NOTE: The individual opinions of each Roundtable contributor are their own, and is not representative of anybody but that contributor.
Robert Kirkman will be the next ULTIMATE X-MEN writer [Proof: Huzzah]
PAUL “MAN-AT-ARMS” SEBERT: Kirkman’s on a pretty major hotstreak. Let’s see if he manages to build on his momentum much like BKV did with his run.
WILL “EVIL-LYN” COOLING: Okay Robert Kirkman; now I may be wrong but hasn’t Marvel worked sucked a monkey’s anus without using a straw and/or condom? I mean I’m all for hot young creators who pushed the boundaries of what can be achieved with comic doing some yank superhero bullshit but is there any evidence that Kirkman is good at doing yank superhero bullshit? I mean everyone seems to be saying “this isn’t as good as his non yank superhero bullshit stuff”. Personally, they should have got Frank Miller to write it because gosh darn it haven’t we been waiting eons for a Wolverine/Kitty Pride S&M bondage session with extra whip…ped cream. I mean f*ck it, lets add Rogue and Peter Parker and make Logan an Irish Catholic Priest and then we can pretend its social commentary and not some sick perverted joke from some sad old has-been that doesn’t get the fact that he’s writing some sad wanker who dresses like a flying rat. Give me Adam f*cking West any day of the week.
PAUL SEBERT: Wow… Will’s in a cranky mood today.
In regards to Kirkman’s work at Marvel, I will say that MTU is currently one of the most consistantly entertaining books that the company is publishing.
Marvel news from Imperialistic Overlord Wizard World Boston [Details: Here]
PAUL SEBERT: You know, I bet they slipped Daniel “VENOM” Way in the roster of the 10 Terrific as a practical joke. That, or maybe “The Nine Nifty” just didn’t sound good.
I hate to pick on Frank Tieri’s new Underworld title before the first issue ships… but it’s premise sounds exactly like Bendis’ “Golden Age” arc from DAREDEVIL.
X-STATIX are returning… That’s fantastic but I honestly wish they’d change the name’s book back to X-FORCE just to irk Liefeld fans.
Warren Ellis’ Next Wave sounds… uh… very much like a Warren Ellis book.
Great to hear that RUNAWAYS is getting a major-league push. Personally I’d love to see them team up with some of the other teenage heroes introduced recently.
WILL COOLING: What else can I bitch, ah the Terrific Ten. So Let me get this straight; you’ve got a bunch of writers some who the public like and some the public don’t and you’re going to give them a big push. That’s despite the fact that for the past two years your marketing (such as it exists) has been character centred and not creator centred? And that you’ve got guys like Whedon who don’t need any pimping cause that good and everyone knows it and guys like Way and Hudlin who don’t need any pimping because their shit and everyone knows it. Of course its not for me to tell Marvel that this f*cking stupid gimmick, where they have ten titles in one week in some GRAND ULTIMATE AMAZING ASTONISHING HOUSE OF ABC EASING AS ONE TWO THREE gimmick never, ever works because you flood the market. I mean you’d think they’d learn to promote books as an ongoing process not just dump a load of books with lots of marketing in a random month because Joe Q is bored giving Brian Bendis man-boob jobs…or is it the other way round? I forget. Anyway this will bomb like the whole New Guns fiasco did, because half the books will be late and the other half will be shit.
I know nothing about Frank Teri but Staz Johnson is a good (British) artist so all the power to him with this yankee doodle shit he’s doing. Of course he should be back where he belongs drawing Rogue Trooper but I’ll let it pass because he makes more money working for Marvel than 2000AD. See conservative till I die!!!
“A cast for Warren Ellis’s “Next Wave” was announced. The characters involved are Monica Rambeux; Aaron Stack, the Machine Man, Boom Boom, Elsa Bloodstone and “The Captain.” “
And it’ll take Warren Ellis six issues to show that amount of plot progression. Sometimes I worry about Warren, I mean can you imagine him going to the supermarket:
Monday morning: Warren gets up, takes some drugs (man), shouts at the man (man), puts his slippers on and gets ready to go to the local costcutters.
Tuesday morning: Warren walks to the local costcutters. On his way he discusses with the local tramp/oracle (for it is he) about how quatum physics makes great butter and cheese. He then shoots said tramp with a bowel disrupter.
Wednesday afternoon: Warren Ellis stops to look at the magazines, he reads some porn, some manga and maybe some of Heat. But no comics but because nobody’s dumb enough to sell comics where people may be able to buy them. That’s f*cking stupid man.
Friday morning: Warren gets some milk; mostly that UH40 shite just because he’s cool and alternative. He also buys some red bull because goddammit he wants wings too.
