Whose side are you on?
This started out as a comment in response to the Civil War Machine Derailed post and accompanying web-based criticism of Marvel’s decision to delay Civil War due to shipping concerns.
Regarding all the uproar, I couldn’t disagree more.
There seem to be two prongs to this argument – a case made on behalf of the shareholders, and a case made on behalf of the fans.
Marvel is indeed throwing away short term sales, that’s true. But this commitment to the story as a whole – and not as a sum of monthly parts – is a wise move that will pay off in the future. Marvel sees the obvious writing in huge block letters on the wall – that the real money is made in trade format on the bookshelves. And while I can’t really imagine a scenario in which someone will refuse to buy the Civil War TPB because of a fill-in artist (unless it’s Brandon Peterson, and that person would be me), it shows that Marvel is approaching these arcs as independent entities that need to be presented as such.
Marvel is continuing to change the paradigm of what an arc is, and that’s where the long-term advantages for both the shareholders and the readers overlap. The transition has been happening for a while, with storylines being constructed for easy reprintability, but there were still things like dangling plotlines and fill-in artists forcefully reminding you that you were reading a fragmented serial and not a story to be appreciated on its own.
I have an anecdote to back up how a lack of this approach failed them in the past. I loaned a friend my copy of a Daredevil TPB, in which the first six issues or so were done by the brilliant Alex Maleev, and then the last two or three were done by a fill-in artist. This turned my friend off, pulling him out of the story, and he wasn’t interested in any more.
It’s fair to argue that might be an extreme reaction or something along those lines. Fine. But you wouldn’t enjoy a movie where they change the actors midstream. Loyal followers of soap operas bemoan the substitution of actors. Abrupt halts take you out of a story. And Marvel is showing consumers and shareholders that they are treating their stories differently than they have in the past.
I completely agree with Tom Brevoort’s rationale on the whole thing. They have a market plan, and they’re sticking to it, in spite of short term losses. For that commitment to a vision, and refusal to dismiss that vision in a moment of panic, I have more faith in Marvel than I have in some time.
It’s very easy to put together a wet-dream list of fanboy favorites to put in place of McNiven. But McNiven is not some sort of anomaly in his inability to put together an epic on a monthly basis with no lead-in time. So when you’re pulling someone off the bench, you get the people who aren’t working. And so you get crap.
And Jean-Claude, in your comment from the previous post that people weren’t talking about the art from IC 7, I present the following conversation:
Jean-Claude Van Doom: My biggest gripe: what the heck was with the art? I’m not sure if it’s that I don’t like Jimenez and Perez, or if they were just too rushed (even though it ran way late), or if they had to cram too much into too small of a space, but it just seemed really weak in spots. The Superman & Superman vs. Superboy fight had no grandeur. The final splash page was such a boring superhero collage that I didn’t bother looking at it for more than a few seconds.
Fin Fang Doom: The art was definitely rushed throughout the entire series. Phil Jiminez was apparently just not the right choice to keep this book on schedule. Besides Mark Bagley, I can’t think of any comic artist that has been able to churn out 32 or more pages of high-quality art per month for six or seven months.
Jim Doom: the art suffered because they had to bring in a lot of extra inkers. It’s too bad some of them are as bad as they are, because some of those pages really did lose their impact. Notice the pencils left in the first huge battle splash page? That’s unique to this issue. It worked because of the distance, but I’m guessing that wasn’t the first choice on how to present that page.
Doom DeLuise: Like when Superman was leading the charge, and he said something like, “You want to destroy our universe? Y’know what I say to that?” and then the next page is supposed to be this intimidating splash page where he’s saying, “Like hell,” except that it looked like SHIT. Yeah, that’s a bummer, but the line was still cool, so it was cool with me, kind of.
“It’s very eays to put together a wet-dream list of fanboy favorites to put in place of McNiven.”
I’d like to point at that all the guys I listed are either doing nothing in particular right now or could handle the extra workload.
