Tagged: Chris Claremont

Glenn Hauman: Is Binge-Reading Bad For Comics?

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On a whim the other day, I decided to go re-read some old Warlock comics.

It was an extremely mind-blowing experience, and not for the usual reasons when reading Warlock.

The issues blurred by in a smear— or maybe that was the old crappy printing. The seams in the stories were much more visible than I remembered. Things that seemed deep and profound just came off as silly and obvious. Even Adam Warlock himself, instead of being the tormented golden child trying to find his place in the universe, sounded and acted like a whiny brat.

Why? What happened? Was this book hit by the suck fairy?

No, that wasn’t it. It was because I was taking it in waaaay too fast. These books were simply not designed to be consumed one after the other so quickly.

You may have noticed this phenomenon yourself.

Scott McCloud spends a chapter in Understanding Comics about the way time flows when you read comics, how time is perceived, and the relationship between time as depicted in the comics by the creators and how it’s perceived by the reader. But, amazingly, he missed one important unit of time— the gap in time (and therefore reading) imposed from publishing.

We’ve talked for a long time about comics being written for the trades — that moment where we gather up six or so issues at a time, every six months or so, and put them together for a single unit of consumption. But for a lot of history, comics weren’t like that. There were no trades to be had. There were just single issues that you had to wait a month for. (Or, depending on where you grew up, you waited a week for 5-8 page chunks of stories, either in The Spirit section of the Sunday paper or something like 2000 AD.)

There were gaps of time. Cliffhangers. Come back next issue, kids!

Comics creators in the past used those intervals at the same time they were constricted by them. Chris Claremont was mocked for years for reintroducing all the X-Men every single issue, but he knew that every issue was going to be somebody’s first, while other readers were just going to have forgotten who was who over a month’s time. (And over time, X-Men became the most popular title Marvel published. He had to be doing something right.)

The biggest beneficiary of this gap? I claim it was Watchmen. Readers were tossed into a such a deeply detailed world where we were trying to just get more – we had to read the back matter of the issues, the non-comics stuff which hinted at a much larger world because there was nothing else to read. And fans would pore over it and discuss and argue while waiting, waiting for the next issue.

Around 400,000 readers read Watchmen episodically, you can tell who was screaming over the three-month gap between issues #10 and #11. But since then, there’s been the Watchmen collected editions, which is the way most people have read it in the three decades (yikes!) since with a total print run well over 4 million copies at this point.

And I really have to wonder… how are the new folks reading it? Are they going straight through? Are they skipping over the text pieces, and maybe coming back later? I don’t know, but I do know that they don’t have to wait for the next installment… and that has to change how the book impacts you.

What do you think?

Joe Corallo: The New X-Men Blues

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x-men-blue-8419253juggernaut-7898195Last week I wrote an open letter to Marvel about what the X-Men mean to me, primarily as a reaction to X-Men Gold #1. If you missed it, you can read it here. Since then, X-Men Blue #1 has come out. I read it, so now you get to read me talking about it.

Although I’ll be avoiding the biggest spoilers, if you are looking to avoid any and all spoilers for this comic I suggest you go give it a read before you continue.

Oh, you already read it and can keep going? That’s great!

X-Men Blue #1 is written by Cullen Bunn, drawn by Jorge Molina and Matteo Buffagni, colored by Matt Milla and lettered by Joe Caramagna. Cullen Bunn is someone I’ve been a fan of for a while now; it’s really hard not to enjoy Bunn’s writing. I’m really looking forward to reading his, Danny Luckert and Marie Enger’s Regression over at Image Comics. You can read an interview with them on this new series here. It was Cullen Bunn’s involvement in this series that made me excited about this particular X title.

After reading it I have to say that Cullen Bunn did not disappoint. He took what could have easily been a rough start to a series and crafted a tight, fun story that didn’t take itself too seriously throughout. That way, when the reveal at the end of the issue is made, it hits you harder. Tone is important and Cullen Bunn knows how to make you feel every panel of every page without feeling pandered to.

