New Comic Day Nose Bleed
Wednesday. Every Wednesday has the potential to be a day of bliss, full scale war, or a day to grit your teeth. Well, I suppose every day has the potential for those, but New Comic Day is either a day of mourning or celebration for We, The Comic Nerds of America. Now, because I'm really just not all that impressed by any of the Men In Tights books that are currently out, I hit up www.comiclist.com every Tuesday to scope out the rest of the weeks goodies. This week, the Vertigo book Testament dropped, which like most Vertigo books, looks worth it. However, this as a whole has felt like a rather depressing day for comics.
While at the checkout, I was handed a book entitled Hyper Actives as a free promo. Put out by Alias, I shuddered as I paged through it on the toilet once I was home. Let me go back a few years before we go forward. When Image Comics was founded back in the 90's, it completely changed the way comic books were handled. Not adhearing to the comic code, nor really aiming for a younger audiance was something a company, as a whole, had never really done before. And between Rob Leifield and Todd Mcfarlane, the art was even more intense and characturized that ever before. And it made sense. At that point in time, the need to say Bitch and Shit in a comic was needed like never before, because all those kids that grew up reading comics were now just that, growing up. And quite frankly, if you want to breach the typical comic fan, who will read the same titles until they are 15 and then never again or read the same titles until they lose their virginity sometime in their mid forty's. And not only that, but the way the contracts between the company and the creators at Image was also unheard of, allowing the creators a kind of freedom not widely available in the past. And it was good.
Flash forward to end of 2005. We are now faced with a culture of comics were nothing is really all that taboo. Drugs, religion, sexuality, abuse, etc. And that's all availible just on the current Vertigo roster. With the introduction of computers, art is more varied now more than ever. Templesmith, Wood, Williams, Powell, Magnolia, Kelly, etc. A whole slew of brand new styles as well as the stuff we're used to. However, we are also now in a time where we have artists that have grown up on McFarlane, Leifield, Joe Mad! and Michael Turner. Now, this wouldn't be much of an issue, save for the fact that we, as comicbook artists, have this tendency. Esspiecally when concerning super hero books. If you look back at each generation, they are more exagerated and intense then their predicesor. So now, we have some of them most flat out ugly looking people. Just....bad. But what really scares me is that these are the books that get the push ya know? Local just came out, and since I'm going to mention one of Brian Wood's books in a bit here. Local came out, and the first five pages are better writen and drawn better then anything in the pages of Hyper Actives. But I couldn't even find Local outside of Manhatten in New York, let alone finding a free issue of it. Why. That is what I want to Know. WHY. Why is it that I can find some twenty odd books priced above $3 on the shelves every week of Hyper Active's calibur, that I wouldn't even use as toilet paper, but I can find a bargin bundle of Brian Woods Fight for Tomorrow for four bucks?
Now, there is a lot of good in the scene right now, and a lot of books that are breaking new ground. And I know that if every comic on the shelves was a groundbreaking book, we'd lose any sort of foundation. But sometimes I wonder if that would really be all that bad.
-A
While at the checkout, I was handed a book entitled Hyper Actives as a free promo. Put out by Alias, I shuddered as I paged through it on the toilet once I was home. Let me go back a few years before we go forward. When Image Comics was founded back in the 90's, it completely changed the way comic books were handled. Not adhearing to the comic code, nor really aiming for a younger audiance was something a company, as a whole, had never really done before. And between Rob Leifield and Todd Mcfarlane, the art was even more intense and characturized that ever before. And it made sense. At that point in time, the need to say Bitch and Shit in a comic was needed like never before, because all those kids that grew up reading comics were now just that, growing up. And quite frankly, if you want to breach the typical comic fan, who will read the same titles until they are 15 and then never again or read the same titles until they lose their virginity sometime in their mid forty's. And not only that, but the way the contracts between the company and the creators at Image was also unheard of, allowing the creators a kind of freedom not widely available in the past. And it was good.
Flash forward to end of 2005. We are now faced with a culture of comics were nothing is really all that taboo. Drugs, religion, sexuality, abuse, etc. And that's all availible just on the current Vertigo roster. With the introduction of computers, art is more varied now more than ever. Templesmith, Wood, Williams, Powell, Magnolia, Kelly, etc. A whole slew of brand new styles as well as the stuff we're used to. However, we are also now in a time where we have artists that have grown up on McFarlane, Leifield, Joe Mad! and Michael Turner. Now, this wouldn't be much of an issue, save for the fact that we, as comicbook artists, have this tendency. Esspiecally when concerning super hero books. If you look back at each generation, they are more exagerated and intense then their predicesor. So now, we have some of them most flat out ugly looking people. Just....bad. But what really scares me is that these are the books that get the push ya know? Local just came out, and since I'm going to mention one of Brian Wood's books in a bit here. Local came out, and the first five pages are better writen and drawn better then anything in the pages of Hyper Actives. But I couldn't even find Local outside of Manhatten in New York, let alone finding a free issue of it. Why. That is what I want to Know. WHY. Why is it that I can find some twenty odd books priced above $3 on the shelves every week of Hyper Active's calibur, that I wouldn't even use as toilet paper, but I can find a bargin bundle of Brian Woods Fight for Tomorrow for four bucks?
Now, there is a lot of good in the scene right now, and a lot of books that are breaking new ground. And I know that if every comic on the shelves was a groundbreaking book, we'd lose any sort of foundation. But sometimes I wonder if that would really be all that bad.
-A