The X-Axis – 7 March 2010
It’s been a hectic week, so after skipping last week’s column, I’ve got something of a backlog to get through. Fortunately I have a couple of nice long train journeys to make this week, so I should catch up soon enough. But in the meantime, I’ll round up the recent X-books and a few other new releases. (And by the way, I’m far enough behind that I’m going to be reading some of these pretty much as I review them, but hey, that’s life…)
Choker #1 – New miniseries from writer Ben McCool and artist Ben Templesmith (though you’ll notice Templesmith’s name comes first on the cover). In a dystopian near future, embittered ex-cop Johnny Jackson is working as a private investigator, but gets his chance to return to the force if he can solve a case yadda yadda. It’s very much from the School of Warren Ellis. There are a couple of nice touches in here – officially regulated Police Brutality is a fun idea – but the story and characters are pretty familiar. Naturally, Templesmith does great dystopias, with a mixture of caricature and suffocating misery. Still, the whole thing wears its influences a little too visibly.
Dark Wolverine #83 – Hmm. This is a Siege tie-in, which is a challenge for the writers because Daken has nothing to do with Asgard. Now, since they’ve spent the last few issues setting up subplots with other members of the Dark Avengers, I’d have expected the book to spend its time resolving those stories before the team implodes at the end of the crossover. But instead the book is approaching this the hard way, and trying to do a story where the Fates attempt to enlist Daken to put Asgard’s history back on track. Why Daken? Well, to be fair, he asks that question too, but the answer really boils down to “just because”. I do like the idea of Daken being so obsessed with self-determination that he refuses to play along with the embodiments of destiny, but the story can’t get away from the feeling that Daken is being lashed to a plot that has nothing to do with him. And I’m increasingly convinced that the book took a wrong turn in backing off from the early issues where Daken was a more ambiguous character – right now, there’s a dearth of even remotely sympathetic people in the book, which makes it hard to care. (Oh, and the story also depends on you knowing all that stuff about breaking the cycle of Ragnarok from a Thor storyline five years ago, which may be confusing to readers who don’t know what the Norns are talking about.)
First Wave #1 – The start of a six-issue mini from Brian Azzarello and Rags Morales, launching DC’s new pulp universe – basically, a world with Golden Age characters like the Spirit and Doc Savage, plus Batman. So, okay, it’s kind of about reconnecting superhero comics with their roots. I’m always a bit sceptical about trying to shoehorn unrelated characters into a single series, and this doesn’t really win me over. It’s one of those stories where a previously unmentioned character from another book shows up at the end and you’re meant to recognise them and go “Oooooh.” It also feels rather like a Doc Savage story with some other characters squeezed in. Inoffensive, but it doesn’t grab me.
Girl Comics #1 – This, by the way, is one of the books I’m reading as I write this. So, let’s ignore the squirm-inducingly awful name and see if Marvel’s anthology by all-female creative teams is any good. Colleen Coover does a nice enough two-page intro, but the first actual story is “Moritat” (well, I think that’s what it says) by G Willow Wilson and Ming Doyle, which soars completely over my head and crashes against the back wall in ugly fashion. Bad start. Trina Robbins and Stephanie Buscema’s Venus story is a cute and stylish riff on updating the Golden Age series. Valerie d’Orazio’s 4-page Punisher story kind of makes its point in the first page, but it’s a great first page. Lucy Knisley’s Dr Octopus 2-pager is okay. Robin Furth and Agnes Garbowska do Hansel and Gretel with Franklin and Valeria Richards in full storybook style, and it’s beautiful stuff. Best thing so far. And… hey, Devin Grayson! There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Well, she does a vignette with the Scott/Jean/Logan triangle, which is pretty decent, and Emma Rios’ art is lovely. So, bit of a mixed bag, but that’s standard for these Marvel anthologies. Really don’t get what that opening story was going for, though.