The art of Jorge Molina and Matteo Buffagni creates exciting page layouts the move the story along at breakneck speed when it needs to and is aided by the primary use of wide across panels and tall thin panels. My only complaints are that everyone looks too young and pretty –especially Black Tom Cassidy – and I don’t care for the new Juggernaut design. It’s too Bane.

Matt Milla’s colors are bright and really pop. It only gets dark mostly when dealing with Juggernaut and on the last couple of pages, which helps the mood greatly and in particular moves the reader on the second to last page of the main story to start feeling the sense of dread before they even get to the reveal. Excellent coloring.

x-men-pin-up-9087289x-men-1-5675840There are two problems that jump out to me from this book that are no fault of the creative team. First, that the book doesn’t necessarily fit with the 90s nostalgia that these X books represent. This isn’t the old Blue team, but rather the original team of the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby years minus Professor X. While it made sense in the 80s to bring the original team back in X-Factor as the Lee and Kirby run was on only two decades old, it makes less sense when it’s five decades old. Anyway, after a few years they completely changed the X-Factor team back. You have so many great, compelling X characters to have a team limited like this seems entirely unnecessary. Now maybe the team will change in the next few issues or do, but the issue #1 is where you wanna grab people and it’d be a shame if people skip out on this because of this particular team, with the team on X-Men Gold being far more interesting character wise.

The second problem spins out of the first. We end up with a team that’s all cis white characters. A major problem with some of these older comics is that they are straighter, more cis, more male and more white than what people today would often expect. Even straight cis white male readers who are against diversity in comics at least expect their to be diversity, or else what are they going to yell about on Twitter?

That’s the danger with nostalgia. You can often go the route of nostalgia or go the route of diversity, but it becomes difficult to wed the two – particularly when the property in question is over fifty years old. There is a reason people like Len Wein, Chris Claremont, and Dave Cockrum made the team more diverse, and it seems silly to be taking steps back like this.

Despite how some people have reported on the Marvel Retailer Summit, Marvel has not come out and said they are anti-diversity. This particular team doesn’t ring true to what many X books have stood for the past few decades. You can’t point to Jean Grey being the leader as being terribly progressive when she’s the only woman on a team of five, and it’s hard to point to Iceman as being particularly progressive here when his orientation isn’t really discussed. That won’t be the case in Sina Grace’s Iceman, which I’m really looking forward to reading.

Look, nostalgia can be complicated, and can often be very, very white. That doesn’t make it bad reading. Like I said, I enjoyed reading this book. These problems with nostalgia still need to be looked at, and maybe a few issues or so down we will have a shake up with this team to have it feel more like a book in the spirit of the X-Men. And with Cullen Bunn at the helm and the reveal at the end of this issue, I feel like that’s a very real possibility.

John Ostrander: Legion

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And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

• Talking Heads, Once In a Lifetime

Okay, I’ve finally found a TV superhero show I like more than The Flash, which is saying a lot. It’s Legion, Wednesdays at 10 PM (ET) on FX, and it stars Dan Stevens in a role that’s world’s away from his stint on Downton Abbey. He plays David Haller, a man who may be the world’s strongest telepath and, because of his schizophrenia – their diagnosis, not mine – perhaps the most dangerous.

The show is from 20th Century Fox in association with Marvel TV and is the first to link with the X-Men movie franchise which, for contractual and bureaucratic reasons, is separate from the Mighty Marvel Movie Franchise over at Disney. It’s not only unlike any other superhero TV show out there. In fact, it’s different from any other TV show, period.

What makes Legion so different is the use of the concept of the Unreliable Narrator. That concept means the reader/viewer cannot trust the facts of the story as presented. The device is most commonly used in fiction with a first person narrator, but it can be used in film and television and it’s being used very effectively here in two ways.

The show’s creator and showrunner, Noah Hawley (who also wrote and directed the first episode), wants the show to be told from Haller’s perspective. The story is about him, but since he can’t trust his own memories neither can we. His perception of reality around him may be off as well. David is an unreliable narrator.

At the same time, Hawley skews the design elements so that they match Haller’s mindset and are disorientating to us. His way of presenting David’s life cannot be wholly trusted either. Hawley is also an unreliable narrator.

