Morning Reading

Over at worldfamouscomics.com, Tony Isabella (see link on the left bar) gives his thoughts about DC Universe’s upcoming “one year jump forward” trick. And, interestingly enough, he seems to like it.

 First thing I’m going to say here is that his column is worth visiting every day.

 Then I’ll add that it’s a real shame that he and others like Marv Wolfman or Steven Grant don’t get more work in today’s comics. These are the guys who could actually tell a story in 22 pages or less, which seems to be a lost art.

 Anyway, back on the subject, this year’s DC’s big event and all the hype around it prompted me last month to write one of my infamous Comment pieces for Comics International in line with Brian Hibbs views over at Newsarama.

 Here is some of it:

 The naked truth behind summer events

 Once again Marvel and DC launch their big summer events. For 2005 at Marvel it’s HOUSE OF M, for DC it’s INFINITE CRISIS or whatever combination of these two words they can find. Along with these “events” we see an insane amount of hype, supposedly meant to set the internet buzz on fire and generate desirability. That’s what replaces word of mouth these days. Sadly the payoff is rarely on par with it.

 I’ve got a suggestion for you publishers:

 Can’t you make your regular books interesting on a regular basis?

 By now everyone has noticed: Anything even remotely significant for a character systematically happens in an overpriced out-of-regular-numbering special issue. This began shortly after Superman died and Batman was crippled. Remember? These two “events” happened in one of the (already numerous) regular bats and Supes books, and that was probably for the last time. Now it has to be done at extra cost with an crazy number of cover variants. Didn’t we learn something from the 90s’?

 And real events are hard to come up with. We need big game writers for that. What do they do? Oh yeah, rape and kill! But the norm still is; no one stays dead in comics. Bucky Barnes is back. Jason Todd is back. Clint Barton and Ted Kord will probably be back in a couple of years. Or dead again. Whatever. Uncle Ben, anyone?

 Since killing a character is not what it used to be, sometime in the near future DC books will jump ahead one year. Gasp! Face front, true believer, expect the unexpected. Is that a big deal?

 Question: Shouldn’t you try to surprise me every friggin’ issue, Mr. Publisher?

 Actually this one-year leap could be more of a problem than it seems: if Batman being around for 66 years in real time is the equivalent of 8 or 9 years in DC time, then one year in DC time is roughly the equivalent of 7 years worth of stories for all DC universe titles. Can you imagine how they’re going to catch up with that? 7 years of flashbacks… Ugh! My head hurts…

 And it’s not like regular books are cheap, already. The price of comics is so high today that some of us are already “waiting for the trade”. Out for sale merely a few weeks after the last issue of the “arc”, anyway. Conclusion: the monthly installment is now meaningless, but you’re supposed to buy it anyway, or the trade may never see the light of day. What sort of deal is that?

   Some of us are not waiting anymore, tired of endless crossovers and supposedly earth-shattering “events”.

 And be assured that this trend is not going to be reversed anytime soon, because they’re not selling books, they’re merely preserving potential movie franchises.

    [...]

 That’s my kind of a summer event. Just good old fun stories at an affordable price. ‘Nuff said.

And on that note I’m signing off for today.