Above: a drama that once did an entire episode about the filibuster.
I don’t think about the issue of creators’ rights too often outside the realm of comic books. Every once in a while, say, Aaron Sorkin will create and write essentially every episode of one of my favorite TV shows of all time only to unceremoniously vanish at the end of season four, inadvertently birthing a season and a half of some of the worst televised dialogue, worst-lit hours of film, and worst brain-whiplash I’ve ever experienced. Beyond those outliers, though, if someone is watching someone else’s voice come out of their characters and I’m lamenting it, those characters are probably drawings on paper. Someone is probably about to drop Jack Kirby’s name into that conversation, not Aaron Sorkin’s.
Last week, though, I found myself mentally revisiting the issue in the last place I expected to, during a screening of The Muppets. I’m a lifelong Muppet zealot– The Muppet Movie, if it’s not my favorite movie of all time, has been in the running for as long as I can remember– and I liked the new movie but didn’t love it. It was better than the last few, and of course the cameos were a delight; I’m glad they got Kermit, Fozzie, and Miss Piggy to cameo in Jason Segel’s movie about him and his puppet friend. But when the characters I knew were on screen, they were… off. Miss Piggy, the desperate attention hog and needy manipulator from dozens of Muppet Shows, was weirdly together, accomplished and independent and mentally stable. Kermit, meanwhile, was such a stone cold bummer he might have been doing a Paxil cross-promotion. This was not a frog who got so agitated he could swallow his own nose. No arm flailer, he. It’s gotten really, really, really hard being green, man. Yikes.
Reading Rotten Tomatoes, I felt like the only person alive who didn’t convert to some sort of Fraggle-based religion while watching this movie, but there were other people who had some issues with it: the people who used to make Muppet movies. Frank Oz read the script and declined to participate; some other stalwarts whispered their reservations to The Hollywood Reporter. Before I saw the movie, I took their words with a shaker or two of salt; they were complaining without seeing the film, they were complaining about the trailer, they were hiding behind anonymity even after having participated in making the movie…. As I watched it, though, I couldn’t help wondering: what must it be like to create Miss Piggy, play Miss Piggy for thirty-five years, and then say to the multinational corporation that now owns Miss Piggy, “this doesn’t seem like the character to me,” only to have them reply, “Yeah, we’re going to go ahead and do it anyway without you”? It’s probably not all that different from what it was like for Steve Gerber at the premiere of Howard the Duck. Who, of course, is now owned by the same multinational corporation as Miss Piggy.
Oz and the others were at the mercy of the writers, and apparently not all of them liked their script enough to bring it to life. As random as this tangent may seem, these are the very kinds of issues that brought comics the Image revolution in the early nineties. On last week’s podcast, we talked about it a bit when Ron mentioned how good Francis Manapul’s The Flash has been and I reacted with completely baseless, reflexive skepticism. Even though artists ranging from John Byrne to Brian Bendis have more than proven they have something to say, whenever I hear “the artist is writing the book now” my knee-jerk reaction is “wuh-oh.” That’s because when I think of artists writing, I think of the Image Era, which is also known in my house as The Era When I Stopped Reading Comics Because of How Bad They Got.
Above: an era, captured in a single page.
Granted, when I look back it’s clear that a lot of the problems I had were not with Image, but rather with all the wannabes who tried to ape their success without getting it. Bad radio isn’t Howard Stern’s fault. Howard Stern is great at his job. Bad radio comes from the fifty jocks in the Midwest who try to rip off Howard Stern’s act without understanding what about it appeals to people. In that same way, a lot of people who didn’t have the Image founders to kick around anymore saw Spawn sell a bazillion copies and tried to reverse engineer it with predictable results. If you look to your left, you will see as an example a beautiful miracle of hilarity that Jeff Reid posted to Twitter over the weekend as if he knew I was writing this.
Still… did you ever read Todd McFarlane’s self-written Spider-Man issues? The thing I remember most about them is the letter columns in the back, which were the first ones I’d ever seen where readers seemed to be writing in, almost unanimously, simply, “Oh, no!” (Two decades and my opinion of the book may be coloring that memory somewhat.)
I cannot think about this topic, and not wanting to bring a writer’s scripts to life, without thinking about That Letter.