There’s a key moment in the first episode when David’s being held at Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital (which itself seems to be a nod to A Clockwork Orange) where he is drugged, tested, questioned, evaluated. There’s a strong suggestion of a sinister governmental organization – as if there is any other kind – called Division 3 who seem ready to kill Haller.

David is eventually rescued by his sort of girlfriend named Sid and people connected with a place called Summerland run by Dr. Melanie Bird. There’s running and people shooting at them but, in the middle of the escape, David stops and begs of Sid, “Is all this really happening? Are you real?” She reassures them that it is happening, she is real, and they must run.

Those questions, for me, are the center of the episode and maybe of the series. Is this real? Is this happening? Can David trust it? Can we?

In the second episode, David – now safely (?) at Summerland, is being helped by Dr. Bird and her associates. Dr. Bird insists that David is not crazy; the voices he hears are part of his telepathic powers manifesting and always have been. One of her associates helps guides David through buried or forgotten memories but, again, we’re not certain how reliable those memories are and neither is he.

As I’ve been thinking about the show, I’m now questioning even what I think I know. What if Summerland is not the beneficial place we’ve been told it is? What if kindly Dr. Bird is not all that kindly and the evil Division 3 folks are really the good guys? What if David Haller himself is not a “hero” but more of an anti-hero or even an outright villain? He’s is the Legion of the title and I’m put in mind of the gospels of Mark and Luke where Jesus meets a man possessed of demons who says “My name is Legion for we are many.” David has a lot of voices inside him.

If you know my work, you can see why I’m fascinated by the show. It may not be for everyone; you may prefer your heroes and villains a little more clearly identified. Me, I’m fascinated by it. I like murky.

The character of Legion was created by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz in Marvel’s The New Mutants #25 where he was the son of Charles Xavier, Professor X of the X-Men. The TV show doesn’t precisely follow the comics’ continuity but I think it’s very true to the concept, re-interpreting it for this day and age. I’m fine with that.

The show demands attention and some thought. I hope that it has some answers for the questions it poses, unlike such shows as Twin Peaks and The X-Files). Right now, I’ve settled in for the ride.

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? Am I wrong?
And you may say yourself, “My God! What have I done?” 

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Marc Alan Fishman: Where’s the Spotify of Comic Books?

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Go check your phone or computer for the date. Did yours denote the year 2016? Mine did. In the immortal words of my muse, Bartholomew Simpson… “God-schmod, I want my monkey man!”

Now Bart was referencing a future in which humanity would have half-man/half-monkey hybrids as pets. While I too would love such an abomination on the open market, I come today in search of another future technology that seemingly should exist, but for whatever reason… isn’t. I come in search of a universally accepted streaming comic book service.

To date, I believe the most ubiquitous platform for digital comic book consumption is comixOlogy. They, like iTunes, offer an exhaustive catalog of periodicals of the pulpy nature. You find the ones you want, you purchase them, and you’re treated to enjoying them in a proprietary reader. Your digital library is always available to you, and can be read on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones alike. It’s not a bad system. But then again… it is.

I have never read Chris Claremont’s X-Men. Nor Peter David’s Hulk. I have not glimpsed at a single panel of Denny O’Neil’s Green Lantern / Green Arrow. In all instances, it’s not that there isn’t desire. It’s that I know to enjoy those tomes, I would need to sacrifice the purchase of modern books. And somehow the threat of missing what’s going on now always trumps the desire to read something that I know I’ll love. It’s the reason it took me two years after the end of Breaking Bad to actually watch the pilot. It’s the same reason I waited 33 years to begrudgingly watch Doctor Who.

In all other major media, there is a shift occurring. Because digital media needs only storage to remain viable to the consumer, the rise of subscription services are creating new audiences by burying them in an unending pile of content. Content accessible without restriction – save only for an affordable monthly fee. With Netflix, I can access an astoundingly large library of TV and movies for a tenth of what I’d spend on cable service. For less that I’d spend on a single CD, I can access Spotify and with it more music than I could ever hope to listen to in a lifetime. It seems a shame that somehow amidst all these successful services, we’ve yet to see comics do the same.