I will concede your point that a fill-in artist in a trade can turn off some people. I remember being really disappointed initially when I opened the second Walking Dead trade to find Tony Moore no longer doing the art.
I’m not sure your Daredevil anecdote is a fair comparison, though. Any artist would be a drastic change from Alex Maleev. That man is unique. But McNiven is not. His style is so much like so many other artists that a change wouldn’t really register with the casual fans picking up trades in Barnes & Noble. If they kept the same inker and especially the same colorist, it could probably be almost indistinguishable.
And Marvel doesn’t really have to worry about a change of artists turning people off of future trades, because there won’t be any future Civil War trades.
Here’s some other comments regarding IC#7 we had in that same conversation:
“Well, I just got done with IC #7, and, although I agree that it felt a bit rushed, I am definitely not complaining. Through and through, I just loved it. The SHIT was just amazing. I mean, on almost every page, I was imagining Tony Schiavone’s voice in my head yelling out in a high-pitched shrill, “WHAT A MOMENT!””
“I think, at 357 posts in this thread, that the Crisis was one hell of a smashing success. Aside from a couple of pacing problems that some have complained about in issue 7, I don’t think I’ve ever read a crossover that was so perfectly executed.”
And to be fair, all of the comments you pulled out for above were prompted by Jean-Claude Van Doom’s first comment. Nobody mentioned anything about the art until he brought it up, and even then, it was more making conversation than complaining.
Although I’m not even sure what you’re saying about Civil War trades (are you claiming that Civil War will never be re-printed?) I can safely conclude you’re missing the point, because as I tried to explain, this is about something much bigger than Civil War – it’s about a philosophy and approach to how they are marketing their product.
And let’s say, hypothetically, you’re right – all those guys are either sitting at home with nothing to do, or else they’ve got so much free time they could put out an epic book with hundreds of different characters on top of everything else – how can you even pretend to know that?
Are you claiming that, because they were prompted by someone else’s thoughts, they are somehow less real or less valid? That’s how discussions work.
We all enjoyed IC7, but the affect that the sloppy art had on our enjoyment can’t just be ignored to snappily insult Joe Quesada and Tom Brevoort.
It was a shared sentiment that affected the perfection of the experience, and I can totally understand a company with their own huge event not wanting to duplicate that in order to sell books they’re going to sell anyway.
You’re presenting those comments about our dissatisfaction with IC’s art as though those were our primary feelings about the series. Yes, the art wasn’t as good as it could have been. But before anyopne mentioned the art we were all talking about how much we loved the series. The art didn’t even enter into the equation because the whole was so great it greatly overshadowed the art detractions. Would Infinite Crisis have been as effdective if it took 9 months to complete instead of seven? No. At that point, we would be pulled out of the series so much we’d be nitpicking the smallest things (and you know how much we all nitpick now, so imagine how much worse it could get).
Infinite Crisis was a great story first and foremost. The “bad” art is an afterthought.
Civil War is going to be remembered as a horrible scheduling disaster first and foremost. The merit of the story will most likely get lost in that. And if comic fans don’t praise the series, it probably won’t gain popularity among casual fans.
“Let’s say, hypothetically, you’re right…how can you even pretend to know that?”
Because I read a lot of Marvel comics, and I know what a lot of artists are capable of doing. Mark Bagley puts out like 20 issues a year.
And a lot of those guys I mentioned are on Marvel’s payroll simply as fill-in artists. They never draw a series, they just draw arcs. They’re there for Marvel to fall back on. How insulting is it that Tom Brevoort just told everyone that those guys suck?
Let me get this straight – you honestly think that the #1 thing people are going to remember about Civil War is that it was a horrible scheduling disaster?
A scheduling disaster would be allowing tie-ins with spoilers to run uninhibited, or events that come happen, let’s say hypothetically, in Teen Titans, following the events of, let’s say, hypothetically, in Infinite Crisis, several months later. A scheduling disaster would be having, let’s say, House of M running late, and then hypothetically, events in supplementary titles revealing or confusing the events.
