sell to retail shops who in turn sell to us. So their spin-off squeeze play is nothing more than an attempt to hike up sales a bit more. Dynamite alone must produce an Alex Ross variant every other week, for every other book they publish. In turn the shops might feel compelled to order enough of the base book to “earn” those packed-in variants, and in-turn mark them up for sale to the saps, err, collectors who come into their stores. I love Alex Ross’s work kids, I do. But they day I’m chasing down a Green Hornet Year One Sketch Cover Variant C, break a NASCAR Jeff Gordon plate across my face. Before anything else, a comic is there to be read and enjoyed.

Agree? Disagree? You know the drill. Let me have it below.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MARTHA THOMASES: The Age Of Origins

MARTHA THOMASES: The Age Of Origins

BatgirlSuperhero comics have been re-booted and re-vamped and up-dated and back-dated for so long that we hardly notice anymore.  However, there are some story elements that are fixed in the past, and maybe not in a good way.

For example …

• When Superman was first created, it was entirely believable that the rocket ship that brought him to Earth from Krypton could land in Kansas without anyone seeing it.  Even through the 1970s or so, when the rocket should have landed in the 1950s, one could accept that premise.  Now, however, the rocket would have crashed in the 1990s, when all sorts of satellites would have been tracking it.  Even if it wasn’t identifiably a rocket, but assumed to be a meteor, scientists would have warned about the effects of impact.  Cable news networks would have been all over it for the disaster porn.

• Did Peter Parker need a permission slip from Aunt May and Uncle Ben before going on a school trip to a facility with radioactive specimens?  Did anyone consider a lawsuit?

• Barbara Gordon has been a librarian and a United States Congressional representative.  Additionally, she was disabled by an attack from a criminal who was negligently allowed to escape from prison.  She must have a great government pension plan.  When she regains her ability to walk (apparently) in the upcoming series, are there Tea Party zealots demonstrating against her?

• Is Tony Stark the Koch Brothers of the Marvel Universe?  And if not, why not?

• Both the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe contain countries ruled by people with super-powers.  Are diplomatic postings to these countries considered to be good jobs or bad jobs?  What are the Senate approval hearings like for those?

• Similarly, when the United Nations has that week when all the world leaders attend sessions, do these super-hero leaders provide their own security?

• Are there web sites like gofugyourself for superhero costumes?  And, if so, do they similarly suggest that super-heroines consider pants somewhat more frequently?  Or are they more like this?

• Are there reality competition shows for super-heroes, like, say,  “X-Factor?”

• Does J. Jonah Jameson know Bill O’Reilly?  Because I would totally like to see that.

Dominoed Daredoll Martha Thomases doesn’t really want to think about the current political climate transposed to places where people punch out walls.

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DENNIS O’NEIL: Read This Column Or We’ll Shoot– Okay, We’re Lying

DENNIS O’NEIL: Read This Column Or We’ll Shoot– Okay, We’re Lying

Cheeseface on the cover of National Lampoon.

Image via Wikipedia

Let’s get the anecdotal/name dropping portion of this blather out of the way up front:

Five, maybe six years ago, I was leaving the British Broadcasting Company’s offices in Manhattan, where I’d been brainstorming a kids’ show with a producer and some writers, including Sean Kelly, who was accompanying me to Third Avenue. Sean mentioned that when he was editor of the late, lamented humor magazine, the National Lampoon, and the Lampoon shared a midtown building with my usual employer, DC Comics, he considered asking me to contribute something to his pages, but that someone told him that I wouldn’t be interested.

Now, let me take a deep breath and aver, emphatically, that I would have been delighted to have my work appear in the hippest and funniest magazine on the racks. I don’t know and don’t want to know who Sean spoke with, but it’s fair to say that this mysterious person did me a disservice with an untruth.

So yes, experience allows us to state that falsehoods, whether malicious or innocent, do affect people and events, and we can’t console ourselves by thinking they have no consequences. And they piss us off: some squiggle deep in our brains probably perceives them as threats and we want to react, we want to strike back and avenge and bring low the foe.

Not easily done and maybe not wisely done, either. I retaliate and the foe retaliates to my retaliation and there are arguments and side-choosing and and and and…

The unhealthiest part of the relevant egos, foes’ and mine, fattens on anger and vengeance and, yes, hate, and validates their existence with our sorry conflicts.

Redress by law? Hey, ever been privy to a lawsuit? There’s no guarantee of satisfaction from a process that can drag months in its wake, maybe years, and break the bank and chew up and spit out one’s life…

I’ll stop waxing metaphorical now, take another deep breath and, head bowed, admit that I have recently been on the receiving end of some brickbats that make whatever was said to Sean Kelly, decades past, seem like powder puffs. (I said I was done with metaphors, didn’t I? Sorry.)