What’s holding them back? Perhaps the complicated legality of it all. Figuring out royalties for an individual item can’t be easy. Hell, don’t we all remember when TayTay Swift threw a (still ongoing) hissy about her music?  You see, Spotify and the like pay on a complicated system of plays, royalty percentages, and the actual number of paying subscribers. That way, artists may be inclined to pimp their streaming albums as means to the end. What it equates to is an average of $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream. Music though, is often a repeated enjoyment. Comics, not so much.

Take my music consumption habits for example: I make a few playlists of things I like to jam out to. One list (“Guilty Pleasures”) exists as a bank where songs check in and check out until I’m sick of them. I’ll play this list of 20-30 songs almost 4-5 times in a given week. Each song stays in my playlist for about two months or so. Anyone doing the soft math would eventually realize that in those plays, I don’t even come close to paying even the $0.99 it’d cost to purchase the song outright on iTunes. But, the artists still let ride. Why?

I’d like to think for the same reason I’d be more than happy to see my own indie titles in a subscription service where I was paid pennies for downloads. Because I know at the end of the day, content purchase is only one revenue stream. I purchase tangible CDs and graphic novels from musicians and artists I love via their crowdfunding campaigns. I purchase tickets to concerts. And I socially share things I like to those who I think might like it too. This leads to secondary and tertiary means by which the content creators I love ultimately see success. When it comes to comics, sure, we might enjoy accessing a large library of readables digitally. But we’ll also attend comic-cons where we’ll tempted to enjoy the collectible side of our favorite medium. That means the same book now potentially raises revenue multiple times. I’d consider that a win in my book.

At the end of the day, let’s be honest: It’s Marvel and DC’s passive-aggressive war with one another that will prevent a service such as I desire. They’ll continue to keep a stranglehold on their licensable properties and await the sales to spike when the next movie or TV show debuts. They’ll await the demise of the original creators still drawing a royalty on their creations.

And off to the side, great publishers like Image, Boom! and the like will push the boundaries of the medium, and enjoy their continued rising success in the direct market – small as it may be in terms of bottom line profits. Strange then to think that if the music industry could find a reasonable solution, that pulp and paper will continue to keep their heads in the sand.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Previously, on X-Men…

  • News
  • February 2, 2013

What…? I mean… WHAT?!?

You know, I never thought I’d think of the Chris Claremont days as the uncomplicated days of X-Men, but…

Related articles

Marvel Movie Round-Up UPDATED

  • News
  • August 8, 2011

As this summer season winds down, Sony is looking three years ahead. According to Deadline, they have already staked out May 2, 2014 for the sequel to 2012’s Amazing Spider-Man. James Vanderbilt, who penned the first script, has already been tapped for the sequel although it’s way too soon to know anything about the content. The first film continues production although footage shown at Comic-Con International wowed skeptical audiences. Additionally, fans were stunned when star Andrew Garfield took the mike, dressed in a store-bought Spidey suit and read from notes about what the character means to him, apparently truly heartfelt words.

UPDATE:  The Hollywood Reporter says that Marvel has staked out two weekends in 2014 for two unnamed films. Two weeks after the Spider-Man sequel, May will see Marvel To Come #1. The second Marvel movie will open June 27, and since that’s around July 4 we’re willing to bet this will be eventually be called Captain America 2 .

Meanwhile, Naturi Naughton, about to be seen weekly in NBC’s The Playboy Club, has been signed to portray Cecilia Reyes in 20th Century-Fox’s The Wolverine. The sequel, starring Hugh Jackman, is in production for a 2012 release. Directed by James Mangold, the story is largely based on the classic Wolverine miniseries written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Frank Miller and is set in Japan. Reyes was not a character in that story, introduced decades later.

In the Marvel Film Universe proper, 2013’s Thor 2 may see Brian Kirk in the director’s chair. Kirk, who gained acclaim for his work on HBO’s Game of Thrones, would replace Kenneth Branagh, who bowed out recently.

