Call For Your Thoughts on Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle

With Blue Beetle ending next week, I'm planning an upcoming post on my other site commemorating the event.

If any fans of the series would like to participate with their thoughts about the Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle, feelings about the cancellation of the book, and hopes for his future with Teen Titans and beyond, please email me.

In the body of your email, please let me know that your writing is ok to post. I might edit some responses due to space.

Fangirl Fridays: The Knitty Gritty of Comics Today

Hi there,

This is just going to be a jumble of thoughts and links that have come up while surfing this fine Internet-thing --


Bring Out Your Dead?
A commentary on all the DC comic books that have been canceled as of late, plus speculation as to whether the end is near for Jonah Hex and Simon Dark.
This brings me back to what I have posted earlier about how many comics in the future might be put out in mini-series or "volumes" rather than be ongoing. After having the read the last three months worth of Amazing Spider-Man, I definitely see that dynamic in play, though within the banner of one title.
Jonah Hex is a perfectly good title with consistent quality. I think, however, its biggest strength lies in the collected editions.

Did you ever want a list of all the female comic book characters who have *not* been raped?
If roughly 80% of female characters have not been raped, does this debunk the "rape myth" of comics that says female characters are often raped?
I think it's not a question of bean-counting but of how the rapes that do occur are presented in the comic books.
Of course, these sorts of posts run the danger of discounting all concern over the rape of women in comics, since it is "only 20%."


I'm noticing more and more blogs are posting entire old stories that are in public domain, assumed to be in public domain, or that nobody really cares anyway what domain they're in.
I'm enjoying these stories immensely, here are two I've read recently:
"The Head Of The Family"
"The Cadmus Seed"
both by Jack Kirby, whose ability to draw really freaky disturbing shit should not be under-estimated.


I found this Comics Reporter post, "I Can't Even Bring Myself To Open This," rather amusing. It refers to an issue of DC/Wildstorm's X-Files. Having opened up the issue in the comic store, I did note the standard static art resembling various photo stills. This phenomena of so heavily using photo reference reminds me, of all things, of the work of Henry Darger. Darger's story is long and sad, but basically all you have no know for now is that part of his art consisted using the same source material as tracing templates over and over again. So when you look at Darger's art, you keep recognizing the same figures & faces. This is what a lot of comic book TV and movie adaptations look like to me, especially the ones with either uninspired art and/or ultra-strict approval requirements from the studios.

As a contrast, check out Charlie Adlard's work on X-Files for Topps. I think I heard something like his lack of on-model photo-referency art drove 20th Century Fox crazy. But at any rate, what Adlard did was how I think you really should adapt TV to comics. By realizing it ain't TV, it's comics.


Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't highlight John Rogers' thoughts the cancellation of Blue Beetle:

"Wow. It's almost as if basing your entire business model around a series of must-buy big event crossovers in a market with limited purchasing resources hurts your midlist."

and

"Let's put it this way -- stripping out distribution costs and our share of the rent for those nice DC offices in Mahattan, Blue Beetle could have cost fifty cents an issue at its worst sales level, and still paid Rafael and myself more than we made on the run of the book."

At this point, I can't see why any high-level person within the comics industry wouldn't be encouraging the development of their company's digital comics program. Webcomics may not a replacement for paper (well, in about 20 year they might be, at least for mass consumption), but they are going to play a bigger and bigger role in a publisher's total output.

The trends regarding this and other things are all around us. We can spend day after day ignoring them, thinking the clock will turn back. Or we could do our research and prepare, and get ahead of the curve. Even in a recession, those who diligently take the latter approach will find themselves not only better off -- but in a vastly better place once things improve.

And on that note, enjoy the start of your weekend, all!

DC: Out With The New, In With The Old

DC's Bold New Direction, as pictured in the LA Times

"What happens is that if a character doesn’t work, we go, ‘We got a brand new direction to put him in! We’re moving him into something new! We’re going to try something brand new and different!"

--Dan DiDio, bemoaning thinking outside the box and doing new things.

