So at the last BAB editorial meeting (which looks an awful lot like the image above at times), we were discussing some ideas for Discuss, Open Forums, and miscellaneous comic reviews. But one of the things we'd like to do is come up with another comics-related, yet not comic review, series.
Here are a couple of ideas we chewed on: a revisiting of our Side-by-Side series where we focus on the creators of a given year and their output. Perhaps the goal would be to come up with an MVP for a given year, and see how many different writers and artists we end up with by the end of the 1970's. Another thing was to come up with a bracketed tournament again with some sort of hero or villain face-off. Shoot, maybe we could even take the creators we single out and play them off against each other.
So today, we'd like to solicit some ideas from our faithful readers. Let us know if there's anything that's been eating you, just really giving you an itch in a bad place -- like, "Man, I wish those Bronze Age Babies would run a post on X!" We'll have another meeting and who knows -- maybe your idea will be chosen.
Thank you!
44 comments:
How about one tracing the evolution of a particular artist's style? Some have evolved subtly, others have shifted their style radically (Barry Windsor-Smith, Bill Sienkiewicz, Keith Giffen, etc.) It could be interesting to take a look at the changes over the years.
Inkstained --
That's a good idea. You could add Walter Simonson and Sal Buscema to the conversation as well.
Your suggestion seems like an amalgam of two series we've regrettably gone away from (for whatever reason) -- The Fine Line, where we looked at a character under the "care" of various artists throughout the Bronze Age, and our Spotlight On... series of critiques/conversation on specific artists.
Duly noted! Thank you!
Doug
Ok, I'm going to spitball for a while....stop me and buy one....
Richard
Polar opposites or separated at birth?
Some talents (good and bad) were born to get married (Miller & Janson, Kane & Adkins, Byrne & Austin, Perez & Austin, Colan & Palmer, Adams and Palmer, Buscema & Palmer, anyone and Palmer...).
Who are your happy couples, who are your unhappy couples and who should have worked together but didn’t?
This goes for writer/artist combos as well as artist/inkers.
Conversely: who stands at opposite ends of spectrum to each other. My vote goes to Gil Kane and John Buscema. There’s a no prize for anyone who can tell me why.
Richard
One of these days.
Somewhere on your shelf is a comic, series, Treasury or TPB that you have never, in all these years, got round to reading. What is it, why have you never read it, and when will you? Series you never completed count here.
Richard
The Marvel Lifeboat.
I was struck the other day by this 80/20 surprise: how many of your favourite stories were written by Gary Friedrich, Tony Isabella or Michael Fleischer....none, right? How surprised are you? Not at all.
Now the more interesting question: how many of your favourite stories were written by Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Archie Goodwin or Len Wein ? Probably still none ( GSX1 aside). How surprised are you? Well, I was quite surprised. I think all of them are good writers, yet they wrote NONE of my favourite stories.
Even if I list my top 100 stories, I still only get a tiny number of writers (Lee, Thomas, Englehart, Gerber, Starlin, Claremont, Moore). Same is true of artists.
OK guys, the Marvel (or DC) lifeboat is sinking and you can only save 10 people, total. Who are your Kates and who are your Leos?
Richard
Sorry...engage brain before typing. Ship is sinking, lifeboat is sailing ! Next:
Wrong place, wrong time
Some talents always seemed to be working in the wrong era, wrong style, wrong comic book or for the wrong house. Who would have thrived in a different world? Which character was crying out for which writer or artist, but never got to meet him/her?
Richard
How about a look at the social aspect of comic fandom. What first drew your attention to comics; were you a lone reader or was there a circle of friends with shared interest? We're you in FOOM, the MMMS, or another club? We're the companies' efforts to grab and expand your interest ( think Marvel Value Stamps) successful?
Great ideas so far!
Richard, you, sir, may get a month's worth of Open Forums dedicated to you! Very interesting questions/posits.
Redartz -- your idea could spawn a short series of posts. I like it!
This is very rejuvenating for me. I really appreciate you all taking the time to comment this morning.
Doug
Not as significant as Richard and some other contributors here, but perhaps naming any characters, artists, trends (or local comic shop) that brought you into hard-core collecting, and what made you leave, then fall in love all over again.
Doug, I recall we both collected early on, only to have a re-emmergence during our college years, pretty much around the same time frame (early 80s).
Also, on a lighter and more whimsical note..: One morning as your alarm startles you out of a deep sleep, you wake up one morning to discover you've turned into your favorite hero (or villain)... Go for it, supporting characters included?, and reasons why..!?!
