More than 80% (if not closer to 100% by the time you read this) is now know about DC's Relaunched series for September. 52 #1s, apparently all continuing series or mini-series (no one-shots so far as we know), many of them already controversial. The overall feeling I get is that of the late 80s and early 90s, when everyone was trying to be like the Image boys - in both artwork and tone - and the only refuge was DC's UK invasion of writers who created their own strange and dark corner of the DCU, until it was finally sequestered behind the Vertigo banner. And so it is again. Not only is Image co-founder Jim Lee leading a lukewarm redesign of dozens of costumes, but DC's bringing in various artists better known for their Image work like Booth, Capullo and - OH MY DEAR GOD NO, MY EYES, MY EYES!!! - Rob Liefeld.
(Note that when I talk about Image, I don't mean the Image that, to me, feels like the Dark Horse creator-owned comics of my youth - Invincible, Bulletproof Coffin, Infinite Vacation, Nonplayer. I mean the terrible X-Men/Wolverine clones of their very early output. Comics that were big on splash pages, but not on story. The ones with distorted anatomy, and plagued by chronic lateness. Those ones.)
Some of Jim Lee's Image characters are in fact going through the veil that separates Wildstorm comics from the DCU and being integrated into the DC comics line proper. Do we need a Grifter in the DCU? Well, I can't see why we would. And even when DC is using homegrown talent, there's a tendency to give the reigns over to people who are basically artists and not writers, often artists that haven't even proven they understand the basics of telling a story through pictures.
And once again, there will be a refuge from these EXTREME!!! superhero books in the form of that dark corner of the DCU. Strange books like Animal Man, Justice League Dark, Frankenstein, Swamp Thing, Resurrection Man and Demon Knights, have garnered applause where superhero announcements have generated ire and ridicule. Obviously, there's some kind of market for angsty, footless art and violent or buxom superheroes. There must be or else they wouldn't be trying to push yet another Jason Todd series on us ("because WE demanded it!"... apparently). The hope is that DC's new supernatural line will also get support in the marketplace, just as Morrison's Doom Patrol and Gaiman's Sandman once did. And there's reason to think there will be. Urban fantasy is all over the television and the cineplex. These might be comics for those flocking to Fringe, Twilight, Being Human and True Blood.
And as I did then, so will I doubtless do now, leaving superhero titles behind for that dark, more mature corner of the DCU, where WRITERS are still in charge. I remember a time when DC was all about its writers, and it's why it had become my preferred shared universe.
If I'm generally disappointed by the announcements, it's that Flushpoint seems like a step back. Have we not learned lessons from the 90s? Is that decade not derided by fans? Why go back to that? And on the matter of Relaunch vs. Reboot, not that the various announcements leave ANY semblance of a coherent strategy (Green Lantern seems to follow on from the current storyline, but the Justice League is "younger" and the Titans each get a new - and atrocious - origin), it feels like we're getting half-measures again. It's a reboot on properties we don't know what to do with. It's not when the architects of Flushpoint want to keep writing their same old story. Costumes are redesigned, but look the same, or are worse than ever. Characters with continuity-heavy backgrounds that make them non-viable are still getting books (Jason Todd and Arsenal being prime offenders). The first Crisis has shown that partial reboots only lead to confusion as to what the characters stories actually are, but beyond that, it doesn't go far enough, or else goes way too far.
There are two ways to move forward. Either you reboot everything, start fresh and invite readers to get in on the ground floor - of EVERYTHING (and this can work, think of the WB superhero cartoons, for example). Or you can just allow the superhero narrative to evolve by itself without any kind of retcon. I'm not a big fan of what Marvel's been up to in the last couple decades, but on a business level, they still kick DC's ass without ever creating a massive entry level opportunity. It's clear to me that the two shared universes' continuity are not the problem. Cost and format are the problem. But if you're not going to address that (or do so, again, with half-measures that make electronic copies the same price as already too-costly paper publications), then there is no stunt that can save your company in the long term. So if we do not accept a reboot as a real solution, it doesn't make sense to void all that continuity. But I won't go into a big speech about DC embracing its history, because you've read it all before. But this "let's continue some, but revise others"is just the kind of one step forward, two steps back publishing strategy that's been cramping their style. Worse, this time it looks like some creators are getting to do what they like because of their position (or proximity to someone higher up), while others are getting booted off their well-received projects. Ideas and designs are green lit not because of their merits, but because of who conceived of them.