Back in 2007, I predicted that Blue Beetle, Firestorm, and Atom would eventually get axed, and soonish. The only thing I would want to clarify here is the phrase I used, "This is the likely fate for most ethnic reboots." As I said in my previous post: I believe that for the most part the comic book reading public have gotten past the race or ethnicity of a character, as long as the book is good. I honestly believe this. If these were such big "deal breakers," the film "Blade" wouldn't haven been so successful and essentially launched the age of the Marvel Movie.

But --

My concern is internally, within DC.


I swear on a stack of Bibles or in any court of law that while I was at DC, certain segments of editorial believed that "Black books didn't sell." Then the finger would be pointed at books like Batman: Orpheus Rising, starring an African-American character. There was a feeling like if you had one "Black Book," you filled your quota for the entire line. A pitch for another "Black Book"would be unofficially rejected because we "already had one." In a larger sense, there was a tendency to blame these sorts of factors for a book's demise rather than poor marketing or other circumstances. Bad Girls was a "Girl Book" -- girl books don't sell. Batman: Orpheus Rising was a "Black Book" -- Black books didn't sell.

Well, did you make an effort to target the right audience, to reach outside the box with your marketing and PR, or did you let the book die on arrival because you never had faith in it from day one?

(you know, complain to me that I'm being "negative" here all you want -- I don't care, this really happened, and it is damn relevant)

On the other side of the coin, around 2003 (I believe) we received a memo from Time Warner corporate that noted the lack of diversity in our comic books. This document was real, it did exist. Shortly after that, the current reboot of Firestorm was developed. We made up our new roster for JLA very carefully, actually counting the number of males and females, and noting their ethnicity.

We had Faith that this character would impress Time Warner

This mentality never works. You can't get to the point where you go "yay!" when a character like Faith (remember her?) is put on the team, because she is both a woman and Latino and you've "killed" two birds with one stone.

So my concern with the demise of a book like Blue Beetle is that internally, it will be perceived as failing because it was a "Hispanic Book." You can have one idiot -- and I'll bet you $100 (no, make that $500) this has already been said within editorial -- that will comment on the cancellations of Atom, Firestorm, and Blue Beetle and say it was because the characters weren't white. When I do not see that as the case at all!

The Runaways: A diverse cast and a brand new concept
that successfully reached the teen market

It is far more a question of defining and reaching the demographic that would best embrace these books. And, in the case of Blue Beetle, this would be the teen market who embrace The Runaways. Blue Beetle was a perfect book in every way to penetrate this market. But the bigger issue is, I don't think DC is thinking outside the box anymore:

“There’s a reason the characters are still enduring now. You have to identify what made each character survive through the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s…the sensibilities have changed with every decade, but these characters remain pretty much the same. So what is it in the characters that people recognize and identify with? You keep that at the core and change the world around them to make it contemporary and compelling.”

-- Dan Didio, affirming the enduring qualities of the Status Quo

Wow! LOTSH in "Adventure Comics" Again? ZOMG!

When your most exciting new development is a relaunch of Adventure Comics with Legion Of The Superheroes, it's clear what direction the company is taking. Nostalgia sells, I guess -- and it's probably relatively easy to produce. Just have Geoff Johns write every issue, and Alex Ross paint every cover. Bam! You're done.

I thought it was ironic that the new Batman cartoon is made in the style of 1950s DC. And in the first episode, you have Batman team up with the current Blue Beetle. Batman still has his title, because he is "enduring." But Jaime Reyes apparently isn't "enduring." Was he given enough of a chance?

Why Did "Blue Beetle" Fail?

Fans are mourning the end of the cult comic book Blue Beetle, which is ending its run with issue #36. Though sales have not been huge for the title, it had built a loyal fanbase and has been received with critical acclaim. But what went wrong? Why did Blue Beetle fail?

Well, one issue is the idea of a comic book series having to go 100 or 200 issues in order to be considered a "hit." I think this is an outdated concept. I'll go on a limb and suggest that largely, the comic book buying public and the comic creators do not have the attention span anymore to produce the huge, monolith runs that have defined much of the past. I mean, the current numbering on Detective Comics & Amazing Spider-Man may go on, but I don't foresee most of the series that have been launched within the last three years as going on to last 200+ issues.