Saturday evening: He gets to the pasty section and is dazzled by the choice. I mean to begin with he’s gotta decide whether to go with Gingsters or Pork Farms. Now to any normal human being this is a simple decisions as any sentient being will go with Gingsters but gosh darnit this is decompressed living. That decision finally made then he’s got to decide does he want a cornish, cheese and onion or steak pasty or perhaps a steak, bacon and cheese or cheese and onion slice or perhaps a sausuage roll or perhaps a pork roaster. Decisions, decisions.
Tuesday morning: Our hero finally reaches the till only for the till guy to be busty extra Y chromosome sporting busty lady who takes offence to his leering and decks him…whilst smoking all the fags and drinking all the whisky in the shop…because any transvestite…er I mean women can be just as manly as a er man!
Thursday morning: He finally gets home, only to find that its been knocked down by the CIA. However that’s okay man because the contracter is really a member of Greenpeace and is doing it despite it being totally against his beliefs. I have no idea why that’s a good thing, it just is dammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And that story probably moved a damn site faster than any of his Marvel work will. Anyone who buys Ellis’s work, work that when you compare to his recent DC work he obviously doesn’t give a shit about is a f*cking moron (and as a proud owner of ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE I must include myself in that catergory).
X-STATIX coming back? Good, I like X-STATIX. I also like Vodka and staying up till 7am and that’s why I talk complete gobshite at the moment. Tip-if you want to blow your man, get a big glass-pour two cans of red bull, four shots of vodka, four shots Red Hot and then down the bastard. Whilst f*cking drooling over Steph McMahon’s tits…man I’m one sad drokker.
I am I the only one who couldn’t give a shit about Stephen King writing for Marvel? I mean what will they get him to do-a spooky New Avengers/Daredevil/Ult. Spider-Man title where Jesse cuts himself whilst shaving? That’d be cool…the story…not Jesse cutting himself whilst shaving…well unless he was shaving his pubic hair then it could be funny. I mean can you imagine his angry attacks on Bendis, Millar, Christ, Scott Keith and Postman Pat delivered with the voice of a man with no testicles. It’s quite amusing.
Spider-Man’s going to loose an organ? I think they should get Kaienti to guest star and “chop off his pee-pee”. Its gold baby, Vince Russo told me so.
DC news from Cute & Cuddly Wizard World Boston [Details: Here]
PAUL SEBERT: Supergirl is fighting the Justice League in issue #4. Can Kara go one issue without getting in a mix-up/fight scene other superheroes? This title’s like cira-70s MARVEL TEAM-UP only without Spidey or any colorful villians.
A new version of the Black Hand is being introduced in the pages of GREEN LANTERN… which is good, because if DC’s SHOWCASE PRESENTS: GREEN LANTERN VOL. 1 taught me anything it’s that Hal really needs some good villians.
Greg Rucka calls the artwork on the new JONAH HEX series “Unbelievable.” Personally I’d rather see the character given “believable” art.
Captain Atom’s involved in a Wildstorm project… because you demanded it?!
WILL COOLING: “In discussing the new ongoing “Supergirl” story, DiDio noted that issue 4 would be featuring Supergirl “taking on the whole Justice League.”
A lot of people are taking this to mean that she’s going to be fighting the Justice League, but that’s bollocks, I mean how could a wee girl fight the buff, tough, ripped manly men of the JLA? No, what’s going to happen is that the JLA is going to put its recent troubles behind with a team building gang bang with a praise for who can make her scream the loudest (I think the prize is to be the one who tells Batman the didn’t touch his memory and he’s just an old senile bastard with alzhemiers). All the greats will be there; Superman with his fork dick (he’s an alien you know), Hal Jordan with his seven incher (Ben says Guy has a nine incher), Aquaman is more into fist-f*cking but he’s a King so he does it with class and of course Wonder Woman will get her 24 Carrort Golden Dildo out for some HLA. Of course Batman won’t take part, he says its because of the JLA wiping his mind but I say its because he’s got a really small dick…and christs knows Dick knows. Oh and of course Batman’s as gay as Midnighter.
ALL-STAR SUPERMAN looks f*cking amazing…you know why? Because its creators are British dammit, always a sign of a good comic. Can I just say that Grant Morrison is a f*cking genius, and that SEVEN SOLDIERS shows Brian Bendis how to do a crossover.
And why the f*ck does Bruce Jones have a job? He’s a bloody pillock who doesn’t know a payoff from a monkey sex. Of course if he was to accidentally include monkey sex* in one of his comic in lieu of one of his shitty payoffs then all would be forgiven.