Let me second Richard's idea of the "comic, series, Treasury or TPB that you have never, in all these years, got round to reading." I have had the Essential Tomb of Dracula, Vol. 1, on my shelf mocking me for a couple of years now.
I like david_b's idea as well, i.e., a discussion of what brought us into or back into comics.
Another suggestion is perhaps more detailed examinations of some of the many fleeting series of the 1970s (super-hero or not) killed by poor sales; you know, stuff like Red Wolf, the Cat, Black Goliath, and anything swallowed up by the DC implosion (I know it's limited by what Karen and/or you have in their personal collections or had read, but still, could be interesting...)
By the way Richard, to answer your question about certain stories and their writers, for some of those you mentioned, I can think of at least one of my very favorite stories written by them:
Archie Goodwin - the Manhunter series from Detective
Doug Moench - the original Deathlok stories
Bill Mantlo - Micronauts 1-11.
(It was tough pick for those three writers, by the way, since they wrote tons of stuff that I count among my favorites - e.g. Moench's work on Moon Knight and Master of Kung Fu, Mantlo's Rom and Spider-man stories, the Rocket Raccoon mini, Goodwin's countless stories in the various Warren magazines, etc.)
As for Wolfman, I still hold in high regard a number of his New Teen Titans story arcs and his work on Night Force. In the case of Wein, there's his original run on Swamp Thing, that awesome space opera story in DC Comics Presents 27-29 (drawn by Starlin!) and those oft-forgotten Deadman stories featured in Adventure Comics (the story in GSX1, in my opinion, really isn't that great in and of itself).
Hi Inkstained .....I’ve got the original Dark Knight, never opened it. Quarter of a century and counting. But hey, I hear good things about this Miller upstart, so maybe I’ll give it a go.
On the subject of TOD, you have there probably the only Essentials that doesn’t massively suffer from being B&W. I’d still go for the originals, from issue 11 onwards. 1- 10 are pricey, esp. 10 (Blade), but it gets pretty reasonable after that.
Richard
Why don't you take a page from David Letterman and Newsarama, and simply do a Top 10 every once in a while.
Pick a subject and Karen can do hers and Doug his. It would be interesting to see how your tastes may differ, plus it would open up a nice discussion and allow others to voice their own opinions on the subject at hand.
Example something like this...
The Top 10 Best Creative Runs Ever...
1. Lee/Kirby (Fantastic Four)
2. Lee/Ditko (Amazing Spider-Man)
3. Claremont/Byrne (Uncanny X-Men)
4. Lee/Romita (Amazing Spider-Man)
5. Frank Miller (Daredevil)
6. John Byrne (Fantastic Four)
7. Wolfman/Perez (New Teen Titans)
8. Thomas/Buscema (Avengers)
9. Shooter/Perez (Avengers)
10. John Byrne (Superman)
Or some such as that.
Other topics could be things like...
Top 10 Best Costumes, Top 10 Worst Costumes, Top 10 Best Issues of (any given comic) Top 10 Worst Issues..., Top 10 Best Super Hero Battles, Top 10 Dumbest Villains, Top 10 Best Artists, Top 10 Best Writers, etc., etc., etc.
I love stuff like that and think it would make a really nice regular feature.
OK, next: I’d like a thread just called ‘Really?’ The idea would be stuff you just can’t believe, e.g. :
Ref the above, Blade’s first appearance, which cost me nearly as much as my entire TOD collection, is a bizarre and badly written story (Karen reviewed it here) set on a luxury yacht (no, really). It is, possibly, the worst issue of TOD and is, certainly, the most expensive & hardest to get.
According to Overstreet, the 9th most sought after SA comic is DC Showcase #9 because it features the first solo appearance of Lois Lane ( not first appearance, first SOLO appearance ! ). I mean....REALLY? Ahead of TOS 39, Avengers 1 or 4, FF 1 or 5, TTA 27 or 59 or 60, Flash 105, B&B 28, JLA 1, Green Lantern 1, Strange Tales 110, Steranko’s Fury, Adams’ Xmen or the entire run of Silver Surfer. Lois Lane. Seriously? People who collect DC are nuts.
How great stuff actually started life. If Stan had had his way, the Xmen would have been called ‘the Merry Mutants’. Sweet Jesus.