Instead, what I believe you will have in the future are more mini-series or "volumes" of certain titles. Books with a planned end-point, extended by new mini-series or volumes if the public demands it. Viewed in this way, Blue Beetle was actually a great success. And quite adept at dodging the bullet. The title had rumors of cancellation swirling around it even in its infancy.

Let's go on to the content itself. I've only read the first two volumes of Blue Beetle trades, so my knowledge here is not all-inclusive.

The writing, by Keith Giffen and John Rogers, was generally very good. The characters were very well-delineated and engaging, and it was very successful in making the reader care about their lives and travails. It also had the trademark "Giffen Funny," which is always a plus. I think in later issues, when they got into the New Gods and stuff like that, things got a little dense and confusing at times. I enjoyed most from the series the unique world of Jaime Reyes, and did not like leaving it to engage in Fourth World and "big event" type stuff.


The art was good, but a little inconsistent. Cully Hamner's work was very striking and emblematic, but there were too many fill-ins. Ideally, you want to have the same artist and style on at least the first six or so issues that make up the first trade. Even though the fill-in artists were for the most part quite capable, this lack of consistency can hurt the viability of a young book. And Duncan Rouleau's art really didn't match the established style of the series at all.

Understand, this quibble about consistency of artists is not a mere nitpick; if we are looking at possible reasons why a book is not doing well, this has to be taken into account. My gut feeling when I see too many fill-in artists in a relatively new title? That something is wrong. That the company doesn't care, or has the title lower on their priorities, and/or that sales are poor and the "star" artist was yanked to work on other stuff.

But in general, the quality of the storytelling was quite high, and Jaime Reyes an excellent new character. So what else could have went wrong?


Did naming the book "Blue Beetle" help or hurt it in the end? Does the name cachet bump up sales -- or does such a drastic reboot alienate your core readership? When some hardcore readers saw it was not Ted Kord as BB anymore, but this new guy nobody has heard of before, did they resent it and stay away? Think about it, three reboots: Atom, Firestorm, and Blue Beetle. Relatively short runs. What if you had the same creative teams, the same stories, but slightly different powers and totally different superhero names?

What if Blue Beetle was instead called "Shellshock" or something?

Does "legacy" hurt or help?

When considering this, we should keep in mind that Barry Allen and Hal Jordan were once in similar situations.


Did the fact that the new Blue Beetle was Hispanic hurt the book in any way? I really don't think that was a factor (outside of those Ted Kord fans who wanted to see "their" BB), and I think most readers are open-minded enough at this point to embrace a well-done comic no matter the race or nationality of its characters. It is fairly obvious that BB/Jaime Reyes is one of the best new characters DC has thought up in the last several years, and that his ethnicity has only enhanced and enriched his comic book. In fact, he was so so popular, he was chosen to be the first guest-star in the new "Brave and Bold" cartoon series -- debuting, ironically enough, during the week of Blue Beetle's announced cancellation.

Finally -- is the mass market of comic book readers accepting of any new comic that doesn't involve a Bat, an "S," a spider, or an "X"? Certainly, books like Captain America, Thor, and Green Lantern do well. But what about brand new concepts? Or reboots that stray too far away from the "established" history? How much of a chance do they really have?


Or did books like Blue Beetle have the potential to reach beyond that traditional market and reach teenagers who might not even read comics? And reach women? Or even, if DC had decided to put out more Spanish-language issues, reach whole new relatively untapped (and huge) markets?

My final assessment: I'm not surprised Blue Beetle was canceled. If anything, I'm surprised books like that and Manhunter lasted as long as they did. I expected them to fail not because I thought the books were crappy, but because I'm cynical. However, I do think DC's decision to cancel the book is shortsighted. Why couldn't they have followed through and start a test program where they put Blue Beetle out in both Spanish and English? Or why didn't they follow Marvel's lead and market the title more aggressively to teens, even down to a more digest-sized format?