A final deep breath and–my friends: I believe the First Amendment to be the best thing in the Constitution and I believe John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty should be required reading for everybody (or at least recommended reading) and I wish there was some way of reprimanding politicians and journalists and pundits when they deviate from the truth but…we pay a price for our most cherished freedoms and allowing the publication of rumors (or worse) is the ugly cost of freedom of speech.

This can be, I admit, a paltry consolation, and at the moment it is indeed feeling pretty paltry ,but it will have to serve.

Recommended Reading:

  • [[[On Liberty]]], by John Stuart Mill.
  • [[[Saints Preserve us: Everything You Need To Know About Every Saint You’ll Ever Need]]], by Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers

 Friday: Martha Thomases

 

MIKE GOLD: These Comics Really Suck Because…

Wow. I’m sure gonna piss a lot of my friends off. Please don’t take this personally. It has nothing to do with your skill, your judgment, or your personal predilections. It’s just my opinion, one that is somewhat contradicted (only somewhat) by sales figures. Here it comes, folks.

When it comes to comics, licensed property tie-ins suck.

Okay, this isn’t an across-the-board opinion. There are exceptions. Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson’s adaptation of Alien comes to mind. That was, let’s see, back in 1979. Remember Sturgeon’s Law? Ninety percent of everything Ted Sturgeon wrote is crap? Or something like that. My rule of thumb regarding entire genres is this: if you’re doing about five points worse than Ted Sturgeon’s Law, you suck.

There are solid reasons behind this blather. First, any group of talented creators – say, roughly, enough to fill Yankee Stadium – would not create what you see in a tie-in comic book if left on their own. Characters, concepts, designs, interrelationships, plots – they all would likely be… original.

Second, the characters, concepts, designs, interrelationships, and plots created for movies or teevee or toys were created for that particular medium. Transferring them to another medium requires sacrificing a degree of nuance that makes the source material unique. The timing of an actor’s performance that is used to establish character does not come across in comics; the artist is likely to get that bit across visually, but in the process he or she is changing the character.

Third, you can’t change the direction of anything. In a medium that for 25 years has been nothing other than constant change, the concepts of the licensed comic book are set in stone. The reader quickly realizes that any original character that might be introduced is likely to be killed off, and killed off in realistic terms – as opposed to the “death is completely meaningless” approach used in comics. Worse still, if the character works the licensor is likely to take it and use it in their own movies, shows, merchandising and whathaveyou – and the comics creators who thunk it all up ain’t gonna see a penny.

Finally, creators work with editors, some of whom are great (hiya, folks!), some less than great, and others couldn’t sort out a pack of Necco wafers if the candy was numbered. Editors work with editorial directors and editors-in-chief and publishers and if they’re any good they fight with the marketing department or at least try to wake them up. But when it comes to licensed properties, you’ve got the owners licensed products people to deal with. Not only do they not know comics, they usually do not know the properties they administrator. Case in point:

The idiot who passed judgment on DC’s Star Trek titles was so bad, if writer Peter David and editor Bob Greenberger flew out to Los Angeles and murdered the son of a bitch, I would have gone to great lengths to establish a solid alibi for them. Probably one involving a Mets game… but I digress. Here’s another.

Writer Joey Cavalieri plotted a Bugs Bunny mini-series that was, in my opinion as editor, as brilliant as it was hilarious. Stunningly brilliant. We sent it to the West Coast for the Warner Bros. studio approval. They hated it so much their Grand Imperial Klingon in charge of toothbrush licenses flew out to New York to cut me a new asshole. Unfortunately for editorial coordinator Terri Cunningham, this nuclear holocaust happened in her office.

The Mistress of All Things Looney started pointing out the good stuff we couldn’t do. Daffy Duck couldn’t issue spittle. Porky Pig couldn’t stutter. Tweety Bird couldn’t be a host on BTV, the all-bird watching network. Foghorn Leghorn couldn’t own a fast-food franchise. Bugs couldn’t be so manipulative. Hello? Anybody home? This is Looney Tunes we’re talking here!

I politely pointed out these were either long established character bits that started in the theaters in 1940 and continued on television to that very day. I said the Tweety and Foghorn bits were satire.

“Looney Tunes are not about satire!,” she screamed.

