[It's another weekend of working insanely hard, so here's the essay from last month's Comix Experience newsletter so that we don't fall into another long run of radio silence here.]
It feels like it’s been awhile since we last talked - Wasn’t it a year ago? - and as always happens during the holiday season, all manner of news was announced by comic publishers. As is only fitting, then, everyone here at The International Kingdom of FBR thought we should “mix things up,” as the kids say, and (with the use of our patented Pietroand Crystal Ball technology) reveal some of the hottest comic headlines of 2010 - before they happen!
Yes, that’s right; I said “hottest comic headlines.” I’m not quite sure what came over me. Can we move on already?
FUTURENEWSSTORY! DC’s plans for the Superman titles have already been partially-announced; this month’s solicitations reveal the Last Stand of New Krypton crossover, which in turn will lead into this summer’s War of The Supermen crossover. But few are prepared for what will come after that, as DC prepare for what may be their most controversial Superman project yet, Holidays With The Supermen.
Post-War, DC’s Earth will have collectively come to its senses and realized that, come on, it’s Superman and everything is going to be okay, leading to three months of special issues where Superman and his new Kryptonian family experience the various holiday traditions of the planet in a series of special one-shots that will temporarily replace the regular Superman books until the beginning of 2011. Explaining the idea, Dan Didio talked about reaffirming the importance of Superman to the DC Universe in general:
“What I thought people had lost sight of is that Superman is, he’s really an icon. Like Christmas, or New Year. But he’s an icon all year round, so we’re trying to remind people of that with books like Superman: Christmas Eve where James Robinson and Bernard Chang show the man behind the shield being iconic and wondering what to get Lois for Christmas while Hal Jordan talks about his threesome with Batgirl and Batwoman before getting his arm ripped off. But we’re not just focusing on Christmas, Superman and DC Comics are for everyone, so we’re also doing books like Steel: Kwanza Or Whatever It’s Called and Yeah, Superboy’s Jewish Now: Hannukah. It’s a very exciting time here at DC, we’re all very excited about these projects.”
Following these special issues, DC plans to launch Superman into his next greatest adventure, January Is The Longest Month Oh God Why Can’t The Holidays Go On Forever.
FUTURENEWSSTORY! As a response to potential fan backlash to Iron Man 2 when it hits theaters in May, Marvel announce that all future projects, whether they be movie or comic, will only be released if fandom asks very politely and then thanks them properly afterwards. In order to get everyone past initial problems with this way of thinking, the leading publisher has already made the decision to not release any information beyond title for all solicitations from June of this year onwards. In the words of Marvel President Dan Buckley, “These decisions are, of course, made on a purely business level and not just because we think it’s funny and because we can at all. And if you don’t believe us, we could always add ‘(Not Final Title)’ to the end of each solicitation, just to really mess you up. Just think about it, okay? Just think about it.”
FUTURENEWSSTORY! Following the success of Blackest Night, DC will turn the comic industry upside down by applying for, and - to the shock of every single living being on the planet, and yes that includes all animals and even plant life - actually being awarded, the copyright of all the colors of the visible spectrum. Talking in the heart of a literal media whirlwind that follows, Blackest Night and Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns told reporters that he knew very early on that it was the very basic concept of color that drove fans to the comic book stores in such numbers for the event, leading Executive Editor Dan Didio to successfully lobby parent company Warner Bros. into assisting them to stunning legal victory.
As a result, no other comic publisher is allowed to use any color in the title of any of their books - a legal decision that leads to a publicity black eye when Marvel Comics rename Black Panther as Negro Panther - and every single DC series gains a color somewhere in their title, leading to unprecedented sales figures for the publisher. By the end of 2010, in fact, Taupe Batman, Wisteria Wonder Woman and Justice League of Amaranth Magenta have taken the top spots of the sales chart for five months running.
The success of the decision allows DC to launch an entirely new line of “futuristic versions” of familiar characters using the HTML coding for colors to denote their science fictional origins. Despite initial retailer discomfort, Superman #FFCC33 and #0000FF Beetle quickly gain strong followings within the Mac user community, particularly among skinny men with beards and glasses who talk about Leet Speak a lot and find design website Clients From Hell particularly hilarious.
FUTURENEWSSTORY! In a stunning move, indie creator Bryan Lee O’Malley announced that he has scrapped all of his original work for the sixth and final Scott Pilgrim book and handed over creative reins of the series to popular Scottish creator Mark Millar.