Nation X #3 – Another anthology, and to give Marvel their due, at least they use these books as an opportunity to run a different style of work. Chuck Kim and Gabriel Hernandez Walta open with an Armor/Danger story that picks up the obvious loose end of “Hey, isn’t anyone angry about having Danger on the island?” The story’s nothing to write home about, though at least it ties off the problem, but the art’s great, with good use of the visual hook of Armor’s powers. Grace Randoph and James Harren do a Magik/Anole story (because we were all waiting for a Magik/Anole story, weren’t we?), which kind of misses Anole’s character, but gets the current take on Magik rather nicely, with a clever play on the “character X learns an important lesson” story. And it looks fantastic. Chris Yost and Karl Moline do, of all things, a story about Madison Jeffries and Diamond Lil. This seems to be an attempt to give a proper send-off to a character who was casually killed off in the “Necrosha-X” crossover; it’s fine, but feels like it’s being done largely for the benefit of people who were reading Alpha Flight twenty years ago. And finally, Corey Lewis does a typically hyperactive New Mutants story, which is, well, hyperactive but good fun. Not a bad strike rate.
Wolverine: Weapon X #11 – Start of a new storyline, “Tomorrow Dies Today”, as Deathlok comes back from the future to kill some superheroes who don’t exist yet. Meanwhile, Wolverine has a drink. Once again, Jason Aaron’s got the right idea here – there’s a tricky balance to strike in having tongue firmly in cheek, but still keeping a bit of drama in there, and it shifts tone effortlessly when it needs to. The opening sequence, with a rookie superhero on his first night, is fabulous; so is Logan’s conversation with Steve Rogers, but for entirely different reasons. Ron Garney returns on art, and he’s perfectly suited for these stories. Great book.
X-Factor #202 – This does seem an odd storyline to run immediately after a relaunch, as it appears to be more of an epilogue to the extended time-travel arc that came before it. I don’t quite buy the evil Reed Richards, either – there’s a nice idea that being Reed Richards is so much fun that you don’t really need a wider plan than that, but it just doesn’t seem right for this particular character. Art’s a bit stiff at times, too. Mmm. It has its moments, of course – obviously it does, it’s a Peter David story, and he’s always above average – but it’s not my favourite issue.
X-Force #24 – Right, then, let’s see if I’m following this right. The Vanisher has just teleported X-Force to Genosha, where Selene has revived a zombie army. Wolverine declares that they’re going to fight their way through said army in order to get into Selene’s castle. Everybody agrees that this is virtually suicidal, but that they must do it anyway. Now, can you see the glaring plot hole in this story? That’s right, nobody thinks of asking the Vanisher whether he could simply teleport them into the castle, thus avoiding the need to suicidally fight a zombie army. And just in case any readers hadn’t spotted this point, which seemingly eludes the entire cast, the Vanisher actually does teleport himself into the castle four pages later, which as far as I can see proves pretty conclusively that all the characters are morons. Yes, I realise they’re trying to get to the point where the Vanisher enters the castle alone, so that he can have his moment of heroism, but hey, set it up properly. And yes, I realise the idea is that he runs away and then has second thoughts – but they’re already planning their suicidal assault before he leaves, so that doesn’t work. Unless I’m missing something, this one has plot holes beyond salvation. As for Clayton Crain’s art, well, it’s the usual tedious murk, I’m afraid.
X-Men Forever #18 – Scott Summers has quality family time with his son. And since Nathan never turned into Cable in this reality, it’s time for another rendition of that old favourite, “The baddies kidnap Nathan, who is Very Important.” Solid enough, decent art, but nothing exceptional.
X-Men Legacy #233 – The end of Legacy‘s very loose “Necrosha-X” tie-in. When I say “loose”, I mean that it’s basically an unrelated Proteus story, and that Necrosha-X has been used to justify using Destiny, a character who died years ago and would otherwise have had to show up in a dream scene or something. But hey, that’s fine – if you’ve got two “back from the dead” stories going at once, by all means lash them together. This issue… well, the X-Men fight Proteus. I’m not quite sure what this has to do with the new direction of Rogue acting as a mentor for the junior X-Men, but it’s a good fight issue, it makes great use of Magneto, and Clay Mann’s artwork is strong, so I’m not complaining.