We talked about this briefly on last week’s podcast, too. Right before the Image Era, an anonymous letter was sent to the Comic Buyer’s Guide by a popular artist. (Some people online cite this letter as the beginning of Image, their Declaration of Independence and/or Shot Heard ‘Round the World, although I may have the chronology wrong. Have I mentioned that I was getting out of comics around this time?) In it, the artist expresses outrage that writers get the same royalties that pencillers do and depicts writers as derivative, repetitive hacks who are “becoming obsolete.” I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing, especially if you feel the urge to comment– I linked right to it up there for you, for heaven’s sake– but there are certain portions of it that leap to mind every time it comes up:
As for the writer being the only one who begins with a blank page, that’s most often not the case. A look at any of the many comics out there will show you where the writer’s looking: at other comics! As much as artists get belittled for swiping, it’s wonder more writers don’t get the same grief. Most of the stories are recycled from previous issues and recent movies. It’s been years since l read any real stories that require the writer to do any real research other than thumbing through his collection to find out what The Scorpion did last time so he can simply rewrite the same tired plot again and again. Batman hasn’t been a detective in decades; a good punch to the nose has replaced any real investigative work on his part. Is it any wonder that artists are waking up and deciding to do it themselves? Our point is a simple one: We’re saying to the Mike Barrs of the world that we don’t need you and, more than that, we don’t want you.
Mike may be feeling the same way — as may others. They’re becoming obsolete. What bothers me more, though, is that Mike doesn’t consider that maybe the artist-writer has something to say. Maybe he can’t create working with a writer who’s happy to rehash old stories and bring back that old villain for his 30th bout with the hero. Who knows how many Silver Surfers, Demons, New Gods, Deathloks, Ambush Bugs, Cables, Shatterstars, Ferals, Elektras, Mr, As, Ronins, Shrapnels, Termanuses, Alpha Flights, and many others aren’t being created, because artists are being overshadowed by lazy writers?
l know that when l’m illustrating a story by most writers l’ll get the same thing that writer’s been churning out for the last 15 years — no suprises — the *same* thing. Meanwhile, l’m getting better, introducing new characters and concepts and coming up with stuff guys like him can and will rehash for years come while all the while complaining about guys like me.
That Letter could not have rubbed me the wrong way more aggressively without the assistance of a cheese grater. Combine that with the fact that I thought of it as the ethos that led to some of the worst books I’d ever read, and you have yourself all the ingredients for an ingrained prejudice that deprives me of Francis Manapul to this day.
When I reread That Letter now, as an elderly gentlemen brimming with wisdom and no longer producing testosterone, it doesn’t stir me up nearly as much. For one thing, the artist– long since identified as Erik Larsen– is responding to an earlier letter, and I have no idea what that one said. He’s saying that “mainstream” comics had gotten hacky and repetitive, and… well, I know I got sick of reading ’em, so it’s hard to challenge his point. I’d say I owed the man an apology if his Twitter feed didn’t continue to make That Letter sound like a valentine.
No matter. Looking back on it today, I can certainly acknowledge his point. At the very least, he won’t be standing in the wings while Jason Segel puts words in the Savage Dragon’s mouth.
Jim Mroczkowski is having a minor dispute with spellcheck as to whether “outlier” is actually a word. Of course, it doesn’t like “spellcheck” either, so what do you want from me?
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I totally agree with you on the muppet movie. I had been watching season 1-3 on dvd with my two year old, and the characters in the movie were just off. They weren’t used correctly.
Now Fraggle Rock, that would be an awesome revitalization if done right.
I really liked the Muppet movie and I thought they got it right.
the Tiki
Yeah, I agree with you on The Muppets, but I’m having a hard time expressing it. It was funny, by far the funniest The Muppets have been in years, but it felt…wrong.
SPOILERS: The whole subtext of the movie, with the oil man buying out the rights and the way it ends (pre-credits) is like “The big corporation may own our rights, but everyone loves us and WE’RE STILL THE MUPPETS! YEAH!” But Jim Henson died, and Frank Oz wanted nothing to do with this. You’re not still the muppets. You’re the guys who bought the muppets’ puppets.
Did anyone else read this? http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/the-bigger-picture-muppets-avengers-and-life-in-the-age-of-fanfiction
My experience with the Muppets are limited to reruns of Muppet Babies, Muppet Treasure Island, and that short lived Muppet’s Tonight. I was fine with their portrayals and enjoyed the movie. The only thing I really noticed was that Kermit was pretty relaxed. Everybody else seemed fine to me.
Well, in the movie the Muppets had not been together for several years and were dealing with various harships or successes…..those things were bound to make the characters act a little different and I thought was intentional. I thought by the end they were more or less back to normal.
Kermit was kind of the Mark Wahlberg Character in The Muppets. Not really sure what was going on or why, but willing to go with it and give it the ol’ college try.
I enjoyed the movie though; probably my favorite of the year.
Great article, Jim.
