It Had to be Said #6

Authorial intent is meaningless.

It really doesn't matter what a writer or artist (or editor) intended to say with any given piece of art (or, in our case, comic). What matters is what they actually say, and that is determined by the audience.

Lobo's a good example. He was intended as a satire of the ultra-violent superhero (Wolverine, specifically) but was read by an audience that took him totally seriously, to the point where he written seriously and became that which he was meant to mock.

And going in the reverse direction, All-Star Batman and Robin may be intended to be taken seriously, but is so gloriously over-the-top that many people love it as a parody (perhaps of itself, but a parody nonetheless).

This is complicated by the fact that art does not exist in a vacuum nor is "the audience" a monolithic entity. "The audience" is thousands of individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and contexts for understanding. So each person interprets a work differently, and the meaning of a piece is fluid across people. Something I read as a celebration of female power, another might read as a dismissal of a woman's worth. And neither of us are necessarily wrong.

And a work's meaning changes over time, too, as new events reshape interpretations. The first issues of Watchmen, for example, were published before the Iran-Contra scandal broke. So while Moore and Gibbons' story of abused, hubristic authority could not have been intended to comment on the (then) current administration's illegal activities, by the twelfth issue it most certainly did! (Especially since the Tower Commission opened their report with "quis custodiet ipsos custodes," i.e. "who watches the watchmen?")

Which is a long way of saying, you can't defend your art by saying "This is what I meant to say" or "I didn't mean to offend anyone". Once your art is out among the public, you are just one more interpreter, and have no more or less authority than anyone else. If someone says your work is offensive, then it IS offensive, at least to them, and you cannot just say they are wrong. All you can do is decide whether or not you care.

It Had to be Said #5

Professor Xavier is NOT Martin Luther King Jr.

While both have a dream of a better world for their respective repressed minorities, Martin Luther King was a pacifist who refused to use violence, even to defend himself.

Professor X trained his students to be masked vigilante freedom fighters who beat the crap out of anyone, human or mutant, who gets in the way of his goals.

No, Professor X's belief that mutants have the right, and sometimes to the need, to use violence to defend themselves makes him a lot closer to, appropriately enough, Malcolm X.

It would be an interesting story, I think, if Xavier and his small army of demi-gods met a truly King-esque mutant rights activist, someone who thinks the violent tactics of the X-Men themselves hurt the cause, one who refused to attack the Sentinels, but rather lay in front of them, absorb their blows and refuse to budge. This would be particularly entertaining if said pacifist was the Blob.

p.s. And here is an excellent post on why Magneto isn't Malcolm X

It Had to Be Said #4b

God dammit, Dr. Obvious, stop making good points.

He said, and I quote:

if the lion's share of the revenue is going to be coming from licensing, going for fewer, high quality issues could well support that better than more, lower quality issues.

I agree with that one hundred percent.

I really think that the future of comics publishing is a move away from periodical, serialized magazines and towards more original graphic novels. Not that the floppies will ever go away entirely, but there probably will be a lot less of them, particularly from the bigger companies.

And since original graphic novels will be a lot more self contained, telling complete stories in one volume with less reference to other works, missing the on-sale date because of production delays won't matter as much. Publishers will have more incentive to try to produce the best content possible rather than hit their own artificial deadlines.

Deadlines will still matter, from a marketing point of view, just like they do in print publishing. A book that will sell a ton before Christmas can't be delayed to January 1st, for example. But unlike today, the delay of one book will only hurt the sales of that book, so a publisher could afford to let one or two books release late for the sake of quality.

Today, however, superhero comics from the Big Two don't work like that. Instead, the work a lot more like network television shows: Ongoing, episodic fiction. Like TV shows, comics are meant to be enjoyed now. Entertain you this month (or this week) and there will be a new one to take its place next week. In this analogy, the publishers are the show producers, the retailers like the networks (I'm simplifying for the sake of analogy, don't slow me down with the facts).

Now, if Lost was delayed suddenly, because J.J. Abrams got writer's block, or a hurricane hit Hawaii and destroyed the set, or Evangeline Lilly got sick, ABC would be in trouble. To be deprived of the revenue from the advertising on their BIGGEST show AND to lose the platform to promote and launch other shows would really hurt the network, and they would have every right to demand Bad Robot a) get a new writer, b)build a new set as quickly as possible and c)write around Kate for a few episodes. And that's just equivalent to Superman/Batman being late.

Civil War is much worse. Civil War is a Law and Order sweeps three-parter spanning the main show and the two spin-offs in which Jack McCoy is shot, Det. Munch moves back to Baltimore, and Det. Goran is promoted to Captain. If that three parter was delayed by two months, NBC would be in a world of shit. That's THREE major shows indefinitely postponed, at something like the last minute. So that's three hours they have to fill on three different nights. There is no way, NO WAY, NBC would allow Dick Wolf to get away with a problem like that.