Plot twists: Aunt May marrying Doc Ock, the Goblin’s constant loss & regaining of memory, let’s not get into Jean or Gwen again, She Hulk, The Spider Mobile, Magneto joining the Xmen, Emma Frost joining the Xmen, Emma Frost joining Cyclops, The sentinels joining the Xmen, EVERYONE joining the Avengers, Professor X coming back from the dead because he didn’t die, having been impersonated by an alien, and anything with the words Hank and Pym in it.
You get the idea. I think this thread would be chaos, but it would get a lot of hits !
Richard
I like the Lifeboat and the Unread threads (I've had DC Showcase: The Warlord for five weeks and I haven't cracked it open yet).
By the way. I love that Byrne X-Poster. Can you spot the original, unused Caliban?
Hi Edo – I love your riposte, and you certainly bitchslapped me there. As you gather, I’m playing Devil’s Advocate. I never read Micronauts or Manhunter, but accept your wisdom. I actually agree with you about Moench, although not because of Deathlok, which I associate far more with Rich Buckler than him. Actually, because of some cracking issues of MOKF. Marv Wolfman, I also love him, not because of any DC work, but because of Drac.
My point would be, I guess, how much discussion of MOKF or Dracula do we get on here or anywhere, let alone Night Force or Rocket Raccoon? It’s your lifeboat, my friend, but if you’re chucking out GS Xmen 1 to make space for Rocket Raccoon, let me know so I can be there to catch it.
I love your suggestion of series that got killed by bad sales. My vote goes to The Champions, the Beast run in AA, Deathlok & Iron Fist. If you’ll pardon the liberty, I’d also propose the opposite: stuff that should have been put out of its misery. I loved the first 50 or so issues of the Defenders, but the last 100 or so are not good. And even then it didn’t get killed by bad sales, just the need to move half the team into X factor.
Richard
Richard,
Your comment about TOD vol. 1, being the best of B&W reprints is not reassuring. The few times I have glanced through the volume I think it was the lack of color that put me off. Gene Colan's work in this case really seems to be intended to be read in color.
And what you are saying is it doesn't get any better? Sheesh ...
Hi Inkstained ....well, the thing for me is that I grew up in the UK with B&W reprints as my staple diet, so I will always go the extra mile for colour. I have a couple of essentials, but I never read them. I’d rather collect the originals, even if it takes a few years. I think Drac just suffers less than others I’ve read. It gains some atmosphere from B&W, where for other comics, it’s just a big fat minus.
Regarding Drac in colour, one of the great things about that comic is that it’s just a 4 hander. Everyone knows that Colan drew it all and Wolfman wrote most of it, but Marv also did the editing, John Costanza did most of the lettering, Tom Palmer inked it all, Palmer also coloured many issues, and the ones he didn’t, were mostly coloured by Marv’s wife (and by the happy couple together), so the colouring is really pretty integral, I would say. But then I’m a colour-starved Brit.
Richard
Aw, c'mon, Richard, it wasn't meant to be a bitch-slap. My point was simply that I don't buy the view that Goodwin, Moench or Mantlo should somehow take backseat to, say, Englehart, Claremont or Starlin - all are good writers, all of them wrote, to me anyway, some outstanding and memorable stories.
My suggestion about examining series that got killed actually includes both those that I think should have been given a chance and those that frankly deserved the axe - I think it would just be interesting to look at the literally dozens of comic series in the '70s and early '80s that appeared and then fizzled out. It would be cool to include the entire Atlas/Seaboard line in this discussion, as well as Charlton titles.
By the way, I really like your idea about series that should have been cancelled but weren't. For me, Dazzler comes to mind, i.e. it should have been yanked after the first issue, or maybe never been made, rather than lingering on for several years. As for Defenders, I guess we sort of agree, although for me the cut-off point would be just after issue 100, and definitely when it became "old X-men plus a few leftovers and Moondragon."
Thanks, Richard. Your comments about TOD being a "four-hander" where the coloring is "pretty integral" make sense and help to exlain why I've been able to ward off the volume without the use of garlic or a cross.
I'm always surprised that there is so little love for Doug Moench's run on the Batman titles. Am I the only one that remembers them? Heck, it usually had Gene Colan!
Hi Inkstained – I can’t help you with the second bat, but referring to the first one, another incentive for collecting the originals of Drac is that the GS issues don’t integrate into the main plot, so you can collect them or not at your discretion.
Richard
Hi Edo,
I meant bitch-slap in a good way (although that might be the first time that sentence has been formed in the English language). There’s nothing I like more than being corrected in an informed and articulate way. Also, while I love pontificating about all this, I only ever read Marvel, not DC or anything else, so there are monumental gaps in my education. I am pretty ripe for a good bitch-slapping. But I absolutely do think that Goodwin, Moench & Mantlo take a backseat to Englehart, Claremont & Starlin. I couldn’t have put it better if I tried.