Anyway I better go to bed now, I need to be up for 2 for my lecture.
*At the recent Dreddcon Fraze Irving revealed that he and JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE editor Alan Barnes had a long discussion about whether this seriously smoking woman should get jiggy with her Gorilla companion. Seriously. Of course this is the same magazine that gave us gay dino and tree sex. God I love The Meg.
KEVIN “ZODAK” MAHONEY: Well, that’s the most exemplary example of writing while intoxicated (or just possibly faking it) that I have ever seen. I have to ask… what’s a pasty? Over here in the States it’s something strippers use to cover their nipples onstage. Those weren’t made of steak or cheese last I looked.
And the Supergirl/JLA fight seems okay to me, so long as some part of it is Supergirl/Wonder Woman hair-pulling.
WILL COOLING: Firstly, my poor, sore head says I wasn’t joking (sob). Basically, I’d stayed up watching the RAW special and being that I know no one else at my uni who likes wrestling it became a heartwarming tale of one man, his bottle of vodka and a variety of caffinee heavy mixers. Worse I thought my shot glass was a single when it was a double; so I was heavy quaduple vodka mixed with quaduple Red Hot vodka/caffinee with Red Bull. So not only was I quite drunk I was on a mad caffinee high.
Also, I’m pretty sure Iain’s written better than pissed. Although its been so long since he’s been sober that he probably doesn’t notice now.
[IAIN – Who did what now? Huh? My arm keeps falling off…]
As for what a pasty is, well its only the most wonderful creation in the whole world, a thing of such genius and poetry that even a committed athiest like myself is forced to ask “surely no man can create such a wonder”. Basically its a pastry shaped cone (shaped a bit like a half moon) filled with various meat and vegetable fillings. Now, this is important, some people will try and pass off pastry rectangles filled with meat, cheese and onion, whatever as pasties. They’re not! These are slices, very nice but not pasties. Can’t believe you don’t have them in America, they’re what makes life worth living for.
To find out more about pasties visit Pastyman. Not an ideal site, but the best one I could find.
Nic Cage condemns his baby son to a lifetime of mocking by naming him Kal-El [Yeah: But Brandon Routh Still Stole The Role Of Your Dreams, So Get Over It]
“ORKO” COREN: Anyone remember this SNL sketch where a dad-to be is discussing baby names with the pregnant wife? They run through a ton of names like Jack, Dick, Peter, etc. Ben gets shot down cuz they might associate the kid with Ben & Jerry’s. The father is supersensitive because his name was (is) asswipe (Az Wee Pay).
Anyone wanna guess who played the father on this one? Anyone?
KEVIN MAHONEY: Hmmmm, well Kal-El is certainly less weird than Pilot Inspektor… I’m glad I’m not Jason Lee’s kid. That’s just too, too horrible.
WILL COOLING: That kid is soooo going to hate him by the time his 5…days old. To be honest after hearing this story, I hate Nic Cage too. What a cunt!
Brian Azzarello talks, slightly, about his new Western book LOVELESS [Read: This]
WILL COOLING: When I first saw this I was quite excited; I mean its f*cking ages (well 1992 to be exact) since we got a good Western and I’d be up for some Azzi written Western goodness. Then I saw that Frusin was the artist and my heart sank, I hated his stuff on HELLBLAZER. However, the artwork they show is pretty damn good so I may take a look. Plus, its seems to be more about the South ala Spaghetti Westerns than the West/Frontier ala Westerns which is another boon.
RUMOUR: Marvel will discontinue the Marvel Next imprint soon [Credit: Rich]
COREN: Damn, I know Marvel Next wasn’t the greatest line in the world, but some of the stories (more than others) were actually pretty good. SPELLBINDERS, however, wasn’t one of them.
WILL COOLING: No offence, to the creators concerned but I kinda hope it does. Marvel Next is a classic example of Marvel being a bunch of chickenshits. You see they think that superhero comics don’t sell to the wider public so they want to put out genres like Manga, romance, crime, etc. But because they daren’t break out the direct market system that overwhelmingly favours them they insist on making their crime, teenage romance, manga comics with superheroes in the starring role. We then get the classic case of the direct market hating the comics because there not superhero comics and the bookstore market hating because they have superheroes in them. The joke is that superheroes probably would sell if they exciting, cheap and fast paced comics aimed at children/teenages and sold them in accessible places such as cinemas or *gasp* newsagents but that’d be way too sensible for Marvel/DC to do. After all, what the world really, really wants is Batman to be a child rapist and murderer and for 40 X-Men comics a month.
