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Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Jun 9, 2011 16:36:08 GMT -8
So, despite the fact that DC is better at non-film adaptations (which never reflect the comics) they revamped the line so they'd be better at adaptations?
Oh, and as for being bad at films... what's the top-grossing superhero film again?
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jun 9, 2011 19:54:19 GMT -8
Oh, and as for being bad at films... what's the top-grossing superhero film again? Unfortunately we both know it's not as cut and dried as that. DC's film flops (Catwoman, Jonah Hex) probably outstink the Marvel flops (Daredevil, Elektra). Marvel's made gains in animation after years of getting their asses handed to them in every shape imaginable by the Dini crew. And in the films, Marvel's got the larger roster of successes in the last 10 years by having more stuff out there. From the point of view of the very profitable film media, Marvel is doing quite well, and there are no signs of a major bomb in the near future. There's also another clear lesson that DC has 'learned' from Marvel - that if you give complete control to a single creator, no matter how flawed, you will get success - see BendisVengers and Millar. Long-term thinking about your universe be damned, we're making money! Even if it is the companies eating their own limbs to survive. What I said in my blog post on the subject is also a component: DC simply going through an editorial wishlist for the purposes of "streamlining". Because they figure that's the way to beat Marvel. So...there you are. |
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Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Jun 10, 2011 2:27:34 GMT -8
Here's the thing. There IS no "DC". There are three people tasked with making decisions at the executive level about DC Comics. One, Bob Harras, was the EiC of Marvel during the Dark Age, and the other two just happen to be the same creators who are in charge of the revamp.
DC Entertainment (and Warner Brothers above them) don't CARE about the comics. Just the potential for licensing characters. If the new direction fails, the movies & cartoons won't suffer.
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 10, 2011 6:08:14 GMT -8
There are three people tasked with making decisions at the executive level about DC Comics. One, Bob Harras, was the EiC of Marvel during the Dark Age [...] Which is easy to tell, when you look at the creators who work on the DCNuU. |
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Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Jun 10, 2011 8:37:33 GMT -8
I think, at the end of the day, what pisses me off the most isn't the wholesale ejection of history, but the way that the current creative teams have been treated.
Look at Gail Simone. Given BoP to relaunch, set up a new status quo and arch-enemy, and just when she starts getting momentum, she not only loses the book, but any chance at all of telling the story she pitched.
Or Chris Roberson. After the JMS fiasco, does an incredible job bringing fans back with his sly nods to past stories, and turns the Grounded storyline into something worth reading. And just as he's finally ready to tell HIS stories, and not just work around Straczynski's, he's kicked off the book, and not given ANY title in the DCnU as a consolation.
And there are other writers and artists (Bleeding Cool has a depressingly long list) who are suddenly out of work, not because they were doing a bad job, but because Johns someone in editorial decided that the comics line needed a revamp.
These creators did this for a living. The paycheck they earned for doing their best went to rent, bills, and groceries. And now, they are on the street.
All thanks to this bold "new" direction.
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 10, 2011 9:47:24 GMT -8
These creators did this for a living. The paycheck they earned for doing their best went to rent, bills, and groceries. And now, they are on the street. All thanks to this bold "new" direction. Sorry, not an argument, because there are now other creators who do this for a living and who now collect paychecks that go to rent, bills and groceries. Yes, it sucks that some good people were replaced with less good people, but it's not like they hired some work-for-free fanboys to replace them. I do notice, however, that plenty of these new creators have a history of getting a lot of work from Bob Harras at Marvel back in the 1990s. The same Bob Harras who is currently EiC at DC, and who might have waited for just this kind of opportunity. |
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Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Jun 10, 2011 10:54:48 GMT -8
The point isn't that the new teams aren't equally worthy of making a living.
It's that the current teams were let go despite the fact that they didn't do anything wrong.