In this situation, there is only one person who wins:

Keep Blue Beetle Going And Cancel Titans Instead

Like that will actually happen. More likely, Blue Beetle (which just got canceled) gets rolled into Teen Titans, while Titans limps along until a new "reboot" ("mea culpa, the new book sucked but we've got this awesome direction now, disregard everything else, we've got it right now").

You know, I'm looking up all the comics that inspired me as a kid, and I just bought the Wolfman/Perez "Terror Of Trigon" Teen Titans trade. The stuff is so good it actually hurts. The detail George Perez put into composing even one panel was mind-boggling. I didn't know half the back story in that arc but Marv Wolfman made it so I understood what was going on anyway, and I still cared about the characters. That arc was so special, it was like an event -- but it wasn't an event, they were just regular issues.


I see that a lot with the old trades I buy. The stories seem so special and well-done that they seem like events. But they were monthlies. The comic creators involved -- and most likely the marketing teams -- didn't act like the book was god's gift to humanity, "instant collector's items." They were just doing their job; they were just comics, created to inspire and entertain.

What went wrong? Did the "star" system of comic creators starting in the late 80s/early 90s make people complacent, even lazy? Did the quality of the editors go down? Did some editors become "afraid" to properly edit "star" books and "star" creators (I've see this happen)?


Or is it a case like in the 1990s where books like Titans appeal to the broad base, regardless of quality, and that's good enough? Whereas a critically acclaimed book like Blue Beetle just doesn't pull in the numbers, doesn't appeal to that broad base, and so is canceled? And if that's the case, does the buck stop (literally) not with the editors or the creators but with the public?

Or, taking into account the comparative direct market shares for DC and Marvel, has that already been decided, and is the easy-to-please "lowest common denominator" audience not so much the public as Time Warner itself?

Which Blue Beetle Do You Like Best?

Fan-favorite Blue Beetle has certainly gone through many changes over the years -- and several companies to boot! It all made me wonder: who is the most beloved version of the character?

Is it:

Dan Garrett?

Ted Kord?

or

Jamie Reyes?

And remember, everyone -- some of you might have really passionate opinions as to what *your* favorite incarnation of the azure-hued daredevil is. But let's play nice -- every opinion counts.

Newsarama Commenter: "Stop Putting Spanish in My DC Comics!"

A Newsarama commenter complains about the Spanish-language issue of Blue Beetle:

"I thought it was the first ever comic that bordered on racism. DC: Now forcing its readers to read Spanish."

I know, DC -- you thought you were doing something right, sort of expanding your scope a bit. But in reality -- you are forcing your readers to read Spanish!


The fact is, Latinos are one of the fastest-growing populations in the United States. DC and Marvel both should be putting out some Spanish-language comics -- not just translations of their existing comics, but comics specifically for that growing population. And not just for that population -- but for the English-speaking young people who could use some early introduction to Spanish! If the Dora the Explorer people can do it and have tons of both Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking fans, surely comic companies can do it.

"Why am I a bigot? Because I want foreign people coming to an English speaking country to learn, I don’t know, ENGLISH???? I assume in your perfect world, everyone will speak Mexican and we’ll all be happy when illegal immigration causes the economy to collapse."

That said, I should point out that despite the overwhelming number of Newsarama commenters who "corrected" Dave, the sad fact is that there are probably a number of people grumbling under their breath about the book. They see this book written in Spanish and consider it threatening, a confirmation of all their xenophobic fears. The world is changing, and it frightens them to death. But this doesn't mean the comic book industry shouldn't change.

The problem for the longest time had been that people like that Newsarama commenter had some level of influence from within these comic companies -- they were afraid of change and social progress. They either blocked that change in their books or presented a lame version of it. Now that things have shifted, we need to keep moving forward and have progress. But, make no mistake -- you will see more angry fans crawl out of the woodwork and complain about it. There will be a backlash -- but it will be one with more bark than bite.

(Waiting for O'Reilly to hold up a copy of Blue Beetle #51 on his show and say: "DC is forcing America to read Spanish!")