I saw poor Terri Cunningham in my peripheral vision. She looked like she was desperately trying to gnaw her way out of her own office. I said “Answer me this one question. Have you ever actually seen any of the Looney Tunes cartoons? Ever?” I turned on my heel and walked back to my office.

Here’s the worst part. My story is not in the least bit atypical. Not at all. It’s not even the worst I can tell you.

So when it comes to comic books, there’s a creative challenge to doing licensed properties and I’d take on some of those challengers as long as the licensor knows the property, but personally, I’d rather read something original.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

MICHAEL DAVIS: The Great Pretenders

For over a decade I’ve been hosting The Black Panel at various venues around the country. The panel has its roots in the Milestone Media panels I once hosted at different comic book conventions in the nineties. I created The Black Panel as a forum to discuss African American pop culture from the inside with the aim of helping more people get inside.

The Black Panel is, I’m proud to say, a mainstay at the San Diego Comic Con International. A reviewer recently called it a “Comic Con institution.”

High praise indeed and I was felling pretty good about the panel after yet another standing room only presentation this past year. However, after a recent conversation with Denys Cowan, I’m asking myself some pretty serious questions. Full discloser: Denys is not only one of the greatest and most original artists to ever work in comics, he’s also my best friend. He also worships Satan and has a $ 10,000.00 a day crack habit.

No, no he doesn’t, but Denys never reads my columns so I can pretty much write what I want, like this, Denys beat up a 10 year-old girl who made the mistake of calling him “Michael Davis” at Comic Con last year.

Again, I joke, I kid! She was 7.

Denys and I were talking about the future of the panel. We got on the subject of who appears on the panel. Denys made a remark that made me think, has the panel featured some guests who could care less about the comic medium but have used the panel simply to promote their current projects?

In other word, pretenders.

Here’s a link to the Black Panel’s Alumni. To this list you can add Peter David, Derrick Dingle and Keith Knight and Phil Lamar. You will notice quite a few entertainment superstars on the list. To be fair to me, my mission statement for the panel is black entertainment, which includes but is not limited to comics and animation.

I stared thinking maybe I have had some pretenders on the panel.

I’m nothing if not honest with myself and if I’m wrong I’ll say so. Just today I posted results from a Gallup Poll on my Facebook page that clearly showed that some of my opinions about the Tea Party were wrong.

I took a long look at the guests I’ve had over the years and lo and behold there may be one that the pretender labels fits. No. I’m not going to name him or her. If it’s a black woman, I might get bitch slapped. If it’s a rapper, I might get shot. By all means if you guys want to play “Who’s the pretender,” have at it.

My name is Bennett, I ain’t in it.

The perhaps they are perhaps they are not pretender for my panel is not the focus of this article. Pretenders in the comics industry are.

I’ve met quite a few over the years and usually it’s someone or some company with an high profile and some bucks who thinks that a comic book project from them is just what the world is looking for. More often than not little if any respect has been paid to the way the comic book industry operates and even less respect to the history.

I was approached some years back from a major music mogul to help him create a comic book line that would feature some of his label’s artists. I told him as a promotional item I thought it would work, as a retail item not so much. He did not want to hear that.

Frankly, what mega rich music producer wants to hear that the music business and the comic book business cannot be approached the same way? I mean, the music industry. That’s a real business not like comics, which is more like a hobby until Hollywood decides to take pity and make a movie out of one of those silly characters.

The mogul decided to get a family member to run the line. I was proving to be too much trouble with my depressing and unimportant comments on silly subjects like distribution, marketing, talent and retailers. His choice from the family had been reading comics all his life. That makes him the perfect choice to create and produce a comic book line.

A year, maybe two later I saw an ad somewhere announcing the line. From what I understand the books never saw the inside of a comic book store.

The ad sucked as well.

On a few occasions I’ve had agents of big name Hollywood action stars send me an idea from or about said star. Most of the time the idea features the actor as some sort of hero in the comic. All of the time the idea sucks. When you tell an agent of a big star that their client has little or no juice in the comics industry they feel pity towards you because of your obvious mental illness.

As far as those who think they can make a quick buck in comics, surprisingly that does not bother me. This is America. Where would we be without those who were just in it for the quick buck? Those who get into the business and have the sense to appreciate the expertise of comics I welcome.

What does bother me are those who get into the business and have no respect, not only for what has come before but make no effort to know, learn or enhance the craft. That bugs the shit out of me.

Anyone else?

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

MINDY NEWELL: Paging Dr. House

This past Tuesday, August 30 to be exact, the New York Times ran an article by Dave Itzkoff about the “new” DC reboot. It was called “Heroes Take Flight, Again.”

