I think I alone, out of the iFanboy contingent, am excited for this upcoming mini-series. While I only have vague memories of the existence of any of the Kirby work, I do know it used to exist in the background of the Marvel universe.
Since discussions of Sandman have been popping up here and there, this is probably a good place to test your feet in the Neil Gaiman waters if you’re unfamiliar with him.
I had two favorite things about this interview. One is Gaiman’s slight annoyance with both himself and Marvel at failing to come up with a pitch.
And the other is this bit:
NG: The biggest continuity changes between what Jack did, and what I’m doing now – there’s one huge one is that the Celestials did not create the human race. Not even allowed to go there – don’t go there, don’t say that…never happened.
NRAMA: Marvel would like the series to sell in red states as well as blue states?
NG: I guess. I don’t know, actually – if someone had just decided that was not the case, or if it was for that reason…but either way, it’s fine.
My final thought is that John Romita Jr. is an odd choice for this project, but that fact makes me more interested, oddly enough.
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I tried reading Sandman #1 last night and it bored the hell out of me. although I love Sam Kieth’s art.
I’m going to pick this up BECAUSE of Romita Jr.
so there
You want to not like Sandman, so I’m not even going to argue the point. Honestly, I don’t think it’s your thing either way, but not, like I’ve said, for the reasons you think it isn’t.
I am generally excited about this series. Not because of the Eternals, I don’t think that I have ever read a comic with them. I enjoyed “Neverwhere” and “American Gods.” I also read 1602 and liked that too. I also buy and series that is John Romita Jr. is on and have been since I started reading comics. One of the first Iron Man that I read was drawn by Romita. I think he is on this Eternals series because his style is similar to Kirby’s.
Josh – why do you talk like Yoda?
Wisdom. Deep, prevailing wisdom.
Excited? No. Intrigued and will buy the first issue? Yes.
I would honestly say that the beginning of Sandman is nowhere near as good as the rest of it.
I can understand resisting something due to hype, but it’s worth struggling through the first couple of arcs to get to the good stuff.
Speaking of resistance I heard a rumour that Conor didn’t like Batman Year 100…
Very excited. I’ve stated my love for Gaiman before. I am looking forward to this just as much if not more than Civil War or Infinite Crisis. I know at least I will re-read Eternals in the future, which doesn’t happen with most other comics I get. Whenever I am out of something to read, I often go back and read an old Gaiman book.
And Romita Jr. does seem like an odd choice, but the preview pages give me great hope that this will be a good pairing.
Speaking of resistance I heard a rumour that Conor didn’t like Batman Year 100…
Didn’t read it. Pope’s art hurts my eyes.
I’m not excited about Eternals at all. I might (might) pick up the first one.
I didn’t care for 1602 or American Gods, or the first Sandman trade, and I only marginally enjoyed Mirrormask. Sorry.
Dude, that’s the first non-awesome thing you’ve ever said on here.
I would argue that those are not Gaiman’s best moments. 1602 didn’t really hit it’s stride, for whatever reason. I did enjoy it though. American Gods was not his best work either. Like Nick said, read the second Sandman trade, and then make up your mind (like strangers in parasise, it takes 2 to get going). I would also heartily recommend Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett. It’s my favorite thing with Gaiman’s name on it. Novel, not a comic though.
Well maybe they make some kind of Pope Goggles so you can read it. I happen to dig his art and thought it was a great Elseworlds. Highly reccomended.
He does some great stuff with Batman scaring the fascist police force. And for being in the future with sci fi settings it was a very down to earth dark knight.
I didn’t like 1602, but I can’t believe people are writing off the Sandman after the first trade.
So I don’t like the Cure and Hot Topic. Sue me!
color me excited. i got all of 1602 for like $7 by being mr. thrifty cheapskate with the quarter and dollar bins, and I liked it a lot. you could tell he tossed off the concept on an airplane but it was still really fun and dynamic.
put me in the “read some of sandman, want to read it all someday, don’t mind the cure, do NOT shop at hot topic” camp.
Hey speaking of Romita, did any body read the Wolverine Enemy of the State TPB? I did. I thought the art was awesome and the story just as good. Wolverine kicked some serious butt. Vol. 2 went on sale today and I will buy it (instead of download it….)
Well, I’m a HUGE Gaiman acolyte, so I’ll be buying this entire series. I like buying Gaiman’s MArvel works, because all of the profits go to Gaiman trying to acquire the Marvelman/Miracleman liscense.
On top of that, I actually love the Eternals/Celestials/Deviants. I thought it was a fun idea, and was MArvel’s version of the New Gods (or DC’s New Gods may be a version of the Eternals, I’m not sure.)
Romita, for me, is very hit or miss. I hope he hits it out of the park this time around, though, because I think Gaiman’s writing warrants it.
Oh, and Josh, super-props for mentioning Good Omens. I was a huge Pratchett fan (his Discworld stuff) before I discovered Gaiman — through Good Omens. For both authors, I feel it is one of their best works.
Eternals came after New Gods. New Gods was what Kirby was building towards in Thor. The backup Tales of Asgard stories were going to involve Ragnarok and the New Gods characters were going to be what replaced the Asgardians. When Kirby left Marvel, he still hadn’t published any of the New Gods concepts so he took them with him to DC. Kirby was going to live in CA and become the west coast editor of a line of Kirby created books for DC. Infantino wanted Jack to write and draw all of his books while Jack wanted to help launch books and hand them over to others. When Kirby went back to Marvel, he was really influenced by CHARIOTS OF THE GODS by Erich von Daniken. COTG speculated that Earth had been visited by aliens in the ancient past and reported of astronauts in pyramids, maps of the land underneath antarctic ice and Mayan and Incan computer astronomy. A lot of this seemed to bubble through Jack’s work on Eternals. By the way, I thought EARTH X did a great job of unifying a lot of Kirby’s Marvel concepts into one cohesive framework for stories. The other two “X” books didn’t hold my interest.
Talking about all this makes me really miss reading Thor comics regularly. They just felt big. What’s the deal with that? Where did Thor go?
I assume he just lost his audience. Actually come to think of it, I’d love to see Gaiman do a 12 issue Thor series. He’s been in the territory before in both Sandman and American Gods.
Thor’s dead – Asgard was destroyed.
My guess is he’s back at the end of Civil War, as his hammer re-appeared in FF when DOOM used it to come back from hell (I believe that was the story…)
I don’t shop at hot topic and I don’t listen to the Cure, but I’m a huge Gaiman fan.
I think the true question here is if you can really knock people that like the cure if you like Morrissey.
Sorry, just had to get that one in.
I would LOVE a Thor series written by Gaiman. He is perfect for the character. That was actually rumored to happen last year and obviously it never panned out. Hopefully someday…
By the way, there are 2 new Marvel podcasts up on itunes that are parts 1 and 2 of Joe Quesada interviewing Gaiman. Haven’t listened to them yet but I am pretty excited to hear what he has to say about Eternals (probably similar to the newsarama interview but in more detail).