I really enjoyed the Weapon X issue. While I’ve had enough “Wolverine fights a set of ridiculously outmatched bar guys” stories to last the rest of my natural lifespan, I would happily buy a series that consisted entirely of Wolverine going out and drinking with a different member of the Marvel U each issue, as long as Aaron is writing it.
Agreed on Weapon X. On Legacy: I still don’t see the ne direction but I don’t care either, and by the way with Second coming at the door it’s not the moment to set new direction. This series is just what X-Men should be. Hope Carey and Mann stay together for a long time.
About the X-Force.
I think the stupidity of Wolverine’s decision was lampshaded by Domino. Sure, it’s not nearly enough to justify it, but Archangel was inadequate, Elixir had another things on his mind (he even told Vanisher that he doesn’t has anymore to help them), ditto for Rahne…
“…it’s fine, but feels like it’s being done largely for the benefit of people who were reading Alpha Flight twenty years ago.”
And what’s wrong with that, particularly in an anthology book where one might expect such a thing now and again? I say if it takes up a few pages in a book filled with five different stories, no harm done.
“…it’s fine, but feels like it’s being done largely for the benefit of people who were reading Alpha Flight twenty years ago.”
Or a bit more recently through the magic of back-issues, but anyway. Lil’s was a straight-up fridging, didn’t care for it. Liked the Anole story even less; kid can’t seem to get a break in these one-offs. Nation X #3 was a pretty weak collection on the whole, story-wise, even if it did have some nice art in spots. I’ll be leaving the next one on the shelf.
I’m pleased to see the publishers of CHOKER have finally struck upon what is to me the Obvious and Correct Way to Do Things by crediting the artist above the writer on the cover. The fact that primary authorship of the work in a visual medium lies with the creator who is able to realize it visually rather than a mere scriptwriter is thunderingly self-evident. The refusal of publishers of corporate comics publishers to recognize this demonstrates how little they know about their own medium. Bravo, Ben Templesmith!
I adored this issue of “Weapon X”. Aaron just understands how to write Wolverine.
Can’t wait to see how he writes New Cap next month (a character a lot of writers other than Brubaker have a hard time with, in terms of differentiating him from Steve apart from that he uses a gun).
>The fact that primary authorship of the work in a visual medium lies with the creator who is able to realize it visually rather than a mere scriptwriter is thunderingly self-evident.
Hey, Steve Ditko has finally joined the internet age! Great to see you, I knew you couldn’t remain a recluse forever!
So that’s why Lil was just suddenly dead in the story! Don’t read books about zombies, so I couldn’t figure out why an interesting story suddenly made no sense right before the last panel. Generally don’t like anthologies, but I liked most of the Nation X stories. thanks for explaining.
kiragecko
” . . . feels like it’s being done largely for the benefit of people who were reading Alpha Flight twenty years ago.”
Well, there’s something to be said for throwing us old dogs a bone now and again, right?
“Grace Randoph and James Harren do a Magik/Anole story (because we were all waiting for a Magik/Anole story, weren’t we?), which kind of misses Anole’s character…”
Anole has behaved like a douche in the past so I don’t see his antics as being out of character in this story. There are more annoying X-kids that would have worked better for this however. Nori, Julian or Santo instantly spring to mind…
“And finally, Corey Lewis does a typically hyperactive New Mutants story, which is, well, hyperactive but good fun.”
If I was reading a web comic on Drunk Duck I would have been fine with the story and art. In an actual comic that one pays money for however it is crap. Surely there must have been someone out there with better honed story telling ability who could have been featured in this space.