Television shows are, however, already set up to hit their deadlines. They have multiple writers, huge teams of ten or sometimes twenty, who work together to pump out scripts, and multiple directors who take turns guiding episodes from script to stage to screen. There's large enough cast of characters that some weeks you can focus on B because character A (or actor A) needs to be off screen for a bit. And multiple ongoing plots and sub-plots so that you can resolve some one week and leave others open to keep viewers interested. There maybe one executive producer/head writer to keep everything together and a consistent tone, but basically they get a lot of people working together so that they can guarantee their retailer, the network, that there will be 22 products a year, rain or shine.*

And as long a comics are going to be produced and sold in episodic installments like they are, that is, as long as they are going to mimic the television plan rather than the book publishing plan, then they are going to need to be able to make a similar guarantee. Maybe in the future they can have a little more freedom, but for now, deadlines mean everything.

hmmm... team of writers, rotating directors, large cast with interweaving plotlines. Why does that sound familiar...?



*This is, by the way, how almost EVERY show on television operates from The Sopranos on down, so don't tell me this hurts the quality of a television show.

It Had to Be Said #4a

The goal of a comic book company is still to sell comic books (even if the majority of their revenue comes from licenses and toy sales).

In response to my last post on the comic book business, Dr. Obvious makes the, um, obvious point:

Sadly though, Marvel doesn't make its money off selling books. It makes its money from license deals. See my post here to see exactly why book sales really don't matter to them. Sadly, this isn't true for retailers, like you said.

True, Marvel makes most of its money from licensing and toys, that's been true since the early '80s at least.

But publishing is still a large chunk of their revenue, so it still matters.

Just looking at the report Dr. Obvious linked to, Marvel made $25.1 million off publishing alone last quarter. Toys and licensing combined equal $65.3 million, so publishing is still over 27% of their total revenue.

That's a lot to endanger with a blown deadline like this, especially at a time when licensing revenue is down.

I am not trying to be chicken little. I really don't think anyone is going to lose their store over this, though it may be tight for some.

But if this isn't a one time thing, or if Marvel AND DC had both allowed their entire lines to slip due to one book coming out late, then a lot of stores would be in trouble, and Marvel today cannot survive without them.

The retail sales alone make Marvel a lot of money. Additionally, the single issue sales support the trades sold in (regular) book stores. No periodical sales, no trade sales. And there goes 25% of their revenue right there. That's deadly.

Even if they could somehow survive a 25% drop in revenue, they can't just fold up the publishing wing and become a storehouse for intellectual property. The comics still provide the ideas for future licensing opportunities and toy designs. No direct market, no new comics. No new comics, no new toys, no new movies, and no new TV shows.

The comics on the retailers' shelves, at least for now, are still the foundation of Marvel Comics as a business. They may not be the majority of the building, but take away those sales and the whole business falls.

It Had to Be Said #4

The goal of a comic book company is to sell comic books.

The goal isn't to make art, or even tell a good story. It certainly isn't to keep your imaginary friends alive.

A comic book publisher wants to, nay, needs to, sell books.

If that means putting subjectively bad but objectively popular artists on covers because more people will buy it, fine.

If that means occasionally pandering to immature fanboy sensibilities, fine.

If that means cosmetically changing a character to better match their more popular movie or TV incarnation, fine.

Even if that means canceling a much loved, well reviewed book because it isn't selling and is therefore losing money, fine.

Does that mean they shouldn't even try to put out a good comic? Of course not, because the long term goals of selling books and making money depend on making art, telling a good story, and, yes, keeping your imaginary friends alive. But in the short term, compromises sometimes have to be made.

If only there was a good example, some bit of news that hit today that could best illustrate my point...

Ah yes, Civil War is going to ship one month and two months late, and take four or five popular titles with it, so as not to spoil events in the main book.

Compare that to Infinite Crisis, which went to multiple artists and, by issue 7, un-inked art, in order to have the books ship on time. (Or close to on-time, I'm not sure. I think it slipped but I'm not sure by how much). What was important was that, like Civil War, Infinite Crisis tied into a lot of books, and if it had missed its ship dates, it would have thrown off the One Year Later launch and 52, which were both successes.

The publishers at Marvel chose quality art over business concerns. Those at DC chose to place the sales of the rest of their line over the quality of their flagship book. Which was the right choice?

As a fan, of course, I hope for nothing but the finest quality in the comics I buy. And as any fan of Astonishing X-Men knows, sometimes you just gotta wait. I'm pretty sure I'll be waiting for Seven Soldiers #1 for the next five years. And it will be worth it. And though I enjoyed the series overall, I was honestly disappointed with Infinite Crisis #7.