In a decision seeming out of left field, Twitchfilm reports that Marvel Studios has placed the futuristic Guardians of the Galaxy into active development. First introduced in Marvel Super-Heroes #18, released in 1969, the quartet of freedom fighters from the 27th Century. The team has grown and evolved through the years with more than a few ties to the modern day Marvel Universe. Whether those connections would remain on screen is unknown. It joins Black Panther, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Iron Fist in the second tier of characters being readied.

While an early announcement, Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not the first major property to stake out 2014 dates. Already on the schedule are DreamWorks’ Mr. Peabody & Sherman, due out March 21 and their How to Train Your Dragon 2 is expected June 20. In the same THR report, Pixar has claimed Memorial Day weekend for an untilted film as well.

As for Marvel’s rival, DC Entertainment has announced no super-heroics beyond 2013’s Supeman: Man of Steel although The Flash, Green Lantern 2, and Justice League of America were all recently mentioned by Wanrer Bros. President Jeff Robinov as being developed

Interview: Chris Claremont on ‘X-Men Forever’, part 2

  • News
  • August 24, 2009

This is the second part of a very long interview with Chris Claremont that started on the topic of X-Men Forever and branched into a number of other areas. Part one of the interview is here, and we recommend reading it to get up to speed. Warning: plot points are discussed up to X-Men Forever #5 at least, do not read this interview if you want to be spoiled.

ComicMix: X-Men Forever– this isn’t just you taking your old X-Men script from 1991 and picking up where you left off.

Chris Claremont: No. The point is that I took my concepts from 1991 and sat down and looked at the team and rethought the whole thing.  The difference is that the scripts in 1991 were a whole series of arcs that in more than a few cases had ended up being echoed, if not outright adapted, by subsequent writers.

CM: In the same vein, since your initial run on the X-Men, a lot of your work and your own style has been adapted in other places; for example, your creation of Kitty Pryde has been cited as an inspiration for Joss Whedon on Buffy. Let’s not even get started on what people have been drawing on for Heroes and Lost.  So now that people know your tropes and it’s become mainstream, what’s next? How do you go beyond that now that the rest of the world is catching up with you?

CC: Well, theoretically the rule we’re running with is if I’ve done it before, I can’t do it here. One of the rules that Mark and I are using is to try as much as possible not to take a story in directions that people anticipate. We’ll see what happens. Part of it is the nature of the characters themselves. My original impulse was to excise Cyclops from the cast because I wanted to focus on someone else– and he just wouldn’t go! Every time I wrote him out, he’d write himself back in. Some part of my brain refused to accept that perception of the X-Men’s reality; its vision was that Cyclops is a key and essential character. There comes a point, as a writer, when you have to listen to that part of your instinct, to ask “why is is saying this?” And once you find the answer, go with it. I am throwing everything up in the air. There are major changes to the eight characters in the series…

CM: Those being Storm, Rogue, Nightcrawler–

CC: Let me start at the top. Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast, Kitty, Gambit, Rogue, Nick Fury, and two others to be named later.

CM: Nick Fury’s a mutant, or just showing up a lot?

CC: Nick Fury’s a member of the cast. He’s the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., but we don’t have a S.H.I.E.L.D. book, so we can use him. His rationale for being there is the X-Men are a critical facet of the world community, just because of the power that mutants represent, and they need a minder. That, plus concerns he’s about to have in terms of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, make it more convenient/essential for him to stay on scene with the X-Men to figure out what’s going on.

CM: Since you mention Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde…

CC: They were in Excalibur, yes; they are coming back to the X-Men.

CM: A lot of people have been asking that very question.

CC: The opening circumstances of the book, as seen in the preview, are that this is taking place subsequent to the memorial service for Magneto, where all the X-Men have gathered. There’s one panel on page four where you see the group shot of whole bunches of mutants out back. That explains what they’re all doing there.