I’d say the Nation X anthology issues have been a lot better than the typically awful ones they usually come out with. I’m actually buying them without remorse for once.
As for Legacy, I’d really like to get back to Rogue mentoring the younger mutants, particularly since we’re obviously heading toward getting more backstory on Blindfold and Bling!, both of whom are being set up well. (Trance I’m a little less interested in.) I’m disappointed that Acuña’s off though. I love his work, and I don’t care for Mann.
The Dark Wolverine arc is just too much. Wolverine’s douchebag son with a bad haircut as the agent bringing about Ragnarok? Riiight. I want to see Thor punch him into orbit, never to be seen again, but I’m sure we can’t be that lucky.
I thought the art let down the story at the end of the X-Factor issue; it was really hard to tell exactly what was meant to have happened without reading the text a couple of times, I thought.
So Necrosha ends in one more issue? That’s unbelievable – I’ve read every issue of the thing, and still don’t know what the plot is really supposed to be. The tangential “X-people encountering zombies” stories in Legacy and New Mutants were OK, but it appears that X-Force is meant to be the backbone, and it’s really, really not up to the task. Especially not with Crane’s stiff, dark art (the comics equivalent of playing Doom III), and the unrelated Hela/wolf prince/ongoing destruction of Rahne’s character stuff shoehorned in.
I enjoyed Legacy quite a bit – it felt like a good old fashioned issue of X-Men, with a reasonably sized team actually using their powers to fight a villain. Only complaint was that too much emphasis was placed on Proteus’ possession powers and not enough on his reality warping.
“The fact that primary authorship of the work in a visual medium lies with the creator who is able to realize it visually rather than a mere scriptwriter is thunderingly self-evident.”
It really depends on the script and creative process, doesn’t it? Does any artist deserve more credit on any of the Seven Soldiers books than Grant Morrison does? Sure, they were the ones who rendered it visually, but it seems to be primarily his brainchild.
The same with 52. There were a ton of artists, but the concept wasn’t their vision.
> The Dark Wolverine arc is just too much. Wolverine’s douchebag son with a bad haircut as the agent bringing about Ragnarok? Riiight. I want to see Thor punch him into orbit, never to be seen again, but I’m sure we can’t be that lucky.
Well, Thor DID casually blast him with a bolt of lightning in Siege #2, taking him out of the story…
> Well, Thor DID casually blast him with a bolt of lightning in Siege #2, taking him out of the story…
Yeah, I loved that. In addition to giving Volstagg a bit of spotlight (hopefully Bendis won’t kill him off or anything), that’s been the best thing about Siege.
They won’t kill off Volstagg. He’ll just end up wearing a bondage suit with a spike for every person in Soldier Field.
>The same with 52. There were a ton of artists, but the concept wasn’t their vision.
Bad example — Keith Giffen was in there every week with breakdowns, and I’d argue that he deserves as much credit as Johns, Morrison, Rucka and Waid – and precedes them alphabetically.
X-Factor is an okay read just now, and the art is decent (such high praise!), but why is Monet being consistently portrayed as caucasian? Gah!
Several thoughts on creative credits:
(1) In 20 years of reading comics, I never thought about the order in which the creators appear in the credits, which tells you how much it matters.
(2) It looks to me like the creators are listed chronological order; the writer writes the script, hands it off to the “breakdowns” artist, who hands it off to the “finishes” artist, who hands it off to the colorist, who hands it off to the letterer, etc. Not in order of “importance,” but in order of the chronology.
(3) Sometimes you see scripts where writers describe, panel by panel, what they want the page to look like. I’ve even seen a few cases where writers sketch out a layout. This isn’t to say that writers are more important than artists, just that it can vary on a case-by-case basis.
(4) The concept of a fill-in artist on a title with a regular team is pretty common. Usually the fill-in artist in a case like that is trying their best to blend into the ongoing title. Usually the regular storyline continues, and the art is styled to resemble the regular artists work. In contrast, when there’s a fill-in writer, s/he is usually accompanied by a fill in artist as well, and usually does some kind of story that is peripheral to the main storyline. I think of X-Factor (1st Series) #47 as a perfect example.