However, Brian Hibbs and every retailer who is pissed off right now are absolutely right! Some books you wait for. Your MASSIVE company-wide crossover is not one of them. It must ship, rain or shine, because too many other books depend on it. Even if you're sure you'll get the sales later, comic book stores operating on thin profit margins may not be able to wait for later. Deny them sales too often, and they go out of business, then you don't have a place to sell your late-ass but perfect books, and then you go out of business. And then all my imaginary friends die with you.

Business HAS TO come first. HAS TO. Nobody likes to put out a bad book but it's sometimes put out a bad book now or lose your opportunity to put out a good book later. That means hitting your deadlines, even if you think the book isn't perfect. That means selling to the audience that already exists. That means putting out stories like everybody else is doing because that's what sells. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT SELLS and in the short term that's how you stay alive.

BUT... that only keeps you alive for today. If you still want to be around tomorrow, you ALSO have to try new and different stories, experimenting with genre, structure, style, tone. You also have to try to expand or create new audiences. You also have to give some artists a little more creative freedom because they just aren't going to make deadline. You have to try to create good art.

Because that's how you make the real money!

[Edit: Declarative Rabbit says in one sentence what I tried to get across in the whole long post.]

It Had to Be Said #3

Crisis on Infinte Earths did not fail in its goal of creating a simpler universe that new readers could understand.

Crisis on Infinite Earths succeeded in its goal of creating a more complicated universe that took better advantage of all the toys that DC had to play with.

Consider, if the purpose of the book was to simplify the universe, they should have just wiped out everything and started over from the beginning. Said THIS is the first appearance of Batman, everything that came before doesn't matter. (With Superman, they kind of did do that, but with the Man of Steel miniseries, not COIE, and it didn't take).

Instead, Marv Wolfman basically said, "You know the past 50 years of comics, spread out over three companies and innumerable separate titles? Yeah, almost all of those stories happened, but all in the same place and over a period of about 10 years." Does that sound like he was even trying to make things simpler?

No, what he was trying to do was create a world where THIS was possible:


Now, you can either start each issue explaining why Dr. Fate and Captain Marvel are on Earth 1 and just which Batman that is, exactly, or you can just accept that they are all from the same Earth and just go from there. Which would you prefer?

Then there's the fact that ongoing books sell better when they are tied to other, more successful ongoing books. It's one thing to read about Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. But interest is peaked and sales are higher if you know that, at any moment, Wonder Woman might stop by. That's the main reason the Charlton characters were brought into the DC Universe, rather than be relaunched with Watchmen. (On the other hand, somewhere in Hypertime there's a 20 year old ongoing series set in the Watchmen universe, still written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons).

Besides, there's a lot of arrogance that goes into the thought that the DC U needed to be simplified, or still needs to be simplified, for new readers. Remember, we were all new readers, once, and unless you've been collecting since Action Comics #1, there was some piece of backstory you didn't know when you first sat down. Somehow it didn't stop you from having fun, why should it stop someone else? Anyone could understand parallel earths, anyone could understand unified earth, I'm pretty sure everyone will be able to grasp Earth-New.

No, if there's a problem with getting new readers to enjoy current comics, it lies not with the rich, confusing history created by Crisis on Infinte Earths, but with current comic not using that history properly. Comics too worried about correcting, contradicting, clarifying, or simply copying the comics of the past, and not worried enough about creating new stories, new histories, for the comics of the future.

There, it had to be said.

It Had to Be Said #2

Superman's not Jesus.

For that to work, Jor-El would have to be God, sending his son to Earth to save us. That was NOT Jor-El's intention at all. His intention was to save HIS SON.

Pre-Crisis, he sent young Kal-El to Earth because he'd do well here and do great things.

That would make him Moses.

In Smallville, Jor-El wanted Kal-El to conquer the Earth and make it a new Krypton, and Clark had to reject that and fight his biological heritage.

And that would be Oedipus.

Or Romulus, or King Arthur, or any abandoned baby with a great destiny in any myth.

Really, the problem is that while both Superman and Jesus used supernatural powers to try to make the world a better place and inspired others to follow in their footsteps, that's about where the similarities end.

Jesus was a prince of peace, a pacifist who taught that we should turn the other cheek. His greatest act was suffering and dying, and taking it. Superman, on the other hand, FIGHTS a never-ending battle for truth and justice.

Jesus was concerned about the state of your soul and what the next life will be like. Clark is talking about objective truth and material justice in this world.

Jesus renders unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Superman punches Luthor in the face.

Jesus actively tried to be a leader of men and teach his new philosophy. Clark prefers to blend in with the crowd when possible, speak the truth, and let the world decide for itself.

Superman isn't Jesus.

There, it had to be said.

It Had to Be Said #1

Batman/Robin slash fic and jokes are disturbing not because of the gay, but because of the pedophilia.

That is all.