Dazzler is probably the definitive example of something that should have been quietly dumped at sea. She was supposed to be a cross-promotional concept, where there would be records, a movie and a comic. Marvel delivered the comic but the rest of it fell over before Xmen 130 even appeared. We always use the phrase ‘designed by a committee’ to mean ‘crap’ ...but she literally was. Both.
Richard
Richard- great suggestion about the plot twists! There's no lack of bizarre twists to delve into.
Inkstained- I too have a fondness for those Moench/Colan Batman stories. Seems also as though there was a nice two parter that re-united Moench and Gulacy ...
Ooo – ooo – I thought of another one. I forgot this, but when Doug did the thread the other day about how people’s names are actually pronounced, I thought we should have a thread about what they actually look like. Some of them are really surprising.
‘Boisterous’ Bill Mantlo was actually surprisingly young. Doug Moench looked like Jim Steinman. Archie Goodwin looked more like he wanted to sell you insurance. In the Archie Goodwin story, he’d be played by William H Macy (whereas Big John could be John Goodman). Claremont, Byrne & Cockrum all looked disturbingly similar. For some strange reason, I always thought Gene Colan was black. No idea why. But Ron Wilson, Keith Pollard and Billy Graham all were. Herb Trimpe and Frank Robbins looked a bit scary. Klaus Janson actually did look German. Bob McLeod looked like they always drew Roy Thomas. And Frank Brunnner looked like he’d actually been to some of the places he sent Doc Strange.
Doug, Karen – I guess you guys would have to organise this somehow, but it’s easy to get pics of them all. And really surprising, in some cases.
Richard
Hey, everyone --
Wow! This is awesome! Karen and I just exchanged a couple of emails noting how we shouldn't have any excuses for writer's block in the next six months or so!
After this runs its course in the next day or so we'll begin to process what all's been said/suggested. You can rest assured that there is great fodder here already for some wonderful discussion-type posts. And you will all be duly credited for your ideas.
Thanks again, very much!
Doug
Late to the "party", but how about a discussion on "copycat" villains? They were always favorites of mine. Villains like Mimic, Super-Skrull, Super Adaptoid, Crime Syndicate, etc.
Richard,
I'm petty sure some pimp or rapper somewhere in the USA has at some point said, "I meant bitch-slap in a good way." ;-)
Another idea that just popped into my head: A discussion of "jump the shark" cases for particular series. I mean, at what point did a long-running, popular series go seriously astray?
We've talked in this comment section a couple of times about how the Avengers lost its way for years after the justifibly infamous 200th issue. Any other cases anybody would like to talk about?
Here's another thought for the stack: promotional comics! Some interesting ( and sometimes odd) items were created as giveaways. Spiderman teaming with Planned Parenthood, Superman and the Radio Shack kids ; Batman comics in Pop-tarts...just to scratch the surface.
Black and White vs Color issue--I think Tomb of Dracula looks better in B+W. It fits the mood.
Aparo on Brave and Bold looks better in B+W--you can see the fine details he put in, which are obscured by the printing and color in the originals. Beautiful work, especially #100-110 or so.
Adams and Byrne look much better in color. The B+W reprints I find lack a lot of zest. Their open styles are receptive to color.
How about a Top 10 list of 'unexplainables', such as how Nick Fury went from a Sergeant to a Colonel, Peter Parker's parents as special agents, you name it.
Not 'no-prized' goofs or modern-day resets (like the bizarre 'One More Day' where Peter's no longer married..), just a list of those changes made back in the day which as a kid, made you go, '...huh..?'
Hi Inkstained – I like Jump The Shark. Funny, but even as I read it, Avengers 200 came straight to mind before I even saw you’d used it as an example. It’s kind of the poster child, isn’t it? Not only is it weird and objectionable, but it was preceded by 16 years of almost non-stop greatness, and followed by 4 years of utter tripe. It is literally the tipping point.
I guess we’ll end up mentioning a lot of fillers and bad one-offs that aren’t really what you’re going for, andmost won't be as clear cut as Avengers 200 e.g. Defenders #52 is pretty much the beginning of the end for that strip. It’s not a howler in itself, and the first 10 post Gerber issues are OK, but the Presence story was where it really started circling the drain.