PAUL SEBERT: Eh… this is the kind of thing that got me really depressed back when I used to do the old Marvel News & Views. I think there were some very good books that were part of the Marvel Next line (ARANA, GRAVITY, and LIVEWIRES) and some not-so-good (MACHINE TEEN… **Yawns**) but for all the progress that industry has made in the past few years the direct market’s still in a cold spell, living in the fallout of the crash of the ’90s. It’s not quite as bad as a couple of years ago when we actually had mini-series get cancelled in mid-run, but it’s still a bloody mess.
And I’m still at a loss for words for why some excellent books don’t sell, while just about any crap with a Bat or X logo still sells to a degree. I guess fans are to a degree still burned by the period in which there was a new company with a new superhero comic line every week and thus stick with what they know.
So just how do we get out of this mess? Well in their part the publishers have to just keep pushing new ideas until one inevitably sticks, and I think some fans need to re-examine their priorities.
Prediction: Arana and Gravity get folded into the line-up of Young Avengers or yet another incarnation of New Warriors around the time that Marvel announces the formation of yet another mini-imprint next year.
And can we get a designated roudtable poster for Will this week? I think he’s hitting the bottle again.
COREN: Honestly, I really hope GRAVITY sticks around, it’s the sort of title Marvel’s really been lacking lately..plus, it can’t hurt to give McKeever more work (and hey, GRAVITY is coming out twice within two weeks, what a nice change). ARANA will probably have sales enough to manage to stick around regardless of the line..Marvel has titles targeted at younger audiences regardless of and independent of the Marvel Next, so I guess there’s hope for the good titles…
..bah, who am I kidding.
PAUL SEBERT: To be honest, the inhindsight the Tsunami line might not be quite the bust it looked to be initially. RUNAWAYS had a very strong relaunch after it’s cancellation thanks to the success of the digest editions. NEW MUTANTS is still around in the form of NEW X-MEN: ACADEMY X. And SENTINEL eventually sold enough digest books for another round.
Perhaps what these books need is a few months off for people to discover the digests, and a heavily promoted “second season” if you will.
WILL COOLING: The thing that would make the “good books” sell is if Marvel published anthologies, i.e. 66pgs of new comics with a AAA title (i.e. ASTONISHING X-MEN) and then two lesser/newer comics as back up. Round the magazine off with text features/reprints and you’d have a top quality/value magazine that would sell and exposed the audience to more niche titles. With the overheards your saving, the room for more adverts and if you lowered the paper quality and junked the glossy covers you’d probably be able to sell them for 6ish dollars and still make a healthy profit.
Btw, if you go onto Moodspins you’ll see a list of my ten favourite political comics – its not the greatest column in the world but I thought it might be a cool topic to throw into this Roundtable.
PAUL SEBERT: I believe the last time Marvel experimented with an anthology title was MARVEL KNIGHTS MAGAZINE, which I believe lasted only about 6 issues.
Personally I’d like to see Marvel try something in a digest magazine format similar to the one used by ARCHIE and DISNEY ADVENTURES.
TRANSFORMERS #0 sets IDW sales record [Autobots: Roll Out]
KEVIN MAHONEY: TRANSFORMERS #0 is right around the corner. Hasn’t Iain been begging to review that for months? I think I may have him clean this bizarre mess up, and then shine my shoes. And then maybe I’ll let him review it when it debuts. Maybe.
[IAIN – Definitely maybe]
Mark Waid talks about the future of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES [Click: This]
KEVIN MAHONEY: Mark Waid’s interview about the Legion book solidifies why I would never ever read a Legion book quite nicely. They are the reboot favorites of the DCU. Even if I were to take a shine to a random Legion character (XS perhaps) there’s no guarantee she’ll ever have existed three years down the line. I’m glad that the concept is so popular that it survives these incredibly frequent continuity headaches, but I could never invest myself in the book knowing how regularly and severe they are. It’d be like self-mutilation without numbing yourself up with drugs first. And of course in the interview, Waid muses how sick he is of people (himself included) retelling the origin story; I like Mark’s work, I really do, but when will it occur to people that the way to keep from covering the same ground over and over is to quit rebooting the property!! This ain’t brain surgery folks.
Bill Willingham gives a DAY OF VENGEANCE post-mortem [Autopsy: Fun]
KEVIN MAHONEY: I passed on DoV (not a big fan of magic user stories in general) and this final blurb makes me wish I hadn’t. With luck, it’ll be traded. Otherwise, I may have to hunt the bins for it. I like the idea of Billy B. falling to his death at the end of a story; talk about a legitimate cliffhanger! And it really does sound like there will be a sequel, which I might break habit and check out if DoV was as good as the blurb led me to believe.
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