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jun 10, 2011 20:14:28 GMT -8
The point isn't that the new teams aren't equally worthy of making a living. It's that the current teams were let go despite the fact that they didn't do anything wrong. And, not that I want to derail, but....that could be said for any number of employees in any company or organization on earth in the course of human history, nevermind an "industry" as frought with issues as comics. Yes it is sad that a lot of guys have been mistreated. But, as I've kept saying for some time now, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone with any knowledge of history of the comic industry. And it's for crappy, petty reasons and personal politics makes it mundane and tragic all the same. I don't even have to list the names of creators who've been shafted by DC or Marvel in the past, especially not to you Mario, so I won't. I will say this; let all the other creators in all of corporate comics take away this lesson - this is the industry you are in, this is how it works. Either accept it or get a torch to change it. And for the fans, well, if you put characters and company ahead of creators, that's the industry you get. |
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Post by jbhelfrich on Jun 12, 2011 21:05:07 GMT -8
I disagree. Because if all those people who now fanwank their own Sherlock Holmes stories couldn't use the character, they'd be forced to come up with their own ideas. That is how it should work. I must counter your statement with Steven Moffat's Sherlock, which is a thing of beauty despite a weak second episode. Now, from a more technical standpoint: the point of copyright expiration is not to make more people come up with new ideas. It is, quite frankly, to make sure that the people who come up with the really excellent ideas have to keep coming up with new ones. What if Walt Disney, for example, back in the era when copyright duration resembled sane policy, had been able to stop with Micky Mouse as a cash cow and hadn't needed to create Donald and Goofy and Scrooge? And on the other side of the coin, what if he/his company hadn't been able to adapt classics like Snow White and Cindarella? What if Alan Moore hadn't been able to do League? Copyright, particularly the unending variant we have these days, stifles the growth of culture. We don't have new myths, or legends, or folk tales, because they all come with a team of lawyers wanting their share, when they don't want to pulp your books. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 13, 2011 8:21:40 GMT -8
I disagree. Because if all those people who now fanwank their own Sherlock Holmes stories couldn't use the character, they'd be forced to come up with their own ideas. That is how it should work. I must counter your statement with Steven Moffat's Sherlock, which is a thing of beauty despite a weak second episode. Not really a counter. I haven't seen it yet (but I plan to, since I only heard good things about it), but from what I gather, they could have done the same thing with their own character. Especially considering that they already changed it enough to qualify. Exhibit B: Jennifer Garner's Miss Marple project. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 13, 2011 8:42:24 GMT -8
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Post by Anders on Jun 13, 2011 11:48:36 GMT -8
Exactly like Hellboy. (With a bit of the Jakowsky brothers' Frankenstein thrown in, possibly. But mostly just Hellboy.) |
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Post by jbhelfrich on Jun 14, 2011 13:08:51 GMT -8
Not really a counter. I haven't seen it yet (but I plan to, since I only heard good things about it), but from what I gather, they could have done the same thing with their own character. Especially considering that they already changed it enough to qualify. Exhibit B: Jennifer Garner's Miss Marple project. Not even remotely true. The cases needed an update in many ways, obviously, but the characters are very true to the original source material. The first episode contains a masterful mini-plot that neatly deals with the way that Conan Doyle could never keep straight if Watson used a cane or which leg was injured. Exhibit C: Kenneth Branaugh does Shakespeare. Hell, every Shakespeare performance just about ever, at least since the Globe closed. If modern copyright rules had been in existence for Shakespeare, every word he wrote would be an orphaned work and out of print. Exhibit D: Eyes on the Prize. A key, seminal work on the civil rights struggle in the United States. It currently CAN'T be shown, because licensing problems with many of the television clips used--and those can't even be considered creative works, just factual documentation and recording of events. But because some corporation somewhere must own the rights--even though in some cases, NO ONE IS SURE WHO THAT IS--there is no way to show it publicly, or produce new copies of it in modern media. |
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jun 14, 2011 20:14:28 GMT -8
This is starting to turn into the Public Domain debate which is located in a different thread. Just FYI. Feel free to continue as you see fit.
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Post by jbhelfrich on Jun 16, 2011 8:07:17 GMT -8
Yeah, I saw that thread after I responded first here, and skimming it made me angry, so I didn't write there.
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