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Scoops

Name: Marc Comeau

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February 16, 2012 8:59 am My understanding, based on fairly limited reading*, is that Friedrich has been selling prints of art, at least some of which he commissioned. That is, he's not selling the original art, just making potentially infinite copies to sell. Honestly, I'd sort of expect this to happen. Maybe you can argue Friedrich should get some leeway because he (co-) created the character, but he does seem to be pretty clearly legally in the wrong, absent that one caveat. Take that away and you can end up with a situation like this: I commission Adam Hughes to sketch Power Girl for me. I then take that sketch, reproduce it, and sell the prints. If I were doing that, I'd be sued by DC and crushed by the fan community. The only reason Friedrich isn't being crushed by fans is that he did have a hand in creating the character. A hand which he used to sign away rights. If you sell a second-hand book, you no longer have it and can't keep re-selling it. If you make copies of the book and keep selling them, well, you're pirating the book. * I just recently heard about all of this, when Phil Noto tweeted about it. Incidentally, this doesn't seem to have stopped him from posting sketches of Marvel characters on his Tumblr. He put up a Hulk/Iron Man yesterday and a Black Widow today.
February 13, 2012 1:12 pm This. I'm not a fan of the new costume. For one thing, I miss the blue bits. I would totally have gone for a windowless version of her old outfit. But yeah, my first thought looking at that picture wasn't "Wow, PG's costume is terrible." My first thought was, "Hey, that's how I draw faces, and I'm a terrible artist." *teeth-clenching pseudo-grimace*
February 1, 2012 9:59 am You don't think 25 years is enough time for the characters to have had a life of their own in the public discourse, Spoons? The characters that were adapted from old Charlton characters? Is there really some kind of time limit? I like Moore's work a lot, but we all need to accept that much of his famous work has been done using other people's characters. We can leave Lost Girls and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen aside. He brought back Marvelman/Miracleman. He did a great run on Swamp Thing. He did some nice Green Lantern stuff. He wrote some of the most famous Superman and Batman stories. He did runs of WildCATS and Supreme. He did some issues of Spawn. Yes, he's done some good original stuff too, but he's been a comic creator like all other comic creators. He needs to suck it up, accept his royalty cheques, and realize that no matter what happens with these books, people will still revere the original Watchmen story he wrote. All that said, I'm really excited for the Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner and Adam Hughes work.
November 16, 2011 12:35 pm The .1 cover is pretty cool... except for the armpit webbing. It's a costume detail I like, but it really doesn't work if you're merging the costume blue into a blue background.
September 29, 2011 11:39 am Buying: Action Comics Animal Man Detective Comics Batgirl Batwoman Justice League Supergirl Aquaman I might buy Wonder Woman. It didn't really catch me, but the overwhelmingly positive reception might sway me. Batman didn't at all, despite the positive reviews. I'm only buying Detective because that was one hell of a cliffhanger. Some of those titles may not stick after the initial story arc. Batwoman and Aquaman were my two favourites. Read but not buying: Green Lantern The Flash Superman Batman probably Wonder Woman For a guy who thinks he likes straight superhero books, my list seems to really disagree with me.
September 28, 2011 9:09 pm I bought Aquaman on the principle that, at least for month one, I'd buy all the main Justice League character books, in addition to whatever else struck my fancy. I am so glad I did. This may actually have been my favourite New 52 book so far (at least of what I read). I just loved the head-on tackling of the average Joe's thoughts about Aquaman. It is certainly going on my list for next month, which is something that not all the JL books can say.
September 6, 2011 10:02 pm I started reading X-Men from the beginning a while back. I stalled out in the 30s somewhere. The Lee/Kirby stuff isn't great. The stuff immediately after it is pretty bad. I need to get back on the horse. I know it will all get better when I get to Claremont...
January 24, 2011 8:17 pm Six different war comics with Joe Kubert covers.

And Action Comics #500.

July 1979. 
April 1, 2010 2:37 am

I suppose that's where it starts to fall apart for me. Messing with the continuity I know just to do your thing as a writer makes it all less fun for me. If you want to make Gwen have sex with the Green Goblin, do it in a What If..? All the history I know says that wouldn't and couldn't happen. Telling me it did and that, essentially, all I know about Gwen/Spidey/Goblin is wrong isn't fun for me. If you want to weave your story into the continuity, do that. Don't rip out all the stitches you don't like. If you don't want to work with continuity, don't. Write Elseworlds, or What If..? Or create your own book where the hero's girlfriend sleeps with their friend's father in a plausible way. Don't try to backport that situation into a place it doesn't fit.

And despite all that screed, I love Power Girl, who has one of the most jacked up, messed over backstories in comics. On the other hand, her book pretty much exists outside continuity.
April 1, 2010 12:06 am

It helps sell and draws attention. Permanence made Valiant stand out a bit. But death sells in books where you know it won't be permanent as well. Look at the attention Superman and Cap got.

Killing off characters can be lazy writing. The thing is, bringing characters back already has the problems of killing the character off, it may have been lazy and shocky, but the return is almost always lazier. Not all comic deaths are cheap manipulation, but pretty much every revival is. Jean Grey is a prime example. Her death was a big deal. It was touching and well done. Bringing her back cheapens everything, especially in retrospect -- even if Byrne and Claremont had always wanted to do it. How do you read the Dark Phoenix Saga now and get invested in Jean's death, knowing that she'll come back, and die, and come back, and die, and come back, and die, ad nauseaum?

Ultimately my point was just that I fell retconning is a symptom of lazy writing, and death is the retcon that so many writers seem to lean on so often.