The Image Era was strange. It brought a lot of people into comics, but slowly it ushered most of them out and alienated a lot of longtime fans in the process.
Some of the best comics of the ’90s were Image comics. Bone was published by Image for a while. So was Astro City. So was Alan Moore’s Supreme, which imo was and is better than any Superman comic published since 1986 or so.
On the other hand, there was absolute crap, most of it written by artists or friends of artists who had little writing talent or experience in the industry. Some of it was exciting, though. The first few issues of Youngblood, Wildcats, and Spawn were exciting…even if they were poorly written or over-written. I didn’t read many issues of them but enjoyed them for the exciting things they were when I was 12.
Y’know something, though? Usually the people I hear complaining about bad ’90s Image comics are the people who bought into them a lot and now seem to have some kind of guilt about it. I never bought long runs of comics like “Bloodwulf” or whatever, so I don’t know how it feels to look back on them. I bought a few Image comics I would call crappy, but I barely remember them. I think the anti-’90s Image stance is kind of revisionist history. At the time, if you knew what good comics were, you were way too busy reading titles like Sandman and Marvels to really be all that preoccupied with generic Image titles. At least, that was my experience.
i think its ok for legacy characters like the muppets change and grow with the times. Sometimes the old guard has to step aside and let new creative visions interpret the characters.
The Batman we read today is not the Batman our parents and grandparents read, and thats ok isn’t it?
I have no problem with the artist/writer…as long as the work is good. Collaboration is great, but sometimes you need that singular vision.
I agree. A fresh take, or at least a shot at a new imagining, is always welcome. Especially with something as venerable as the Muppets. I thought the movie was fun, and kind of played off the fact that most of the Muppets had moved on into other divergent projects, as is often the case with long time collaborators. They indicated the space the that is created between friends when time takes its toll, and how difficult it is to get back to square one.
eff your spellcheck, jim. outlier is a word. i’ll say that with close to a decade of mulitvariate statistics experience backing me up.
The last few Muppet movies haven’t… well… been good. I was fine with the new film, which actually had its feet firmly in both trying to appeal to adult fans, and working for children too.
The characters are bigger than the original performers though. They will continue to exist and find a new generation of fans.
Finally, somebody expresses what exactly my problem with the The Muppets was. You’ve hit it on the nose. I was actually surprised at the nearly universal praise after seeing the film. I mean, its was GOOD, but it had some very significant narrative flaws, and like you said it was more Jason Segel The Movie featuring The Muppets instead of a, you know, Muppet movie. (I’ve actually heard that this film is a heavy reworking of a Country Bears 2 script. Which explains A LOT actually)
I have to say when I found out The Muppets were own outright by Disney, I was shocked. And I still want to know how that happened (because I know the Jim Henson Company still exists and has their own properties). Seens just wrong, you know?
http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2004/021704.shtml
Apparently, Henson himself was planning on selling the Muppets to Disney before his death. Fourteen years later it actually happened. Of course, his opinion that Disney would use the Muppets effectively seems ironic considering that, with the exception of a place in Disney World and the liscensed comics, this is the first Muppet product Disney has really put out there. That’s exactly why Segel wanted to do a Muppet movie and turned down other projects that Disney pitched to him.
I liked the movie and thought the characters were pretty much just as they were, and it was typical “reunion story” plotlines. Kermit was rather mopey, which didn’t feel right, but then he’s also looking back on years of history and wondering what went wrong, so it’s understandable if not appreciated. Truthfully, at the end my wife and I were hoping ABC would put out a new “Muppet Show,” because the beats and skits still worked with modern jokes and celebrities. Which may be part of Disney’s goal (see what kind of market the Muppets still have).
But I think we all have those “You Can’t Go Home Again” experiences. How many people saw some of the DC characters coming out of the relaunch and said “That’s not MY Superman” or “That’s not MY Batgirl” or “That’s not MY Hal Jordan” and walked away? How many people looked at Wolverine and the X-Men and said “That’s not MY Wolverine” or “That’s not MY Xavier School”? If it doesn’t feel right, by all means walk away. YOUR Superman and YOUR Hal Jordan and YOUR Gifted Youngsters are out there in back-issue bins and collections – enjoy!
As for the writer/artist, it’s getting better in some cases. Skottie Young has by all accounts been doing well writing on Magneto: Not a Hero, and his Oz partner Eric Shanower has been a double threat for a long time. Most indie creators have been, and as more of those folks come across to mainstream we’ll see them bring that sensibility to Marvel and DC. But you’ll always have the actor who wants to direct or the drummer who wants to write songs and take on lead vocals and it makes you cringe. That’ll never change.