Richard
OK, next: I just won the lottery and I’m going to buy every member of the BAB one comic. Just one. What would you like? (Anyone saying Action Comics #1 just for the money gets nothing and will be sent to bed without supper).
Richard
Hi, Anonymous (Richard0! the one comic I'd like you to buy me would be the Thomas/Roth X-Men where the Mimic fights the Super-Adaptoid. It is Silver and not Bronze but I remember my mother reading it to me.
Y'know.., just thought of this this morning... We haven't provide much attention to Mr. Gerber's creation and series featuring 'ol Howard the Duck.
Obviously the '80s movie attempt killed a lot of his potential, but back around '75/'76 with the Bicentennial approaching.., visibility-wise, he was on par with Spidey and the Hulk..
Hi Dougie - that's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind...but, hang on !! Your mum read you Xmen?? Mine was constantly trying to wean me off comics onto books.
Maybe another whole thread is other people's attitudes to our comic-mania. Parents who got it, paren'ts who didn't, which of your friendships were based on or started with comics-in-common, lifelong friends you met, etc.
Richard
Richard --
This weekend, YOU DA MAN!
Stay tuned.
Doug
Richard.., my wife STILL tries that.
Oh, I read my share of serious works, and she just bought a couple of good books on dogs off Amazon. While she was reading one of 'em last night, I was in my FF Masterworks Vol 6...
"I could FEEL her eyes rolling."
Hi Richard,
My mum did read some comics to me. Then, by about 1974, when I was nearly eleven years old, she convinced me to throw a lot of them out- mainly the Kirby Fourth World issues- to make way for the British Marvel reprints.
A year or so ago, my five-year-old
nephew was into Batman: Brave & Bold, especially Wed Tornado and Bwoo Beetle.
Thanks Doug,but bear in mind that I'm only da man this weekend. You & Karen do this year round. But as long as you're peeling grapes, I'll take one.
Hi David.....one word of advice, my friend....make sure this is the ONLY place you compare your wife to your mother. It plays badly, I find :0)
Seriously....can you beleive this? My gf works for a design agency, and is way into design, drawing, cartoon & comics. She thinks my Marvel collection is the coolest thing and she's not kidding.
Unless she's lulling me and one day I'll come home to find empty bookshelves and a forwarding address in Bermuda. It could happen.
Richard
OK, two last ones that I thought were too weak to post as ideas, but a keener mind may well develop them:
“It would have been so much better if.....” : we’ve all re-written some classic stories, plot threads & events in our heads at some point. What ya got? And what happened next as a result of your changes?
Favourite single comic. Can be a normal issue, GS or Annual, but no Treasuries, TPB’s or amalgamations. Can be in the middle of a run or a story. Can be for brilliance of writing or art. Can be for sentimental reasons. But one single comic. I really can’t do this, so I’d love to know if anyone else can.
And this is different to the ‘lottery comic’ because that comic is the long-sought object-of-desire that you don’t have. This is your best buddy, which you presumably do.
Richard
OK, when I said 'last' ...
To what extent has comic culture permeated mainstream culture?
A few months ago I was in a meeting where someone referred to me as having supernatural maths skills. I explained that as a teenager I was bitten by a radioactive calculator. Not the world’s funniest joke, but EVERYONE knew what it meant. Everyone knows that if you get bitten by anything radioactive, you acquire super powers. It’s just common knowledge.
Likewise, if you refer to a bad decision as being ‘career Kryptonite’ everyone knows what you mean.
Whereas we should all be locked in our little nerd world, only intelligible to each other, people DO actually know what we’re talking about.
What other examples can we think of? How far does this go?
Richard
Origins
Some origins are cool, well-thought out and relate a character’s back story to the story that will be told as they evolve e.g. Spidey, Iron Man, Daredevil.
Some origins are derived from the story being already a classic e.g. Thor or the Hulk (basically Jekyll & Hyde).
Some origins are just rubbish and purely contrived to introduce a character for whom there is no Earthly logic (examples abound!).
Some characters do rise above a rubbish origin...either the origin in their story or the reason they were created: I never read She Hulk, but I gather Byrne did something post-modern with her. When I first heard the words ‘Spider woman’ I expected literally just Spidey with boobs, but she was something quite different. Captain Marvel was created purely because Stan didn’t want the competition to keep the name, but rose from very confused beginnings into an interesting hero with a firm character arc.
Who had a good/bad origin (in the sense of why did Marvel/DC create them)?
Who had a good /bad origin (in the sense of their story itself)?
Who rose above a bad start?
Who never delivered on a promising premise?
Richard
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