A Final Crisis crisis?
As reported by Newsarama.com, Carlos Pacheco is joining J.G. Jones on Final Crisis art duties starting with issue #4. Newsarama quotes Dan DiDio as saying Pacheco is being added to keep the book on schedule.
This reminds me of a situation back in August 2006 when Marvel announced they would delay Civil War in order to keep Steve McNiven the book’s sole artist, opting for potentially lost sales and angered customers in exchange for a commitment to the art.
For a fun little trip down memory lane, I invite you to read the following:
• The Civil War Machine Derailed by Fin Fang Doom, disagreeing with Marvel’s decision, and
• Whose Side Are You On? by Jim Doom, agreeing with Marvel’s decision.
It was an exciting time here at Doomkopf. I dare say this decision won’t cause similar sparks to fly. But given Grant Morrison’s repeated reminders that he started writing the series two years ago, it’s a shame nobody handed the scripts to J.G. Jones any sooner than they did.
I got no complaints here. Adding Pacheco to Final Crisis is like adding Geroge Perez to Infinite Crisis: you get another great artist on the book, and it’ll still come out on time.
Maybe JG didn’t get the scripts because DiDio was really unhappy with them when they crossed his desk, and he and Morrison fought over them for a while. Man, what a mess.
I’m actually, surprise surprise, in the same philosophical boat I was in with Civil War. I don’t think it’s simply an issue of getting a “good artist” to help with the work. I think J.G. Jones has a defined enough style that he’s essentially a brand, and putting someone else’s work in there dilutes the power of the work as a whole. It’d like having a couple songs on an album performed by a completely different band, but being okay with it because they’re still good songs. I don’t dispute Pacheco is a good artist, but artists bring a much bigger part to storytelling than simply drawing the pictures that go with the writer’s words.
This doesn’t make me any less excited for Final Crisis (hard to dip any lower) but I do think it’s unfortunate.
I guess I’d disagree with you on Jones as a brand name. Aside from the 52 covers, I didn’t know of anything else he had done before Final Crisis. His stuff looks good, but I didn’t think it was terribly unique or original.