I was reading that ‘anonymous’ letter going, “Wait, isn’t that Erik Larsen? It sounds like Erik Larsen.” Sure enough. . .
At the risk of being super obvious, whether or not an artist can also write seems mostly to depend on whether or not they can write. Without having access to somebody’s entire published and unpublished creative output for their entire life, I have no idea whether a given comic book artist might also have potential as a writer. A lot of people write great lyrics AND play amazing guitar, I’m not sure why writing and art are supposed to be such a different situation. On the other hand, I think we also know that there are people who play amazing guitar and should NOT be allowed to perform their own songs in public (or, okay, they should be ALLOWED but not ENCOURAGED.)
Sorry for replying to myself, but I just thought maybe, “Actors who direct” is a better analogy than musician/songwriters.
Someone may correct me, but the ownership is explained as Disney owns the muppets and the Henson company like they own Marvel Comics. I’m pretty sure that includes the Jim Henson Company too. For years, Disney had nothing going on with the Muppets once they bought them outright. They didn’t really know what to do with them until Jason Segel approached them with the script. Now we’ll see some fresh stuff. As for the Muppets’ performances, the only one who stood out as “different” was Kermit, but it seemed more writing than his character. How many scenes did he say “I guess we can’t do it,” and go brood in another room? once or twice would be enough, but this was overkill. Still, an awesome movie.
Image, sheesh. I’ve said it before: we all fell for the Image train. But in hindsight, it had to happen in order to shake up what was going on in the industry. These talented upstarts left to do their own thing with the best intentions, and initially had some great ideas. But they quickly got absorbed in their own hype. Delayed A-list star books, absolutely horrible excuses for B-list books (both writing and art), and big boobs and big guns schlock, which really created that era, were as much a part of the company’s birth as the good stuff. But because of that – the good and bad, positive changes occured: The big two started mimicking Image (bad thing), which in turn shook up their books (good thing). This either chased away readers or gained new ones. Then, everyone got tired of the schlock and finally said, “hey, this style of comic book sucks! We can do better!” – which in turn led to not only the big two developing the good writers and artists they had, but IMAGE TOO. This led to an era of new classics, like Marvels, Kingdom Come, Astro City, etc.
Image can take credit for shaking up the industry and helping generate a new perspective in writing and drawing comics, but they also have to take a huge chunk of credit for creating one of the darkest (literally and figuratively) ages of comics. So glad that’s all over. Back to reading my latest issues of “Chew” and “American Vampire.”
Yeah, there were a few good points to that… remember when Cable lost half his face just after the T2 movie came out.. and Peter David, bless his cotton socks, was (is) known for ripping one liners from tv (and he was a big target of criticism from Larsen and McFarlane back in the day).
But now we read this with history….
And History tells us that the original Image books were limited in vision, repeatitve, using the ‘punch in the nose’ as the key plot device, and generally derivative… Savage Dragon was always referencing Hulk, Wildcats and Cyberforce were redressed Xmen , youngblood was just ink on a page and Spawn only ever got interesting when other people wrote it. Wetworks… between when it got up and running and when it got absorbed into Wildstorm was ahead of the curve with Vampires vs Werewolves but that was all… Shadowhawk, the lowest profile of the books, was a Batman analogue but at least it was interesting with the HIV aspect, which would neer had been done in the mainstream otherwise.
Come to think about it, analogues is all Image used to trade in for most of the 90s. Everything was a version of existing ideas. So what does that say about the claim that the artist/writer is the only source of new ideas? Byrne, Miller and Mignola could lay a claim… but they werent at Image, preferring Darkhorse.
the best Image stuff until recent years was written by writers writers – Ellis, Moore, Robinson etc. Actually, when you look at Waling dead and a few other projects the best stuff is still with the writer artist collaboration – Kirkman, Marz, etc.
I can’t hate on Image too bad cause as a befuddled young teen in the nineties Image got me into comics proper. I’d tried reading the mainstream books but there was such a mass of history, say with something like the X books, that reading them felt like forever being trapped in the middle of a conversation. The vast majority were created directly for the long termers and were hugely inaccessible.
Picking up Image comics felt good to a new comic reader, everything was new and easy to jump into. And there was some good writing here and there. I still hold up Dale Keown’s Pitt as underapprecitated book that was both well written and terrirically drawn, even though it only came out twice a year.
I agree that Image, in hindsight, was a necessary evil. Most of the problem seemed to be “we can make superheroes just as well as those companies” instead of trying to make comics as well as those guys. Look at the bestsellers at Image now…