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Thursday, June 28, 2007

On Wieringo's blog, found via Journalista:

"This one hits a bit closer to home since I was in on his very beginnings, having been asked to design his IMPULSE persona when Mark Waid created the character in FLASH (which granted me the title of ‘co-creator’…"

"My feeling is that in recent years, the quality of writing in comics has diminished. Maybe it’s not the writers’ fault… maybe it’s editorial edict that has replaced good story, plot and character development with the stunt… the event… to sell comics."

"What do the rest of you think? Am I that far off base….? Anyone read FLASH #13…? Did you find it to be a good story? Feel free to leave your thoughts on any of this."

and the responses...

"I also felt weird reading a comic that featured a bunch of middle-aged men in bright costumes kicking a teen-ager to death. It just strikes me as the kind of thing that I don’t want to pay $3 for."

"So many characters at both Marvel and DC have died that the events lose its impact. I personally don ‘t care about a character dying unless its for a good reason or there ’s a great story / a good motivation for it. Comics seem to be completely event-driven now."

"Honestly, the character who died had little in common with Bart Allen/Impulse, and really hadn’t for years."

"This whole “a Flash must die” bit is pretty stupid. Barry’s death was about something and instead of moving the characters, they try to rehash the same thing. Magic usually works only once, time these companies learned that."

7 comments:

  1. It's been many years since I collected comic books, but every now and then I get to glance at the stuff that's out there. Even when I stopped seriously collecting about a decade ago, I could see the writing on the wall. The artwork was becoming more important than the story.

    Don't get me wrong. I think the artwork is an important part of the storytelling process in comic books, but it's gotta start with a good script/story. Good stories come from good characters and that requires time for decent character development. All the crossover events have stunted the opportunity for the character development. It was tough enough "back in the day" to get in that character development with twelve issues a year, but everything seems to stand still for the "crossover" events.

    Then I remember seeing "Image Comics" come along. Could the title of that line have been any more accurate. Beautiful looking comics that, for the most part, had very weak stories.

    I remember when John Romita, Jr. did the artwork on "The Uncanny X-Men." Not the flashiest looking stuff in the comic's history, but the character development in those stories was great stuff.

    As for characters dying... I agree. Don't give people these ludicrous "big events." Let the characters die in the right time and place... dictated by the story. And when a character dies... for pity's sake, leave the character dead! Is that so hard?

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  2. i thought a bunch of middle aged men kicking a teenager to death was awfully horrifying.

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  3. "i thought a bunch of middle aged men kicking a teenager to death was awfully horrifying."

    especially since there was some effort in "Countdown" to give some of these "Flash" villains a modicum of humanity & character.

    then it's like: "let's kick the teen Flash to death! woo!"

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  4. well countdown only gave humanity to the trickster and piper in my opinion, the rest are evil a-holes

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  5. Yet note that the aforementioned Piper and Trickster participated in the "kicking to death." In Countdown, Piper goes well out of his way to *not* kill someone, yet in "Flash," he willingly participates in a brutal murder.

    These people have no idea what they're doing.

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  6. Someone on CBR referred to comics like this as "Super Snuff Porn".

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  7. I'm surprised no-one's pointed out the quality shortcomings of Bart's death - poor writing being the main culprit.
    His death was a little bit Watership Down, with the Black Flash/ Black Rabbit of Death coming for the hero, and I thought it was a bit of a pity the candlelight vigil wasn't enlivened by everyone singing 'Bright Eyes' - come on, people, that was Aert Garfunkel's only hit! He needs the royalties! I thought Bart's last words were a bit like that Star Trek movie where Captain Kirk dies of falling over and breaking his hip or whatever.

    If I was a cynical man, I'd say someone had a grudge against those pesky Young Justice kids and their damned cheek for poking fun at the deadly serious conventions of stories about men in tight-fitting leather and spandex wrestling each other in public, but no such person could possibly exist - and even if they did, the guys in DC editorial would stop them grinding their irrational axes at the expense of the franchise. It is a business, after all, and not one individual's violent adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy.

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