This seems to suggest that in the overall creation of a multi-issue story, the writer is usually (not always) the predominant driver. Just a thought.
(5) Lastly, there was an era when artists were given top billing: 1990-1994. That era saw an emphasis on art over story, and consequently a slough of really bad comics. Remember the first two years of Image Comics? This suggests, again, that the role of the writer is more significant than the role of the artist. Any reasonably competent artist can illustrate a story; but it takes a good writer to create a good comic book.
Volstagg in a Penance suit? I dunno. But I can see him changing his name to “Diet” and promising to eat slower.
I was a little disappointed that some comic (I’ve forgotten which) suggested that the energy blast and deflection were amped up by nefarious external means. I quite liked the idea that even Volstagg, who we mostly only ever see getting rinsed by the rest of the Asgardians, is still a god and thus extremely powerful when placed in a mortal context.
The art at the end of X-Factor was just really odd, the It seems like a really dig gaff to have Layla mixed up with M, it really distracting. Surely that’s what editors are here to pick up on this kind of stuff.
here’s the way I see it. you may buy a comic because a certain artist drew it. but you only care about what’s happening in it because of a writer.
or is that making it too simple?
“Does any artist deserve more credit on any of the Seven Soldiers books than Grant Morrison does?”
Hell, yes. Morrison, maybe more than any other writer in mainstream comics, rises or falls on the strength of his artistic collaborators. Cameron Stewart set the tone for Seaguy, Frank Quitely made All-Star Superman and We3, and J.H. Williams was the only thing that made the Seven Soldiers finale worth reading. Hell, right now Morrison has two books going – Joe the Barbarian and Batman. One of them is astonishing precisely because the artwork is so gorgeous, and the other has been such an abortion because half the artists who’ve worked on it have been miserable, and because Morrison’s scripts simply aren’t good enough to make it worth looking at Philip Tan’s crap drawings.
It boggles the mind that a cult of the writer has so stubbornly persisted in a visual medium like comics. Seven Soldiers and Detective Comics: Batwoman are both examples of how great artists can radically elevate mediocre scripts; Batman RIP and Philip Tan’s B&R run are both examples of how okay-to-middling scripts can be made unreadable with terrible art. And even among the set of good artists, different artists can radically change a comic’s tone: Cameron Stewart, J.H. Williams and Frank Quitely are all excellent artists, but any Seaguy produced by someone other than Stewart would be a radically different comic with a radically different sensibility. The realization of a comic is first and foremost in the hands of the artist, which should hardly be a radical statement to make concerning a visual medium.
“Bad example — Keith Giffen was in there every week with breakdowns, and I’d argue that he deserves as much credit as Johns, Morrison, Rucka and Waid – and precedes them alphabetically.”
And I’d argue that he DID receive such credit, but he was involved in far more than breakdowns.
I was of course referring to the pencillers/finishers.
“Sometimes you see scripts where writers describe, panel by panel, what they want the page to look like. I’ve even seen a few cases where writers sketch out a layout.”
Right. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are notorious for that style.
And then you have the Stan Lee approach, where Stan gives pretty much a one-line summary of what the issue should be about, the artist breaks it down, and Stan just goes back to fill in the dialogue.
“This isn’t to say that writers are more important than artists, just that it can vary on a case-by-case basis.”
Absolutely.
“Hell, yes. Morrison, maybe more than any other writer in mainstream comics, rises or falls on the strength of his artistic collaborators.”
But you fail to point out that Morrison often deliberately writes to the strengths of his collaborators, if he’s well-informed of who they are. For example, We3 and All Star Superman are clearly written to Quitely’s strengths. Am I suggesting that Quitely was the bigger name in that collaboration? Yes, indeed, but my point is that such collaborations, and the emphasis on an artist like Quitely, were deliberate choices by Morrison.