It’s an interesting article. And its tone is that of a penultimate eulogy. To quote Itzkoff, “Within the DC universe, this new status quo is the result of efforts by the fleet-footed Flash to alter the course of history. But in the real world it is a last-ditch plan to counteract years of declining sales throughout the comics business.”

It’s rather like an episode of House, isn’t it? He wants to try a risky, dangerous, could-kill-the-patient-instead-of-saving-him treatment and everybody around him either has an opinion or just wants to avoid the whole subject. Cuddy is worried about the lawyers and the reputation of Princeton-Plainsboro Medical Center. Wilson is busy psychoanalyzing his friend’s penchant for walking on the edge. Foreman objects mostly because he didn’t think of it first. Chase, having forsaken the medical principle of “first do no harm” a few seasons ago when he killed a dictator who was under his care, pretty much shrugs his shoulders. Cameron is too busy in the ER to get very involved, other than to shake her long blonde hair and hot tush in House’s face and say, “you’re just gonna do what you want anyway.” Taub is caught between his Torah – he who saves a single life, it is as if he has saved the whole world – and probably causing the patient even more suffering if the treatment is allowed, and “Thirteen,” facing eventual horrible death herself thanks to the Huntington’s Disease that stalks her, thinks House is right, because she sees herself in the patient, and she wants to live.

I remember when I first heard of Crisis on Infinite Earths. I was upset. I didn’t understand why DC had to go messing with my childhood. But under the able hands of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, it was, frankly, a thrilling story. To me, when Marv and George killed Supergirl – and I’m still mightily pissed off about that! – that was it, man, I knew this was going to be a classic.

The only trouble was, it started off a wave of “mega-reboots” over at DC that sounded like “good business” at the time. And now, after some 30 years, only seems to make me, and everybody else, yawn.

Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis. Crisis, My Ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t know.

‘Cause most of these reboots, start-overs, begin-agains are so obviously an attempt to “save the life of the patient” that it’s insulting to the reader. Jim Shooter is quoted in the Times article as saying “This whole attitude of, ‘Oh, go ahead, start over, reboot,’ people get tired of that…as storytellers, I don’t know where we wandered off to.” I totally agree with him.

S-T-O-R-Y. A narrative. An account. A tale, yarn, legend, fairy-tale, chronicle. Something that stays with you. That for whatever reason strikes a resonant chord within.

Was The Lord of the Rings a business decision? Was Grapes of Wrath? A Tale of Two Cities? The Three Musketeers? Alice in Wonderland? The Man in the Iron Mask? Peter Pan? If I keep on going this will be a column about the Book-of-the-Month club.

I’m hoping this works for DC. I’m hoping the company doesn’t stay alive just to feed the licensees. I’m hoping that I’m thrilled again.

I’m hoping that Dr. Gregory House can pull another miracle out of his misanthropic hat.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

JOHN OSTRANDER: Comic Books, Peanut Butter and Anchovies

For twenty-five years, Mike Malve down in Arizona ran a successful line of comic book stores called Atomic Comics. I knew him from his weekly e-mail messages that he sent out. Nice chatty e-pistles about what sold last week, what was coming out this week, assorted thoughts about the industry, various promotions he was running, different guests he had visiting and so on.

I’d never been to his stores but Mike and I exchanged several e-mails. He always struck me as a good solid sort of retailer, one who knew and loved the industry, worked hard, promoted the work and those who made it. The sort of guy you wanted to see make it.

Two weeks ago, he closed down all his shops. There were lots of factors contributing to the closings, as he detailed in his last report. When the times were good, he expanded into high profile locations but, as he said, “when the economy went sour, low sales could not support the higher rent at these high visibility locations. The leases at these particular stores which had originally provided the consumers with greater visibility and more foot traffic to our wonderful world of comic books, the higher overhead proved to be too much for Atomic as we faced declining sales.”

He traces the decline back to an incident in 2006 when a 16-year old uninsured driver crashed her car through the front window of his biggest store and best revenue producer. The accident tore up a water main and the flood caused a million dollars worth of lost revenue and the store closed down for over five months. This was just as the recession started.

Mike secured the leases on the stores with his house so he’s going to be losing that as well as going into bankruptcy. Throughout it all, he’s maintained as cheerful and upbeat an attitude as he can manage – better than I could in his circumstances. He hopes to find some way to remain in the industry he loves.

Just two weeks later, this last week, DC launched its latest version of its titles in a sweeping revamp that includes same-day digital sales. At the same time, we see Borders closing its doors and various and sundry people have announced the death knell of the brick and mortar bookstores of all stripes.

(more…)

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