The leisurely comic discussion thread


Aaron Robinson

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In short: Throughout the years Ethan Van Sciver and a handful of other comic book creators have demonstrated abhorrent online behavior, behavior which has cost them jobs in the industry.  As an example, Van Sciver bullied someone online and advocated he kill himself. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. When publishers finally realized how pervasive his online bullying really was -- coupled with his offline actions -- he stopped getting work with Marvel and DC. Van Sciver claimed it wasn't his actions that cost him gigs, but rather his far-right conservative politics. He then used this talking point to whip up a mob of comic book readers and would-be creators into believing that the "liberal publishers" don't want to hire straight white Christian men as creators and editors. He also pushes the idea that the publishers don't want Logan, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, etc. to succeed as characters, that they only want Laura, Riri Williams, Miles Morales, Kate Kane, etc. to sell books. They then site ill-informed / incomplete sales date to "prove" that diverse characters and creators don't sell well; that if Marvel and DC only hired white men (RE: them) and only published white male characters the industry could be saved. Anyone who disagrees with them is bullied nonstop online and offline, and when the bullied creators push back their online comments are sent to publishers in an attempt to get them fired.

TL;DR Ill-behaved white men are angry women of color are writing comic books.

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  • 1 month later...

Did anyone else see Evan Dorkin's thread on Twitter today? To sum it up, he said he's given serious consideration to quitting comics because he's been in the industry too long to do the gig "marginally." He followed that up by saying his most profitable / marketable comic is being "comicblocked" by its co-creator. At first he was vague about the book and co-creator, then pointed a finger directly at Jill Thompson for not committing to Beasts of Burden and not letting him move the series onward with other creators.

This is the first time I've ever heard a negative word about Thompson, but it does explain the curious disappearance of Beasts of Burden. That book had a ton of in-industry and Hollywood hype behind it, then it just stopped. It's a shame for all involved, as Dorkin lays out. Dark Horse Comics is out money, the rest of the creative lost contracted jobs, and the fans have been letdown.

As far as I can tell, Thompson has not responded.

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18 hours ago, The Master said:

Did anyone else see Evan Dorkin's thread on Twitter today? To sum it up, he said he's given serious consideration to quitting comics because he's been in the industry too long to do the gig "marginally." He followed that up by saying his most profitable / marketable comic is being "comicblocked" by its co-creator. At first he was vague about the book and co-creator, then pointed a finger directly at Jill Thompson for not committing to Beasts of Burden and not letting him move the series onward with other creators.

This is the first time I've ever heard a negative word about Thompson, but it does explain the curious disappearance of Beasts of Burden. That book had a ton of in-industry and Hollywood hype behind it, then it just stopped. It's a shame for all involved, as Dorkin lays out. Dark Horse Comics is out money, the rest of the creative lost contracted jobs, and the fans have been letdown.

As far as I can tell, Thompson has not responded.

That's a major bummer. It's the only thing I've really enjoyed from either of them, but it's REALLY good.

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  • 3 months later...

Saw this on Twitter.

We've all seen this before, and WOW this is awful.

Granted, this isn't Whitewash from Captain America or Steamboat from Shazam, but this is still really frigging racist. Even worse when you consider that marrying a space alien ought to be more of a cultural taboo than marrying someone of a darker skin pigmentation.

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I've read the entire issue more'n once. I've read worse tbh, but that's not saying much. This isn't Ebony White or CC Beck Captain Marvel, BUUUUUUUUT pulling the race card as one of the many reasons why Superman won't marry her in her ongoing romance comic is pretty damn ugly.

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If true, this is really fucking sad. MAD Magazine taught me so much about the world and culture through satire. Even more than Saturday Night Live. It had the absolute perfect balance between kid-friendly gags and adult-fueled humor. And as a kid I could see the line; I could see the naughty jokes, even though I did not understand them. Such an amazing, formative book.

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Right now on ComiXology / Amazon, Marvel is giving away 12 collected editions for free. The titles are: Secret Wars (2015), Secret Invasion, Planet Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks v1, Ms. Marvel: No Normal, Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne v1, Captain America: Winter in America, Venom: Rex, Doctor Strange: The Way of the Weird, Captain America: Sam Wilson v1, Black Panther by TaNehisi Coates v2, and Miles Morales: Straight Out of Brooklyn.

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  • 5 weeks later...

DC Comics ended its relationship with Diamond.


Can't speak to the industry as a whole, but my local shops are pissed.  Not so much that they have to get their comics elsewhere, but rather they have to order from what they feel is their competition (aka DCBS).  One shop (as of now, given a few hours heads up) will now longer have DC books on the wall and DC will be pull list only. 

 

The other shop has yet to say anything today, but was very critical of the information he was asked to provide when DC started using non-Diamond distribution.

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  • 1 month later...
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At the moment, I'm reading Grant Morrison's New X-Men run. If I finish it, it will be the first time I've read it all the way through. That doesn't matter, though. What does, is that I cannot stand Morrison's writing. Not his plotting or storytelling, mind. That's fine. It's his dialog. It's clunky and always seems like panels are missing. For example, from X-Men #114:

Panel 2:
Wolverine: Couldn't wait to get out of that bald head, could you, Slim?
Cyclops: What? Are you insinuating something?
Wolverine: I don't insinuate; I call it like I see it.

Panel 3:
Cyclops: And exactly how do you see it, Logan?
Wolverine: With Binocular vision, "Cyclops." You've been AWOL for too long. Things change. Sometimes it's hard. I just want you to know you got a shoulder to cry on if you need it.

Panel 4:
Cyclops: >TT< We have work in Ecuador...
Wolverine: Which is more than most people in Ecuador have.

Panel 5:
Cyclops: Jean and I are perfectly Happy, Logan.

No one mentioned Jean. There wasn't even any subtext to insinuate this conversation was about her. Granted, this is Morrison laying the groundwork for what he had planned with Scott, Jean, and Emma. But it's so poorly executed. The jump between panels four and five is so jarring it makes one wonder if a panel -- if not a whole page -- was cut between them.

This is why I never finished his Batman run. There were times it felt like entire pages were cut between one word balloon and another.

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I love his Batman stuff, but I can attest to this. It really does feel like Morrison is writing from another planet with his disjointed writing at times, and you don't know when he's going to write realistic dialogue and when he going to remind the audience that they're reading a comic book. Much of the emotions are often severely underplayed too. Like when Bruce Wayne returns to save Dick and Damian, I don't think they express much joy or even surprise that he was back, after insisting to Tim that he was really gone.

I think his pre-Batman Rebirth/RIP stuff is the sanest/easiest to read. It gets clippy by Batman RIP, but the first Black Glove trade during One Year Later is solid and easy to take in.

But still, different appreciation but I agree with you Mike.

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My writing issue with Morrison is that his issues and story arcs felt so disjointed. I enjoyed the characterization in Batman and Son but it felt either like a fever dream or connective tissue was excised from the book. And then I picked up The Black Glove, and later RIP, and it felt like a different series entirely.

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