“J.H. Williams was the only thing that made the Seven Soldiers finale worth reading.”
I don’t really understand how you can qualify this. Yes, his artwork was incredible, but “the only thing”? Do you think he was working with no script? That the layouts and style changes were his own idea?
“Hell, right now Morrison has two books going – Joe the Barbarian and Batman. One of them is astonishing precisely because the artwork is so gorgeous, and the other has been such an abortion because half the artists who’ve worked on it have been miserable.”
Sorry, but “abortion” does mean what you want it to mean. It hasn’t been aborted by anyone. It’s still one of the top-selling monthly books at DC.
“Morrison’s scripts simply aren’t good enough to make it worth looking at Philip Tan’s crap drawings.”
I don’t enjoy his Batman run, but I didn’t enjoy the arcs by Quitely or Kubert either. I think we’re both agreeing that a weak script is a weak script.
But I would like to point to 52, specifically the Science Squad storyline, the space heroes storyline, and the Question storyline. The first two were written by Morrison, the third by Greg Rucka, and all pencilled by a rotating cast of artists (but the same artists for all the storylines). The Science Squad storyline was one of the strongest of the series due entirely to Morrison’s ideas. The space heroes storyline was weaker, mostly due to Morrison’s less interesting ideas. The Question storyline was, I thought, the weakest of the bunch, especially toward the end of this series. None of the storylines were made significantly better or worse by the artists working on them – in fact, the art on the space heroes storyline was often the most consistently good.
“Hell, yes. Morrison, maybe more than any other writer in mainstream comics, rises or falls on the strength of his artistic collaborators.”
I’d query that a lot – Morrison’s New X-Men was very readable and enjoyable, despite the really appalling art from the talented-but-way-too -rushed Kordey.
Bendis was cited by someone as being a very artist-dependant writer — I can see that.
Ellis strikes me as more artist-dependant than Morrison, to be honest.
Michael Aronson: I’d argue that Giffen was more the artist of that series than the others. He was responsible for holding the visual style together, and did remarkably well.
All this aside: I like that Templesmith’s credited first. I don’t really know whether or not I think artists should be credited before writers. I think it’s definitely a good debate to have, though. As a rule, I’d like to say alphabetical order could be a good idea – but that blatantly wouldn’t work.
I would, however, say that Jamie McKelvie should arguably before Gillen on the last issue of Phonogram, but not the others.
While Rucka wrote the Question material in 52, I’ve always been under the impression that the Religion of Crime idea was at least partly Morrison’s. As a high concept, it doesn’t seem much like anything from Rucka’s other work.
Once, many years ago, I commissioned a painting from an art student because I had a particular scene in my minds eye that I wanted to have put onto paper. I described the scene, I sketched a layout, I provided a photo of the subject. The result was mediocre, but not because of the process, but because we were novices.
As a professional writer (not of comic books), I can imagine I would have the same approach to writing comic books. I would have an idea in my mind of how the story should look. Since I’m a miserable artist, I would seek out an artist that could put my vision on paper. For me, the artist would be one more tool utilized in creating my creative vision.
I suppose that if a relationship were established over time, less direction would be needed. But I know that if I just handed a script to an artist and said “have at it,” I would be disappointed in the outcome because it wouldn’t be the same thing that I can created in my mind.
But I’m a writer, not an artist. So I’m biased.
I don’t really understand how you can qualify this. Yes, his artwork was incredible, but “the only thing”? Do you think he was working with no script?
No, I mean that the script he was working with was shit, and he managed to turn it into something worth looking at. See also: Williams on Detective Comics.
That the layouts and style changes were his own idea?
