Who's Who In The CBU Update 2008
Who are... Park and Barb?
Barbara Lien-Cooper writes the comic GUN STREET GIRL at Panel 2 Panel, was an original founder of Sequential Tart, is the managing editrix of the 2004 Eisner award-winning print magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST, and was named by Mark Millar (The Authority, Ultimates, Wanted) as one of the three most promising new talents in the next wave of comics writing.
Park Cooper started writing about comics at the now-defunct DC FANZINE website.
You Won't Get Away With It
By Park Cooper
In the state of Texas, you have to have a teaching certificate, and then you must go get it renewed somehow every so often. That used to not be true -- you had to have the certificate, but there was a time when they lasted your entire life without ever having to be renewed. I probably got the last of those -- and I mean, possibly literally the very last, for all I know -- I got mine on the final day you could still get them for a lifetime duration.
Why am I opening with this story that has nothing to do with comics? Because today's column is all about things you can't get away with anymore.
Now, as I think I've mentioned in this column before, I enjoy reading the magazine Game Informer. It's a useful guide to which PS2 games (for example) are good to play, and which are not. The main, most irresistible hook is how they wittily roast games that aren't good in their reviews -- Barb likes me to read these to her.
Clearly, the reviews are a very important part of the magazine. As you'd expect, they judge if a game is fun to play, on a scale from 1 to 10. Is it an extremely fun experience with no real flaws to speak of? Then it gets a rare 10. Is it so-so? That's around a 7. 5 through 1 are just different shades of broken, jagged, and extremely unfun. We're judging this on fun play, graphics, music, how well the controls work, and so on.
However, I've noticed lately that there are three things that the GI staff will allow to affect their reviews that are NOT factors connected to the above.
1. HYPE. They'll judge something with more care and cut less slack if the company has built up a lot of hype about it first.
2. REP. Devil May Cry 2 will be (and was) judged more closely because the first game was so good (at the time). Harshly, but NOT unfairly... from what I heard, DMC2 got the reviews it deserved.
3. COMPETITION. If there's a game that's really quite good, but there's another, similar, popular game that's also out at the same time, they'll judge with great care because the comparison's unavoidable. After all, if something's an 8.5, but another game gives you basically the same TYPE of game experience but with a 9.5 for the same price, why should they tell you you should go get the 8.5?
Again, my point? Simple, really:
--These sorts of thoughts are starting to occur to comics readers as well.
--They didn't used to think them, but this kind of thinking is really beginning to take root.
--Conclusion: There are things that, now or soon, people in comics just can't get away with anymore.
We all know that there are things that you can't get away with any more in comics.
--Fantastic story, poor art. Those days are over. The best writer in the world and an artist with substandard talent: Used to be overlooked. Never again.
--Black and white comics. Only the clean, pure lines of manga can still do this. It's getting increasingly hard for anything that isn't manga to go into print without color.
--Getting noticed as an indie. Harder and harder. On the other hand, some indie publishers are now mainstream. Image was indie for a few weeks there, as was Dark Horse. Oni was indie, then mainstream, and now I don't know (or care) what it is.
--Getting into Diamond, and staying in Diamond. Getting into Diamond has often been hard. Staying in Diamond is now harder than ever. However, getting your comic read is an increasing possibility without getting into Diamond at all... Not because Diamond's role with comic book stores is waning, but because people are starting to look elsewhere, and the example of manga is only part of the reason.
But these are all things that irritate me, and independent comics creators like myself. There are other things you can't do anymore (or soon) that give me hope, and they can be linked to the three factors above:
1. HYPE. This is something that's KILLING Marvel and DC right now, because nothing's hyped more than the crossovers and events (crossovers are a subsection of the Events category). Same amount of hype every time, more and more disappointed readers every time. But readers being disappointed by hype in comics goes back to the late 80s... they love staying in THAT sort of dysfunctional relationship of high expectations, mediocre results. What I'm seeing that's new is hype that's met with scepticism, results that are actually appalling, and actual ANGER on the part of the fans.