CM: So you’ll have all of the X-Men there, you’ll have X-Force there, you’ll have Excalibur…

CC: Those who wish to honor Magneto. Some of them may decide they’re not coming. Anyway, things start to happen from that point on. Essentially, for issue 1, Charlie temporarily closes the school and sends everybody home. He gathers a core team of X-characters to go out after Fabian Cortez, who killed Magneto, to bring him in, and to turn him over to S.H.I.E.L.D. and end this disaster before it gets any worse. Fury is there, saying this: You’re living in a dream world. Magneto threatened the world, and some of you X-Men helped him–you were mind-controlled, but you helped him. The rest of you X-Men stopped him. What makes you think the world’s going to stand back and accept the fact that you guys are unaffiliated, independent operatives and let you go on from there? You represent far too much power.

(more…)

Ask Chris Claremont about ‘X-Men Forever’ #1

  • News
  • June 11, 2009

While we’re still transcribing the rest of the first massive interview with Chris Claremont, he’s graciously agreed to answer questions about X-Men Forever going forward. So here’s what we’re going to do:

We’re going to collect questions from you from now until Sunday at midnight. Then we’re going to present the best questions to Chris, along with a few of our own. We’ll run the answers on Wednesday.

With X-Men Forever running bi-weekly, this will give you a fix to tide you over between issues. And we may work with Marvel to add some of these questions and answers to trade collections of the book.

Oh, and yes, SPOILERS ARE ALLOWED IN THE COMMENTS THREAD. If you haven’t read the issue yet, don’t blame us for any spoiled surprises.

Interview: Chris Claremont on ‘X-Men Forever’, part 1

x-men-forever-alpha-4401964

This is the first part of a very long interview with Chris Claremont that started on the topic of X-Men Forever and branched into a number of other areas. We start the interview today to tie in with today’s release of X-Men Forever Alpha, and we’ll be running more as we get closer to the release of X-Men Forever #1 next month.

ComicMix: X-Men Forever Alpha is a reprint of the first three issues plus an eight page bridge to the
new series, correct? What do we need to know going in?

Chris Claremont: Essentially
nothing. Those were the issues going in, to establish all the fundamental
parameters: the X-Men are a team of heroes that are based at Xavier school for
gifted youngsters at Salem center, outside of New York City.

CM: So you’re
starting up right from where you left the book in 1991.

CC: Yes.

CM: Is this House Of C, then, as compared to House of M?

CC: No, it’s the
Marvel Universe, there’s no real change to it, other than the fact that in a
very practical sense that the subsequent sixteen, seventeen years of material
following my departure doesn’t exist.

CM: So this is a
new forked off continuity.

CC: Yes. We’re
essentially picking up where I left off and the only acknowledgment we are
making to the passage of time is that if a label needs to be placed on #1, #2,
and #3, they occurred in the opening months, weeks, whatever of 2009.

CM: Then
everything that happens since in mainline Marvel continuity has not happened
and is not going to happen?

CC: Everything
that relates to the X-Men specifically has not happened. The origins of
characters that were established after I left are not necessarily the origins
that we will encounter here. For example, the reality in this book is that
Sabretooth and Wolverine are father and son. Betsy Braddock has not been
transferred into a cloned dead Asian body.

CM: Do you find
it strange that people are looking at this series and referring back to your
original run as the time when X-Men continuity wasn’t convoluted?

(more…)

Chris Claremont returns to write X-Men, forever

  • News
  • February 6, 2009

The Cubs win the World Series. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston get back together. Chris Claremont writes the X-Men again. One of those things, at last, has happened.

Chris Claremont, the writer of the X-Men for 16 years, from Uncanny X-Men #94 to X-Men #3, is returning to the characters that he made famous. Starting in May, Chris Claremont will be writing X-Men Forever, a new bi-weekly series that literally continues from where he left off. No really– right where he left off. X-Men Forever will create a fork in Marvel continuity, continuing the series the way he wanted. Artwork will be by Tom Grummett. The series will premiere in May, with preview issues in March and April.

Chris is also working on an original X-Men graphic novel with artwork by Milo Manera.

ComicMix will be running an in-depth interview with Chris Claremont shortly, which will explain where’s he’s going with it. In the meantime, leave your comments and questions for Chris here.

Welcome back to the X-Men, Chris– hope you survive the experience!

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