Have you ever seen JH Williams’ art before? He can change styles the way other people change clothes. That Morrison, writing for JH Williams, was able to basically say, “hey, do this thing you’re incredibly good at,” isn’t impressive, any more than it would be impressive for me to walk up to Joshua Bell, say “hey, man, play one a’ them concerto things,” and then take the credit for the sounds that come out of his violin.
re: the ongoing writer/artist debate
A single way of crediting creative people in comics is way too simple. Work-for-hire books are created differently than creator-owned, self-published books. And even if we stuck to only work-for-hire, the amount of writer/artist(s)/colorist/letterer collaboration and editorial direction varies widely from project to project. Looking for the “auteur” of the work obscures the way comics are actually produced. Writer and artist names are really only put on the cover for marketing purposes anyway.
I’d query that a lot – Morrison’s New X-Men was very readable and enjoyable, despite the really appalling art from the talented-but-way-too -rushed Kordey.
Morrison was actually putting in some decent work on New X-Men – decent enough that it managed to hold its own even with some pretty weak art. (He’d also had decent artists to work with, including Frank Quitely and a less-rushed Kordey before, to build up enough good will to make it through those rough patches, and better artists to work with when they were done.) On Seven Soldiers, on the other hand, Morrison is very clearly coasting on the strengths of his artistic collaborators; from Williams to Stewart to Frazer Irving to Doug Mahnke, the strongest contributions there are visual, making up for Morrison’s painfully threadbare plot.
And I’m not a Morrison-hater at all – I loved Seaguy, The Filth, All-Star Superman, We3 – but again, the sensibilities of those comics were primarily established by the artists involved. And the same is true for most comics: Watchmen drawn by Frank Miller would not be the same comic, no matter how intricately detailed Alan Moore’s script’s descriptions of symbols and sigils might have been. Frank Quitely’s art on Batman RIP would have produced an entirely different, probably much more enjoyable story – one that could effectively capture the blend of absurdity and menace in Morrison’s Zur-En-Arrh arc.
Because critics are disproportionately likely to come from writing backgrounds as opposed to art backgrounds, most comic criticism has treated comics as though they were an extension of novels – books that just happen to have pictures attached to them. And this is an absurd and myopic way to look at a medium that is, essentially, an arrangement of pictures with (sometimes optional) words. The default way of looking at collaborative comic production now has the writer as a kind of auteur and the artist as a sort of extension of the writer’s body, who just dutifully performs whatever functions the script tells him to do. And this is completely crazy.
My favorite writer is Garth Ennis, and my favorite artist is John Romita, Jr. I’ve searched high and low for anything Ennis has every written, no matter who drew it. Haven’t even thought about looking at Kick-Ass, because I don’t like the way Millar writes dialogue.
I think that’s the point. I can tolerate bad art in the service of Ennis’ pretty words, but badly-written dialogue makes my ears bleed and I can’t enjoy the story. Other comic fans feel the opposite. It’s a taste thing.
I don’t think this idea that the penciller is always the most important creator on a given book holds much water. Moose n Squirrel has some good points but if you take the position at face value, you end up with stuff like X-Factor #202 by Bing Cansino (with minor contributions from some guy named Peter David.)
It is a self-evident fact that X-Factor is a Peter David book. It could have 12 different pencillers over the next year and the artistic and commercial results would be rather consistent. That is why Thom Kimota is right. There could never be a uniform manner of attribution because each project is different.
It is also true that the publishers will decide what name goes where and which are hyped on the cover based solely by the hotness of each individual creator.
and it falls to kimota to produce a thoughtful contribution; for a debate that was stale even two decades ago in the Image era.
“X-Factor is an okay read just now, and the art is decent (such high praise!), but why is Monet being consistently portrayed as caucasian? Gah!”
Um, Monet was just miscolored as Siryn for a few pages.
“No, I mean that the script he was working with was shit, and he managed to turn it into something worth looking at. See also: Williams on Detective Comics.”
Sigh. I don’t even know where to begin with this, so I won’t.
I’m sorry, when did it become 1993 again?