2. REP. Rep is starting to matter. It's hard to get a good rep, but people are starting to go to a comic about which they've heard great things even though it's an indie. And what's more, the reps of the majors are getting more tarnished than ever -- and it's starting to matter. With things like House of M (see footnote 1, below) and certain DC events, I'm hearing about mutliple people dropping the majors, cutting their pull lists by 75%, and asking what are some good manga to get into? I see that question pretty often these days. The reputation of big-name comics creators still doesn't matter most of the time -- Bendis could wipe his nose on blank tpying paper and some people would buy it because of his pretty-darn-good rep (which used to be an outstanding rep). Chuck Austen is still allowed to write comics, apparently, even though EVERYONE seems to hate him. But I think that the rep of big name creators is actually going to matter someday soon, because of factor #3--
3. COMPETITION. Comics are in trouble! Comics are in danger! Comics are under fire! What's going to happen to comics? Answer: comics are going to change. Manga is going to change comics DRASTICALLY. EVERYTHING about comics is going to change.
BUT, not everything about comics is going to change strictly because of manga.
The majors are doing it to themselves. Their weak spots are increasingly weak and they're making niches to be filled and expanded... by EVERYONE, not just manga. Manga isn't paying attention to what mainstream western comics is doing, save to allow some western creators into TokyoPop... But western comics are not going away. New start-up companies are starting up all the time. And some of them will, of course, fail. Some of them will not fail.
How can you say comics are in trouble when creators at imprints such as Ronin (to name just ONE company that's like this) are PAYING, up front, to get their comics into print?
In the old days, they would have worked and slaved at their craft and tried to get into the majors with the amazing power of their top-notch craft. But people with no talent get into the majors sometimes for no understandable reason. Or a reason that doesn't surprise you, but doesn't make for the best comics. The people with amazing craft and skill? They want CREDIT for their work besides their name on the cover and the splash page. They want to create memorable characters that are brand new and have, if you will, their whole lives ahead of them. They want to write stories that can't be re-written or unwoven out of continuity 3 months later.
Comics would like to keep things the way they've been for the last 5 years, sure, but...
You can't get away with that anymore.
FOOTNOTE 1: House of M is a big Marvel event, if you don't know. The upshot: somehow the Scarlet Witch removes all the mutant powers of most of the supporting characters in the mutant side of the Marvel Universe. So suddenly, many readers' favorite characters are mutandis non grata.
I'm on the LiveJournal feed of scans_daily (as is Warren Ellis [see footnote 2 below], so you know it must be cool [see footnote 3 below]). Scans_daily is a LiveJournal community that started as people scanning in panels of their favorite comics and webcomics that were slashy (see footnote 4 below), but turned into stuff that was just enjoyably bizarre. It's also a great way for me to hear about the stupid stuff people are writing in comics these days without having to read them all.
Anyway, someone recently scanned in a post-House-of-M of Chamber, once of Generation X. Remember him? An English guy with energy making up his neck, jaw, and middle-torso?
Well now that House of M has happened, it showed him lying on a high-tech medical-type table, and it looks like a normal man was made of play-doh and someone took their thumb and just squished down to almost nothing his jaw, neck, and middle-torso.
House of M was highly symbolic in regard to modern Marvel. But NOT in a way you'd think they would have wanted. It says to the reader, yes, the days when it was safe to get attached to these characters are over, because these days, you readers care a lot more about most of them than does the company.
FOOTNOTE 2: Warren Ellis has a EXTREMELY great rep, incidentally... unless he's not writing superhero comics (or a rant), in which case(s) most readers could care less if the poor guy wrote it or not. (Transmetropolitan counts as a rant.)
FOOTNOTE 3: Of course I'm joking about it being cool that Warren reads scans_daily -- it's sort of meaningless, because the man reads everything on the web. He's reading these words right now (albeit possibly just sent to him in excerpt by his elves).
FOOTNOTE 4: SLASH means gay stories with a fanfiction-written flavor. Gay, bi, omni or otherwise open-minded comics readers have to work hard to get their comics-related satisfaction when and where they can...
http://www.panel2panel.com/gsg-archives.html