Those, in my mind, would be scheduling disasters. And they have been all but forgotten for the other praise and criticism heaped on the execution of Infinite Crisis and House of M. What we have instead is a complication that has resulted in a scheduling delay as a result of a difficult but – I believe correct – editorial decision.
You seriously are going to remember Civil War first and foremost as a scheduling disaster? That’s just sad!
No matter how much you think you do, you don’t know these guys’ schedules. Mark Bagley might draw 20 issues a year…does that mean he has enough extra time in his day to crank out a time-consuming book in his spare time? You can’t presume to know these things that you clearly don’t know.
If these guys are on the roster as fill-in artists, fine. Are we supposed to believe then that they don’t occupy their time with other work? Or should we imagine they just sit by the phone waiting for Joey Q to call them?
It’s a ridiculous and dishonest exaggeration of Tom Brevoort’s assertion to say that all those guys suck. He says “fill-in artists suck.” He says fill-in artists hurt a story. He’s saying, based upon the philosophy they have laid out, it would diminish the story and the product to do it any way other than with McNiven. I completely, 100%, agree with him.
And I presented those quotes because Jean-Claude dismissed Brevoort’s assertion that fan dissatisfaction with the art took away from what would have otherwise been the perfect execution of Infinite Crisis. And we – including you and JCVD – had issues with the art. Never have I said the art issues ruined the experience for you, or even knocked down your hypothetical rating of the series.
But it was something you noticed – something that made it less than perfect. And that’s an experience that Marvel doesn’t want people to share. They have declared that they are going to make this flawless on the creative side. If that means delaying the series so it can be done right, so be it. If that means delaying other series so as not to disrupt the proper telling of the story, so be it.
They’re making a tough decision based upon a commitment to a vision – to the highest level of storytelling execution. How bizarre is it that we’ve entered such an era of Quesada-bashing that we are now criticizing a company for that.
It was completely unfair to pull my one criticism of IC #7 when my point was that the MOST talked about aspect of the issue was not the artwork. That was exactly what Mr. Brevoort stated. And he was wrong.
Yes, the art annoyed me, but as I said, that’s my ONE gripe, among MANY RAVES.
Frankly, I really couldn’t give less of a crap about all this, since I’m not reading Civil War and none of the books I’m reading have been affected.
But I really do give a crap about my words being twisted to make me look like a jackass.
Yeah, I’m done. Neither of us will convince the other our side is correct. Unless someone else gets in on the action I’m done with this for now.
Funny thing though: the Legion of Doom has been deeply divided by this issue, both sides believing one hundred percent that their side is the right one. We’re having our own civil war over Civil War. Oh the irony!
Tom Breevort’s quote:
Jean-Claude Van Doom’s quote:
Our love and ravings after reading IC 7 were about the series as a whole. Our downer was about the art specifically in IC 7.
Considering how certain comics readers have jumped to the ridiculous conclusion that “Civil War is going to be remembered as a horrible scheduling disaster first and foremost,” it’s not hard to imagine that other comics readers were jumping to the conclusion that the art really hurt IC 7.
If it was that present in our discussions, I can only logically infer that it happened elsewhere, and to a greater extent.
Can I rephrase what I said earlier, then? “I will remember Civil War as a huge scheduling disaster.” Based on the internet reaction, which I honestly do not recall seeing about the art in Infinite Crisis or the suckiness of House of M (or anything else for that matter), many, many other comics fans will remember it the same way. I will not be able to look at Civil War and not remember this. Just as I can’t look at Age of Apocalypse and remember that it’s the reason I read comics (which certainly skews my opinion of it). Just like I can’t read Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and not remember that Marvel ret-conned his entire three-year storyline a month after he left. Just like I can’t read V for Vendetta and not compare it to the movie. Civil War, no matter how good the creative vision may be, will always be synonomous with this delay.