Generally, I think the writer is more important in terms of the book, which doesn’t diminish the role of the artist. But, at least in terms of their job description, writers are responsible for the plot, the characterization, dialogue etc.; that’s why people follow writers, and judge art from the perspective of whether it suits the story being told. There’s also just that in most ongoing comics the writer is the constant, and the artist varies.
Ed Brubaker has been writing “Captain America” for over 50 issues, and the stories are the same no matter who is drawing it (that’s a series that has done a good job of maintaining a consistent look). Same with “Incredible Hercules”, which had different artists for almost every arc, some better than others, but the underlying strengths of the book were constant in the writing.
1993? When the news devoted half an hour last night to the phenomeon of “trolling” on the “internet.”
(a fascinating piece about the profligate sausage-fest that is Chatroulette – itself a name that should surely have been reserved for some sort of Joe Cartoon-by-Schrodinger website that, ironically, would have been worth visiting ten years ago)
MY VERY IMPORTANT OPINION FOLLOWS.
Dudes, Grant Morrison WAS Seven Soldiers. Costume designs, tight plotting, and (one presumes) detailed scripts – none of those crossover panels could happen in the Marvel Style. And while his artists on Seven Soldiers were his absolute partners, elevators and hot-girls-with-ugly-husbands-like-you-see-at-B&Q, forming a grand comics gestalt that would serve Voltron, Bruticus, the Nolan Sisters, etc., Grant Morrison was, as far as I could see, the chief architect of that project, and in a real sense, The Author.
I mean, it does depend, of course. If I wrote a script for someone, with no external input, I’d want my name first, because the story originates with me. Doubly so if it’s something that really, really springs out of somewhere personal to me, right? But John Romita gets his name first on those Spider-Man stories he drew because he also plotted them first. And quite right too.
If I write dialogue based on a comic that an artist has plotted/drawn, or I have translated from another language, then the story having originated elsewhere, my name goes last.
And putting the author’s names on the cover is like 25% Marketing (Like that? Love this! Which is important when you’re not there to stand over your books, pushing them into people’s hands like bonbonbonbons), 25% Assertion of Ownership/Statement of Intent, and a million percent ego. But then again, I don’t speak Maths and have no idea why stories have names, in any case.
Tell you what I have done in the past: scrapping the demarcation altogether and having it say “By Matthew Craig & (Artist’s Name)” on the story. Makes the collaboration more homogeneous.
I mean, sure. The artist does the lion’s share of the graft (unless you’re, like, a writer-inker, or a writer-colourist-letterer), but the story starts somewhere, right? I won’t pretend I don’t feel a bit guilty about such things, but I won’t allow my hard work…okay, my frantic night bashing keys into OpenOffice…to be overshadowed by the more obvious awesomeness of my collaborators.
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1) In X-Factor, Cansino didn’t confuse Layla with Monet. If you look carefully, her hair in those last few pages is actually colored blonde, but its colored so dark, it appears to be M’s dark brunette lockes.
2) I’ve never seen my enjoyment of a comic swing so divergently than when Matt Fraction’s “Uncanny X-Men” toggles back and forth between Terry Dodson (whose art is a fun lark) and Greg Land (whose art is gaudy, stiff, and pornographic). So yes, the artist does play a huge role, but I still think the driving force is the writer.
You know, if you’re making a case for the primacy of the artist over the writer in the creative process, Grant Morrison is really a terrible example. He is quite a talented artist himself, and tends to provide his artists with a huge amount of sketches, including character and costume designs.
And Morrison has written some genuinely brilliant comics that were drawn by pretty poor to average artists: Animal Man, Doom Patrol and much of his JLA work (yeah, I’m looking at you, Howard Porter), were not necessarily very pretty visually, but were damn well written.
It’s kind of hard to swallow the fact magnitude of talent that Williams portrayed in their movies throughout their prominent career especially with movies like Patch Adams despite the fact that there were a few bad ones like One Hour Photo. Stellar performance Mr. Robin Williams!