Citing Millar’s ability to work within the Hollywood system as evidenced with his success on Wanted and Kick Ass, O’Malley said that he felt that, with the Pilgrim movie coming out this summer, he owed it to his fans to step aside and let someone more in tune with a mainstream audience take the next step forward. Fans of the earlier books in the series decried Millar’s decision to retroactively make Pilgrim a comic-reading virgin who finds a form of personal release through acting out fanboy fantasies in an increasingly unrealistic and ridiculous series of set pieces that betray a lack of experience in almost every social situation imaginable, but mainstream media critics hail the move as “groundbreaking,” “a stunning social satire unlike everything we’ve ever seen before” and “clearly the work of the man who should take the crown from Alan Moore’s head even before he is ready to give it up.”
By year’s end, O’Malley was unavailable for comment, having purchased his own private island with his profits from the new Pilgrim book and cut himself off from all contact with the outside world.
FUTURENEWSSTORY! Final proof, if anyone needed it, that comics have officially become a writers’ medium in the last decade has finally arrived in the shape of Marvel Comics’ 10 Years of Brian Michael Bendis At Marvel trade paperback, celebrating a decade of the bald writer’s (dark) reign at the publisher (Let me break away from the Crystal Balling for a moment to say that, while I was initially upset at the announcement of this book - Marvel having turned down my repeated, and increasingly insistent, demands for a similar 3 Years of Van Lente And Counting collection, not to mention the multiple volume What, It’s Got To Be Something Like Thirty At Least, Right? Let’s Say Thirty-Five, That Sounds About Right, Okay, Thirty-Five Years of Chris Claremont At Marvel COME ON YOU GUYS HE INVENTED THE X-MEN IN ALL THE WAYS THAT COUNT APART FROM ACTUALLY COMING UP WITH THE CHARACTERS OR THE CONCEPTS Jeez - I’ve since come to realize that it’s actually an important milestone for the House of Ideas. Sure, they’ve done creator-specific collections before, with their Marvel Visionaries line, but those have always been held back for people who were either dead or just dead-to-Marvel, with the exception of Chris Claremont, but let’s face it; X-Men Forever is like the comic book version of pity sex where Marvel is concerned. There’s probably some weird blackmail material involved in the fact that Claremont still has a job there). The Bendis book demonstrates Marvel’s realization of the value of their present creators… Or, more appropriately, the value of exploiting the brand name awareness of their present creators. The next step? Well, it’s not anything you’ve been expecting.
Due to be announced next week for an April 2010 launch is The Brian Michael Bendis Collector, a monthly magazine from the House of Ideas devoted entirely to Brian Michael Bendis. Based, in part, on TwoMorrows Publishing’s fine, entirely-anal-but-that’s-more-than-alright-with-me The Jack Kirby Collector, the magazine will feature excepts from Bendis scripts, previously-unseen interviews with Bendis, revealing email exchanges about Luke Cage between Bendis and editor Tom Brevoort, and interviews with those whose lives have been touched by Bendis, like Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker and Tom Brevoort.
According to editor Tom Brevoort, the magazine was created because Marvel recognized the value that Bendis brought to the publisher:
“Everyone here at Marvel feels that Brian’s name alone can bring new readers to a title. Look at the success of things like New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Dark Avengers, Avengers/X-Men: House of M and Ultimate Spider-Man Avengers. So we figured, what if his name was actually in the title? Originally, the plan was to have Brian write a new autobiographical comic every month in which he’d tell wacky and uplifting stories about his personal life and career in the comics industry, but then we remembered that Fortune And Glory really wasn’t as good as everyone said it was, so Joe and I put our heads together and decided that a magazine celebrating his immeasurable influence on the comic industry was the next best thing.”
Like its inspiration, The Brian Michael Bendis Collector will mix articles by professional writers and academics with pieces written by fans, with the first issue containing such essays as “Why Bendis F’in Rules” and “Janet Van Dyne Deserved To Die: Secret Invasion’s True Worth Unveiled.” Similarly, the magazine will also have theme issues devoted to the many different facets of his career, including his early independent work, his run on Ultimate Spider-Man and how many times he can write about the Scarlet Witch being crazy without actually ever doing something with that idea. But perhaps the most exciting part of each issue will be the monthly column by comics historian Mark Evanier, wherein he will explain what it was like being an intern to Bendis during his early days in the industry.
In one final move to create similarity between The Jack Kirby Collector and The Brian Michael Bendis Collector, Marvel announced yesterday that it was canceling Bendis at the end of this month, and that his death would not only ensure that the Bendis Collector would be a fitting memorial to his work, but also launch a new temporary branding for the publisher’s main line. Look for more details of Fallen Writer: The Death Of Brian Bendis to be released at the end of this month.
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Content © Graeme McMillan, 2008-2009.
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