At least, that's how it looks from here, perhaps as a way to justify the most mind-boggling of decisions.
Comments
I remember being at a DC thing at the SDCC one year, before they were about to look at people's portfolios (I was not there for that, but with a friend who was).
Anyway, one of the DC staffers on stage made a joke about Liefield, in terms of him being a hack. It got a big laugh.
This was in 98 or 99, and I remember thinking that just a few years ago, DC would have given Liefield Batman he was so hot. And now they're acting like they're so above him.
I'm no fan of Liefield, but I really thought that was cheap and very dishonest. Companies always want the hottest thing, and then if the worm turns then they disown it. Sheesh.
It doesn't mean everyone instantly dislikes "bad" and instantly likes "good", but the quality or lack thereof IS immediately apparent, at least to the sufficiently aware reader who can gauge something's artistic quality (which isn't everyone, I realize).
Liefeld's art and story telling is objectively bad. With a good inker (like Karl Kesel on H&D), it approaches a subjective level of quality. To my eyes, Liefeld hasn't improved in the last 20 years, he's deteriorated - in my experience, often the result of an oversized ego, and various interviews with the man seem to bear this out.
Which is why I find the decision to employ him so outrageous. Not that DC once made cheap shots about him, or that DC's corporate opinion is for sale. No, what I have a hard time with is that they've decided to employ an artist who has a track record of 1) drawing terribly, 2) not improving, 3) ego problems (which have even attracted lawsuits), and 4) lateness and/or not carrying projects to term. Either DC has quality control or it doesn't, and it seems it doesn't. I can't believe objectively bad comics creators are being encouraged, much less paid, at the expense of better talent.
However we feel about the 90s now, what cannot be denied was that that sort of art caught people's eyes for good or ill.
I think what we need to remember is that this relaunch (or whatever the hell DC is calling it) really isn't for us. It's for the kids with their rock-and-roll music and iPads who watch the superhero movies.
I understand your point completely, but I think DC is going about it the wrong way because they are clearly NOT marketing to kids, unless kids are a hell of a lot richer than I think (and that's possible).
When I was a kid, comics were cheap. I could buy a ton every month with just lunch money pocket change. As comics went to 1.25-2$ (Canadian), it was college and jobs and a certain measure of independence... I had more free cash and chose to spend it on comics. The cost was still reasonable, but by then I was older and more choosy. I dropped T&A art fests, gimmick covers, etc. that weren't worth my hard-hearded (or borrowed) dollars.
Kids today are never given the chance to pick up the very habit of buying large quantities of comics because the price is so high. And comics are in competition with the splendorous variety of the Internet, like a lot of older media. So we put the comics on the Internet, but at the same price as paper issues? That still doesn't get to the heart of the problem, which is COST. There's a reason they hand out free drugs in school yards.
Furthermore, now we have comics written and drawn for the teens of the 90s, NOT today's. Or do 2011's teens recognize the connection between Liefeld and his 1988 work on Hawk&Dove (or even his Image days of "glory")? Maybe the Image guys at whose feet I'm putting a lot of these problems have maintained a high profile that I am unaware of because I dismissed their pablum long ago. Maybe teens respond to their stuff. Teenage boys no doubt respond to semi-nude, large breased girls (but not legs, which are a connoisseur's market). Maybe that's it.
I don't, nor have I ever believed, in catering to the lowest common denominator (something I teach in improv class). You don't dumb down your product (which "art first" is) because you feel your audience is dumb. They may say they want a certain dumb thing, but that's because they don't yet know anything else. Audiences can and must be taught to enjoy a higher degree of quality, and your product teaches its audience (to like good or bad craft, as the case may be). If you produce good stuff, you have a better chance of retaining that audience as it grows up. If you produce bad stuff, the audience will eventually outgrow you and even feel shame at having liked your product.
Why do older (or former) fans buy Showcases and Essentials that feature material from the 60s? Why do they ask for stuff like Suicide Squad to be reprinted? And yet I've never heard of anyone trying to find collections of Youngblood or Cyberforce. Maybe they exist, it's just not my experience.
Lazarus Lupin
http://strangespanner.blogspot.com/
art and review
They have feet? Why don't they use them for reference, then?